Sweet On Peggy. Stella MacLean

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СКАЧАТЬ pointed at the diamond sparkling on Gayle’s finger. “It’s easy for you to be so optimistic.”

      “Just trust your instincts. In the meantime, tell me more about this Rory person.”

      Peggy had no trouble spending the next half hour on Rory and their date. Gayle laughed when she told her about him being late for coffee. Gayle smiled knowingly when Peggy told her about him waiting for her at the inn. As they headed down the hall to work, Peggy realized it was the first time in her life that she had talked for so long about a man she’d only just met.

      Later that day as she returned to her house, driving along the narrow track road that led past Ned Tompkins’s house, she did a quick check for Rory. He wasn’t there, and she was disappointed.

      Give it a rest. You just met this man!

      When she got to her driveway and turned in, Ned was standing there waiting for her. What was so important that Ned was in her yard? She pulled to a stop and got out. “Is there something wrong? Did Zeus get out again?” He’d gotten out a week ago, and she’d been forced to search the neighboring fields looking for him.

      Ned approached her, his eyes bright. “This is probably not mine to ask, you understand.” His eyes focused on hers. “What’s your connection to Bill Cassidy?”

      She’d come to Eden Harbor, where her mother had grown up, looking for anyone who might know about her mother’s past. She was very interested in whom her mother had dated growing up in Eden Harbor, whom she’d been friends with. She hadn’t been able to learn very much about her mother, only that her parents had both passed away. Eden Harbor was her only lead in finding who might have been her birth father. She’d first met Bill Cassidy when he’d found her searching her mother’s graduation class photo at the local high school. Bill Cassidy had walked up to her wanting to know if he could help her. When she asked about Ellen Donnelly, he was curt with her. Feeling intimidated by his presence, she left when the opportunity arose, hoping to learn more about her mother some other way. “He’s the coach at the high school. He coaches the volleyball team I play on each Wednesday night.” She had no intention of telling Ned about her earlier encounter with Mr. Cassidy. “Why do you ask?”

      “Is that all?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “My sister is Lisa Sherwood. You know her?”

      “Yeah, she’s on the team. You know that. I mentioned it to you the first time I went to the practice.”

      Ned rubbed his chin and scuffed his feet on the dirt of the driveway. “Some of the team feels that you and Bill are a little too chummy.”

      She’d hardly describe their relationship as chummy. “What are you trying to say?” she asked, angry and hurt that people would talk about her that way. She was always very careful to be friendly but not overly so, especially with men, for this reason.

      “He’s a man twice your age. That’s all. You don’t want people talking that way about you, do you?”

      She clenched her fists and searched for a calmness she didn’t feel. “What if I didn’t care what people talked about?”

      “Are you saying there’s something going on between the two of you?” Ned’s expression was one of fascination.

      Peggy would like to tell her nosy neighbor to get lost. But she didn’t need any gossip going around about her, and even worse, Bill probably had a wife who wouldn’t be happy to have baseless rumors circulating about her husband. Most of all, Peggy didn’t want Bill Cassidy to hear gossip connecting him to her. He was the school sports coach. “I told you. He’s only my volleyball coach. He almost certainly has a wife. For the record, there is no relationship between Mr. Cassidy and me, other than the obvious one.”

      “Bill Cassidy doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have a girlfriend that anyone knows about.” Ned continued to watch her in that odd way of his. “I wouldn’t have asked about him, only he was over at your house one day,” he said quietly. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you. Just trying to look out for you, that’s all.”

      Bill Cassidy had been visiting her neighbor farther down the road past her house, spotted her in her paddock with Zeus and had stopped by. Nothing more to it. “He came to see my horses once. He’s a great coach. That’s all. He’s kind to everyone, including me.” He’d been very nice. Very interested in where she had gotten the horses and how she had chosen each of them.

      “I’ve known Bill Cassidy all his life, and he’s never been interested in horses.”

      “People change,” she said. Thinking about it now, it did seem very peculiar.

      “If you say so,” he mumbled, looking just a little embarrassed.

      Ned had been a good neighbor in the two years she’d been here. But his sister was in a whole other league when it came to minding other people’s business. If she were a betting woman, she’d bet that Lisa had pressed Ned to ask questions about her relationship with Bill Cassidy.

      Ned headed off along the road, disappearing into his house a few minutes later. Peggy breathed a sigh of relief. She shouldn’t have gotten angry with Ned. Although he was nosy, he had been helpful and kind to her over the years. When she moved in, he’d helped her fix the fencing, clean out the stalls. When she told him she’d pay him, he refused, saying that he was happy to have someone living on the road.

      This was the first time he’d behaved so strangely. Maybe he was genuinely concerned about her reputation. She went into the house and turned on the TV for company as she organized her dinner before heading out to feed the horses. She loved the routine of her day, especially looking after her horses. Sherri Brandon, one of Peggy’s other friends at work, had stopped her today to ask about giving her stepdaughter, Morgan Brandon, riding lessons. She was looking forward to the opportunity, wondering at the same time what day of the week she should offer Sherri.

      She had a volleyball game this evening and was looking forward to it. She loved the game, something she had shared with her mother, Ellen. When she was a teenager, she and her mother used to practice around a net her father had put up in the backyard of the Craftsman house they lived in during her father’s time in Canada. Her favorite place of all the places they’d lived.

      When she got to the gym, everyone was there, ready to play. The game was fast and exciting, during which she scored four times, a record for her. Coach Cassidy had been generous with his praise, reminding her of Ned’s inappropriate comments.

      She was determined not to let Ned and his dreadful sister influence how she behaved around the coach and agreed to join the team for a drink to celebrate the win. She showered and dressed, ready for a fun evening.

      She hadn’t thought of the sore spot on her right breast since she’d been out on the court, and she didn’t plan to think about it now. Tomorrow would be time enough. She had a routine physical in the morning, and she’d talk to Dr. Brandon about it then. She’d looked on the internet, and what she had near her underarm didn’t look like any of the pictures she saw, some of them really awful.

      Once at the pub, they pulled a couple of tables together.

      “That was a great game,” Tina Sullivan, a nurse from the hospital, said as she settled in next to Peggy.

      “It was. And we have our СКАЧАТЬ