Mary Sullivan - Beyond Ordinary

On page one was the announcement for the meeting he planned to hold on Thursday night. The town had a problem with Chester’s bar and it was time they organized and did something about it.

As important as the issue was, Timm’s mind had only been half on the job. The other half had been thinking about Angel.

He was a fool. He didn’t rate even a second thought from her, while he fell right back into his old crush the second she came to town.

As if his mind had conjured her, Angel walked into the newspaper office wearing dark jeans and a white T-shirt, the sun behind her skimming her body with loving hands. On anyone else the clothes would look normal, but on Angel? Well…wow.

“What can I do for you?” With her in his space, Timm was surprised that his brain functioned well enough to string together a whole sentence.

“Hey,” she said, her eyes hard, as though she thought he’d kick her out or something. “Do you have any copies of the latest issue?”

“Sure,” he answered. “That would be last Saturday’s. Here.”

He pulled one from a pile under the counter.

“Or you can wait for tomorrow for the next edition.”

“This will do.” Angel reached into her pocket. “How much?”

“Nothing. The next issue comes out tomorrow, so this one’s dated.”

Slow to pull out her hand, she stared at him as though he were a liar.

“Honest,” he said. “Anyone who walks in here on a Tuesday gets Saturday’s paper free.” Not that anyone ever did come in on Tuesday for last week’s paper, but Angel didn’t need to know that.

“Thanks,” she said. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

He handed her both. Without a word, she approached the small tables he provided for people to use when filling out ads or obits.

When she sat, her low-riding jeans gaped away from her back, just far enough to bare a tiny fraction of skin. Timm’s hands recalled the feel of holding her last night when he stopped her from burning her bike.

He tried not to pay attention to Angel, but couldn’t stop himself from counting the pages she turned too quickly before finally stopping.

Reaching under the counter, he unfolded the paper and thumbed through the same number of pages. She’d stopped at the want ads.

Angel needed a job.

If she’d bothered to finish her degree, she could do a hell of a lot better than anything available in the want ads in Ordinary. A fresh spurt of disappointment ran through him. The woman had wasted a great opportunity. Probably spent too much time partying with men the way she had as a teen.

He’d seen it all from his bedroom window as he’d watched the world go by. When boredom nearly killed him, Papa would move him for a few days to the apartment above the newspaper offices, where he could watch the happenings on Main Street.

All the while, he kept a journal, chronicling his feelings of isolation and the yearning to be normal and his observations of his fellow man’s behavior, as seen from a bird’s-eye view. That journal, about to be published, was paying off for him now.

When he’d turned twenty, he’d moved to the apartment for good.

He read the list of job openings: Bernice’s Beauty Salon, the New American diner and Chester’s Roadhouse. Even a wild girl like Angel wouldn’t work at the Roadhouse.

Angel put the notes she’d taken in her pocket. She folded the newspaper neatly and handed it to Timm along with the pen.

By way of thanks, she nodded then walked out of the office and turned left toward the beauty salon and the diner. Appeared as though she was being smart, keeping away from Chester’s at the other end of Main.

Good.

At that moment, Sheriff Kavenagh entered the office.

“Cash,” Timm said. “How’s the law-enforcement business today?”

Cash barely noticed Timm. He was watching Angel walk down the street.

“Angel’s back,” he said, a big grin flashing. The sheriff was a good-looking guy. He and Angel had made a handsome couple for a while before Angel headed off to college.

Timm wondered if they’d ever—

Probably.

His inner bully resurfaced. He didn’t want Cash sliding around on the playground of Angel’s body. Or any other man. It seemed that where Angel was concerned, Timm was one big lusting, jealous male hormone. And that bothered him.

Get a grip.

Cash finally turned to Timm and said, “You hear things around town. You know anything about a bike that’s stranded on the side of the road out past Sadie Armstrong’s place?”

“Angel rode in on it last night.”

“Why did she leave it on the road?”

For some reason he didn’t look at too closely, Timm didn’t want to tell the sheriff about Angel trying to set fire to that bike. “She ran out of gas.”

“Yeah? She should have gotten Alvin to tow it.”

“I picked her up when I saw her stranded,” Timm said. “It was already dark. She’ll probably take care of it today.”

“Someone tried to burn it.” Cash didn’t look happy. “Idiot could have started a fire. I need to find out who did it and put the fear of God into him. Give him a ticket. He could have burned up a fair portion of the countryside.”

Now was the time for Timm to admit that Angel was the culprit. He was normally an honest man. Why protect Angel? She was a big girl and plenty capable of taking care of herself. As far as Timm could tell, Angel’s attitude hadn’t changed one bit while away. So why was she worthy of his protection?

He held his tongue.

“So Angel’s back,” Cash mused, with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “She’ll perk up the town.”

Timm stepped around the counter, edgy today, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. “The town’s already perked up enough with the bar full of bikers every night.”

Cash grew serious and nodded. “I know. Williams had to break up another fight there last night. His report said it happened about ten. He’ll be on shift again at eight tonight if you want to talk to him.”

“Thanks,” Timm answered, walking beside Cash to the open doorway. “I’ll interview him for Saturday’s paper.”

Sweat beaded on Timm’s forehead and he fingered the button at his throat, tempted to open it. He might have come to terms with his scars, but he doubted that anyone in town wanted to see them.

“I’m organizing a town meeting for Thursday night at the Legion Hall,” he said. “We need to get Chester’s closed down.”

“Good luck with that. He’s not breaking any laws.”

“I know.” Timm had looked at the problem from every angle. “All I can do is gather the citizens and mount a protest.”

Cash pointed a finger at Timm. “You be careful. Those bikers aren’t going to be happy about this. Watch your back.”

Timm nodded. He wasn’t worried for himself, but what if they bothered Ma, or his sister, Sara, now that she was home from school?

“You’ll get a lot of support,” Cash said, stepping onto the sidewalk. “The townspeople respect you, Timm. As future mayor, you know they’ll listen.”

Timm smiled. “I’m not mayor yet.”

“Don’t worry. You will be.”

“We’ll see.” The election was in two more weeks and Max Golden, his only competition, was a popular guy. “I don’t like to make assumptions.”

Cash was right, though. As publisher of the most well-read small-town newspaper in the state, he held a good position. People respected a man when he was good at his job. Timm had been born to use his brain and, with the paper, he got to use it all—creativity and research and reporting the facts. Yeah, he did his job well.

He’d see if that parlayed into votes.

“Will you come to the meeting?” Timm asked. “It would look good if you showed up. Seven o’clock.”