But every part of her that wasn’t concerned with saving the town wanted him gone. He was too driven, too complicated, and most of all too damned attractive. She didn’t want to be drawn to him; she didn’t want to feel so . . . twitchy and hyperaware when he was around.

  She sighed, wondering where all this was going to end. She had a bad feeling that when Joe figured out what was going on behind his back—which he inevitably would—there was going to be a lot of yelling. Of which she’d be the main recipient.

  She wondered if they’d ever get to have sex—

  and if she wanted to any longer.

  While she was staring at her rosebushes, lost in thought, Aunt Olive came out of the house in

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  205

  a loose cotton housedress straight out of the fifties. She’d been to Terrea for Old Lady One and now her fairy godmother white hair sat in perfect roller shapes on her head. “What are you doing out here without a sun hat, darling girl?” she said when she saw Emmylou. “You’ll get skin cancer.”

  “Oh, let her be,” Lydia said, emerging in her wake. “She could use some color. Besides, I read that people stay out of the sun too much these days.”

  “Maybe if you read the news instead of the feature pages and the TV listings you’d have an intelligent thought in your head.”

  “Hah. You know what I read on the front page? Scientists are working on a kind of chocolate that, when you eat it, gives you an orgasm.”

  “That would sure save a lot of trouble,” Olive said. “Where do you get that stuff?”

  “They haven’t finished inventing it yet.”

  “Too bad,” Emmylou said, though she had a sneaking suspicion she’d rather have a Joe orgasm than a chocolate one. Probably.

  “Anyhow, we have something we have to tell you,” Aunt Olive said, looking surprisingly un-sure of herself.

  It was so unlike her that Emmylou felt panic clutch her chest. “You’re not sick?” she asked glancing from one to the other.

  “Now see what you did? You made her worry.

  I told you we should keep our mouths shut, but when did you ever listen?” Lydia said.

  “Tell me what?” Emmylou demanded.

  “We think we might have put Joe in the hospital,” Olive said, with a quiver in her voice.

  “No, we don’t think that. You think it. I’m

  206

  Nancy Warren

  telling you Dr. Emmet’s cordial had nothing to do with it.”

  “Dr. Emmet’s cordial? Joe? What are you two talking about?”

  “I guess I’d better explain,” said Olive, pulling at an aging rose bloom until the petals fell into her hand.

  “I guess you’d better ’cause I sure as hell won’t,” Lydia assured her.

  “Dr. Emmet had this cordial he sometimes used to treat a . . . um . . . reluctant member.”

  “Reluctant member,” Emmylou repeated, getting a bad feeling about where this was going.

  “Oh, don’t talk that twitter-pated nonsense, woman. It was an elixir, specially formulated for a man who couldn’t get it up. Trouble in the old erection shop. No lead in the pencil, a salt-petered peter, a—”

  “I get it. Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “And what does this cordial have to do with Joe?”

  Olive fiddled with the petals in her palm and even Lydia kept quiet. A bee flew by as loud as a fighter jet in the heavy silence.

  “Well?”

  “We discovered, when we were working with Dr. Emmet, that the cordial had quite an astonishing effect on people who drank it, even if they didn’t have any problems with the initial excitement phase.”

  “Oh, would you stop being so mealy-mouthed,”

  Lydia said. “The stuff makes you so horny you’d think somebody’d poured itching powder in your pants. Works on everybody, too. Not just men.”

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  207

  “You’re not suggesting . . .” She couldn’t even finish the sentence, she was so horrified.

  “There was only one bottle left. I would have saved it for my birthday.” Lydia glared at Olive.

  “But Olive and me wanted to make Joe fall in love with you and stay right here in Beaverton.

  Well, he’s a good man and he makes a pretty decent living, best we can figure.”

  “How dare you—”

  “Oh, don’t be so coy, girl. Any fool can see from the way you two look at each other that it’s springtime in the Rockies.”

  Emmylou took a breath, tried to remember that Lydia had never taken well to the idea of retiring as a sex healer, and that she truly had been just trying to help. “Let’s get back to the cordial for a moment.”

  “There was one bottle left that Olive found.

  Olive figured we could do the whole town and you and Joe a big favor if we could get the two of you together, since you were doing such a pathetic job on your own.”

  “You didn’t . . .” But she knew from their faces they had.

  “It never caused any problems for anyone before. It was Dr. Emmet’s secret recipe, but it was only some herbs and things. So we opened the last bottle and slipped some to you and Joe. You have to take it with alcohol before it works, see.”

  “That night,” she said, seeing all too clearly.

  “The wine.”

  “Yes.” Olive took up the tale again. “It’s never made anybody sick before, but we’re wondering if maybe it got a little stale.”

  “Stale?” Emmylou sounded like a harpy, but

  208

  Nancy Warren

  she didn’t care. She was livid. “Emmet Beaver’s been dead for thirty years. My God. You don’t even know what’s in that stuff, or what might have gone wrong. You could have killed us both.

  That elixir is obviously rotten.” She slapped a hand to her chest. “Joe could sue us if he finds out. Oh, this is awful.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist. You didn’t get sick. I gave you an extra big dose.”

