Moonglow, Texas

by Mary McBride

  “Hand me those crutches, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to go out to the trailer and get something, that’s why.”

  “I’ll go,” she said. “What do you want? A beer?”

  Dan felt a shameful anger rip through him. It wasn’t even noon, for God’s sake, and she figured he was ready for a bender. What he wanted from the trailer was his gun. He leaned sideways and snagged the crutches himself.

  Just as he managed to get them comfortably under his arms, the phone rang. Molly jumped as if she’d just put her foot down on a hot coal, then simply stood there, staring at the ringing hunk of plastic.

  “Are you going to get that?” Dan asked.

  “I wasn’t expecting a call,” she said nervously, stepping back to put a little more distance between herself and whoever was on the other end of the line. She had every reason to fear the terrorists of the Red Millennium. Did she know that most or all of them were dead?

  Dan made a mental note to pick up a caller ID box just as soon as he could get into town. It surprised him that she didn’t already have one, actually. But then maybe the powers that be in the service had told her and assured her that she was safe.

  “Do you want me to answer it?” he asked on the seventh ring.

  “No. That’s all right. I’ll get it.” She approached the phone as if it were a rattlesnake. “It’s probably a wrong number, anyway. Nobody ever calls me.”

  Somebody, baby, Dan thought as he watched her pick up the receiver and whisper a tentative hello. Her whole body relaxed then and she turned to him, smiling.

  “It’s Raylene.”

  “Good. Give her my love,” he said, gripping the crutches and stabbing his way toward his temporary home.

  Inside the trailer he figured that the only way to get his Glock secretly into the house was to put it in a gym bag. As long as he was doing that, he tossed in his toothbrush, too. It wasn’t such a bad idea, spending a night or two close enough to Molly to do her some good if it came to that. It wouldn’t. But what the hell? Being close to Molly had an appeal all by itself.

  “Raylene wanted us to join her and Buddy tonight at the Sit and Sip,” she said when he reentered the living room. “I told her we couldn’t because of your ankle.”

  “Good move.”

  “She said…well, wait a minute.” Molly stood up, slung out a hip and expanded her chest about three inches. “Take care of that poor baby, hon. You hear? We’ll all go two-stepping some other time. Danny used to do a pretty hot two-step. My Lord.” Molly’s Texas twang dissolved into giggles.

  “Believe it or not, I did used to do a pretty hot two-step,” he said, trying to juggle the gym bag and the crutches. “Don’t let my current situation fool you.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t,” Molly said. “What’s the bag for, Handy Andy?”

  “I’m going to sleep in here for a couple nights, if you don’t mind. That way, when I wake, screaming in pain, you won’t have so far to run.”

  He was prepared for one of her sharp little barbs, but instead she gave him a look of such sweet sympathy, such warm concern, all of it tinged with such innocent, ineffable longing, that if he hadn’t been on crutches, he might very well have fallen to his knees and begged her to marry him right here, right now.

  “You can sleep in my bed,” she said, sending his entire nervous system into a momentary frenzy before she added, “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch.”

  “I don’t want to put you out, Molly.”

  “You’re not. I’m really happy for the company.” She gave a little shrug. “I probably shouldn’t say so, it makes me sound like such a jerk, but I really don’t have any friends here.”

  “Why not?” Dan could have kicked himself. He knew why not. A secret past and an unknown future, that’s why. Plus the service had probably given her that song and dance about not trusting anybody. She probably shouldn’t have trusted him.

  “Maybe I’m shy.” She tried to laugh. “Socially challenged, I guess.”

  “I can fix that,” he said.

  “You can?”

  “Sure. Pick up that phone and call Raylene. Tell her we’ll meet them at the Sit and Sip at eight o’clock tonight.”

  “But what about your ankle?”

  “Well, it could just be a blessing in disguise, you know.” He winked. “This way I can just sit and sip, and I won’t have to two-step with Raylene.”

