Moonglow, Texas

by Mary McBride

  From a lower drawer, he pulled out Kathryn Claiborn’s file and quickly studied the half-dozen pictures of the men known to be members of the elite terrorist group known as the Red Millennium. Four of them were dead, one of those having been blown to bits in the chemistry lab explosion Kathryn had witnessed, and the other three having perished when their small plane went down in a storm in the Florida Keys.

  The two who remained at large—Ahmad Sharis and Jorgen Metz—had ceased all activities during the past year. Their whereabouts were unknown, but one thing was for sure. If either the big Egyptian or the albino Swede showed up in Moonglow, they’d sure as hell be noticed. It was time now to see if anybody had done any noticing, especially given the bullets fired last night.

  Molly was waiting for him beside the BMW, but she wasn’t alone. Dan had forgotten about Buddy Jr. and his remedial English lessons. The kid was leaning a hip against the rear fender, looking as if he’d rather drink hemlock than spend another long morning at Molly’s computer.

  “I forgot about Buddy’s lesson,” Molly said apologetically when Dan reached the driveway. “You’re going to have to find that plumber without me, I’m afraid.”

  “No problem,” Dan said. Actually, he was glad not to have Molly tagging along while he tried to find out who was in town and who wasn’t, and, more important, who had fired those shots. Buddy Jr. might not be the perfect bodyguard, but Dan was fairly comfortable leaving Molly with him for a little while.

  “You need a plumber?” the boy asked, suddenly looking alive, even keenly interested as he straightened his lanky frame.

  Molly laughed. “Don’t tell me you do that, too?”

  “I help my dad,” he said. “Why don’t you show me what you need done. I bet I could fix it cheaper than anybody else in town, and I sure could use the cash.”

  Molly looked at Dan. “What do you think?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Give it a shot, kid. I’d rather pay you than some guy with his pants half down to his knees.”

  “Great.” Buddy Jr. started for the back door.

  “I’ll be right there,” Molly called, then asked Dan, “Are you still going out?”

  “For a while. I won’t be gone long.”

  She lifted on tiptoe to kiss his chin. “Don’t get way-laid by any wild and insatiable women, okay?”

  “Not if I can help it, darlin’,” he said, hoping the wild women of Moonglow would turn out to be the worst of his problems.

  Chapter 9

  Some sources were better than others in Moonglow, so Dan went straight to the best. Raylene. To his enormous relief, her shop was empty when he arrived, so he was able to slide into her purple vinyl chair without a wait. Raylene smiled while she draped the pink plastic cape around his shoulders and snapped it tight at the neck.

  “It’s about time you dragged your shaggy self in here, Danny,” she said. “My Lord. When was the last time you had a haircut? 1988?”

  “Thereabouts.” The pink-haired beautician was looking a little too eager, so he added a quick, “Don’t take off too much, okay?”

  “Trust me,” she said, getting to work with her spritzer in one hand and a comb in the other.

  Dan closed his eyes. “What’s new?” he asked.

  Half an hour later he had learned more than he ever wanted to know about the goings-on in Moonglow. Buddy Sr. had a hernia in addition to his continuing battle with acid reflux. Buddy Jr., when he wasn’t hustling games at the pool hall, was taking every job he could in order to save enough money to buy Henry Young’s old Harley. Laverne Catton was going ahead and having the triplets even though she was separated from that no-good Jake, and last but hardly least, Linda Watson was going home from the hospital this afternoon.

  “I guess you heard about her accident,” Raylene said with a roll of her eyes and a tell-tale emphasis on the final word. “Gil hasn’t left her side. Not for a second. I’d almost feel sorry for him if I didn’t suspect he was the one who put her there.”

  “Gil always did use his fists more than his brain,” Dan said. “Are you sure he’s been at the hospital since yesterday?”

  “Positive. Cindy White, that’s Carleen Carter’s oldest girl, is working at the hospital and she said so. You remember Carleen, don’t you? She married Dewey White.”

  Dan nodded, but all he was thinking was that if Gil Watson had been at the hospital all that time, then who the hell had fired the warning shots into Molly’s bedroom wall?

