Trouble With Valentine's Day

Eight

The Monday after the Buckhorn brawl, a bad chest cold forced Kate to stay home from work. She sat on the end of her bed, flipping through television stations, feeling extremely sorry for herself. Her body ached. She was so bored that she felt like screaming, but she couldn't because her chest hurt.span

Instead of giving in to her mood, she dragged out the cable Internet connection that her grandmother had installed several years ago and her grandfather continued to pay for but never used. She took her laptop computer from the closet, and within an hour she was surfing the Internet, researching really exciting stuff like integrated software for retailers. Specifically, grocery stores. Perhaps if she got the names of a few consultants, more information, or even some brochures, she could show her grandfather that his life would be so much easier if he entered the new millennium. It was crazy not to use the technology that kept track of profit and inventory at the point of sale. It was just plain obstinate to refuse to even think about it.

She bookmarked several sites and sent for information, and because she was sick and bored silly, she did a little Internet shopping to brighten her mood. She bought panties and bras at Victoria's Secret. Sweaters and jeans from Neiman Marcus and Banana Republic. She bought shoes at Nordstrom, and she splurged on a silver cuff bracelet from Tiffany. When she was finished, she was a thousand dollars poorer, but she didn't feel better. She was still sick and still bored.

She lifted her hands to close her laptop, but a little voice inside her head stopped her. It would be so easy, it said. She knew the license plate number on Rob Sutter's vehicle, and with a few clicks of the mouse, she could have his Social Security number and birthday. Then she could see for herself if he'd told the truth about never being arrested.

No, that would be an invasion of his privacy… but she could do a google search. Rob had played professional hockey. He'd been a public figure. As long as what she discovered was public knowledge, then it really wasn't an invasion of privacy.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she clicked on the Internet and typed his name into the search engine. She was shocked when it pulled up more than forty thousand hits. Most of the hits were for sports sites that showed his head shot next to a list of his statistics. In some of the photos, he had his mustache. In others he did not. In the pictures without the Fu Manchu, his jaw looked more square. More masculine, which she would not have thought possible. In all the shots of him, his green eyes looked into the camera as if he were up to absolutely no good.

On the site hockeyfights.com, there was a picture of him with some guy in a headlock. He wore a navy blue jersey and a black helmet, and the article read: Rob Sutter may seem like a thug, but he is highly specialized and has an important role — to make the other team think twice before they do something stupid like score a goal, make a pass, or breathe the wrong way.

She clicked on sites that had photos of him skating down the ice or shooting or sitting in the penalty box with cotton shoved up his nose.

She read an article he'd written about himself in 2003 for The Hockey News. "I am more than a punching bag," it began, and he went on to list his goal and assist averages. Kate didn't know anything about hockey, but she assumed if his averages had been bad, he wouldn't have mentioned them. She read about his career highs, and she read the last Sports Illustrated article written about him. The glossy photograph showed him skating across the ice with a puck at the end of his hockey stick. The title read, "Female Fan Shoots NHL Enforcer."

Kate sat up straighter, as if she'd been pulled up by strings. If she'd been shocked by the number of Internet hits, what she read next was stunning.

According to the article, Stephanie Andrews, of Denver, Colorado, shot him three times after he'd put an end to their affair. Two bullets had struck his chest, causing life-threatening injuries, while a third had shattered his knee, effectively putting an end to his career. Kate had suspected that his knee injury had ended his career, but she never would have guessed the reality in a million years.

Kate dug a little deeper and read more about the shooting and trial. She found quite a bit written about it in the Seattle Times archives. Her gaze scanned the daily reports of the two-week trial, and she read that Stephanie Andrews hadn't even been Rob's girlfriend. She'd been a groupie he'd picked up in a bar, then she'd turned stalker on him.

Stephanie had pleaded temporary insanity, but in the end, the jury hadn't bought the plea, and she'd received a twenty-year sentence, with ten fixed. Kate wondered what Rob thought about that. If he thought it was fair that the woman who'd tried to kill him could get out of prison in ten years, while he had to live with his injuries the rest of his life.

