Just A Friend: Small Town Stories Novella #3 Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  In Love With A Perfect Stranger

  The Ladies Room

  Just A Friend

  Only In Montana

  When Your Words Come Back To Haunt You

  Faster Than A New York Minute

  Safe With Me

  I Don't Believe You

  Perfect Gentleman

  Good Morning

  You Look Different

  The Perfect Gift

  Home Where She Belongs

  We Have A Runner

  Sounds Like Her

  Aunt Sunny's Rock Pile

  Happily Ever After

  Where It All Began

  Rest Of TheStory

  Other Titles

  Copyright

  When I think of happily ever after, you are the friends that come to mind. Thank you, Anna, Maria, Bernadette, Jeannie, Marian, Kim, Dana, Megan, and Wendy.

  In Love With A Perfect Stranger

  Nancy linked her elbow with Pam’s in anticipation of what they’d encounter on the other side of the doors of the Forty-Ninth Parallel. The state’s newest microbrewery had been open for less than a month. They'd heard about it and planned to go several times. Now, it was really happening.

  Pam threw a cursory glance at the parking lot. Rows of pickups and cars parked neatly in the gravel area around the entrance promised that the excursion was sure to meet her expectations. The business that brewed beer from local barley had won the unofficial vote of approval from the community. In a matter of minutes, she'd be able to tell why.

  As soon they passed through the front door, Pam sensed it was more than a place to go for good beer. It had a home away from home vibe. The cement floor was painted a soft brown, and everything was made of wood and accented with tempered steel. A glass wall separated the people from the vats of beer in the back corner. Pam counted three and guessed there were three behind the ones she could see.

  She craned her neck to get a better look at what was going on. Groups of people gathered around tables either cheered or groaned at something or someone out of Pam’s field of vision. Other people rolled their eyes while others held their hands up as if to say, “I should have known.”

  Nancy stopped at a popcorn machine and scooped out two bags of the snack for each of them. “It’s almost as good as the stuff they sell in the movie theaters.” She passed a bag to Pam. “Go ahead try a bite.” Nancy threw a couple of kernels of popcorn into her mouth and waited for Pam to do the same.

  Pam tossed a couple of kernels in her mouth. The light salt and hints of butter complemented the airy taste. "You're right."

  "I always am," Nancy responded in a playful tone.

  Another round of commotion caught their attention. Both women stepped deeper into the room. As soon as she saw the images projected on the big screen, Nancy smiled in recognition. “I forgot it is Trivia Pursuit night. Noah mentioned something about it.”

  Their friend Noah, who suggested the outing, bailed out of the excursion. Determined to have some fun before the winter weather kept them homebound for the season, Pam and Nancy went without him.

  From the size of the crowd, Pam sensed it was a wise choice. With little publicity the place was packed. The two best friends made their way to the only two empty seats at a table at the far end of the room.

  Three men who looked like they were related took up the other seats at the long bench style table. Two of them looked down at their cell phones. If anyone were to ask, Pam would have guessed that they were father and sons. The older of the three commented on the question projected on the big screen. “How many counties do we have in Montana?” Beneath the question, four shapes had a different answer. Without having to think, Pam answered, “Fifty-six.” She had read about it in the newspaper earlier in the day.

  The guy sitting beside her looked like a model for the men of Montana magazine. He was rugged with a hint of I’d like to fix your flat tire if you’d let me. Pam couldn’t help liking him. When he said, “Are you sure about that?” her impression of him changed. He was too full of himself to get attached.

  “Why do men second guess women when it comes to geography? If the question was something like where the closest shopping mall is, you’d take my answer without any argument.”

  He arched his eyebrows in amusement. “Okay, fifty-six it is.”

  After she said it, Pam wished she could have taken back the attitude behind the words. If given a do over, she would have removed some of the why are men shallow from the tone in her voice and replace it with some sass.

  When the answer of fifty-six came up on the screen, he grinned as though he were proud of her. “You know your Montana history.” When his response lacked the unspoken “for a woman.” Pam found herself liking him again.

  That was all the time he had to make an impression because the next question appeared on the screen. “How long were Gilligan and his friends supposed to be on the boat?” The four possible answers appeared beneath the question. Just as Pam was about to lean forward to see what answer he chose, the waitress approached her for her order. Pam temporarily pushed away the decision saying, “You go first Nancy, I want to know the answer.”

  “It’s three hours,” the man replied and pressed a square on his cell phone.

  “Who is Gilligan?”

  “The guy from Gilligan’s Island. This group took an ocean tour and ended up stranded on a tropical island for years.”

  The story was new to Pam. She got lost in the man’s ocean blue eyes and wished she was stranded with the man who made her heart race every time he spoke.

  “I ordered a flight, so you can sample all the flavors,” Nancy’s voice interrupted the conversation. Something in her tone chilled the warm feeling in Pam’s chest.

  “I’m sorry what did you say?” Pam directed her attention back to her friend. With the shift of attention, the sound, and colors of the room around her returned. For the couple of minutes, she and the man chatted, the rest of the world disappeared. Oddly, Pam felt at ease with the sensation.

