Page 14 of Playing With Fire

Jodi stiffened. She had been wondering the same thing, in fact. Wondering if complaints to the newspaper about smoking trash cans had been dismissed out of hand, especially if they were signed A Concerned Citizen, which everyone knew was old Gerd Schumacher who’d been writing to the newspaper in green pen since the Civil War.

“The taxpayers of Temple Mountain are more concerned about taxes and jobs and recovering from the pandemic than burning pizza boxes,” she said frostily. “We get a lot of letters. Can’t print them all. The newspaper owners are planning a complete revamp of the website. Soon as all the content is available online it will be different.”

Don’t hold your breath, buddy, she silently added. Not while most of the editorial board still liked to do the crossword on the back page of the paper. And what would folks use to light their barbecues and line their birdcages?

Ricky nodded.

Jodi unbent a little. “Though you do have a point. A minor point. As soon as I’m done with reporting council debate over new speed limits for RVs, the appalling state of the children’s playground equipment in local parks, and why the mask mandate has been dropped for postal workers but not librarians, I’ll have a look.”

The awkward silence which followed was broken by high, excited voices. A split second later a crowd of youngsters erupted through the door of the church hall. Ricky turned to watch children leaping and running in the cool crisp air while their parents tried to herd them into some sort of order.

“Can you introduce me?” he said suddenly. Jodi looked at him in surprise.

“Who to, Hattie and Silas? You don’t need me. Just walk up, or believe me, they’ll find you if you hang around looking lost for thirty seconds.”

Ricky grabbed her elbow an instant before a youngster who looked to be in his early teens came tearing past, closely followed by another boy who could have been his double.

“Josh and Judah, slow down!” Silas Beecham’s voice, mellifluent in church, was loud and commanding. The two teenagers instantly put on the brakes. They began whooping loudly instead as they tramped noisily through the undergrowth.

“Twins?”

“Indeed,” said Jodi dryly. “Foster kids. They grew up—well, brought themselves up is more like it—in the city for their first five years before Children and Family Services finally removed them. They’ve been through a succession of foster homes in the city. All this—”

She waved her arm around at the huge open sky, the wide and pleasant streets still glowing with the last rich shades of fall in Upstate New York. “— it still amazes them. Hattie says sometimes the boys just take off down the street, running full pelt, until they run out of breath.”

They watched the boys in silence. Squarish faces, thick, springy brown hair, the coltish movements of youngsters whose height has suddenly soared. One of the twins was a little more thickset, though both were sturdy and full of energy. They stamped through the damp mulch and leaped up to twang the lowest limbs of the fir trees, laughing at the rain of ice and twigs on their heads and shoulders.

Ricky looked thoughtful. “Then they’re lucky to land here. Temple Mountain is a good place to grow up,” he said quietly. A shadow crossed his face and was gone. “But about the Beechams, I’d like it if you could introduce me. Just so they know I’m not another shallow city slicker.”

He eased closer, and Jodi had to stop herself from brushing away the grit which had fallen from the branches and settled onto the broad shoulders of his jacket.

City slicker? You think?

That butter-soft leather looked more suitable for brunch in Greenwich Village than tramping through the back streets of Temple Mountain to impress Ida Bexhill at church.

Perhaps that old girlfriend of Ricky’s had morphed into a willowy influencer who abhorred sensible puffer jackets and flannel shirts and used her credit card points to buy Ricky male moisturizer and eye masks. Insisted on that particular shade of brown leather because it highlighted his eyes and matched the carefully aged denim jeans.

Stop. Just stop.

It wasn’t Ricky Sharp’s fault that Jodi had chosen to stay in Temple Mountain.

She realised that Ricky was watching her expectantly, even anxiously.

“Sorry?” Jodi mustered a bright smile. “I was um...thinking about work.”

“I said, maybe we could have coffee afterwards. After I meet the Beechams.”

She stared back, inhaling the subtle scent of smoke and wool from his jacket and something musky that made her toes curl even in her sensible boots.

“I need to pick your brains about local hooligans and potential pyromaniacs. The acting editor is sure to have her finger on the pulse of the town.”

Jodi felt an unwelcome sensation akin to having snow drop down the collar of her coat. Work stuff. Of course, that was what he was thinking.

Disconcertingly, Ricky appeared to read her mind. He drew fractionally closer, dropping his voice, and she wondered if he could hear the hammering of her heart.

“Think of it as an act of charity. You could help me to...hmmm...reintegrate into Temple Mountain. Otherwise, people might simply dismiss me as a lightweight, a male sex object who takes off his shirt and cuddles dogs in front of the camera.”

Jodi couldn’t help smiling. “Well, when you put it that way...”

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