Читать книгу Just Let Go... - Kathleen O'Reilly, Kathleen O'Reilly - Страница 10

THE SPOTLIGHT INN WAS on Interstate 78, just behind the orange-and-white stripes of WhataBurger. The hotel was far enough from town that cars would not be spotted in the parking lot. It was close enough to town that those that weren’t smart enough to park their cars behind the hotel would most likely get noticed by the UPS man, who was close friends with the receptionist at the Tin Cup Gazette, who also served as a deacon at First Baptist on Sundays. People joked about six degrees of separation, but in Tin Cup, one degree of separation was usually overstating the truth.

As Gillian pulled into the front drive, the sun was disappearing beneath the horizon, casting a red tint to the sky. The dusky heat was still a killer, waves of it rising from the concrete and making everything look hazy and surreal. In the movies, when the world shimmered, it signaled a trip to the past, but when summer hit Tin Cup, the world was in permanent shimmer, a town not ready to give up its past, while simultaneously trying to grab hold of the future. It was a dilemma that Gillian understood well.

It wasn’t exactly that she wanted to see Austen, she told herself as she poked around outside, looking for egg-shells, egg-streaked road signs or any other indication that somebody was egg-spressly messing with her town. It was more that she wanted to see Austen in order to finally write him out of her life.

For ten sweat-pouring minutes, she wandered outside the hotel, searching for evidence, but now all she had was frizzy hair, dusty boots and the sure knowledge that something was rotten in Tin Cup, and it wasn’t the mysteriously disappearing eggs. Feeling cranky, she chose to blame Austen Hart because if he wasn’t in town, nobody would be messing with her.

Maybe the myth of the man was bigger than the reality, she thought optimistically as she headed toward the motel’s covered entrance. If there was a lick of justice in the world, he would have a spare tire around his middle, and his hairline would be four inches behind the crown of his head.

A trucker roared by and sat on his horn and Gillian waved in response, before pushing her sunglasses on top of her hair. At the very least, the man could have written her a note to explain his actions. Another memento that she could have kept buried back in her closet. It was that sort of what-if thinking that made it hard to forget him. Hard to forget the too short nights spent star-gazing together on Peterson’s Ridge. Hard to forget the way he would twist her hair around his finger and then pull her close for a kiss.

Even Jeff, perfect, perfect Jeff, couldn’t affect her the way a mere boy had. There were prickles on her arms again, and furiously she rubbed at them until they disappeared because she was too smart to get stupid again.

Before she confronted Delores, she double-checked her reflection in the glass doors, making sure the hair was in place, making sure the mascara looked fabulous, making sure that Gillian was still the most well-put-together female in three counties. When she was satisfied with the face looking back at her, she pulled open the doors and strolled inside. Casual. Easy. Confident.

“Didi! Look at you,” she purred in her best-friends-forever voice. “I love what you’ve done with your hair. Something new?”

Delores Hancock was twenty-seven, the same age as Gillian, and had a husband of ten years, two kids and had presided over the front desk at the Spotlight Inn since her great-uncle Hadley had died near eight years back. Her hair was glossy black, coordinating nicely with the snapping dark eyes that were particularly pretty when she wore a little extra liner.

Unlike Gillian, who knew the value of a wide smile—fake or otherwise—Delores could never mask her appreciation of a compliment—fake or otherwise—and some of the sharpness faded from her eyes.

“Thank you for noticing. I had it blown out yesterday, but Bobby hadn’t said a word.”

Gillian’s smile relaxed a bit. “Men don’t care about good hair, or dirty dishes. All they want is a piece of tail and a cold beer on Sundays. You can’t hold him responsible for something that’s not part of his DNA.”

“God’s truth, honey,” Delores agreed, but then shot her a smile that was a little too sugary. Joelle was right. Delores was going to hate her for the rest of her life.

Abandoning the token attempt at an olive branch, Gillian leaned in on the counter, one shoulder cocked low. It was a move that she’d seen in a lot of old Westerns, and Gillian used it whenever she needed to act rugged. “So tell me about those kids. I nosed around outside, but didn’t see any sign of them, broken-egg yolks or splattered cars.”

