Take the Trophy and Run Read online

  “No. I don’t belong to the book club. Maybe that’s what you should do. Join the book club. See who is in both clubs, and then you’ll have the Gnome Gnapper red-handed.”

  “I think most of the people in the book club also belong to the garden club. I hear them talking about books at a lot of the meetings.”

  Another dead end. “Then we have no other choice than to follow the spy lead. Is anyone around here mysterious?” Besides the guy who lived at the cemetery. If Gnorman went to the cemetery at night, Stan would just wait until he came out in his own good time. Thinking back, now he felt relieved that they hadn’t read the note about the ghost of a chance until after Victoria had phoned Amber. He would have gone to the cemetery, at night, and had nightmares for weeks when the creepy guy appeared out of nowhere to find out what he was doing there.

  “Not that I can think of.” Amber checked her watch. “I don’t want to be rude, and we’re not getting anywhere. You should go home, we both have to get up for work in the morning.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Amber ran out of her studio and stopped dead in her tracks. She’d taken a few minutes to touch up the paint on a ceramic statue and thought she’d heard the jingle of the bell above the door, but she saw no one in her store.

  After all the talk about mysteries and mystery novels with Stan, a chill ran up Amber’s spine. She scanned up and down the aisles, just in case someone had come in and was hiding, but she saw nothing unusual. She didn’t notice anything missing from the shelves, so it hadn’t been a grab-and-dash thief. But if someone was trying to scare her, it was working. Visions of broken eggs splattered all over her the door and the glass window of her store ran through her mind. Also, the trophy was still missing, and someone continued to play cat and mouse with her.

  Someone didn’t like her, and if they were trying to scare her, they were doing a good job.

  Just as she turned around, a white envelope on the ground caught her eye.

  With trembling fingers, she picked it up. All of the notes from the Gnapper had been stuck on the outside of her door, waiting for her when she arrived in the morning. So far, the elusive mystery person had not been inside her store.

  Until now.

  Slowly she ripped open the envelope.

  This time the note looked different. It wasn’t cut-out words glued together on a white piece of bond paper. This was a piece of lined paper torn from a coil notebook, like the kind students used in high school, and the note was neatly printed.

  Dear Miss Weathersby,

  I am very sorry that a couple of months ago I made a mess on your door and big window. I was bringing home groceries for my mother and the wheel on my skateboard got stuck and I fell, and the eggs went flying on to your door and my coke spilled all over your car. I was skipping school so I was too scared to stay and clean it up and I have been feeling bad ever since then. I want to say that I am sorry that you had to clean up the mess, so I took some of my allowance and made a donation to the Cancer Society with your name on it.

  Attached to the paper was a tax deduction receipt for $15.

  A tear slid out of the corner of her eye. While it had been a nightmare to clean up the mess, and there were still sticky spots in the doorjamb of her car, she felt sorry for the boy, assuming it was a boy, and hoped he hadn’t been hurt when he fell.

  She looked up at the clean door. At least no one hated her that bad. She could live with an accident.

  But that still didn’t account for the exploits of the Gnapper.

  As she stood there staring at the door, her cell phone sang its electronic ring from her purse.

  For years, when the phone rang at this hour, half an hour before closing, it had always been Stan. But over the last week, now when she hunted for the last place she’d left her purse so she could find her phone before it stopped ringing, she didn’t know if it was going to be Stan or Hayden. Hayden had called her pretty much every second day since she’d gone out with him.

  This time it was Hayden.

  “I had to work a bit late at the office again, so I was wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner. I just talked to Stan, it’s a typical busy day for him. He’s swamped and he let his mechanics go home on time so they can watch the game, so he’s going to be really late. How about it?”

  It was quite interesting that Hayden had already checked with Stan to determine if she was available. She didn’t know whether the thought rankled that he checked her availability without asking her first, or if it was sweet that he’d also thought of Stan.

  “Sure. We can do that. As long as it’s nothing fancy.” Or expensive. After the number of times Stan had suggested they go to the Fancy Schmantzy lately, she was starting to get nervous about what the men in her life thought reasonable. “I’ll meet you there.”

  This time Hayden had chosen a cute little bistro where he made a reservation and got a cute little table for two in the corner.

  More than that, it was kind of a romantic little table, away from the rest of the dinner crowd.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. While she’d decided that Stan needed to have more time away from her to spend his time meeting other women, and she had decided to spend her time with more of the male species than Stan, now that it was happening, she had mixed feelings.

  Word had it amongst the female population of the garden club that Hayden had mostly recovered from his divorce after Marissa cheated on him, then stomped his heart into the dirt. He was now seriously looking for someone, with the ultimate goal of getting married again.

  Hayden was a nice man and would probably make a good husband, but Amber couldn’t think about taking that step in life right now. Before she could consider getting into a permanent relationship, she had to pay off Uncle Henry. Until she did, she couldn’t take the chance that she wasn’t going to be forced to move to Chicago. The legal contract had no out clause saying that if she got married she wouldn’t have to honor the agreement. At the time she hadn’t thought about such a condition because, before the recession, she hadn’t considered the possibility. Now, she felt like she’d made a deal with the devil.