  Raylene pushed his head forward, ordered him to hold still, then took a few snips at the base of his neck before she said, “There. That’s better. I’m sure Molly will be glad to see there’s a right good-looking man under all those snarls and split ends. You two are getting to be quite an item, Danny.”

  “Is that right?” Dan surveyed his haircut in the mirror, grateful Raylene hadn’t left him bald, or worse, blond.

  “Somebody was asking about you and Molly yesterday morning at the Bean Crock when Buddy Sr. was having breakfast. He just happened to overhear.”

  “Who was asking?”

  She combed his cowlick, without much success. “Buddy didn’t say. Just some guy he’d never seen before, is all. He said he seemed real curious about whether or not Molly was from here.” She sighed, frowning at the untamed strands of hair. “You want me to put some gel on this, hon?”

  “No. Thanks, Raylene. How much do I owe you?”

  “Oh. Whatever. It was an easy cut and I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.” She unsnapped the plastic cape, then removed it deftly, shaking off the hair.

  Dan slid a hand into his pocket and eased his wallet past his badge, then extracted a twenty dollar bill, which he slid under the blow dryer on the counter. “The Bean Crock,” he said casually. “Where’s that? Breakfast doesn’t sound half bad.”

  “It’s the old luncheonette just across from City Hall. You remember. Where we used to sneak off to on Fridays when they had fish sticks for lunch at school.” She laughed. “The kids still do. At least that’s what Buddy Jr. tells me. My Lord. Except for the color of my hair, nothing ever changes around here, does it?”

  Although Dan laughed and said he agreed, he was worried that things in Moonglow were suddenly about to change. Dramatically.

  By ten o’clock the breakfast crowd had disappeared, so there weren’t too many customers in the Bean Crock. But there wasn’t much information, either. Sally, the young waitress, hadn’t worked the day before, and Zeke, the cook and owner, had been much too busy with his grill to notice anybody who didn’t look as if they belonged. As a result, Dan was fairly sure that neither the swarthy Ahmad Sharis nor his fish-white partner, Jorgen Metz, were in town. That didn’t mean they hadn’t sent an emissary, however, or even hired a local thug to do their dirty business.

  Before going back to Molly’s, he swung by County Hospital to make a few discreet inquiries about the sheriff, only to find that Raylene had been right. Gil, according to two nurses and one aide, had been glued to Linda all night. Presumably, Gil’s big .357 Magnum had been glued right there with him, too. So much for the long arm of the law.

  Molly’s house looked quiet when he pulled into the drive. He gave a quick, disgusted glance at the pile of guttering in the side yard, thinking maybe he could get Buddy Jr. to fix that as well since the kid was so hot to earn some cash toward that Harley he had his young heart set on.

  When he walked inside, it surprised him a little not to see Buddy Jr.’s long legs sticking out from under the kitchen sink.

  “Anybody home?” he called, wishing like hell that Molly would keep her doors locked, but not wanting to frighten her and knowing that anybody who really wanted to get to her wouldn’t be stopped by a locked door. Or, he thought glumly, by a has-been federal agent.

  “Just us mice,” Molly answered from her office.

  Suddenly he couldn’t wait to wrap his arms around her, to feel her heart beating against his, to possess all that willing, generous warmth once more. Dan hurried down the h
allway, but stopped dead in his tracks when he passed Molly’s bedroom where Buddy Jr. had begun wallpapering. The first strip was already up, dead center on the wall behind Molly’s headboard, right over the bullet holes. It was as if the kid were trying to hide them.

  He walked in the room and tapped Buddy Jr. on the shoulder. The boy tugged off his earphones.

  “Looks good,” Dan said, gesturing toward the wall.

  “Thanks.”

  “How come you started here? In the middle?”

  Buddy looked confused for a moment. He stared at the wall, then he lifted his narrow shoulders in a shrug. “That’s where the wall is straightest. Only place I could plumb a good line.”

