Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  “You hung your shingle out in town. Old Doc Patton’s place, ’s that right?”

  “That’s right.” Lara smiled, noticing the burn scars above his eyebrows and along his hairline.

  “Will wonders never cease.” He shifted his gaze between the two of them. “Didn’t reckon y’all would be on speaking terms.”

  “We’re not,” Key replied. “But we were hungry at the same time, so here we are. You going to serve us or jaw all night?”

  Barbecue Bobby grinned. “Hell, yeah, I’m going to serve you. Can’t wait to get my hands on your money. What’ll ya have?”

  “Two rib platters. No sauce on mine.”

  “I’ll bring the sauce on the side and y’all can suit yourselves. A couple more beers?”

  “When you bring the dinners.”

  “Sure hope I get sick real soon,” Bobby said, winking at Lara. Then, shaking his head over the vagaries of life, he lumbered back to his bar.

  Key took several long swallows of his beer. Lara sipped hers. “Did you go flying last night?”

  He stopped drinking, but held the spout of the bottle against his lips and idly rubbed it across them. “Why?”

  Lara looked away from his mouth and the beer bottle. “Just wondering.”

  “Yeah, I flew last night. Took out a Piper Cub. Know what that is?” She shook her head, although she now had a vague idea of what one looked like. “Nice little kite if you’re going out for a spin. Why’d you ask?”

  She wouldn’t admit that in order to clear her head after their altercation in the school parking lot she had taken a drive in the country, or that she had watched a foolhardy, but highly skilled, pilot flirt with death and destruction.

  “I was thinking about your ankle,” she said. “Since you’re still favoring it when you walk, I wasn’t sure you could fly.”

  “It still gets sore. But I couldn’t remain grounded any longer or I’d have gone crazy.”

  “Then this hiatus is unusual for you?”

  “Flying’s my business. I fly for hire. For whoever has a job that sounds interesting.”

  “That’s your criteria? Whether it’s interesting?”

  “And well paying,” he said with a grin. “I don’t fly for chicken feed.”

  “You can pick and choose your clients?”

  “Pretty much. Some outfits are top notch. Their planes are slick and expensive. They even enforce a few rules and regulations about how many hours a pilot can fly without sleep and how long it’s been since his last beer. They expect you to fill out all the paperwork required by the FAA.

  “But there are just as many outfits whose planes aren’t as well maintained. Sometimes the landing strips at the destination aren’t ideal. And about their only restriction on a pilot is that he’s able to open one eye.”

  “You’ve flown under those conditions?”

  “ ‘Under those conditions’ I’ve earned some of my best money.”

  Having listened to him talk about it, she decided that money was the least of his motivators. “You love it, don’t you?”

  “Second only to sex. Sometimes it’s even better than sex because there’s no foreplay and airplanes can’t talk.”

  She didn’t take the bait.

  He went on. “Up there, everything’s so clean. There’s no bullshit to cloud your thinking.” He squinted as though searching for the appropriate description. “In the sky, things are uncomplicated.”

  “It looks extremely complicated.”

  “Flying’s a motor skill,” he said with a brusque shake of his head. “You’re either born a flyer or you aren’t. It comes from your gut, not your head. You’re either good or bad. Decisions are either right or wrong. You fuck up, you die. It’s that simple. There’re no gray areas, no time for analysis. Only quick judgment calls that you hope to God are right.”

  “It wasn’t that simple today,” she reminded him.

  “For me it was. I wasn’t involved in the emergency. My job was to pilot the craft. That’s what I did.”

  Lara didn’t believe he was as nonchalant as all that. He had been more emotionally involved with saving Letty Leonard’s life than he wanted to admit and would have been terribly upset if she had died en route to the hospital.