  “Since you didn’t know what you wanted, I got you a little of everything,” Nancy replied. She stopped talking and wrinkled her brow in concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why do you ask?”

  “You seem a little out of it.” Nancy shifted her glance, and recognition of something crossed her face. “Oh”

  Pam never had the chance to ask her what “oh” meant. The man, who with each ticking of the second hands on the clock was transforming into her future husband, tapped her on the shoulder. “Okay, the goddess of geography, what is the area of Montana?”

  She didn’t have to think hard. The numbers in the other choices were too large or too small. “147,040 miles,” she answered.

  His blue eyes sparkled and took on the shine of sapphire as he tapped the answer. “No wonder it’s been so hard for me to find a wife. The state’s too big!”

  Pam knew then and there she was in love with a perfect stranger, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

  The Ladies Room

  The game was too fun not to play. From one question to the next the participant's rankings changed. Apparently, the timing of the response mattered as well.

  During one of the pauses between the questions, the handsome hunk who remained by her side during the game introduced himself. “My name is Jorgen Backman. I live on a farm outside of Ashbrook. What’s your name?”

  “A farmer?” Pam matched his body structure with his proclaimed profession. He had to have thrown a lot of hay bales to get a chest that broad.

  “Yes. And you are?”

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p; “I am?” Maybe it was something in his voice, or the rich blue in his eyes that threw her off. Intrigued to figure out what it was, Pam had forgotten the question.

  “This is the part where you tell me your name. Or you make up one, so I can’t find you on social media.” He grinned.

  “Pam. My name is Pam Wagner. I’m a nurse at the senior living center.”

  “So that’s where they hide all the pretty women.” He nodded his approval, and they were on to the next question.

  The chatting went back and forth between the people at the table who Pam learned also lived in or around Ashbrook. William, the older gentleman who she guessed was Jorgen’s father, joked cordially with Jorgen and another man named Sam. Like Jorgen, Sam’s eyes caught Pam’s attention, but his salty personality made it difficult for her to admire him or them.

  From their conversation, she learned the three men worked together but lived on separate farms. And, contrary to her initial impression, William was not Jorgen’s actual father. But, something deeper than they cared to reveal forged the paternal like bond between them. When they weren’t playing the game, all three men bantered back and forth about stories they had lived together in the past.

  Unfamiliar with the people, Pam felt more at ease experiencing the stories as an observer. When they included Nancy, she presented her way of avoiding situations. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She stood to leave and waited for Pam to join her. Pam checked on her glass to find that both of their glasses were empty. It wasn’t until she rose to her feet that Pam's bladder forced her to admit that she too shared the need to use the ladies' room.

  She politely excused herself, wrapped her purse around her shoulder, and motioned to speak.

  Nancy pulled on Pam’s elbow and practically dragged her to the bathroom. As soon as the door closed behind them, she wagged her finger at Pam. “You can look at the pretty man, but you cannot touch.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pam tried to hide the obvious by taking an interest in the paper towel dispenser. The man who had kept her attention for most of the evening was even more tempting than one of those dark chocolate squares that came wrapped in gold foil.

  “Jorgen Backman is known as Jorgy Porgy in three counties.”

  “Jorgy Porgy?” She scrunched her face. The nickname made no sense.

  “The nursery rhyme. Georgie Porgy pudding and pie. Kissed the girls and made them cry.” Nancy tilted her hand and waved her fingers towards Pam as though she were trying to summon the ending of the poem out of Pam’s mouth.

  “She isn’t kidding.” A woman closed the stall door behind her. “He broke my best friend's heart.”

  Pam’s mouth fell open.

  The woman added. "What made it worse was Jorgen knew another guy wanted to go out with her.”

  Pam had heard about small towns being hotbeds for drama, but never in a million years did she imagine she’d witness it firsthand. “This sounds like an episode of As the Wheat Spins.”

  Just as Pam turned to walk away from the conversation, the woman added, “Oh, Jorgen’s been different ever since. But my theory is a tiger doesn’t ever really lose its stripes. Jorgen knows how to catch a woman but doesn’t know what to do once he gets her.”

  Pam had no idea on how to handle the dump of information from a stranger. What was her motive for trashing a man’s reputation?

  “By the way, this is Amanda,” Nancy introduced the woman who was quick to join the conversation. “She is cousins with Marianna who works in the intensive living unit of the senior center.”

  If things weren’t confusing enough, the women just added a layer to the tapestry of small town life. Pam was friendly with Marianna which meant the odds of her running into Amanda were inevitable. Whether or not she liked it, she was friends by association with the hot guy’s enemies. “Everyone is related here.” Pam was still learning the ins and outs of small town living. How it was possible for any of them to not marry a cousin eluded her.

  “Pretty much,” Amanda nodded to confirm her statement.

  “So, Jorgen is a no go?” Her heart hurt when she said it. Before she was aware of his background, he seemed like a guy she’d want to spend more time with.

  Both women nodded.

