Ms. Simon Says by Mary McBride Page B

with one or two lowly field agents in Grand Rapids.
    “I’ve got some out-of-town business coming up,” Sam said, “but I’ll make sure she’s covered in my absence. You don’t have to worry about it.”
    “Great.”
    Sam angled his head in the direction of the eastern shore. “Linda and Harry need to be aware of this situation. Are they?”
    “No. She didn’t want to worry them.”
    “Let them worry,” Sam said. “I’ll apprise them of the problem if you don’t want to do it.”
    “I’ll do it.” Actually Mick had been debating about that, too. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to override Shelby’s wishes in regard to her parents.
    “Good because . . .” Sam’s eyes narrowed as he gazed out the window. “Speak of the devil.”
    Mick leaned forward to get a better view around the edge of the burlap curtains. The devil was dressed in skintight jeans and a turtleneck sweater that curved and clung and did things he never knew a sweater could do. In the yellow light, her hair took on a reddish cast. She was still far enough away that Mick couldn’t discern her expression, but her walk was purposeful even as it was sexy as hell, enough to inspire a definite thickening in his blood.
    He glanced at the man across the table to see if he was similarly moved by the approaching vision of Ms. Shelby Simon.
    Nope. Sam Mendenhall just looked pissed, and sounded it as well when he swore under his breath and then said, “Guess we better go see what she wants.”
    As Shelby approached the Mendenhall place, memories of past summers nearly brought tears to her eyes. My God. They’d been impossibly young and incredibly stupid back then. All of them. She and Beth and Sam and whatever young swain she might have had her eye on at the time.
    She thought about that final summer they were all together, and wondered now if she’d do again what she did then—advise seventeen-year-old Beth to go to college rather than elope with nineteen-year-old Sam. He had signed up for the army and was headed for Fort Benning, GA, hot to make his little Beth his bride before he left until Shelby intervened, convincing her sister that it was in her best interest to wait at least a year or two.
    “If Sam really loves you, he’ll wait,” Ms. Simon had said. She could still almost hear herself, such a wise big sister, so sure, so absolutely certain of her own rock-solid and sensible advice.
    But then Sam didn’t wait, did he? He’d barely gotten out of boot camp before sending Beth a Dear Jane letter, telling her he’d married a girl he met down there in Georgia.
    Then Beth hated both Sam and Shelby, and Shelby hated Sam, and neither of them knew how Sam felt about anything because neither Shelby nor Beth ever saw him again.
    What a big fucking mess.
    The mere sight of the Mendenhall cabin up ahead brought it all back with a vengeance now.
    And then the sight of two men coming out the door onto the cabin’s little front porch made her stop dead in her tracks. Mick Callahan, of course, was a cinch to recognize, not only from his ratty jeans and stupid duct-taped vest, but also from the way her heartbeat stuttered the moment she saw him.
    But the other man? Who...?
    Shelby squinted in the sunlight, bringing the man more clearly into focus, believing at first that it was Mr. Mendenhall because he looked a lot like Sam’s father and because the man moved like a much older person. He even used a cane.
    But wait. Hadn’t her mother told her that Mr. Menden-hall passed away a few years ago?
    She walked forward, stumbling once over a circle of stones outlining an old fire pit, still staring, beginning to feel oddly out of sync with the time and place.
    Was that...? No. It couldn’t be
Sam.
It just couldn’t be.
    Could it?
    The closer she got to the cabin, the more it seemed she was having an out-of-body experience or perhaps time traveling.
    Up on the porch, he leaned on the cane and stretched out his right hand toward her. “Shelby