  Rather than depressing herself with such thoughts, she turned back to Hayden. Hayden was interesting and fun to talk to, and she thoroughly enjoyed having dinner with him.

  As she looked at him, she thought about her feelings toward him. Even if she could forget about her debts and get married, she wouldn’t marry Hayden. As much as she liked him, she didn’t like him that way.

  When they were done, just so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea, she reached for the bill so that she could calculate her half.

  The second her fingers touched the bill, Hayden laid his hand over top of hers, preventing her from taking it. “I knew you would do this. You agreed that this would be my treat before we got here. I insist.”

  Amber looked up at him, making direct eye contact so he would understand her position. “I know, but I just realized what you’re looking for, and I’m not it. We’ve been just friends, and we’ll always be just friends, and that’s not what you’re looking for. I want to be fair to you.” She really couldn’t afford a restaurant meal, but at least now, not like a couple of weeks ago, she could still afford to eat if she paid for her half.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Ah. The old ‘we can be friends’ line. Don’t worry. I already figured that out a few weeks ago. Tonight I didn’t want a date; I just wanted to relax and go out with a friend after a busy day. That means ordinary friends, not friends like you and Stan.”

  She made one more attempt to wrap her fingers around the bill to pull it out from under Hayden’s hand, then froze. “Like me and Stan? What do you mean?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Everyone thinks you two are so funny. There’s a line. People are waiting for our table. We should g
o.”

  The entire trip home, all she could think of was Hayden’s comment. Contrary to his claim, she had no idea what he meant. For starters, she and Stan had always been friends, and nothing more. They’d never kissed, not even when they went together to the senior prom. At the time, neither of them could figure out why no one else had asked her to go. Every time Stan had asked a girl to go with him, they always asked why Amber wasn’t going with him. They’d both resigned themselves to the inevitable, gone together, and had the time of their lives, even though he’d teased her mercilessly about her frilly pink prom dress and matching pink shoes.

  Actually he had kissed her once. But she was too frozen from fear from being at the top of the Ferris wheel to process it. Besides, it had only been a kiss of triumph that she hadn’t died.

  So they’d always been a little inseparable. That didn’t mean anything. Life went on, and so did they.

  Thinking of Stan, she felt a twinge of disappointment when his pickup wasn’t parked in her driveway when she got home.

  No matter. She’d see him tomorrow anyway.

  Just because she was thinking of him, before she went in the house, she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and texted him a quick message reminding him that he had a dentist appointment the next day, and went inside.

  “This feels wrong,” Stan grumbled from the passenger seat of Amber’s car. “I should be driving, and we should be in my car.”

  “You don’t have a car. You have a pickup truck. I’m not getting in and out of a truck in these shoes. So hush up and enjoy the ride.”

  Stan bit back a grin. “You are so bossy.” But he loved it, and he loved Amber. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to realize it, but he’d been thinking about it ever since she fainted into his arms. If Andy hadn’t been there, he would have broken all land-speed records to get her to the ER. Yet, as an eye-opener, it made him realize that he’d waited too long to tell her how much he loved her. Tonight, even if words failed him, he planned to show it to her.

  Starting with being a little gracious and a lot amused by her bossy attitude. No shrinking wallflower, his Amber.

  He stilled. That was the point he wanted to make tonight. She was his, he was hers, and all that romantic nonsense. Then, when the night was over, they would see where it took them.

  She pulled into the parking lot of the Fancy Schmantzy. Before she had the car turned off and her seat belt unfastened, he was out of the car and around her side, waiting for her to unlock the door so he could open it and help her out.

  She gave him a dirty look, but then accepted his arm anyway.

  “I’ve never been here before,” she muttered as he reached for the door of the restaurant. “This feels weird.”

  “Me neither. So let’s consider it an adventure.” He pulled the door open for Amber to enter ahead of him, and he followed her inside.

  The maître d’ found their reservation, seated them quickly, and left them alone.

  “Wow,” Amber muttered under her breath. “Look at this place.”

  The place was fancy indeed, just like the name stated. Most of the furnishings and decorating bordered on vintage, but instead of looking old or retro, it shouted class and dignity. Tall wooden partitions divided the large restaurant into a number of smaller sections, each slightly different, and private from each other. Dark, rich wood paneled walls and a high ceiling with thick wooden beams created an atmosphere of protection and stability. Likewise, the tables were solid wood, heavy and secure, blending with the hues of the walls. Burgundy curtains of heavy fabric graced the windows, allowing in some light, but completely shutting them off from the outside world. Ambient light was at just the perfect level for everyone to talk to the people at their own table and ignore the other patrons.

  He’d never seen such clean, white tablecloths.

  The waitstaff’s ties matched the curtains. The whole place was a blend of deep, mellow tones and dollar signs.

  It was a world unto itself.