Kate skimmed the last article, but a quote near the end caught her eye—"… Mrs. Sutter has no comment." She scrolled up a paragraph and read, "Louisa Sutter, and the couple's child, do not reside in the family home on Mercer Island. The Times tried to contact her for her reaction to the verdict.

Her lawyer returned our call and stated that 'Mrs. Sutter has no comment.'" Married. He'd been married at the time of the shooting, and he'd had a child. Still had a child. Kate pushed her hair behind her ears. She was stunned and shocked, certainly, but she was also surprised at the deep disappointment she felt. In spite of herself, she was beginning to like him. He'd stepped up and pounded on the Worsleys on her behalf. Yeah, he'd had a little too much fun doing it, but if it hadn't been for him, she was certain she'd still be at the Buckhorn playing pool. Because one thing was for sure, the Worsleys wouldn't have let her leave until she'd lost, and Kate never lost on purpose at anything.

Kate closed the laptop and placed it on the closet shelf next to a box of Tom Jones memorabilia. Rob had cheated on his wife with a hockey groupie. Kate had been cheated on before, and she hated cheaters. Still, no one deserved to get shot or lose his career over it. No one deserved to die, and there was no mistaking the fact that Stephanie Andrews had been aiming to kill Rob.

Kate climbed beneath the pink frilly covers of the twin bed. The bedding she'd brought with her from Vegas was all queen sized, so she was stuck with lace and frills and, of course, Tom.

Getting shot by a groupie he'd picked up in a bar might explain why Rob had turned her down in the Duchin Lounge. It also explained why, despite her best efforts to dislike Rob, she was attracted to him.

She reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. For whatever reason, if there was a man within a hundred miles who would break her heart and treat her bad, Kate was drawn to him.

She flung the Kleenex at the Tom Jones waste paper basket and missed. Rob was a cheater. He had commitment issues—had "bad bet" written all over him. He was every jerk she'd ever dated rolled into one gorgeous package. He'd smash her heart quicker than he used to smash heads.

Yeah, that might be cynical. And yeah, she was supposed to be working on her inner cynic, but it didn't make it any less true.

Kate was attracted to Rob, but she wasn't going to do anything about it. She was through with impossible men.

She laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. As Kate fell asleep, she thought about her life in Gospel. Sometimes she was so bored she thought she just might go as nutty as everyone else in town. But there was something to be said about the mundane. Something comforting in things that didn't change, like the monotony of shelving groceries and ordering produce.

Kate reminded herself of that sentiment two days later when she and her grandfather were having a discussion about how to cut some of the waste out of the business. Kate thought they should stop home deliveries or, at least, charge for them. Stanley wouldn't hear of it.

She wanted to put a tip jar next to the coffee machines to help fund the coffee the locals guzzled every morning. Stanley wouldn't consider that, either. She suggested stocking gourmet cheeses and pasta. Stuffed Italian olives and jalapeno jellies. He looked at her as if she were crazy.

"No one around here eats that fancy stuff."

"Triangle Grocery stocks it," she told him, referring to the other store in town.

"Exactly. If they stock it, why should I?"

They finally compromised on the sticker issue. No more stickers on items that were already marked. Her grandfather finally agreed with her that it was not only a waste of money but also a waste of time.

It was a small victory for Kate, but an important one. It proved to her that her grandfather wasn't completely unbending. He listened to her on some things. When the time came, he might be receptive to her ideas for updating the store's inventory and bookkeeping system. She might help his life get easier, after all. Things were looking up.

Or at least she thought they were until the door to the M&S opened and Rob breezed in looking slightly windblown. Over the stereo speakers, Tom belted out his version of Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness." She hadn't seen Rob since the night of the Buckhorn brawl, and despite all she'd learned of him since, the sight of him made her want to check her posture and reach for her lip gloss.

She stood behind a bin of oranges and grapefruit, and as if he sensed her gaze on him, he looked over at her from the end of aisle two. He wore a dark green hooded sweatshirt the same color as his eyes. He had a black-and-blue bruise on his jaw, a reminder of the night he'd taken on the Worsleys on her behalf.