  Barbecue Bobby served their beers and rib platters. On each was a side of succulent baby back ribs, french fries cooked in their jackets, creamy coleslaw, a slice of red onion, two slices of white bread, and a jalapeño pepper the size of a small banana. Key bit into his as though it were a piece of fruit. Just the scent of it brought tears to Lara’s eyes, so she avoided it. The ribs, however, tasted as good as Key had promised. The pork, smoked for hours over mesquite wood, virtually melted off the bone.

  “Did you always want to be a pilot?” Lara asked between bites.

  “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

  “I can’t remember wanting to be anything else.”

  He shot her a wicked grin. “When you were a kid and played doctor, you played it for real, huh?”

  “Actually yes,” she returned with a smile. “Although not as you mean. My friends would eventually tire of the game and wanted to move on to playing ‘teacher’ or ‘movie star’ or ‘model.’ I never wanted to stop bandaging them until they looked like mummies. I took their temperatures with Popsicle sticks and gave them shots with meat basters.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It was a preoccupation my parents desperately hoped I would outgrow. I never did.”

  “They didn’t cotton to you going into medicine?”

  “Not at all. They wanted me to be a lady of leisure who does lunch with friends, holds office in service clubs, and organizes charity functions. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing those things. For a lot of women that represents challenge and fulfillment. But it wasn’t the life for me.”

  “Mama and Daddy couldn’t understand that?”

  “No, Mother and Father couldn’t.” He acknowledged the distinction with raised eyebrows. Lara explained. “I came late in their marriage. In fact I was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise.

  “But, since they were stuck with me, my parents decided to make the best of the situation and plotted the course of my life. Because I didn’t want to follow the path they had carefully chosen, they’ve never let me forget what a burden I’ve been to them. And sometimes I was,” she added with a reflective laugh.

  “I once kept a friend in ‘intensive care’ for hours until her concerned parents came looking for her. They found her in my bedroom breathing through drinking straws that I’d poked up her nostrils. It’s a wonder she didn’t suffocate. I prepped another friend for brain surgery by giving her a very short haircut.”

  Chuckling, Key blotted his mouth with a napkin.

  “Then there was Molly.”

  “What’d you do to her?”

  “I cut her open.”

  He choked on his swig of beer. “You what?”

  “Molly was our next door neighbor’s golden retriever. She was a beautiful dog that I’d played with since I could toddle in the yard between our houses. Molly got sick and—”

  “You operated?”

  “No, she died. Our neighbor was disconsolate and couldn’t bear to bury her the same day she expired. So they wrapped her in plastic and left her in the carriage house overnight.”

  “Good God. You performed an autopsy?”

  “A crude one, yes. I coerced a friend of mine, who claimed to want to be a nurse, to sneak into the carriage house with me. We took along our housekeeper’s kitchen utensils.”

  He laughed, running his hand down his face. “Most girls I knew played with Barbie dolls.”

  Defensively, Lara said, “As long as Molly was feeling no pain, I didn’t see the harm in cutting her open and taking a look inside. I wanted to learn something about anatomy, although at the time I didn’t even know the word.”

  “What happened?”

  “As I began to remove Molly’s organs, my so-called frie
nd started screaming. Hearing the screams, Molly’s owner called the police. They arrived roughly at the same time my parents missed my friend and me. They stormed the carriage house, saw the carnage, and all hell broke loose.

  “Naturally, my parents were horrified and began accusing each other of having undisclosed ‘bad seeds’ in their family trees. The neighbor declared she would never speak to any of us again. My friend’s parents told mine that there was obviously something dreadfully wrong with me and that I should have psychiatric care before I became a real danger to myself and others.

  “My parents agreed. After weeks of expensive and extensive psychiatric sessions, the doctor’s analysis was that I was a perfectly normal eleven-year-old. My only unusual trait was an obsessive interest in human anatomy from a strictly medical viewpoint.”

  “Bet your folks were relieved to know they hadn’t raised a ghoul.”

  “Not really. They continued to believe that my desire to become a doctor was strange. To some extent, they still do.” With her finger she absently traced a bead of condensation that trickled down her beer bottle.

