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“Coward,” she muttered under her breath. She was well aware that change could be expected to create discomfort, if not downright terror, but she could handle the shift in her life to accommodate volunteer work. What she couldn’t face, however, were the conflicting emotions Luke Starns aroused, at least not that day.
However, she did intend to honor her promise to Violet and deliver some books the following week. While she knew she was avoiding rather than facing the real problem, once up and dressed, she got busy dusting, sorting and boxing the entertaining assortment of paperback novels crowding her bookshelves. As for the hardcover volumes, she would box up all but her favorites and donate them to the annual spring book fair at the public library.
She consoled herself that it was definitely time to make way for the new, but as she placed the books in neat stacks, she kept recalling the frightened faces of the runaways who had witnessed Felix Mendoza’s murder. Luke had so easily drawn the girls into conversation that she hoped he’d used equal skill to convince them to return home before they again recklessly risked their lives.
Clearly Luke Starns was a man of many talents and moods, but as she finished packing her books, she began to wonder if, as Pamela had predicted, Beverly Snodgrass really would volunteer that afternoon in hopes Luke would join her for a drink. She didn’t want to care, even refused to consider the possibility for a while, but by the afternoon, she finally had to admit how much she truly did.
Because Catherine Brooks appeared to go out of her way to annoy him, Luke half expected her to come in on Friday. Then when she failed to arrive, he was disgusted with himself for missing her.
Beverly Snodgrass worked in the office in the late afternoon, but he was immune to her seductive smiles and offered no more than a hurried hello. He liked to wrap up the week’s work and leave his desk clean for Monday morning, but that evening he sharpened pencils and cleaned out drawers until Pam assured him Beverly had gone home.
For a grown man to hide from a woman was absurd, but when he’d taken over as the director of Lost Angel, he’d quickly learned a closed door was the most effective way to discourage a woman’s interest without giving offense.
A married couple supervised Lost Angel on the weekends when the center offered prepackaged meals, and hot showers, but no counseling or job placement services. Dave Curtis was always there to handl
e any unforeseen emergencies, but as usual, Luke had to push himself to plan for the weekend.
He often went on long, strenuous hikes with the Sierra Club. Their members included a great many beautiful women with long, tanned legs, but the rambunctious outdoorsy type simply didn’t appeal to him. He’d built houses with Habitat for Humanity, which was exhausting as well as rewarding. On other weekends, he’d driven up to Santa Barbara or down to San Diego simply for a change of scene.
He’d been numb for so long, it didn’t really matter how he spent his free time, but that Friday night as he left the office, he felt lonely and wished for a noisy crowd. It might be a good weekend to catch up on laundry and new movies, but rather than action adventure films where he could drown in explosive sound, he thought he might seek out a couple of comedies. It amused him to think how much he might actually enjoy a good laugh, and he hummed to himself as he drove away.
Saturday afternoon, Joyce Quincy again joined Catherine out on her patio. “You have everything looking so pretty. Not that it didn’t when I was here last week, but I love pansies’ sweet little faces, and they always make me smile.”
Catherine propped her feet on the adjacent chair, but she was so restless it was an effort to appear relaxed. She would have welcomed Smoky’s calming presence, but he was napping in the sun and apparently too content to move to her lap.
“Thank you, but I still need to make a planting schedule rather than let everything slide again.”
“The yard had scarcely slid into ruin,” Joyce teased. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but did you actually volunteer at Lost Angel?”
“Yes, I was there twice, in fact,” Catherine replied, but she thought better of mentioning a meeting with two eyewitnesses to murder, or the maddeningly perverse Luke Starns. “I was given paperwork to sort, which wasn’t at all exciting. Now, tell me what’s happening with you.”
Joyce shrugged, then toyed with her bangle bracelets. “Nothing spectacular, either, I’m afraid. I’ve been redecorating an attorney’s office in Encino. Unfortunately, his tastes were so conservative that I was limited to forest greens and dark leather, but he was enormously pleased with my work, and there are sure to be several nice referrals.”
Catherine knew Joyce too well to overlook her preoccupied frown. “There must be more to the story,” she prompted.
Joyce paused to take a deep breath, and her glance again swept the colorful array of pansies bordering the lawn. “The office is in an impressive new building, and I’d hoped to meet a younger attorney, or perhaps a physician, at any rate, someone substantial. Then yesterday, as I was hanging the last of the paintings in the attorney’s office, in comes this gorgeous young man with a cart loaded with plants. He explained he had the contract for the building and was delivering the plants to improve the office’s feng shui.”
Catherine ran her fingers through her hair to catch the sun’s warmth and smiled. “Feng shui is popular, and I happen to agree that surrounding ourselves with beautiful living things does promote serenity.”
“You didn’t see the guy.” Joyce fanned her face with her hand. “He had the most beautiful blue eyes and dark, curly hair. He also had a tight, toned body like the men on the UPS calendar. I didn’t hear half of what he said about feng shui. Fortunately, we agreed on the placement of the plants.”
“Which were?”
“A ficus tree, a philodendron, something else I didn’t recognize. They were all big, healthy plants, so he must be a hell of a gardener.”
She pulled his card from her blouse pocket and handed it to Catherine. “A nurseryman, he called himself.”
“Shane Shephard. What a nice name,” Catherine responded.
“Everything about him was nice,” Joyce replied. “He probably has a kid brother named Sean and a sister Sharon.”
Catherine noted the address on his card. “Oxnard is a prime agricultural region. I visited an orchid grower’s greenhouse there once. But clearly your interest wasn’t in horticulture.”
“Damn right, but I doubt Shane was more than thirty.”
“Would a thirty-seven-year-old man balk at dating a thirty-year-old woman?” Catherine asked pointedly.
“Never, but I can’t see myself living in the back of a greenhouse in Oxnard with a nurseryman. I’d probably get a striped tan from the building’s little slats.”