"How are you?" he asked, his voice a little rough, as if he hadn't been using it a lot lately.

"I'm good."

His lips parted as if he meant to say something more. Instead, his gaze slid to the two boys buying candy bars.

It was three-thirty in the afternoon and business was slow. The only other customers in the store were Adam Taber and Wally Aberdeen, and they were arguing over who was tougher, Spiderman or Wolverine. Rob grabbed Adam around the neck and rubbed his knuckles in the kid's hair.

"Are you going to work for me this summer?" he asked.

"Yeah." Adam laughed and wiggled out of Rob's grasp. "Can Wally work too?"

While Rob pretended to think about it, Kate ran her gaze down his sweatshirt, over the brand name Rossignol printed on the front and down the sleeves, to his faded jeans. The seams were worn, and there was mud caked on the knees. "If you think he can handle it," he said.

"I can handle it," Wally assured him.

"Good. I might have something for you two next month." The three of them did some sort of male ritualistic high-five knuckle-smashing thing before Rob walked toward the front counter, where her grandfather stood refilling racks of cigarettes.

"How's your mother?" Stanley asked him.

"Great. I was just at her house digging up some old dead rosebushes."

"Well, tell her I said hello."

"Will do." Rob leaned a hip into the counter and crossed one booted foot over the other. "Can you get me some flaxseed?" he asked. Flaxseed? Kate placed a few oranges in the bin, then pretended a sudden interest in apples, but her thoughts were not on produce. She was thinking about Rob and wondering if he thought much about his past. She wondered if he missed playing hockey or worried much about the day Stephanie Andrews would get out of jail. She knew she'd worry about that. She wondered if he'd learned a lesson about cheating, and she wondered if his child was a boy or a girl.

She grabbed the empty orange crate and carried it behind the counter toward the doors to the back room. On her way, she glanced at Rob out of the corners of her eyes. At the bruise on his jaw and the mustache framing his lips.

"And I need dried currants," he told Stanley as his gaze followed Kate until she disappeared in the back room.

The door to the alley was to Kate's left, and she grabbed several more boxes before walking outside. She also wondered if Rob believed her about not starting that rumor about him. He'd never said one way or the other. The conversation had pretty much ended when she'd mentioned possible erectile dysfunction.

She tossed the boxes into the Dumpster and shut the lid. She'd been half-joking, but he'd acted so appalled that she had to wonder if she hadn't hit a raw nerve. Since the first night they'd met, she'd been telling herself that he was impotent, but if she was honest, she really hadn't believed it. Not until he'd freaked out and protested so loudly. Now she had to wonder if getting shot had damaged him mentally or physically in that department.

The sound of her grandfather's laughter reached Kate as she moved into the back room and shut the door behind her. If Rob did have a problem down below, than she felt truly bad for joking about it. She wasn't usually a mean person. Sometimes she was sort of insensitive, but she didn't purposely hurt people. Wait. She stopped in her tracks right next to her grandfather's shiny meat grinder. She felt bad for Rob? How had that happened?

She leaned her behind against the chrome worktable and put the heel of her hand to her forehead. She didn't want to feel bad for Rob. Feeling bad could lead her further down the path of actually liking him. Liking him would lead her straight to humiliation and rejection. She was supposed to be avoiding men who'd use her and treat her bad.

Rob Sutter was the poster boy of bad.

"Katie," her grandfather said as he walked into the back room. "I have a delivery for you."

"Who?"

"Hazel Avery. She's got that bad cold you had a few days ago."

"Why didn't she call it into Crum's Pharmacy? They deliver too." She held up a hand before he could answer. "Forget it. I know why. You're cuter than Fred Crum."

Stanley's cheeks turned pink, and he held out a bag containing a bottle of Nyquil and a box of Theraflu. "Thanks," he said.

"Is Rob still out front?"

"He left, but I think he just went across the parking lot. You can catch him if you hurry."