  “You did what?”

  “Sure. You’ve been hanging around old ladies too long. You ask me, you’re starting to act like one.”

  Olive snorted. “Not like you.”

  “Well, maybe she should act like me. You both should, you’d have a great time. And just so’s you both know, I took a dose of cordial that night and gave some to a . . . friend of mine. It worked fine. Exactly the way it’s supposed to.

  Joe got sick because he works all the time and ate like a pig that night. You ask me, he’d have been better with a dose of bicarbonate of soda than a trip to the hospital.”

  Lydia stuck her nose in the air and walked back toward the house, leaving Olive and Emmylou staring at her retreating figure. Just as she was about to go inside, Olive yelled, “Who are you having sex with?”

  They got back a sly grin tossed over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Emmylou wasn’t sure about that. But at least now she knew why Lydia had been so darned happy the past few days. Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to be around as much as usual.

  Emmylou had been too busy worrying about Joe

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  209

  and visiting the hospital to give much thought to the aunts, but she hadn’t seen much of Lydia.

  “I thought you two went out visiting together that night.”

  “No. We left together but she said she was visiting another friend. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  The sun, which moments ago had felt warm and pleasant, now pounded down on her head.

  On top of everything else, she had to worry about her septuagenarian, oversexed aunt having an affair. “Any idea who she’s seeing?”

  “I know they’re all nuts in this town, but I didn’t think anyone was so far gone as to take up with that old loon.” Olive thought for a moment. “It does make you think that the cordial must have still been good. I mean at our age, honey, sex is like pulling a car up hill with a rope.”

  In spite of her angst that Joe might sue the B&B, she’d drunk heaven knew what concoction of thirty-year-old love potion, and her aunt had tumbled right off the rocker this time, Emmylou had to smile.

  Olive grinned back at her. “Or sticking a marshmallow in a piggy bank.”

  Emmylou choked and then the pair of them started to laugh. “Oh dear, whatever are we going to do?”

  “I for one am going to see if I can find the recipe for that stuff.”

  “You don’t think maybe Lydia made up that story so I’d stop being so mad?”

  Olive shook her head. “Lydia would never lie about sex. If she says she’s getting it, she’s getting it.”

  210

  Nancy Warren

  “You sound almost wistful.”

  “Wistful? Girl, I’m jealous as hell.” She glanced quickly up, her blue eyes speculative.

  “So, did you feel anything?”

  Emmylou felt her skin warming in a way she couldn’t blame on the sun. It was ridiculous to feel shy in front of a former Intimate Healer, but she felt foolish admitting the utter disaster that had been her and Joe’s big night.

  “Sure, I felt something. He’s very attractive and we’re . . . attracted to each other and, um . . .

  I felt . . . excited.”

  “More so than usual?”

  It had been kind of a while. Hard to tell if she’d been more or less excited than usual, especially since that night would forever be colored in her memory with the fact that it had culminated not in mutual ecstasy but in a trip to the ER.

  She had felt excited, though. She’d barely been able to get through dinner, and once they reached the parlor and Joe had kissed her, she’d felt her body flame all over. Even after everything was over and she’d been driving home from the hospital, she’d noticed that her hormones hadn’t died down to normal.

  “Yes,” she said. “Definitely more than usual.”

  Olive sighed. “It was working, then.”

  “But what about Joe? It was awful what happened to him.” She lowered her voice instinctively. She couldn’t imagine how awful it would be if he overheard them.

  “I tend to agree with Lydia. Four of you had some and only one got sick. Seems like it might be a fluke.”

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  211

  “I don’t like the odds. Anyhow, we’re getting rid of the rest of that stuff.”

  “Oh, honey, no. You can’t spoil Lydia’s fun.”

  “What if her lover dies? He’s got to be a se-nior citizen. What if he already has a weak heart and this sends him over the edge? Lydia would be a murderer.”

  Olive paled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Let me have it.”

  “What will you do with it?”

  “Pour it down the toilet.”

  “Hmmph. There’ll be some happy sewer rats tonight.” Olive shook her white head. “And I can guarantee you their population is going to spike.”

  “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  As they made their way upstairs to Olive’s room, they passed Lydia coming down. “Where are you off to?”

  Lydia wore lipstick and one of her clingy silk dresses. She looked like someone’s very sexy grandmother.

  “Have you got that stuff ? That potion?”

  Emmylou demanded.

  “There was still half a bottle in my room,”

  Olive said.

  “It’s still there,” Lydia said. Then frowned.

  “What are you planning to do with it?”

  “Flush it.”

  “What?” Lydia gasped. “But that is the last of the famous Dr. Emmet Beaver’s cordial. It should be donated to science. In fact,” she said, warming to her theme, “there should be test subjects who’d swallow the potion and report on how it worked. It could be studied by modern science.

  212

  Nancy Warren

  We could be famous. Maybe we could make enough money to save this town, have you ever thought of that, missy?” She struck a dramatic pose, forgetting she was on the stairs. She wobbled alarmingly for a moment, then grabbed the banister and intoned, “The Town That Sex Saved.”

  She cackled, delighted with herself. “We could have our own reality show. Maybe that Simon Cowell would come. He’s cute.”