  And he was here with Amber, with no possibility of the world intruding on this time they’d set aside to be with each other.

  He turned to her and wiggled his tie—the tie she’d given him as a stocking stuffer last Christmas. Like most of the men seated at other tables, he had worn his suit, he’d polished his shoes, and he’d even gotten a haircut. By now, since it had been a few weeks, the mustache he’d been growing was full enough to trim, and he’d gotten used to the feeling of something on his upper lip.

  She’d teased him about it as it grew, but not once had she told him to shave it off.

  Tonight he was as dashing and handsome as he was ever going to be.

  As well, he’d never seen Amber so beautiful. She didn’t wear makeup often, and when she did it was never much, but tonight she’d gone the full route, including the same color lipstick she’d worn to the other place that nearly sent him over the edge. Tonight she looked even prettier than the models on the magazine covers. She’d done some kind of upswept thing with her hair, keeping it in place with an assortment of sparkly hair ornaments. Sitting down, he couldn’t see her entire dress, but he’d gotten a good view of her at her house before they got into her car. She told him it wasn’t too expensive, that she’d gotten it just for tonight from Tessa’s consignment store, but it was obviously expensive for the original buyer. This was the kind of fancy dress that a woman would wear only once, with the silly thought that she couldn’t be seen wearing the same thing twice by the same crowd of people.

  He would never think of not wearing his suit just because his friends had already seen him in it.

  Likewise, he hoped Amber wore this dress again. It was a deep sea green, which really brought out the green in her eyes. It had a nice fitted waist, which emphasized the rest of her figure, and really showed that she’d lost weight recently. He wasn’t sure he liked that she’d lost weight, but she sure did look great in the dress.

  Of course, she had on her favorite black high-heeled shoes. He loved it when she wore high heels.

  Before he started drooling, a waiter appeared with menus and told them the special of the day.

  If it wasn’t his imagination, Amber didn’t appear to be listening. As soon as the waiter left them alone to make their selections, she started flipping through the menu. “I don’t want the special. I really want steak and lobster, but I can’t find it, and I want to know how much it costs.”

  He’d found the steak and lobster combo right away, and he knew she wouldn’t want to know how much it cost. “Never mind that. I told you this was my treat. Order what you want. If you want steak and lobster, it’s yours.”

  She peeked at him over the menu. “Are you sure?”

  Stan nearly forgot to breathe. He always thought Amber had pretty eyes, but with the under-stated makeup on, they were eyes a man could get lost in. “Yeah. I’m sure,” he said, hoping his voice sounded close to normal.

  She closed the menu, laid it flat, gave it a pat, and smiled at him. “Then that’s what I want. Thank you.”

  All he could do was stare into her eyes and hope his mouth wasn’t hanging open. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his entire life. Why hadn’t he realized that before?

  The waiter returned to take their orders. He couldn’t remember what he wanted, so he just ordered the special.

  “Look,” she whispered as she tapped his ankle with her toe. “Over there. It’s Victoria and Barry. Is it okay to wave in a place like this?”

  “I guess so. But they came here for the same reason we did, and that’s to be alone.”

  “I know that. It’s just kind of special to be here, and not care that anyone recognizes us.” They both waved once and nodded across the room when Victoria and Barry noticed them. Then, like Victoria and Barry, they returned their attention to each other.

 
; The food was even better than he’d heard, and Stan enjoyed his meal of chicken with pasta and some kind of white sauce so much that he didn’t miss not having a steak.

  This time, since they were in no rush and didn’t care if anyone saw them, they lingered over a rich dessert that Amber claimed was too fattening, but she ate it anyway.

  Caught up in the ambiance of the place and the mood of the evening, Stan took hold of Amber’s hand as they walked back to Amber’s car, twined his fingers with hers, and gave her hand a little squeeze.

  He’d never held hands with Amber before.

  That was going to change.

  Very soon, when they got to her townhouse, there was something else they’d never done before that was going to change too.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Amber tried not to fumble getting the key into the lock on her front door.

  Tonight had been a night she would never forget. She’d seen Stan in his suit before, but tonight had somehow been different. She didn’t know what it was, but it was more than just the mustache. A flock of butterflies did a square dance in her stomach at the thought of Stan’s mustache. He was good-looking before, but with it, he looked absolutely handsome. And dashing. Just like the cliché went, he was simply tall, dark, and handsome. She’d already thought the handsome, but he was doubly handsome right now, so she was allowed to think it twice. She didn’t know why she hadn’t realized exactly how handsome he was before tonight.

  Every other day, because he didn’t work at a desk job and was quite toned, he looked buff in his coveralls, but tonight in the suit, he looked movie-star handsome.

  She wondered if he knew it, because Amber knew she looked good in her new-to-her dress and her favorite high heels. She’d taken extra care with her hair and makeup, and all the time had been worth it.

  Finally the lock cooperated, and she pushed the door open. Still holding the keys and the doorknob, she looked over her shoulder and up at Stan. “Would you like to come in?”