He didn’t want to know.
Really.
Because discovery meant risking an image he didn’t want burned into his memory again.
The worst way to start a man’s day was to round the bend on the river path and see Mayor Larry doing a yoga pose in the buff.
But if Christine was in the buff...
She wouldn’t.
But she might be unknowing, ambushed and flustered.
That would be worth seeing. The thought made him grin. Other than his daughters, not so many things did lately.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Slade called upstairs as he went out the door.
He could see the town square from his front porch. The large, noble oak spread its branches in the center of the square. A few months ago, it had been diseased. Its prognosis grim. Will had brought in a specialist, who swore the tree wasn’t a lost cause. All the residents who’d received marriage proposals beneath the tree were relieved.
Slade couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was just a tree. Trees died, like everything else.
“Morning.” Takata sat out on his front porch on his lounge chair, his greeting just as startling as it had been last night.
Slade paused. “Did you sleep out here?” It looked as if he was wearing the same cargo shorts.
“Young people always leap to conclusions.” Takata gestured he come closer. “Give me a hand up, will you?”
In the morning light, Slade could see the dirt-filled planter he used as an ashtray and how his gray hair had that bed-head quality in back. “You did sleep out here last night.”
“As if I haven’t seen you sleeping on your chaise longue.” The old man grunted as he tried to leverage himself to a standing position.
Slade steadied Takata and helped him to the front door. “The difference is that I can go in at any time. Can you?”
“You don’t know squat.”
Slade was afraid the two of them knew far too much about each other.
“You didn’t turn on the light in Daniel’s bedroom last night. I watched.”
“Like I need to.” Just the thought sent a shiver up his spine.
“You do.” Takata closed the screen door and locked it behind him. “Don’t come in. I’ve got it.”
“You’re welcome,” Slade said under his breath as he hustled down the walk.
He hurried through the town square and along Main Street. Years ago he’d worked as a stock boy at the now-empty grocery store. He gazed in as he passed the crumbling brick front. He’d learned valuable lessons about life in that store. You had to constantly put the effort in to get ahead, and even then, something would happen to set you back.
He turned a corner and crossed over to Adams. Flocks of birds lived by the river, swooping and singing to one another, a chirpy good-morning chorus. He’d never understood what birds were so happy about all the time.
He entered the park. There was the bench where he’d stolen his first kiss. There was the merry-go-round his mother pushed him on until he was dizzy and couldn’t stop laughing. There was the path that led down to the river. The same one he and his father used to take to go fly-fishing every spring.