  “Okay, I won’t talk to him anymore.” It felt like someone pinched her in the middle of her chest. She motioned to go into the stall.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Both Nancy and Amanda rushed to stop her.

  “You can’t be rude to him,” Nancy corrected.

  “Well, you can,” Amanda added. She raised her left eyebrow in amusement of the imagined situation. Her facial expression relaxed, and Amanda returned to the position of a neutral person in the matter. “But, you’ll find yourself regretting it the first time he has to help you with something. And, that definitely will happen at some point in time.”

  Pam had grown tired of the conversation. She wanted. No, she needed to move on to a more constructive topic.

  “Jorgen and I have never been fond of each other, but we respect each other. It goes back to when we were on the playground in elementary school.” Amanda held up her hands like they were scale balances. “Yet, if there is a fire, Jorgen will be at my house with all the other volunteer firefighters trying to save my belongings.” She tilted her hands to demonstrate the shift in power, “And every couple of years, I’ll have one of his cousins in my high school English class.”

  It made sense to Pam. Jorgen and Amanda hadn’t seen eye to eye on a lot of things. Jorgen probably had something about Amanda’s history that she knew would come out. So, Amanda was getting her side of the story in first. Pam wouldn’t have approached the situation that way, but she wasn’t the type to judge a person until a situation tested them and proved what they were made of. “Okay, be nice, but not too nice.” It was going to be how she handled both Jorgen and Amanda.

  “Yes,” both women nodded.

  “Now, can I go to the bathroom?”

  Nancy and Amanda startled as though they had just been reminded why they went to the restroom in the first place.

  “Sure. I’ll wait out here for you,” Nancy offered.

  Less than ten minutes ago, she was close to falling in love with the man. It didn't make sense, but she felt connected to Jorgen. In the short time they had been together, she felt at ease with him. For once, she hadn't had to try to be funny or impressive. She also admired the way he revered his friends, especially William. However, she also believed in heeding warnings. A great amount of heartache came her way because she ignored her family's concerns about her ex-boyfriend Mark.

  In the short amount of time she had been in the ladies’ room Pam had changed her mind. There was nothing that could make her want to have anything to do with Jorgen or his troublesome group of friends.

  Just A Friend

  After the conversation in the ladies’ room, Pam and Nancy opted for a change of scenery. Rather than go back to the table with Jorgen and his friends, the two women headed outdoors. They found a place to sit around the stone fire pit built in the middle of an open area behind the brewery.

  The stars above them shimmered, but the absence of stars in the distance warned of the chance of change. The weather system they had a twenty percent chance of seeing might make an appearance.

  Pam and Nancy relaxed in lawn chairs and blended in with the activity around them. On the other side of the fire, a local musician played his guitar and encouraged people to sing along with the song he played. Pam, who didn’t know the words to the song, enjoyed listening to Nancy cut loose. Her friend belted out the lyrics like she had been the original performer of the song.

  Off in the corner of the fenced clearing, a group of people played a game of bags. From where Pam sat, it looked like an easy game. The concept was simple enough: throw bean bag twenty-five feet away and try to make it into a small hole carved out of a piece of board propped at a twenty-degree angle. If the bag landed on the board, the person who threw it earned
a point. If the bag landed in the hole, the person earned three points. Either the people had a microbrew beer induced loss of perception, or the game was harder than the concept. They needed to get to twenty-one points to win. Neither team was anywhere near that number.

  Just as she was commenting to Nancy about the game, Jorgen approached her. “We need a fourth. Want to join us?” William, Michael, and Sam waited behind him. Sam’s eye roll said what he was thinking. “This one has it bad.”

  Pam’s head whispered the warning, “You’re supposed to say no.” Her heart, however, jumped into action. The next thing she knew, Pam rose to join them. “Yes, that sounds like fun.” She shifted her attention toward the unused game setup to avoid the “I warned you” look, Nancy, tried to throw her way.

  In Pam’s defense, it was too easy to ignore Nancy in Jorgen’s presence. The man didn’t have to say a word. Something about him demanded all of Pam’s attention. Perhaps it was the easy grin. Or, it could have been the pleasant fragrance of his cologne. Whatever it was she felt compelled to move closer to him.

  Jorgen wrapped his arm around Pam’s shoulder as he guided her their side of the game. “We don’t have much to worry about. Sam can’t throw to save his life. And, odds are William will get bored and fake throwing out his back when they start losing.”

  She learned quickly. Playing bags was harder than it looked. They had stopped drinking beer and moved on to the root beer and ginger ale that was also made by the microbrewery. It didn’t matter. Alcohol or the lack thereof had little influence on Pam’s throwing skills. Her bags either fell short of the board or off to the side of it. One time when she tossed the bag, Sam had to jump to dodge her throw. Jorgen and William burst out laughing. Even Nancy thought it was funny. Through laughter, she said, “I didn’t know you could move that fast, Sam.”

  As though to prove his sour attitude, Sam showed Nancy that he thought she was number one with the wrong finger. That just made her laugh even harder. “You better hope you don’t ever have to come to me to get that hand fixed.”