What could he say? It was another slow one. He took her lightly in his arms and led her out on the floor.
Immediately he wished he’d figured out a way to turn her down gently and sit this one out. Through the whole dance, she kept trying to get in closer to him. Once, she even pretended to trip so she could plaster her grown-up little body all over the front of him. She smelled of bargain-brand cigarettes. And when she looked up at him, he wondered what she was on. Her blue eyes were black holes, the irises swallowed by the dilated pupils.
Sissy, evidently, had changed a lot in the past decade or so—and not for the better. Brett wondered that his brother had hired her to work for him.
But then again, maybe Brand was only to trying to make up for whatever had gone so wrong between him and Sissy’s big sister, Charlene, all those years ago. Brett could understand how Brand might want make amends, to help Sissy out a little, so he and Charlene could let bygones be bygones.
Back in the day, Brand had been crazy-wild for Charlene….
Not a moment too soon for Brett, the dance with Sissy came to an end. He took her by her tiny cinched-in waist and set her firmly away from him. “Sissy, you take care now.”
He turned and left her, fast, on the creepy off chance that she might throw herself at him again and demand the next dance, too.
He didn’t want to dance with Charlene Cooper’s strange little sister. He wanted to dance with his wife, damn it. And he’d lost sight of Angie while trying to keep the scary new Sissy from crawling all over him.
The hall was pretty full by then, the floor packed with whirling couples. Folks who weren’t dancing were perched on the built-in benches along the walls, or hanging around the refreshment tables up by the stage. Brett circled the room, waving at friends and neighbors as he passed them, weaving his way through the crush.
He found his brothers not far from the doors to the balcony. Bowie was braced against a wall, head down, sagging as if someone had hung him out to dry. Brand was right beside him, saying something in his ear.
Brett called to them and Brand glanced over. Bowie slowly lifted his head. Those drooping eyes of his said it all: hammered. Again.
Well, at least Glory had shown the good sense to stay home tonight. Without Glory here to shout at, Bowie was a lot less likely act like an ass. He’d probably just drink until he fell over. After that, if he was lucky, some kind soul would make sure he got home and into bed.
Pitiful. Sick. The guy was out of control and in serious need of an intervention. Brett made a mental note to talk to Ma about that.
“Seen Angie?” Brett shouted, in hopes they could hear him over the pounding bass guitar.
Brand shook his head. Bowie rolled those bloodshot eyes and drooped against the wall again.
So okay, Brett thought, he’d give the balcony a try.
She wasn’t out there. He went back inside.
As he stepped in through the open doors, he spotted her—up by the stage with some guy he’d never seen before. Momentarily, the press of dancing couples blocked the two from his sight, and then, as the dancers moved on, revealed them again.
Angie didn’t look happy. She was frowning and shaking her head.
The guy beside her wore an open flannel shirt, sagging khakis and a shifty expression. Brett’s first angry thought was, Jody? Could this be the bastard who’d hurt her so bad?
But no. Angie had said Jody was a big guy, a biker type. This guy was maybe five-eight and scrawny. Plus, Angie seemed more annoyed than anything. From what she’d told Brett, she might have any number of highly emotional reactions if she ran into Jody again.
But mere annoyance? No way.
Brett relaxed a little.
The guy said something. Angie kept shaking her head. More couples danced by. When they passed, the skinny guy had Angie by the arm.
At the sight of that scrawny creep’s hand on his wife, something dark and dangerous slammed through Brett. Swearing under his breath, dodging dancing couples as he went, he advanced on them.
Angie yanked free. Her lips moved. Brett couldn’t hear the words, but he thought she said, “Please don’t.” She turned to walk away.
The guy wouldn’t give up. He trotted along behind her, wrinkled shirttail flying, trying to grab her again.
Brett kept moving their way, the blood spurting hot and fast through his veins. He wanted to hit something—specifically, the S.O.B. in the flannel shirt who was harassing his wife.
She whirled on the guy, and that time she got right in his face. Whatever she said, it did the job. She held up her ring finger and shook it at him. The guy blinked, stepped back—and then turned and slunk off, looking like nothing so much as a mangy, whupped dog.
Brett froze in midstride twenty feet from his wife and let the hot flood of protective rage inside him fade down to something less urgent—but no less disturbing.
He’d been out of control. Flat-out, ugly, bust-your-face-in furious. If Angie hadn’t gotten rid of that idiot before Brett got to him, Brett would have punched the fool’s lights out, possibly even started a regular Bravo-style brawl, right here in the town hall.
He would have popped that guy a good one—and not thought twice about it.
What the hell was the matter with him?
Angie could handle a guy like that with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. She had handled him, efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. And even if it had come down differently, even if it had been necessary for Brett to step in and help her out, there was no damn sense in him acting like his crazy, dead dad or his wild-man baby brother.
Brett had always prided himself on how he never descended to testosterone-driven crap like that.
Brett was a reasonable man.
He wasn’t the caveman type.
Or at least, he’d never been before. Until tonight. Over Angie.