  Dan could still drive since it was his left foot that was injured, and the black BMW pulled into the gravel lot of the Sit and Sip in a magnificent cloud of sunset-colored dust.

  Molly had taken pains to dress properly for the honky-tonk, even knowing that whatever she wore would pale in comparison with Raylene’s outfit. Dan told her she looked nice when she slid into the passenger seat, but when his eyes lit on Raylene in her spandex bottom and sequined top, he seemed to be registering more than merely “nice” on his compliment meter. On a scale of one to ten, Raylene was a 36DD. My Lord, Molly thought.

  “Well, there you are,” the hairdresser exclaimed. “We thought you’d never get here, didn’t we, Buddy? You remember Danny Shackelford, don’t you? And this is my friend, Molly Hansen.”

  While Dan and Buddy shook hands, Molly just stood there, slightly thunderstruck by Raylene’s use of the word friend. Did the outgoing, invincible hairdresser actually think of her that way? She longed to believe it was true, more than just Raylene being Raylene. She needed a friend now, more than ever before.

  There was a band on the stage, playing at full country tilt, and no sooner had they all sat down than Raylene was dragging Buddy onto the dance floor.

  “You ought to be thanking your lucky stars you sprained that ankle, Danny,” she called back gaily over her sequined shoulder, “or else I’d be dancing your feet right down to the bone.”

  “You see,” Dan said, his lips close to Molly’s ear. “I told you it was a blessing.”

  When the waitress came to take their order, it was no surprise that she, too, remembered Dan and had her own little bit of Shackelford lore to relate. With the music so loud, it was almost impossible to hear, and Molly only picked up scattered words such as motorcycle and keg and, last but not least, sheriff.

  It did surprise her, though, when Dan ordered a club soda with a twist of lemon. She decided he was simply being cautious after taking those pain pills. It was probably a good idea.

  An hour later, after both Raylene and Buddy had given her lessons in two-stepping, Molly felt like a sweaty mess as she followed Raylene into the ladies’ room.

  “My Lord,” the hairdresser exclaimed when she looked into the mirror. “I think my hair’s turned two shades darker. You think all that cigarette smoke could do that, Molly? Turn a person’s hair from pink to purple?”

  “It’s probably just the lighting in here,” Molly said, digging in her handbag for her lipstick and coming up with a roll of mints. “Raylene, could I borrow a little bit of that Strawberry Frappé of yours?”

  Even as Molly asked, Raylene was applying it liberally. She answered with her lips pressed to her teeth. “Aw, honey, I don’t know why you’d even bother. I’ve been watching you and Danny. If ever I’ve seen kissing on a man’s mind, it’s on his. You’d only get strawberry all over that cute Hawaiian shirt of his.”

  “Kissing?”

  “Yeah. You know. That’s when two people put their lips together and start talking without any words.” She rolled her eyes. “Kissing, Molly. My Lord. How long has it been, girl?”

  “A long time,” Molly admitted.

  “I guess so if you can’t see what I’m seeing.” Raylene blotted her lips, then added another layer of color. “You take my word for it. Your dry spell has come to a screeching halt, honey.” She closed one dark-lashed eye in a wink. “Tonight’s the night, if you know what I mean.”

  Oh, God. No, she didn’t know exactly what Raylene meant, and Molly did a panicky search for feet in the nearby stalls in the hope that t
he whole town didn’t know what Raylene meant, either. Luckily, no feet were visible.

  “For pity’s sake, Raylene,” she said, trying to sound worldly and offhand. “The man’s got a sprained ankle.”

  Raylene wound her lipstick back in its plastic tube, then snapped the cap on with authority. “Molly, I hope you never meet a man who lets a little sprained ankle keep him down. And I hope you catch my drift.” She gave herself a final, critical once-over in the mirror, seemed pleased with what she saw, then linked her arm through Molly’s. “Well. You ready for another dancing lesson?”

  “I hope you don’t believe half of these stories people are telling about me,” Dan said on their way home from the Sit and Sip.