  “My parents are very social. Appearances are important to them, and they resent cogs in their well-oiled lives. I’ve provided many, beginning with my birth and ending—” She raised her eyes to meet his. “Ending with the scene at Clark’s cottage. Like you, Mr. Tackett, they didn’t chasten me for having an affair. Only for making it public knowledge.”

  At that moment, a body landed in the middle of their table.

  Chapter Nine

  Dirty dinner dishes clattered to the floor while rib bones scattered across the grimy planks like clumsy Pick-Up-Sticks. Four bottles of beer toppled. One broke, the others rolled away.

  The man’s weight had tipped the table to a forty-five-degree angle. He was bleeding from his nose. Grunting curses, he struggled to his feet and charged the man who had punched him.

  “Time to go.” Key calmly stood up and encircled Lara’s upper arm. “Your first time at Barbecue Bobby’s ought not to be spoiled with a fight.”

  She was spellbound by the sudden outbreak of violence. As the two young men continued to slug it out, a ring of onlookers formed an arena for them, shouting encouragement. She watched and listened in horror as blood splattered and cartilage crunched.

  “They’re hurting each other!” As Key ushered her toward the door, she tried to dig in her heels. He ignored her attempts and moved inexorably toward the exit, pausing only long enough to hand Bobby a twenty-dollar bill. “Still up to standard. Thanks.”

  “Sure thing. Y’all come back.”

  Bobby didn’t take his eyes off the fight, which had intensified. The fighters were throwing vicious punches and shockingly obscene insults at each other.

  “I should stay,” Lara protested. “They’ll need medical attention. I could help.”

  Key gave the fighters an indifferent backward glance as he pushed her through the door. “They wouldn’t welcome your help, believe me. Especially those two. They don’t appreciate others poking their noses into family affairs.”

  “They’re related?” Lara asked, aghast.

  “Brothers-in-law.” By now they were in the car, pulling out of the parking lot onto the highway. “Lem and Scoony have always been best friends. A few years back, Scoony’s little sister started looking real good to Lem. They began dating. That didn’t set too well with Scoony, having seen Lem in action with other girls. Scoony warned him that if he knocked up his sister he’d beat the shit out of him.”

  He concentrated on passing a loaded logging truck.

  Impatiently Lara asked, “Well, what happened?”

  “Lem knocked her up, and Scoony beat the shit out of him.”

  “And they’ve been enemies ever since?”

  “No, they’re still best friends. Missy, that’s Scoony’s sister, heard that Scoony was out to throttle Lem. She tracked them down—at The Palm, I believe it was—and joined the fracas. Kicked them both where they’re most vulnerable.

  “By the time the sheriff got there, both boys were in tears, cradling their privates, and blubbering like babies. Missy told Lem he could either marry her or she’d permanently emasculate him and told Scoony that if he didn’t like it he could… Well, Missy never has been known for her ladylike language. Anyway, Lem and Missy got married, had a little boy, and everybody was happy.”

  “Happy?” Lara exclaimed. “What about tonight?”

  “Oh, hell, that was nothing. They were just blowing off steam. By now they’re probably buying each other a drink.”

  Lara shook her head in dismay. “This place. These people. I always thought tales of Texas were exaggerations to perpetuate the state’s mystique. Like Barbecue Bobby. What you told me is really the way it happened, isn’t it? A bull rider named Little Pete Pauley set fire to his house, his hair got singed, and that’s how he got his nickname.”

  He looked surprised. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  She gazed through the windshield as if viewing the landscape of an alien planet. Although she would never admit it to him, she felt bewildered and overwhelmed. Would she ever fit in? Had she been deluding herself that she could? Eden Pass was as peculiar and at times as intimidating as a foreign country.

  “It’s so different here,” she said lamely.