She turned and saw him, her sweet face lighting up, soft mouth lifting in that unforgettable dimpled smile. Something hot and wild rose within him. Something every bit as dangerous as his raging fury of a moment before.
It hit him. Right there on the dance floor. The hard truth came at him swift, sure and shattering as a wrecking ball.
He was wild for Angie. Crazy for Angie…
All he’d wanted was a happy, settled, normal life. And here he was, barely married a week, a marriage that was supposed to be sane and mutually supportive and completely free of all the craziness that came with romance and passionate love…
Married a week…and he had gone and fallen, head-over-heels, for his wife.
How could this have happened?
And what in hell was he going to do about it?
He had no answer to either question.
She held out her hand to him. He took it, felt the heat, the dangerous power of his desire for her, as it radiated through him. A slow song started up.
He pulled her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder.
They danced into the center of the crowd. Only then did he whisper, “Who was that skinny guy?”
She sighed. “Joel, I think he said his name was. From Modesto—and I do hope he goes back there soon. I danced with him once and then he wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to wave my wedding ring in his face to finally get rid of him.”
“I saw that.” Brett held her closer, breathing in the scent that belonged only to her. “Good job.”
“I felt a little sorry for him. I mean, he did seem kind of lonely…”
“Stay the hell away from him.” He tried to make it sound teasing—but it wasn’t.
She nodded against his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m having nothin’ to do with him—and I saw you with Sissy. That girl was on you like chrome on a trailer hitch. Brett, it’s so sad. I mean, she’s hardly more than a kid….”
“Yeah, well. She’s not the same little Sissy we all used to know.”
“Stay the hell away from her.” She imitated his tone of a moment before.
“Not a problem. She’s
way too young for me. And I’ve never been partial to that whole safety-pin thing—and, most of all…”
She lifted her head and pressed her lips to his neck. Heat sizzled through him. She whispered, “Here comes the good part….”
He nuzzled the tender shape of her ear. “I could never look twice at her. Or at any other woman. Because none of them is you.”
Chapter Seven
Angie didn’t really understand how it happened—or even what, exactly, had happened. But after the spring dance, things weren’t the same between her and Brett.
Something was…missing. She just couldn’t quite put her finger on what.
Then again, maybe it was only her imagination. After all, he still reached for her with the same urgency and hunger as he had the first time they made love. When he kissed her, when he touched her, when he moved so slow and sweet inside her…her doubts blew away. When he loved her, her fears would ease. That vague sense of loss would leave her. She would know then that nothing was wrong, that her life had never been so right.
Then again…
But no.
She was sure it was nothing. They had a wonderful life together and everything was fine.
The late-spring days passed, each one a little longer and warmer than the one before it.
Brett said that Chastity had had a long talk with Bowie. The talk must have done some good; miracle of miracles, Bowie actually seemed to be straightening up. He cut the drinking way back and the second week in June, he got a job—tending bar at the St. Thomas, of all things.
The following Monday, during their weekly lunch date at the diner, Angie heard from Glory that folks in town were taking bets on how long Bowie would last, both on the job and also until he got smashed and got up to his old tricks again.
“That’s so cruel,” Angie told Brett at home over dinner that night. “The poor guy’s doing his best to make a change in his life and everybody in town is betting on when he’s going to blow it.”
Brett only shrugged. “What’s that old saying? Life’s hard. Then you die.” He turned his attention back to his plate.
Several seconds ticked by. Angie thought how the silence between them didn’t feel as comfortable as it had in the past.
But that was silly.
Wasn’t it?
And on second thought, maybe it wasn’t the quality of the silence so much, as it was how they didn’t talk the way they did at first.
She tried again. “Still, though. Sometimes I think Bowie’s just a guy who does what everyone expects of him—which is to mess up, over and over again.”
Brett sent her a cool and distant glance. “It’s no one’s fault but his own that Bowie’s screwed things up for himself.”
“I didn’t say it was anyone’s fault, I just said, it seems to me that people only make things worse by betting on how and when the poor guy’s going to fail.”
“How many times have we been through this?”
She truly didn’t get his attitude. What had she said? She wanted to snap at him, to tell him to stop being a condescending jerk, but she knew that wouldn’t help. With effort, she kept her tone level and reasonable. “You mean, how many times have we talked about how everybody’s betting that Bowie will fail? This is the first, as far as I recall.”
“I don’t mean about Bowie, specifically. I mean about the Flat. I mean about how, in a small town like ours, you’ve got to learn to take the good with the bad.”
“Well, I understand that. I do. I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. And it doesn’t matter.”
She stiffened. “It doesn’t matter what I say?”
“Yes, it does matter what you say,” he replied with a patronizing kind of patience that set her teeth on edge. “It doesn’t matter that people are thoughtless and even downright cruel.”
“I don’t agree. People give what they get. If all they get is cruelty, well, how else can you expect them to behave in return?”
“Angie, the point is, either a man gets on with it and gets his life in order, or he doesn’t. If he blows it all to hell, it’s his fault and his alone.”