Kate shoved her arms into her coat and grabbed her purse. Ever since the night of the fight at the Buckhorn, her grandfather was trying even harder to push her in Rob's direction. "I'll catch him some other time." She hung her purse over her shoulder and pulled her hair from the back of her coat. "This shouldn't take long," she said as she took the sack from her grandfather. At least she hoped it didn't take long. Last time she'd made a delivery had been to the Fernwoods over on Tamarack. They'd invited her in, then cracked open a baby book and shown her about a hundred photographs of their new grandbaby. They'd tried to feed her pie, and they'd forced her to listen to stories about their daughter, Paris, and her husband, Myron, better known to the world of professional midget wrestling as Myron the Masher. Apparently Myron was making quite a name for himself in Mexico with his latest trademark move, The Swirly.

Which, Kate figured as she walked out of the M&S and into the bright afternoon sun, was way more info than she needed to know about the Fernwoods' son-in-law. She moved down the sidewalk toward her Honda CRV and looked across the parking lot. Rob was out front of Sutter Sports, still wearing the same green sweatshirt and jeans he'd had on earlier. The only difference was that he'd put on a pair of black sunglasses with blue lenses.

Before she thought better of it, she stepped off the curb and moved across the asphalt lot. Yeah, he was the president of the "bad relationship bet" club, but he'd also been the only man in the Buckhorn bar who'd stepped up to help her out. She wasn't sure he knew how truly grateful she was.

As she got closer, she watched him stick an ax under one arm and pull on a pair of brown leather work gloves. Then before her eyes, he turned and swung the ax at one of the four-foot evergreens growing in twin planters next to the front doors. Two swings and the tree lay on the ground at his feet.

"Hello," she called out to him as she stepped up onto the curb.

He glanced back over his shoulder at her and straightened.

"What? Are you in desperate need of firewood?" she asked as she stopped in front of the dead tree.

"Stand back a little bit," he said and swung at the other tree. It fell on the ground next to its twin.

"I've always hated those things," he said as he turned toward her. He held up the ax, and the wooden handle slid through his gloved hand and stopped at the heavy steal head. "They look like they belong at the Four Seasons, not a sporting goods store in the Idaho Sawtooths."

"Are you going to replace them?"

"I was thinking about maybe getting some of those tall weeds." He bit one fingertip of his gloves and pulled it off.

"You mean like pampas grass or maidenhair?"

He shoved the glove in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. "Yeah, probably. I have some of that stuff growing in my yard, and I like it." He took off his sunglasses and shoved them in the pocket, too. The sun shone bright, and lines appeared in the corners of his green eyes looking back at her. He kicked one of the trees with the toe of his boot. "Those had to die."

"It's probably a good thing you don't sell guns."

He smiled and, for some appalling reason, a little tingle settled in her stomach. She glanced away from his mouth to the destruction at her feet.

"No," he said. "No guns."

She certainly understood why he didn't sell guns. "Wow, I'm surprised they let you live around here."

"I'm not anti-gun. I just don't have a need for them."

She glanced up at the striped awning overhead. "When are you opening?"

"April first. A week from tomorrow." He didn't elaborate, and an awkward silence stretched between them. She couldn't help but wonder if he was recalling the night she'd made a fool out of herself. Or the night he'd had to rescue her from the Buckhorn. She folded her arms across her chest, and Ada's bag of cold remedies swung and bumped her thigh.

"How's your jaw?" she asked as she glanced at the side of his face. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Good. If you hadn't stepped in when you did, I'm certain I'd still be at the Buckhorn playing pool."

"The Worsleys are idiots."

"I think you called them numb nuts."

He chuckled. "They're that too."

"Well, thanks again for helping me out."

"Don't mention it." He tapped the ax handle against his leg as if he were impatient to get rid of her.

She took a step back. "See ya around."

He bent and picked up the trunk of one evergreen. "Yeah."

While she felt little tingles, he clearly felt nothing. It was embarrassing. She turned and started for her car. But his lack of interest wasn't exactly a news update—which was just as well. She wasn't in town to date—especially men like Rob. She was here to help her grandfather.