“I cleaned it all up,” Delores answered quickly. A little too quickly.

“Really? And none of the irate drivers stuck around?”

“Would you stick around this place?” Delores asked, nodding toward the wide stretch of highway and the exit sign that was still spray painted over with ODESSA-PERMIAN SUCKS, exactly as it had been since before Gillian was born.

“Got a point. Did you get a look at the kids involved?”

“No. The sun was right there in my eyes. I think they were wearing T-shirts, jeans and UT ball caps.”

Which described 99.7 percent of the juveniles in most of the state. “Sounds like we got us a mystery,” murmured Gillian, not wanting to call Delores a liar, which wouldn’t further what could turn into a beautiful friendship.

Delores stared at the door, a cat-and-the-canary smile on her face, and Gillian froze because the prickles had returned. “My, my, my…” said Delores softly.

Gillian instantly pushed her glasses down over her eyes and forced herself to move away from the security of the counter. “I’ll get back with you about those pesky kids.”

Slowly she moved toward the door, her face expressionless, pretending to ignore the man who had just walked in with his easy way and knowing smile.

Three more steps and then she would be past him.

Two.

One.

At last the door was directly in front of her, and she pushed at it with unsteady hands. There was no one to notice the slight tremors…except for him.

One steady hand beat her to it, tanned skin, long fingers, conspicuously clean nails. “Thank you,” she told him, eyes straight ahead, ignoring the faint whiff of some expensive cologne.

“You shouldn’t have cut your hair,” he answered in a low voice meant for her ears alone. The husky sound created a long-forgotten spark, a flash of summer lightning that she thought she’d buried for good.

Gillian didn’t bother to reply; wasn’t sure if she could. Her heart was hammering too loud in her chest. Head high, she strode toward the sheriff’s cruiser, and a mere four lifetimes later she had recovered her composure. With a hard foot on the accelerator, she gunned the engine, and was driving away.

Away from Delores, away from the Spotlight Inn and away from the man who had grown up to be a long, hot mess of temptation. But Gillian was stronger than that.

If this town wanted entertainment, then by God, they were going to have to spring for HBO.

AUSTEN HART HAD spent the last ten years dreaming of Gillian Wanamaker. Over that long a span, a man could create elaborate ideals of a woman—or fantasies, if he wanted to call a spade a spade. In his mind, her mouth had always been wide, perfectly glossed with rosebud pink. Her blond hair had always fallen in long, silky rolls down her back. In his mind, everything about her had always been mouth-watering perfection.

Unfortunately, Austen had never been much of a perfectionist. “Good enough” had served him well, and sometimes “not a chance in hell” seemed most appropriate. But that didn’t stop him from dreaming. He quit staring at the glass door and told himself, “Not a chance in hell.”

Today she seemed different. Harder in a lot of ways, although that could be the gun at her hip.

Damn. That was one career he would have never expected. Sheriff, he thought, remembering the badge. There were men who thought a woman packing heat was sexy. Austen had a healthy respect for the power of a gun. He’d been on the wrong end of one way too many times to be turned on, but Gillian… Mmm-mmm.

The clerk coughed to clear her throat, and Austen smiled automatically.

Normally, Austen didn’t mind being the object of attention. Hell, these days, he sought it out. Life of the party. Seeker of the limelight. Man of the hour.

Normally, he didn’t mind knowing that everyone was watching, but not in this town. Everyone here lived and died by their family, and Austen had always wanted that, too. Family, connections, solidity. But for the Harts? Ha. That was a laugh.

His older brother, Tyler, had left as soon as he could. Their mother had disappeared—no, she had deserted them, he corrected. He had a sister, Brooke—a sister he’d never known until recently and wasn’t sure he wanted to. No, the Harts should have been a family, but somehow, it’d gotten all screwed up. Gee, thanks, Frank.

When Tyler had gotten a full scholarship to college—two-hundred long miles away in Houston—that meant all eyes in Tin Cup were watching Austen. They were waiting for him to follow in his father’s footsteps. To explode in a violent rage, or stash a few purloined dollars in his pocket, or yell obscenities at any female that walked by—just like Frank Hart used to do. Six to sixty, coed to grandmother, his father hadn’t been a discerning man.