  “True enough. Different for you, anyway.” He pointed through the windshield at the approaching lights of town. “For every person living in Eden Pass, there’s a story. I could spend all night with you and still not get around to all of them.”

  She reacted, turning her head quickly. His choice of words had been calculated. She could tell that by the way he was looking at her.

  In a sexy voice he added, “But I don’t guess we’ll be spending any nights together, will we, Doc?”

  “No, we won’t.”

  “Because you and I don’t have a damn thing in common, do we?”

  “Only one thing. Clark. We have Clark in common.”

  At the mention of his brother’s name, his sultry gaze instantly turned cold. His expression changed completely.

  “Well, he and I didn’t have much in common except our two parents and a home address. We loved each other, even liked each other. But Clark obeyed all the rules. I broke them. I grudgingly respected him for being good all the time, and I think he harbored a secret envy for my ability not to give a damn. We were as different as brothers could be and still be kin.” His eyes moved over her. “Where we really differed was our taste in women.”

  “I doubt the two of you would appeal to the same woman,” she said stiffly.

  “Right. It would either be one of us or the other. For instance, if Clark had taken you to dinner tonight, you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of Barbecue Bobby’s. You’d have dressed up fit to kill and gone to the country club. You’d have rubbed elbows with the upper crust, the social climbers, pillars of the community.

  “They’re still drinkers, liars, cheaters, and fornicators, but they’re less honest about their failings than the folks out at Bobby’s.” He angled his head to one side. “Come to think of it, you’d’ve fit in much better out there at the country club with all those other hypocrites.”

  Lara took the insult with equanimity. “What is it about me that really bugs you, Mr. Tackett?” Once today she had slipped and called him by his first name. That had been at the height of the crisis with Letty Leonard. Last names seemed more appropriate now. It reestablished the breach.

  He brought the Lincoln to a halt in her driveway, barely missing the Leonards’ picnic paraphernalia still scattered about.

  Laying his arm on the back of the seat, he turned to face her. “What really bugs me is that the whole world knows you’re a whore. Your own husband caught you whoring. But you don’t own up to what you are. You pretend to be another kind of woman entirely.”

  “What do you suggest I do, brand a letter A on my chest?”

  “I’m sure man
y would pay for the pleasure. Me, for one.”

  “How dare you judge me? You don’t know the first thing about me, and you know even less about my relationship with your brother.” She shoved open the car door. “What do I owe you for today?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to be obligated to you.”

  “You already are,” he said. “You cost Clark everything that was important to him. He’s no longer around to call in the marker, but I am. And when I do, it’s going to be expensive.”

  “You’ve got it backward, Mr. Tackett. I’m the one who’s holding the IOU, and you are the one who’s going to pay.”

  “How do you figure?”

  She gave him a level look. “You’re going to fly me to Montesangre.”

  His arrogant grin collapsed, and for a moment he stared blankly at her. Then he cupped his hand around his ear. “Come again?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Yeah, I heard you, but I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it.”

  He was incredulous. “Does the expression ‘not in this lifetime’ mean anything to you?”

  “You’ll take me there, Mr. Tackett,” she said confidently as she alighted. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Yeah, right, Doc.” He was laughing as he backed the Lincoln out of the driveway. It fishtailed as he sped away.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Heather Winston and her boyfriend, Tanner Hoskins, were entangled on the quilt they’d spread out in the tall grass. Nearby the lazy waters of the lake slapped against the rocky beach. The moon had risen and was reflected on the water.

  Even on the hottest evenings there was always a cool breeze around the lake, which made it more comfortable for the young lovers who parked there. In Eden Pass the lake was the most popular make-out spot. If you went to the lake with someone, everyone assumed the relationship was serious.

  Heather and Tanner had a serious relationship, now four months old. Previously she’d gone out with Tanner’s best friend, who, she came to find out, was fooling around with another girl. Following the much-publicized breakup scene outside the chemistry lab, Tanner went to her house to console her.