I looked from Barb to Mindy and Jeff and I watched them. Jeff was standing close and doing all the talking. Mindy had her head tipped back, holding her body stiff and she looked scared as a jackrabbit.
“Um…” I started to mumble my answer then watched Mindy’s head shake, Jeff got closer, Mindy prepared to retreat and Jeff’s hand came up to the side of her neck, halting her retreat and his face dipped close to hers. He was mostly in profile but I could see he was still doing the talking. Mindy stood frozen, staring up at him, then suddenly her eyes closed and her head bent. This placed Jeff’s lips close to her forehead but, instead of moving back, he leaned in and kept talking.
I knew what it felt like when a mountain man did that and I hoped Mindy felt it too.
Then I watched Mindy’s hand come up to curl around his wrist at her neck. At first I thought it was to pull away but then, as I watched, I saw it was to hold on and I knew she felt it, the same as me.
When she touched him, Jeff stopped talking, his hand at her neck slid into the back of her hair and he tipped her head down further in order to kiss the top of her head. When he pulled away and allowed Mindy to look at him again, she was no longer stiff, her face no longer scared. It was unsure but it was also soft and she’d leaned into him, just a bit but enough to tell the tale.
My stomach melted again and I turned to Barb and finished my answer.
“Yes.”
Barb’s eyes caught mine and her smile was tremulous but it was a smile all the same.
When I looked away, I caught Becca’s eyes and her smile wasn’t tremulous, it was wide and shining.
“Kami?” I heard Max say and looked at him to see he had his mobile to his ear and his eyes on the couple by the river. “We just got back from the Police Station, Jeff says they need to talk to you again.” He looked from the river to me, he gave me a Wonder Max wink and a small grin and kept talking. “Nina’s with me and she’ll be with you when you talk to Mick. It isn’t a big deal, nothin’ to worry about but they need you to drop in and talk about the last time you saw Shauna. Can you swing by for a break or do you have to do it after work?”
“Why do they have to talk to Kami?” Linda asked me.
“Right, yeah, I’ll tell Jeff. Later,” Max said into the phone and flipped it shut.
“Max is right, it isn’t a big deal,” I answered Linda. “They can’t find Shauna and Kami’s the last person to see her.”
“Damn tootin’ they can’t find her!” I heard from behind me and turned to see Arlene bearing down on us. “Get this!” she announced when she had everyone’s attention, her arm snaking out to snag a chair from a table with two people sitting at it and she did this without asking them if it was okay which made them look at her with a mix of shock and irritation even though they weren’t using it. Then she announced grandly, “Shauna Fontaine has disappeared and they got an APB out on her.” Her eyes rounded in the middle of making a circle of the table to gauge our reactions, they caught on me and she yelled, “Holy shit! What happened to your face?”
“Damon,” Max, Linda, Becca and Barb answered in unison and without hesitation.
“What?” Arlene asked.
“Last night, Damon got retribution,” Max told her and Arlene’s eyes narrowed.
“Where were you?” Arlene returned.
“Not with Nina,” Max’s answer wasn’t evasive, it was a firm indication of where he wasn’t and that the reason why he wasn’t with me was none of Arlene’s business.
“Right,” Arlene muttered then noted, “Must be why the call went out on him on the police band late last night.”
“Yeah, Arlene, that’d be why,” Max confirmed and his eyes came to mine, I gave him a placating grin, he shook his head and didn’t appear very placated but instead mildly irritated.
Suddenly Arlene’s neck twisted and she shouted across the porch, “Fran, get me a cappuccino, heavy on the sprinkles!”
“Gotcha!” Fran, a waitress standing at a table several feet away, shouted back and Arlene’s head swung back to us and her eyes took in the table.
Then they took in me and Max. “What’s your problem? You ain’t drinkin’?”
“We just arrived,” I told her.
“Watcha want?” she asked, I answered for myself and Jeff, Max placed his order with Arlene and Arlene twisted her neck and shouted again.
“Fran, Nina needs a skinny latte, Max wants an Americano, black, and Jeff needs a to go Americano, cream and one sugar. Got that?”
“Yeah, up in a minute,” Fran shouted back and then turned to the table that had twice been interrupted in placing their own orders.
Arlene plopped into her chair as Mindy and Jeff came back to the table, still, I noted with a warm feeling in my middle, holding hands.
“Yo Mins,” Arlene greeted, her eyes moving to the couple’s hands but fortunately, her mouth remaining shut.
“Hey Arlene,” Mindy replied.