The following Friday she helped him out in a way that changed his life.

She'd inadvertently given her grandfather her cold, and he was forced to stay home in bed. Before Kate left for work, she spoke to Grace Sutter about bringing him into the clinic. Grace didn't believe it was necessary, but she promised to look in on him on her lunch break and after she closed up for the day.

The first thing Kate did when she got to the M&S that morning was to pull Tom Jones out of the CD player and plug in Alicia Keys. She followed Alica up with Sarah McLachlan and Dido. It was definitely kick-butt girl day.

At one o'clock that afternoon, she called a gourmet food wholesaler down in Boise and ordered olives, jalapeno jelly, and wafer thin crackers. She thought it best to start out small, and if those items sold, her grandfather would have to agree with some of her other ideas.

At five, the Aberdeen twins came to work, and Kate changed out the tills. She counted the money, recorded the amounts in her grandfather's ledgers, and put the money in the safe until the next morning. The telephone rang just as she was about to leave the office at six. It was her grandfather, and he wanted her to do two things for him. "Grab the books," which she'd already done, and make one delivery on her way home.

"Rob's special order came in yesterday," he said between coughing fits. "Take it out to his place."

Kate glanced down at her beige wraparound blouse that closed with three leather buckles at one side, and she brushed dust from her left breast. "I'll call him, and he can come get it tomorrow." She didn't want to see Rob. It had been a long, exhausting day and she just wanted to go home, get out of her black twill pants and leather boots. "I'm sure he doesn't need whatever it is tonight."

"Katie," her grandfather sighed. "The M&S has stayed in business all these years because our customers depend on us."

She'd heard it a hundred times before, so she grabbed a pen. "Give me the address."

Five minutes later she was driving around the left end of Fish Hook Lake. The sun was about to set behind the sharp granite peaks, throwing jagged shadows across the landscape and into the cold bluish-green lake. Kate glanced at the directions propped up behind her gearshift and took a left up a long drive with a split-pole fence. She could barely see the roof of a house, but motion sensor lights turned on like a runway, so she figured she was headed the right way. Then the house seemed to rise up in front of her, huge and imposing within the gray darkness of the setting sun.

The house was made of lake rock and logs, and the huge windows reflected towering pine and clumps of shaded snow. "Pa rum pum pum pum," she whispered. It looked more like a hotel than a private home. She pulled her Honda to a stop in front of the four-car garage and grabbed Rob's grocery bag off the passenger seat. She'd never given any thought to where he might live, but even if she had, this wouldn't have been it.

She checked the address her grandfather had given her against the numbers on the house. Professional hockey must have been very good to Rob.

She got out of her car and hung her leather backpack over one shoulder. The heels of her boots echoed across the concrete and stone as she moved up the wide porch to the double front doors.

With the grocery bag hanging off one arm, she raised her hand and knocked. The light above her head wasn't on, and there didn't appear to be any lights on in the house. After several moments, Kate set the bag by the front door and opened her purse. She dug around for a piece of paper and found an old grocery list, a bank deposit receipt, and a paper gum wrapper that smelled like mint. She pulled the wrapper out along with a pen and used the door to write against.

About halfway through the note, the light above her head flipped on and one side of the doors flew open. Kate stumbled and almost did a header into Rob's chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She grabbed hold of the other door to keep from falling. "I'm delivering your groceries." She looked up past his bare feet and jeans to an old, worn T-shirt. Blue, she believed, and stretched out of shape.

"You didn't have to do that."

He had a white towel around his neck, and he lifted one end to dry his wet hair. The loose sleeve of his shirt slipped down the hard mounds of his muscles to the dark hair nestled in his armpit. His snake tattoo circled his thick biceps, and something warm and delicious slid into her stomach. "My grandfather said…" She frowned and shoved the bag toward him. "Never mind."

He turned and walked into the house without taking the bag. A chandelier made of elk horns shone overhead and slid crystal prisms down his wide shoulders and back to the behind of his jeans. He looked at her over his shoulder. "Come in and shut the door."