Austen had never liked the eyes watching him, judging him. He didn’t have Tyler’s brains, Tyler’s ability to shut everything out. So Austen had done what he could; when that didn’t work, he ran, possibly committing a class C felony in the process—as rumored around Tin Cup, where folks liked to believe the worst of the Hart family. Once he’d gotten the hell out of town, the air was a little clearer, and eventually Austen had made a quasi-respectable name for himself in the state’s capital.

The receptionist at the desk was Delores Somebody, a girl who had flirted with him in high school. Most girls did at one time or another. It was a rite of passage: hurling spitballs at the principal, cheating on a math exam and screwing Austen Hart. Most adolescent males wouldn’t mind that part, would have actively encouraged it. Yes, Austen had actively encouraged it, but he had minded it, too. A Hart was late-night material, the 2:00 a.m. phone call on a Saturday night. Everybody knew it except for Gillian, who thought she had the power to change it all. Yeah, right.

“When are you checking out?” Delores asked, nodding to the small bag he had packed, her eyes still a little flirty.

“Tomorrow.” 9:30 a.m. to be exact. As soon as the papers were signed. After that, Austen would disappear from this town once again. He ran his fingers over the fresh daisies on the counter, simply because he could. Simply because there was no one to look at him sideways anymore, no one to follow him around in the stores.

“That was Gillian Wanamaker you passed on the way in.”

“No kidding?” he said, sliding his sunglasses into the suit pocket. “She’s changed.”

“Not so much. Still thinks she runs this town.”

Austen hid his smile. Knowing Gillian, she probably did. “I’ll grab my stuff and be out of your hair.” With a polite nod, he collected the room key and picked up his bag, heading for the privacy of his room.

Her laughter caught him from behind, and Austen forced himself to slow down, walk easy. “No bother,” she called out. “It’s been a slow day. You should hit the night life. Get a beer at Smitty’s. There’s a lot of people who would like to see you again.”

“Maybe,” he lied.

A few minutes later, he had kicked off his boots and taken a shower, scrubbing off the dust of the road. The room was a clean, serviceable yellow, with a king-sized bed, a wall-mounted TV and a wide variety of flyers that extolled the virtues of Tin Cup, Texas: a modern recreation of Texas past. After reading a few pages, Austen put the booklets back in their place. In the ten years since he’d been gone, they’d built a new bank, a library, four churches and a ball field.

Golly, gee willikers, Wally.

That had been the hardest thing about Tin Cup, the consistency. Feeling not so much like a tourist, Austen stretched on the bed, closing his eyes, because he didn’t care, he didn’t have to care. It was in the middle of all that not caring when his cell rang.

“Hey, honey. Missing me yet?”

Carolyn Carver was the governor’s oldest daughter, and as such had a high opinion of her own importance. As Austen was a state lobbyist, her opinion wasn’t too far off. The cell connection was rotten, so Austen moved to the window where the static cleared. “I just got here, just walked in the door. I think I’m going to kick up my feet, and watch the cow tipping from my window.”

West Texas wasn’t a land for the faint of heart. It was hot and brutal and flat, an endless landscape of scrubby oak trees, dotted with the oil pumping units, their metallic heads bobbing up and down, feeding off the earth.

“When you coming home?” Carolyn asked. He’d been seeing her off and on for almost a year, and managed their relationship carefully. Austen wasn’t going to get serious with Carolyn, and she knew that, but he wasn’t going to make her mad, either.

“Shelby can do one-fifty when pressed, but I’d better play it safe. You know these country cops and the speed traps.”

“You can tell them it’s a state emergency. Tell them that Carolyn Carver wants to get laid.”

He laughed aloud because he knew she expected him to. “You keep that thought, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Maggie Patterson called looking for you. Said she was hoping to catch you before you left. Did she call your cell?”

“No.”

“Well, she said you couldn’t do anything from out there, anyway.”

“What did she need?”

“Some kid in the after-school program got arrested, and you’ve been duly appointed to bail him out, or talk him out, or bust him out. I swear, if her husband wasn’t your boss…”

Austen frowned. There wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do remotely, but maybe… “I’ll give her a call. See what she’s got on her hands.”