  “They’re not true?”

  “Well, if you halve the quantity of the booze, and double the times Miss Hannah slapped me up the side of my head, then, yeah, they’re basically true.”

  “Speaking of drinks,” she said, “how was the club soda?”

  “Like creek water. But I didn’t know what was in those pills you made me swallow, so I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  What he meant was he didn’t know if her mysterious caller might emerge from the shadows around the dance floor and two-step Molly into oblivion. Sobriety was a necessary evil at the moment.

  “You should probably take another one before you go to bed,” she said. “How’s the ankle?”

  “Tolerable.”

  Actually, it hurt like hell and the rest of him wasn’t all that comfortable, either, after an evening of watching Molly out on the dance floor, mentally undoing the buttons on her blouse and imagining his fingers running over the hidden scar halfway up her leg.

  It isn’t going to happen, pal, Dan kept telling himself. You read her file. What about the fiancé she left languishing in New York? Once she settles in to her new identity, she’ll find a way to reestablish the connection. It was only a matter of time. If she looks at you now with that banked fire in her eyes, just take it for what it is. Getting it on with the handyman. Passing time with the help until her real life resumes.

  “I had fun tonight.” She leaned her head back on the seat. “Thanks for taking me, Dan.”

  “You’ll get the hang of small-town life after a while. Moonglow’s not such a bad place.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.” She turned her head toward him, and he couldn’t help but notice a hopeful shine in her eyes. “Do you think you’ll stick around? I mean, after you’re finished with my house?”

  “Probably not.” He turned into her driveway, hoping his terse response had put an end to whatever she was wishing for that had anything to do with him. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”

  While Molly worked the new key in the new lock on the back door, Dan glanced at his trailer. Moonlight filtered through the live oak, dappling the Airstream’s dented aluminum skin. For a minute it seemed hard to believe he actually lived in what he had come to think of as his movable squalor. For a moment it was utterly depressing to know it was only a matter of time before he was in residence there again.

  It seemed so natural, following Molly into the house, watching her flip on lights and seeing her hair turn different shades of gold, depending on the wattage of the bulbs.

  “I changed the sheets,” she said, gesturing toward her bedroom. “And I put some extra pillows out in case you want to elevate your foot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The clock is kind of noisy. Just put it in the drawer of the nightstand if it bothers you too much.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well…”

  Only a blind man could have missed the longing that turned her light blue eyes a deeper shade. Dan readjusted his crutches and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

  “Good night, Molly.”

  He had a beaut of a nightmare, no doubt induced by the club soda he’d consumed. He and his partner, Carrie Gray, had just taken over escort duty from Deputies Underhill and Roarke. Hector Morales, their witness, was finishing his room service breakfast of steak and eggs, and in no particular hurry to put on the Kevlar vest that would protect his traitorous heart between the hotel and the federal courtroom where he was due to testify in a little over an hour.

  As dreams tended to do, the scene shifted suddenly and they were walking down a long corridor, Carrie and Morales in front, Dan just a step or two behind them, his right hand itching as it always did in situations like this, and his brain measuring distances, delineating shadows, processing everything and labeling it threat or inconsequential, friend or foe.

  Carrie pressed the down button on the elevator with the pad of her index finger, her long nail making a little clacking sound on the brass plaque behind the lit button. Then all of them—Dan and Morales and Carrie—gazed up at the light panel overhead.

  Was that his mistake? Was that the moment when he let down his guard and all of his instincts failed him?

  The elevator door slid open. Dan never saw the men, only the muzzle flashes—fierce, perpetual flames—from their semiautomatics. At such close range, those rifles worked with the efficiency of a Veg-O-Matic. In a heartbeat, Carrie and Morales were no longer identifiable even as they fell.

  In this edition of the dream, Dan took a bullet in his ankle rather than his leg, but he continued to empty his gun into the open elevator and he put a dozen holes in the bronzed doors after they swooshed closed.

  They said a woman fainted in the lobby when those doors opened on the two dead Colombians inside.

