Lynnette Kent - The Third Mrs. Mitchell

“Hard to find anybody in this mob.” Was it his imagination that she smelled like honeysuckle?

“Especially with you standing right in front of me.” Mary Rose kept her smile steady, but she fully intended the insult. Having Pete Mitchell this close was interfering with breath and thought, with sanity itself. Damn the man, anyway. Why hadn’t he eaten at home tonight? Seeing him twice in one day was simply two times too many.

His dark eyebrows lowered as he stepped to the side. “Sorry. I’ll leave you to your search.”

“Thanks.” The tension eased a little as he moved toward the door. She turned around, pretending to look for the kids, but all she could really see was Pete’s face in her mind’s eye—the strongly set jaw, the well-shaped mouth, those serious silver eyes.

“Pete!” Abby Brannon held out a box from behind the counter. “You forgot your pie!” Her voice carried easily over all the noise.

Without seeing him at all, Mary Rose felt Pete hesitate, felt him appraise the necessity of brushing past her to get the box, then having to turn around to face her where she stood in front of the door.

“Keep it for me,” he shouted, his voice deep, a little rough. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning.” The bell on the handle jingled harshly as the glass door was opened, then swung closed.

Mary Rose drew a deep breath. Score one for our side. She’d managed to drive Pete Mitchell completely off the premises…a trick she’d never quite managed when it came to her heart.

AS USUAL, Pete got home late. Running the REWARDS program meant that he spent four nights a week at the high school. He rarely had a chance to relax before 10:00 or 11:00 p.m.

Even on a bad day, though, he didn’t begrudge the effort. Respect, Education, Work, Ambition, Responsibility, Dedication and Success—REWARDS—were the watchwords of his rehabilitation classes for juvenile offenders. He’d realized a long time ago that these at-risk kids needed somebody to draw the line between them and the life that would destroy them. A good group of volunteers in the police, sheriff and highway patrol offices joined him in standing that line.

He hadn’t exaggerated when he told Abby he didn’t have time for romance. Besides, he did have female companionship—Miss Dixie was sitting on the back of the couch, staring out the window with her tongue dangling, when he pulled up in front of the house. She disappeared when he hopped out of the Jeep and started down the walk, but as he reached the front steps he could hear the frantic squeals and pants and barks she used as a greeting.

As soon as he had the door open, the little beagle was leaping at his legs, almost as high as his waist. Grinning, he caught her up against his chest.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Dixie, darlin’.” She licked his face up one side and down the other, with a couple of swipes at his mouth for good measure. “Yeah, I know it’s been a long time. I got off work late, couldn’t get home before class. But I’m here now, so you get yourself outside while I make you a little snack.”

At the back door, she wiggled out of his hold and headed with obvious relief for the far corner of the yard. In just minutes she was back inside, though, licking up the small scoop of food that was her reward for a day spent all alone, slurping at her refilled water bowl. Business taken care of, Pete pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge and went out onto the back deck, leaving the door open so Dixie could join him when she finished.

Slouching down on the forty-year-old glider that was the only thing he’d asked for from his grandmother’s house when she passed away a few years back, he twisted the top off the beer and took a generous swig.

Man, what an afternoon. Seeing Mary Rose twice in the space of four hours had done a number on his brain. What if it happened again? Was he going to have to sneak around town like a burglar for fear of running into his first ex-wife?

Most of the time, Pete tended not to worry too much about the future. With his job, the future could come to a screeching halt at any minute; that was the reason his second marriage bit the dust. His second wife hadn’t wanted to open the door one day to the news that her husband had died in the line of duty. Pete had accepted Sherrill’s need to escape that uncertainty in the same way he accepted the uncertainty itself. Que sera, sera.

But tonight, the idea of turning a corner in the grocery store and facing down Mary Rose Bowdrey had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Really dumb,” he told Miss Dixie when she hopped up beside him on the glider. “She’s just a girl I knew a long time ago.”

Dixie stretched out beside him, inviting a rub on her very full stomach.

“Okay, so I knew her really well.” Pete stroked his knuckles along the beagle’s midline. “I couldn’t get enough of her. She was like royalty—I never expected to be with somebody so…so perfect. Totally blew my mind when she walked up that day on the golf course and asked me for a lesson.” He chuckled as he thought about it. “We both knew she didn’t mean golf.”

But then he sighed. “Major mistake, Dixie, darlin’, getting involved with somebody that different.” He finished the last of the beer, set the bottle on the deck and stretched out on the glider with Dixie on his chest. “Major mistake getting involved at all. I’m sticking with you, girl.”

The dog closed her eyes in bliss as Pete wrinkled her ears, massaged the special spot under her chin, scratched along her back. “You’re just glad to see me when I get here, aren’t you, Dix? You don’t spend your time worrying about me, and your only requirements are a full tummy and a soft place to sleep.” He let her settle against his shoulder and propped his chin on the top of her head. “No expectations, no regrets. You’re the only kind of female a man like me needs, Miss Dixie.”

Pete closed his eyes and got a vision of Mary Rose’s pink lips and blue gaze, the defiant lift of her chin as she stared him down in the diner.

He sighed again. “Let’s just hope I can remember that little piece of wisdom when the time comes.”

AS FAR AS Mary Rose was concerned, dinner with her parents was an exercise in holding her tongue. And her temper. And her breath.

“The roast is delicious,” she told Kate after a bite.

“A bit rare, I think,” their mother commented. “Your father likes his meat well-done.”

Judging from his focused assault with knife and fork, Mary Rose thought John Bowdrey probably liked his roast just as he’d found it. Time for a change of subject. “The game looked pretty intense, Trace. Were you playing a particularly good team?”

Without taking his eyes off his plate, Kate’s son shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.” He was a handsome boy, tall and rangy, with his father’s blond hair cropped close. When Mary Rose had seen him last winter, he’d been the bright, enthusiastic kid she’d always known.

Then, the week after the annual family ski trip in January, Trace’s dad had moved out of the house and announced his intention to divorce Kate. Mary Rose would never have guessed, witnessing L. T. LaRue’s behavior in Colorado, that he had desertion on his mind.

In the months since, Trace had become sullen and uncooperative. His grades had plummeted from high A’s to barely passing. Worry over him, and over Kelsey’s rebellious attitude, had worn Kate to the bone. Mary Rose wasn’t sure her sister even realized the full extent of the problem. There had been a distinct tang of alcohol in the air around Kelsey at the soccer game this afternoon. The girl hadn’t been obviously drunk, and Mary Rose hoped that whiff of liquor had drifted from the friend trailing Kelsey. That would be the easy way out.