“A hard knock in the head from a crew of gang-bangers who know how to hot-wire a car, that’s what she’s going to have on her hands if she’s not careful.”

Austen didn’t even flinch. “Your father’s tough on crime. It’ll look good on his campaign posters.”

Carolyn giggled because in her world she wouldn’t know how to hotwire a battery. But Austen did.

“There’s a new band playing at Antone’s tonight. Jack Haywood doesn’t want to go alone.”

“Jack’s an okay guy, but don’t let him make you pay for dinner. That boy doesn’t have any class at all.”

She laughed again, and he moved toward the bed, hearing the reception go spotty. “Listen, Carolyn, I’m having trouble with the lines out here. Gotta go,” he told her, and then hung up, letting himself breathe.

Once again, he sacked out on the bed, but the curtains were half-open, letting him see to the outside, letting him see exactly what nothingness was putting the sweat on his neck. Idiot, that’s what he was. He moved to the window, and pushed back the sheers, and gazed out on the land. His shoulders ached from the drive, and he rolled them back, slowing his pulse, embracing the calm.

Why did he let the ghost of Frank Hart get to him? Why did he let this town crawl under his skin? Because it was who he was.

He picked up his cell, called Maggie only to find out that L.T., one of the boys in the program, had gone for a joyride. Maggie’s afterschool program was her pride and joy, but criminal activities always put a damper on its fundraising, so Austen did what he always did and promised to clean up the mess. Quietly, of course, and then he called Captain Juarez of the Austin P.D. After promising that L.T. would attend one weekend of Youth Corps Training and then sweetening the deal with a few seats to the Longhorns’ home opener for the captain’s trouble, Austen called Maggie and let her know that L.T. had been sprung.

One more delinquent back on the street. In Austen’s expert opinion, sure, you could put lipstick on a pig, but no matter how much you tried, it’s still a pig, and before long, that pig is going to end up being cooked and served up for breakfast, alongside scrambled eggs and a hot cup of coffee.

The next moment, he heard a discreet tap on the door. There wasn’t room service at the Spotlight Inn, and he hoped to God it wasn’t the cops…

Unless it was Gillian.

Not a chance in hell, answer the damned door.

It was Delores, still wearing the same flirty smile, only now it looked apologetic, as well. “I know that I shouldn’t be here, but Gillian called to check up on things, which I know wasn’t the truth, but during the conversation, she let it slip that she was going to Smitty’s—not that she wasn’t being completely obvious because the girl doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body, and I almost didn’t tell you—”

Delores took a breath. “—but I decided I should, because, even though it’s not my place to poke my nose where it doesn’t belong, I thought, what if she’s there, and you’re not, and everybody thinks poorly of you because you’re not, and then I’d have to live with the guilt of my actions. In the end, I just couldn’t do it.”

Austen stared flatly, tempted to feign illness, maybe the ebola virus, but no. Sure, he was being played like a cheap violin, but he still wanted to go. He wanted to see Gillian again.

“I’ll think about it.”

He thought about it for a long seven and a half minutes before his mind was made up. He changed into something a little nicer, washed his hands and polished his boots, and then left the safety of his room behind him.

Delores was still at the front desk, reading from the latest issue of People, and Austen strolled past like a man with no place to go, and no woman to see. “You know, I’ve changed my mind. Smitty’s, huh? I remember that place. Still over behind the Texaco?”

“Hasn’t moved. Landry’s still tending bar, and she gets cranky if you don’t laugh at her jokes. Been known to cut off more than one man for not showing proper appreciation for the entertainment. Such as it is.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be careful. Lots of people there on a Thursday?”

“Everybody in town,” she promised, and as he walked away, he could hear Delores picking up the phone and starting to dial. In less than ten minutes, everybody would know exactly where he was, including Gillian.

Austen suspected that he was putting lipstick on a pig. In fact, considering the way he had left Tin Cup, Texas, he suspected that he was going to end up on a plate, served alongside scrambled eggs and a hot cup of coffee.

And yet still he walked out into the night.

Some things never changed.