  They also said that Dan was crying when the first NYPD cops arrived on the scene. Babbling incoherently was written in his file.

  But that was never part of his dream.

  Molly was glad that Dan was sleeping in. The more he slept, she figured, the less pain he’d have to endure. Also, the more he slept, the less chance she’d have of making a fool of herself again as she had the night before. She’d practically begged the man to kiss her. Now, the morning after, she was relieved he’d turned her down.

  While she graded essays, she kept an ear out for the knock she was expecting at her front door. She had promised Raylene to tutor Buddy Jr. in English composition. The boy, it seemed, was mechanically inclined like his father, but unless he passed English and received his high school diploma, there would be no technical school in his future.

  “Besides,” Raylene had said, “every hour Buddy Jr. spends with you, Molly, will be one less hour I’ll have to worry about him getting into trouble. He might even take a look at what Danny’s become and realize there’s no future in earning a bad reputation instead of a diploma.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Dan,” Molly had said defensively.

  “Well, I didn’t say there was, honey. He’s just not exactly chairman of the board of General Motors, now, is he?”

  “Who’d want to be?” Molly muttered at her monitor. Then, a second later, realizing what she’d said, Molly almost laughed out loud.

  As an associate professor of business, Kathryn Claiborn had spent the last six or seven years attempting to convince her students that being chairman of the board of General Motors was a worthy, if not the ultimate goal for which to strive. She had lauded the glories of the balance sheet and sung the praises of tax credits, debentures and initial public offerings.

  She must have been nuts, Molly thought. Or was she disastrously off her rocker now? Had Moonglow really changed her so much? she wondered. Or was Kathryn merely taking a well-deserved break before resuming her high-flying career?

  Her own goal had always been to use her academic experience to leverage herself into a cushy little firm on Wall Street, and from there she and Ethan would form their own cushy little firm. Now that notion seemed as strange and stilted as the suits she’d left behind in her closet. She couldn’t even picture Ethan’s face.

  How had this happened? Molly hated Moonglow. She despised every false-fronted store on Main Street, every pickup truck parked there, every good ol’ boy wearing sideburns and hand-
tooled boots, every good ol’ girl with big hair and hon on the tip of her tongue.

  Except she didn’t. She adored Raylene, who was probably the most honest person Molly had ever known. And Buddy Sr., good ol’ boy or not, was sweet and soft-spoken and unashamedly in love with his wife after nearly twenty years. And Dan… She didn’t even know how to begin thinking of the reasons she didn’t hate Dan. She didn’t dare because somewhere in the back of her brain she thought she just might be falling in love with him. People didn’t fall in love that fast, did they? My Lord.

  When Buddy Jr. knocked on her front door, Molly was only too happy for the distraction. The boy turned out to be a sixteen-year-old carbon copy of his father. He certainly hadn’t inherited his mother’s gift of gab. Buddy Jr. seemed too shy to put more than two or three words together.

  Molly sat him down at the computer in her office. “Have you used one of these before?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure. But just for games ’n stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  From the way the boy’s face colored, Molly figured that “stuff” had something to do with the Internet and females in various stages of undress.

  “Never mind,” she said, bringing up her word processing program, then typing a sentence across the screen. “Read this, Buddy. Out loud, please.”

  “My favorite places in Moonglow are…” he read.

  “Do you have some favorite places? At least three?”

  “Oh, sure. I guess.”

  “Okay. I’d like for you to write three paragraphs describing each of your favorite places. Decent-size paragraphs. Not just one or two sentences. Tell me why you like them, what they look like, why they’re different from anyplace else. Don’t forget colors and sounds and textures. It should be pretty easy. Anyway, it’ll give us a good place to jump off from. Just yell out if you have any problem. I’ll be close by.”

  “Yeah. All right.” Young Buddy stared at the screen, pulled the chair forward, then tapped a couple of experimental letters on the keyboard. “Okay. I get the hang of it, I think.”