  “Oh.” It sounded reasonable enough to Dan, who didn’t know any more about putting wallpaper on than he knew about taking it off. The boy probably didn’t even notice the holes, he guessed, or he would have mentioned them. “Okay.” He gave him a little congratulatory slap on the back as he turned to leave. “Keep up the good work, kid.”

  In her office, Molly’s back was to the door and her attention totally focused on her glowing monitor. Dan slipped his arms around her from behind and buried his face in her warm, fragrant neck. She responded with a pleasured little mewing sound, turned off her computer and lifted up her arms to cradle his head.

  For a brief second, there was a lump in Dan’s throat and his emotions rose so close to the surface that he thought he might start crying. No woman—no human being, for that matter—had ever made him feel so welcome before, so essential, as if he belonged right here and nowhere else.

  He lifted his head and saw their faces, side by side, reflected on the glass of the monitor. His heart shifted in his chest. He loved her! The notion nearly brought him to his knees. He loved her, and, if it was true that the Red Millennium had located her, he might lose her.

  “Let’s get the hell away from here, Molly.” He swiveled her chair around so she was facing him. “Now. Today. Let’s just go.”

  “Dan!” She laughed in surprise. “I can’t just pick up and go. I’ve got a job. Papers. Students.” She gestured toward the computer. “Remember?”

  “You can take your laptop. Hell, put the whole computer in my trailer. I can make room for it. Where do you want to go? East? West? How about Mexico?”

  “Dan!” She simply stared at him, a sweet smile on her lips, her eyes happy and bright. “Hey,” she said finally. “You got your hair cut.”

  He ripped his fingers through the newly shorn locks. “What’s that got to do with it? Come on, Molly. Say yes. Let’s go. Today.” Dan shook her chair a little for emphasis.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  She looked away, but just before she did, Dan saw something in her expression that nearly made him sick. He couldn’t quite give it a name. Distrust? Disappointment? Maybe a kind of despair? It was a look that said he’d gone too far, that he’d breached some unspoken barrier, that he was a handyman and she was a professor, that their worlds might touch for a while, even create some sparks, but anything beyond that was not merely unthinkable, it was impossible.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I can’t just up and leave.”

  He did understand. That was the problem. Anyone accepting the benefits of witness protection was required to keep the Marshals office apprised of their whereabouts. For Molly to leave Moonglow, she’d have to call Houston first. But her rejection of his offer wasn’t just about a phone call and a little red tape. It was about Kathryn Claiborn and Dan Shackelford and the differences between them.

  Hell, maybe it was even about that fiancé of hers back in New York.

  “Just think about it, okay?” he told her, letting go of the chair.

  She nodded in reply, but the gesture was one of grave reservation rather than enthusiasm. And then the phone rang.

  “I’d better get that,” she said, sounding almost relieved for the interruption.

  After Dan stomped off in what Molly would have described as a good impression of a huff, she stood with her hand over the phone, knowing the call was from Houston, dreading the impending news, whatever it was. Whether it turned out to be good news or bad news or even no news at all, it would still be just one more secret she was obliged to keep from Dan. She hated that.

  Her fingers were trembling noticeably when she finally picked up the receiver and offered a tentative hello.

  “Is this Molly Hansen?” asked the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Hansen, would you please call our office back at the usual number?” The man, presumably a deputy marshal, hung up before Molly could reply.

  She had forgotten the drill. Her calling back was for security purposes, to reassure her that she was indeed speaking with her sponsors in the witness program rather than with anyone trying to hunt her down. She placed the call, and the phone was answered immediately.

  “This is the U.S. Marshals Service, Deputy Marshal Kevin Holt speaking.”

  “This is Molly…well…Kathryn Claiborn.”

  “We’ll use Molly Hansen,” he said. “How are you, Ms. Hansen?”

  “Fine,” Molly said. Or was she? “At least I think I’m fine. Why don’t you tell me, Deputy Holt?”

  He laughed, a short and muffled bark, but, all in all, the man didn’t seem truly amused. “We wanted to alert you to the possibility of new activity in the Red Millennium. This isn’t meant to alarm you. It’s just a standard precaution.”

