Finally Stanley looked into Regina's thick glasses and stared at the only thing he feared more than one of those social meetings-riding in a car with a woman who was practically blind. "That's okay. I can drive," he said, having absolutely no intention of driving anywhere.
He gazed past Regina's kinked-up hair to his granddaughter, who was walking toward the door. Katie's brows were pulled together like she was irritated. She stopped to lean the shovel against the magazine rack.
"I'll save a chair for you," Regina offered.
"I'll shovel the snow, Katie," he said. He set Regina's can of Folgers in a paper bag. "I need you to take a delivery to Ada over at The Sandman Motel."
"Ada just wants to pump me for information about you. Tell her she needs to come in and do her shopping like everyone else," Kate said through a frown. The last delivery she'd made to The Sandman hadn't gone well, and Stanley suspected he'd never get her to go back. Still, he had to try, because the alternative was having to go himself.
"Shoveling snow is man's work." He glanced once more at the men by the coffee machine. "Let me finish up here, and I'll go out and do it."
"There's no such thing as 'man's work' anymore," Katie told him as she shoved her arms into her navy blue peacoat. Stanley took Regina's check and glanced at the men standing around the coffee machine. He prayed his granddaughter wouldn't elaborate. He and Katie had had several arguments concerning men's and women's roles. This wasn't Las Vegas, and she wouldn't win any friends with her women's lib crap.
The good Lord didn't see fit to answer Stanley's prayer. "Women can do anything men can do," Katie added, eliciting several raised brows and pointed looks from the men. His granddaughter was a beautiful young woman. She had a good heart and she meant well, but she was too independent, too opinionated, and too vocal. And that was too many things for a man to overlook. After living with her for a month, Stanley could see why she wasn't married.
"Can't make a baby by yourself," Hayden Dean pointed out, and he topped off his mug.
She glanced down as she buttoned her coat. "True, but I can go to a sperm bank and pick out the perfect donor. Height. Weight. IQ." She pulled a black beret out of her pocket and placed it on her head. "Which, when you think about it, seems a more logical way to conceive than in the backseat of a Buick."
Stanley knew she meant to be funny, but her humor was lost on the men of Gospel.
"Not as much fun, though," Hayden added. She glanced over at Hayden, who stood between the other two men. "That's debatable."
She wrapped a black wool scarf around her neck, and Stanley wondered if he should wrap it around her mouth. That Rob was a strapping young fella. He was single, too. He hadn't been in the store for a few weeks now, and if Katie would just keep quiet, she might trick him into a date. And Katie needed a date. Needed something to do, other than fussing at him about his eating habits, rearranging the hygiene aisle, and telling him how to live his life.
"Can't pee standing," Paul Aberdeen said.
"No lady would consider doing that," Stanley interceded on Katie's behalf.
"I'm sure if I absolutely had to, I could manage it somehow."
Stanley winced. That last announcement would scare off any man, but Rob looked more amused than insulted. Laughter shone in his green eyes as he gazed across the candy aisle at Katie. "But you can't write your name in the snow," he said and lifted his mug to his lips.
In the flattest voice Stanley had ever heard her use, Katie asked, "Why would I want to?" Her tone puzzled Stanley. The last time Rob had been in, Katie had gotten all red-faced and flustered. The kind of flustered a woman got around a guy like Rob. The good Lord knew Rob had been flustering the women in Gospel since the day he'd driven that HUMMER of his into town, and his granddaughter had been no exception.
Rob took a drink, then slowly lowered the mug. One corner of his mouth slid up. "Because you can."
The other two men chuckled, but Katie looked perplexed rather than amused. The kind of perplexed women got when they didn't understand
men. And for all of her years, there was a lot Katie didn't understand about the opposite sex. Like a man naturally wanting to take care of his woman, even if that woman was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
Stanley handed Regina her bag of groceries, then moved from behind the counter in one last attempt to save Katie from herself. "Now, let me do that. Your grandmother never lifted a snow shovel in her life."
"I lived on my own for a long time," she said as she grabbed the snow shovel before Stanley could get to it. "I've had to do a lot of things for myself. Everything from hauling my own garbage cans to the curb to changing the tire on my car."
Other than wrestle with her, what could he do? "Well, if it gets to be too much, I'll finish up."
"Shoveling snow kills more than a thousand men over forty a year," she informed him. "I'm thirty-four, so I think I'll be fine."
With no other choice, Stanley gave up. Kate opened the door and walked outside, leaving a chill in her wake that Stanley wasn't certain had all that much to do with the weather.
A cold morning breeze slapped Kate's left cheek as the door closed behind her. She pulled the frozen air deep into her lungs and let it out slowly. A warm puff of breath hung in front of her face. That hadn't gone well. Her intent had been to get out of the store as quickly as possible, not to upset her grandfather or sound like a man-basher. She didn't even want to contemplate peeing while standing-ever. She'd never actually changed a tire, but she was sure she could do it. Fortunately she wouldn't have to, because like a lot of capable and intelligent women, she belonged to AAA.
Kate leaned the handle of the shovel against her shoulder and took her gloves from her pockets. For the past half hour, she'd felt like she'd been holding her breath. Ever since Rob Sutter had walked into the M &S looking better than she remembered. Bigger and badder. A green-eyed, six-foot-two reminder of the night she'd wanted to live out a fantasy. A night she'd just wanted some anonymous sex and had ended up with a humiliating rejection instead.
She knew the mature thing to do would be to get over that night in the Duchin, but how was she ever going to forget it if she had to see Rob all the time?
Kate wiggled her fingers in her gloves. She hadn't been near Rob for two weeks now, but she'd spotted him a few times across the parking lot or driving that ridiculous HUMMER around town. She hadn't seen him up close and personal, though, until this morning when he'd come in for a granola bar and stayed for a cup of free coffee.