The Trouble With Valentine's Day by Rachel Gibson Page A

tribute to the original Hammer, Dave Schultz.
    And tonight he was going to a group social that he knew consisted of old women so he could hear his mother’s poetry. He only prayed this one wouldn’t be as bad as her poem about nut-hungry squirrels.
    The Gospel poetry social started right at seven with a discussion about binding the group’s poems and selling them at this summer’s Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed and Toilet Toss. This year’s social director, Ada Dover, stood at a pulpit in the front of the grange conducting business.
    Chairs had been set up inside the long room. There were about twenty-five ladies . . . and Rob. He’d purposely come in a half hour late and sat in the empty back row by the door. When the time came, he figured he could make a quick getaway.
    â€œWe can’t afford a booth,” someone pointed out.
    From several chairs up, he saw his mother raise her hand. “We can sell them in the Mountain Momma Crafters’ booth. Most of us belong to the Mountain Momma Crafters anyway.”
    â€œI bet the poems will sell faster than last year’s Kleenex cozies.”
    Rob pushed up the sleeves of his ribbed gray sweater and wondered if a Kleenex cozy was like those knitted things his grandmother used to put on her extra roll of toilet paper. If he remembered right, hers had lots of lace and a doll’s head stuck on the top.
    The back door by his right shoulder opened and he glanced up to see Stanley Caldwell, looking like he’d come for a root canal. Along with the fridge night air, his granddaughter blew in behind him, looking even less pleased than her grandfather. Stanley spotted Rob and moved toward him. “Do you mind if we sit next to you?” Stanley asked.
    Rob glanced up past Stanley to Kate, at her hair curling about the shoulder of her peacoat and her glossy pink lips. Her attention was directed at Ada, and she was doing a good job of pretending he didn’t exist. “Not at all,” he answered as he stood.
    Stanley moved to the third seat and stopped, leaving the seat next to Rob free. Kate gave her grandfather a hard stare as she stepped past Rob. The shoulder of her coat stirred the air an inch in front of Rob’s sweater as she brushed by him. Her white cheeks were pink from the cold, and the scent of her cool skin filled his chest.
    For one brief instant, her gaze met his, and the wealth of her dislike for him filled her rich brown eyes. Her obvious feelings toward him should have mattered, but they didn’t. For some reason that he couldn’t begin to comprehend, he was attracted to Kate Hamilton more than he had been to any other woman in a long time. He didn’t kid himself. It was sex. Nothing more and competently understandable, given the way they’d met. He didn’t feel bad about his purely sexual attraction. Not that he would have anyway. Every time he saw her, he saw the woman who’d propositioned him. The woman who’d wanted to show him her bare ass.
    They took their seats and Stanley leaned across his granddaughter to say, “Never thought I’d see you here.”
    Rob turned his attention from Kate to her grandfather. “My mother’s reading her poem tonight. I didn’t have a choice. What’s your excuse?”
    â€œKatie blew my alibi and Regina’s been calling all day, threatening to pick me up and drive me here herself.” He pointed to Kate. “I made Katie come ’cause it’s all her fault.”
    Kate folded her arms beneath her breasts and her lips pursed a little, but she didn’t say anything.
    Stanley shrugged out of his shearling jacket and laid it across his lap. “Have I missed anything?”
    Rob shook his head. “No.”
    â€œDamn.”
    Stanley sat back, and Rob took another long look at Kate, starting at the top of her hair. She was clearly irked, but he didn’t care. He’d always been a big fan of true redheads, and