  Despite his words and his reassuring tone, Molly was alarmed. Very alarmed. Her heart started to pound. “What do you mean new activity?” she asked. “Here? In Moonglow?”

  “Well, I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, ma’am. But I can tell you that there’s nothing going on in Texas that we know of at the moment.”

  Nothing that they knew of. Molly didn’t find that very consoling. “What should I do?” she asked, her mounting panic evident in her voice.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Ms. Hansen. We already have a deputy there keeping an eye out for you.”

  “Here? You do?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She could hear him riffling through papers before he continued. “That would be Dan Shackelford.”

  Molly almost laughed. “No, Deputy Holt. I think you’ve got the wrong information. Dan Shackelford is here making repairs on my house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The guy wasn’t getting the point, so Molly raised her voice. “He’s a repairman, for heaven’s sake. You people need to send a deputy, a trained agent.” The cavalry, she nearly shrieked. Not some bumbling handyman.

  “Deputy Shackelford is a trained agent, Ms. Hansen. We just didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. That’s why he took that cover.”

  Molly’s mouth opened, but only a puff of air came out. She was truly speechless. Finally she managed a surprised little “Oh.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much,” the deputy said. “We’re only taking the standard precautions. But call us anytime if you have any questions or concerns. Or just ask Deputy Shackelford, ma’am.”

  Ask Deputy Shackelford! Molly was already framing a long list of questions as she hung up the phone, beginning with why the hell had he been lying to her, to be followed immediately by how the devil was he planning to protect her from the terrorists of the Red Millennium when he couldn’t even replace a confounded showerhead.

  “Ms. Hansen?”

  Startled, Molly whirled around to see Buddy Jr. a few feet away. She had forgotten he was even here.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I just thought you might want to take a look-see at the wallpaper. I’ve got two strips up now.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  She followed the boy into the bedroom, silently fuming, and hoping that at least one of those strips was composed of Dan Shackelford’s hide.

  Dan sat in his rickety lawn chair in the shade of the live oak, glaring at the back of the house and
the pile of fallen guttering that seemed to taunt him now. Loser, it fairly screamed. How are you going to take on an agent of the Red Millennium if you can’t even tackle a few lengths of aluminum or a few strips of wallpaper? How can you keep Molly safe and sound if you can’t even do an adequate job on her house?

  He wanted a beer in the worst way. Two of them. Three. A six-pack to blur his brain and take him to that fuzzy place where his memories dimmed and his deficiencies were all but forgotten.

  The irony was that he didn’t blame Molly one bit for refusing his plea to run away. Hell, in some deep corner of his heart, he even applauded her for being sensible. Not that she knew she was rejecting anything more than a misbegotten handyman who still knew a thing or two in bed. But she hadn’t let their explosive, nearly stellar lovemaking be a factor in her decision, smart woman that she was. If she’d fallen for Danny Shackelford, at least she hadn’t hit the ground. Not the way he had, anyway.

  He wanted to forget that, aside from being a loser professionally, he’d also been a fool personally to let a woman get into his heart the way that Molly had. He couldn’t imagine his life without her now. Couldn’t imagine not holding her hand, not kissing her generous mouth, not sleeping with her warm body curled in his arms. There had never been a woman he couldn’t walk away from. Until now.

  When his head started to ache as if it were trapped in a vise, Dan closed his eyes. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he became aware of someone slowly approaching. He blinked in the bright sunlight, but it didn’t take more than a second to recognize his former history teacher, Mildred Booth.

  With the ample fabric of her dress billowing in the breeze, Mrs. Booth moved across the lawn like a great ship coming into port, considerably slower than she’d moved twenty years ago, but no less commanding. Her hair was white now rather than the steel-gray that Dan remembered, but her expression hadn’t altered one whit. Her gaze was steady and stern, perhaps even forbidding, but tempered by a trace of amusement pulling at the corners of her mouth.

  He felt as if he was seventeen all of a sudden, about to be sent to the principal’s office. Shooting up from his chair, it was all he could do not to salute the woman.