“Whew.” She set down her fork. “That’s harsh.”
“It’s called reality. We all have to live with it.”
“Maybe so. But I’m not going to just sit by and say nothing. Anybody starts running Bowie down when I’m around, predicting how he’ll screw up, they’re going to get an earful from me.”
“Go ahead. Tell them how wrong they are.”
“I intend to.”
“It’s pointless. But go right ahead.”
She stared at him across the table, thinking how grim he looked, how lately he seemed to be changing. And not for the better.
He frowned back at her. “What?” She swallowed, suddenly nervous, not knowing quite how to say it. Until he prodded again, “What?”
“Well, is there something…wrong? Something I’m doing that’s bothering you? Something about me you really don’t like?”
“No,” he said. “To all three questions.”
She waited for him to ask why. When he didn’t, she told him anyway. “You’re just…. different. I don’t know. As if something’s eating at you. Are you sure there’s nothing?”
His gaze slid away. When it swung back to meet hers, his eyes had softened. He even reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “Sorry.” His thumb brushed the notch between her thumb and forefinger, sliding underneath until he was rubbing her palm.
All at once she was breathless, her blood somehow thicker, her pulse more insistent as it pushed through her veins. “Not fair,” she accused on a torn breath.
His thumb traced a secret pattern in the hidden heart of her palm. “We should eat dinner naked.”
She laughed then, low and huskily, and told herself her fears were totally groundless. There was nothing wrong between them. They disagreed now and then, on various issues. So what? Disagreement was healthy. Perfectly normal.
And what were they talking about, anyway?
Oh, yeah. She repeated in a musing tone, “Eating dinner naked…”
Those dark eyes of his sparkled with naughty promises of future delights. “What do you think?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Too distracting. We’d never eat. We’d waste away to nothing.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s always saying ‘what a way to go’?”
“Yeah, but, well, over time, we’d just get used to it—to being naked at the table. It would get so it wasn’t distracting at all.”
He wore a puzzled frown. “And that would be bad?”
“No. It would be sad. Very sad.” Reluctantly she pulled her hand out from under his and back to her side of the table. “Now, eat your pork chop.”
“And then what?”
“Eat your peas, too. And your potato.”
“Yes, Mother. And then?”
She slipped off her sandal and reached out with her foot, catching his cuff with her toe, wiggling that toe upward, so she could rub his hard, hairy leg with it. “Whatever you want.”
His plate was clean in record time.
Angie’s vague uneasiness about her relationship with Brett never completely went away.
He did seem…different. Distracted, or something. Like he had a secret he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—share. They really didn’t talk the way they used to, did they? And sometimes she’d find him watching her and she’d wonder what in the world he might be thinking.
She’d ask him.
And he’d say something teasing. “I’m thinking how gorgeous you are….”
Or something evasive. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. My mind’s a total blank.”
Never once did he admit that something was going on with him. So she stopped asking. She didn’t want to be a nag.
Friday night, four nights after they disagreed over Bowie, they went out to the Nugget after work. They’d just settled into their b
ooth when the door to the street opened.
And in walked Joel whatever-his-last-name-was, the skinny guy from Modesto who’d given Angie grief at the spring dance. He spotted Angie and he waved. Angie thought he looked kind of sheepish, kind of sorry for how he’d behaved before, and he had on a clean shirt, buttoned this time, even tucked in. She almost waved back, just to signal she was willing to let bygones be bygones.
But on second thought, no. She didn’t know him. He might be the type to interpret her waving at him as an invitation to start hassling her all over again.
Brett saw her glance toward the door. He turned to follow the direction of her gaze. “Be right back.” His voice was calm.
Too calm. An absolute stillness seemed to emanate from him, a stillness with a promise of swift violence to come.
Brett about to pick a fight?
Uh-uh. Fighting wasn’t his style. Bowie picked fights. And Buck used to, in the old days. Brand might even mix it up now and then, with enough provocation.
But not Brett. Brett was the reasonable one. He never lost his temper. His weapons of choice were his clear head and quick wit.
Still, dread stole through Angie. “Brett…” She reached to stop him, but he was already up out of the booth and striding toward Joel.
Angie clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screeching frantically, “Brett! Don’t!” She watched her husband march right up to the poor guy—and whisper in his ear.
That was it. A whisper. And a brief one, at that.
Joel stiffened and staggered back, though Brett hadn’t so much as touched him. And then he pivoted on his heel, flung the door wide and got the heck out of there.
Nadine, strolling over with a menu in her hand, grumbled, “What’s going on, Brett? You scaring my customers away?”
“Not me. Looks like the guy suddenly decided he had a pressing appointment.”
With a shrug, Nadine dropped the menu in the stand by the door and went to pick up an order. Brett rejoined Angie in the booth.
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
He growled, “What?”
She gulped. “Um. Nothing…” Who was this person sitting across from her? Surely not the levelheaded, easygoing man she had married. She grabbed one of the menus Nadine had left on the table and studied it for all she was worth.
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