  “Yeah, and you’d be voted off the show first.”

  “Oh no, I wouldn’t. I,” she said haughtily,

  “am a character.”

  Emmylou felt like there was too much going on for her to ever catch up. She concentrated on one thing. “Where are you going?”

  “On a date.”

  Lydia obviously didn’t want to give any more details and Emmylou decided not to press. Not much could happen to a person in Beaverton.

  Besides, since everyone knew everybody else’s business, she’d soon have the name of the boyfriend. Emmylou only had one qualm. “He’s not married, is he?”

  “I have never been a home-wrecker, young lady. And I never will be.” She turned to glide regally down the stairs, then fell off her dignity long enough to turn and say, “Not that I didn’t have plenty of opportunities.”

  Emmylou and Olive continued upstairs. When they got to Olive’s room, she fished out the bottle from the back of her clothes closet. Emmylou had expected a dusty old beaker of some sort, but in fact the bottle looked like a regular liquor bottle made of clear glass. There was a cork stopper.

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  213

  It was slightly less than half full of a murky yellow liquid, and there was some sediment on the bottom.

  “Was it sealed in any way?”

  “Of course. The bottles were always sealed with wax.”

  Gingerly, Emmylou eased out the cork and sniffed at the concoction. It smelled surprisingly pleasant, sort of like chamomile tea. She ought to toss it, but what if she was wrong? Who was she to destroy the last of Emmet Beaver’s cordials? Especially when she had empirical evidence that it was effective. Though possibly dangerous to the health.

  Lydia’s words suddenly came back to her.

  “You know, Lydia was right,” she said to Aunt Olive.

  “Impossible.”

  “About the cordial. This should be studied.

  Dr. Hartnett has been doing research on how people in Beaverton live longer and don’t get sick as often. He’s had a passing interest in Emmet Beaver’s work since he first learned of the old sanitarium. Maybe he’d like to study this. He may also be able to tell us once and for all if this stuff is what made Joe sick.” She nodded briskly. “I’m going to take it to him.”

  “You sure you don’t want to keep a little for yourself and Joe?”

  “Positive. I don’t think the associations of the other night are pleasant enough that either of us wants to take another chance.”

  “Too bad.”

  “And just so nobody gets any ideas, I’m putting this in the safe.”

  214

  Nancy Warren

  After she’d locked the cordial away, she called Gord Hartnett and told him she wanted to see him.

  “Are you sick?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “You’re never sick.”

  “No. I’ve . . . found something relating to Emmet Beaver’s research that I think might interest you.”

  “Great. Tomorrow’s a pretty easy day. Why don’t you come by the office in the morning.”

  “Will do. And thanks for all you did for Joe.”

  “Joe needs what I found in this town. Only he doesn’t know yet how much he needs it.”

  “He sure could relax a little.”

  “Have you heard of the slow movement?”

  “You mean those gourmet types from Italy and France who celebrate a slowly prepared and leisurely eaten meal?”

  “Yes. It started with that, but there’s a whole movement now into living life in the slow lane.

  That’s what Beaverton is. America’s slow lane.”

  “Some days it feels like the rest stop.”

  He laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Right. That done, she could turn her attention to tonight’s cuisine. It wasn’t part of her regular service to cook dinner for her clients, and it certainly wasn’t her responsibility to cook them a special diet supplied by the hospital di-etician. On the other hand, she felt some responsibility for almost killing the man while under her roof. And all in the name of love.

  The trick, she suspected, was going to be cooking something healthy and suitable for Joe to eat while not letting on to him that he was getting a special diet. She glanced at the sheet

  TURN LEFT AT SANITY

  215

  of suggestions and figured she was going to have to get very creative with fresh herbs.

  And, unfortunately, in order to disguise the fact that Joe was on a special diet, she and the aunts were going to have to join him. Okay, so the aunts’ taste buds weren’t as sharp as they’d once been, and they liked simple food, but she wasn’t sure that fish baked in milk was going to go over big.

  She could bake a chicken, but the last time she’d tried that it hadn’t ended up so success-fully. For all she knew, Joe had developed an aversion to baked chicken for life.

  She was still trying to decide what to cook her guest when the man himself came downstairs.

  He was a little heavy-eyed from recent sleep but otherwise looked as good as ever, with an expression in his eyes that made her warm all over.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling very much alone with him and suddenly remembering the steamy parking lot kiss. Maybe there was still a little of Dr. E.’s cordial remaining in her system, for she responded to the warm expression in Joe’s eyes by going from zero to a hundred on the sexual desire scale in under two seconds.

  “Hi,” he said back, giving her a crooked smile.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Well enough to take my date to the play.”

  Olive walked in at that moment, her hair so full of curlers it looked like a mechanical device. “Oh, good. You’re coming to the play. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Nobody can act, sing, or dance but we all have a hell of a good time doing it.”

  “Joe should be resting.”

  216

  Nancy Warren

  “From a tummy ache?”

  Joe laughed. “Really, I want to go. There’s not much I can do until I get my cell phone back.” He glanced at Emmylou. “Tomorrow morning.”