The phone did not ring while she was in the shower. She checked it when she got out, but there was no message light.
Standing there with a towel around her, she dialed Harry’s room, hearing the ringing both on the line and through the wall. Maybe he was asleep, although he normally would come awake immediately. When he did not answer after eight rings, she clicked off and dialed the front desk.
“I just dialed Mr. Furneaux’s room, but there was no answer. Has he checked out?”
“No, ma’am,” the voice seemed surprised. “I believe I saw him drive away a few minutes ago.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
She went to the window and peeked through the curtains. The space where her truck had been was now empty, the sun shining on a grease spot on the concrete.
Of course this was not strange, she told herself. Harry had walked a number of places yesterday morning, while she slept. He had her keys from last night, so this morning he could drive himself where he wanted to go.
She wondered if he might have gone to buy her more flowers.
Her heart was pounding furiously, and she pictured Harry walking along the highway, away from her. Or, in this case, driving away.
It had to do with her poor experiences with men, she knew, and took herself by the scruff of the neck and got dressed, did a complete makeup job, and even put a new coat of polish on her nails. Then she took the puppy out for a walk. There was a nice grassy field at the rear of the motel. Coming upon a stick, she threw it, attempting to teach the puppy to fetch. When he got it, she called to him. He looked at her, stick between his jaws, and cocked his head this way and that.
“Come, boy. Here, Buddy.”
He remained poised, gazing at her.
“Here, Roscoe,” she said, and he came running. “Oh, Roscoe…good boy, Roscoe,” she murmured, burying her face into his fur, filled with thankfulness for him.
Then standing and holding his leash, she urged him to run, and she ran with him, over the stubbly fall grass and rock, far out of sight of their room.
Maybe if they were gone long enough, she thought, Harry would have returned when they got back.
Finally, out of breath and growing hungry, the puppy with his tongue hanging out, they walked back across the grass and to the rear of the motel, along the covered walkway. When they came to the corner, she peered anxiously around it.
Yes! Relief swept her as she beheld her truck sitting in its space, the bright afternoon sunlight hitting the roof.
Then her gaze fell on Harry, leaning against the fender, the sun shining on his brown hat and denim shirt. Looking like a Levi’s jeans advertisement, waiting for her.
When she got close enough, he looked into her eyes and said hurriedly, “I just went to get your spare tire fixed. I got you two new front tires put on, too.”
He regarded her with apprehension.
The puppy pulling her forward, she went to him. He opened his arms and enveloped her against his warm chest that smelled of cotton and sunshine.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stroking her hair. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t want to call and wake you up…. I thought I might get back before you woke up.”
She shook her head against his chest, unable to get words past the lump choking her throat. He rubbed her back and kissed her hair.
“I think I’m fallin’ in love with you, too,” she finally managed to get out.
Although she didn’t lift her head, she felt his body smile.
“Don’t be so sad about it,” he said, a hint of amusement in his tone.
“It’s crazy, and you know it’s crazy.” She hit his chest with her small, balled fist. “You live all the way down in Houston, you have school…a career to get goin’…we can’t go anywhere with this.” She supposed, having blurted out her growing love, she was just going to babble about everything. She was crying now.
“You picking me up was the best thing to ever happen to me,” he said softly, tilting her face to look into her eyes. “We’ll work it out.”
“It scares me to death.”
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
“Oh, Harry.” She gazed at him, at his beautiful, soft brown eyes, searching them for what, she wasn’t sure.
“It does not have to be all or nothing right from the start,” he said. “We’ll just take it a step at a time, and find each puzzle piece and put it in place before we go on to the next. We’ll just see what happens, okay?”
He arched an eyebrow.
She regarded him a moment, and then she leaned toward him, and he met her, and they kissed. It was enough to bring her left foot swinging up clean off the ground.
CHAPTER 25
The Knack for Knowing When
It turned out that Leanne had accepted Clay back faster than a train to New Orleans. Rainey, walking with Harry to the barn to get Lulu, looked over and saw Leanne leading her horse across the lot, and Clay, in a skintight T-shirt, walked beside her with his hand resting at the back of her neck in a claiming manner. Leanne, wearing dark sunglasses, acted like she didn’t see Rainey. Clay glanced at her, probably because she was staring a hole in him, but he did not acknowledge her.
“It won’t help for you to start a fight, Rainey,” Harry said, giving her a tug along. “You might end up getting me beat up.”
“Why in the world did she take him back?” she said fiercely.
It made her feel very sad to think of all the hurting hearts making desperate choices all over the place.
“I should have talked more to her about this,” she said. “I should have gotten her to leave last night.”
“Do you really think you could have done that?” Harry asked.
She looked into his brown eyes. “I guess not.” Even if her cousin had agreed with her about Clay, she wouldn’t have missed that night’s racing.
“She has to do what she feels she has to do,” Harry said. “And she may be right—maybe she can help him.”
Then his arm came around her, drawing her close to him, as if to draw her out of her dark, preoccupied mood and to remind her that he was near and their own lives needed to be attended to. She could practically hear him: Don’t keep running from your own life by focusing on the lives of others.
It was her own thought, of course, and it startled her. She pressed closer to him, if that were possible.
When they reached Lulu’s stall, she fed her the Twinkie cake she had brought for her. Then she turned to Harry and said, “I’d rather not exercise her while Leanne’s there. Let’s just tie her to her trailer so she can be in the sun, and you and I can go over to the carnival and get somethin’ to eat…and then we can go over to the dart booth, and you can see if you can pop all their balloons.”
He looked so pleased at her suggestion that she had to glance away.
Her own fears were so much harder to deal with than trying to lead Leanne’s life for her.
“Hit me,” Harry said, putting another bill down on the counter of the dart booth.
The carnie placed five darts on the counter, and they all watched as Harry proceeded to rapidly pop five balloons. It seemed he could not miss. In fact, since he had begun playing, he had not missed a throw, and he popped the balloons so quickly that the carnie would stare at the board a minute, counting to make sure that Harry had not managed to pocket a dart without being seen.
A small crowd had gathered. A round of applause ensued now, and Harry gave his slow grin at everyone, saying, “Thank you,” and drew her forward to choose a prize.
“I’d like the clown.” She’d had her eye on the china-faced clown.
The carnie cut the clown free and plopped it on top of the four other prizes in her arms. She was also holding the end of the puppy’s leash, and luckily the puppy was content to lie right at her feet.
A cocky but good-humored-looking young man stepped forward and said, “I bet twenty that you miss before I do.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Harry said.
> The two passed bills to the carnie, who was very happy about the situation, and each went to popping balloons to much applause. Things continued in this vein until Rainey was struggling to see and breathe under her load of stuffed animals. The little blond girl standing beside Harry’s cocky challenger was amassing a decent collection of her own. Although the young man had missed once, he had immediately bought more darts and again bet Harry. When a harsh-looking young woman in black leather pushed herself up to join the men in their duel, the boy who had been off to the side blowing up balloons could not keep up, and at last a pause was forced until the balloons could be replenished.
At this point, and to some groans of disappointment, Harry bowed out. The crowd quickly transferred attention to Harry’s cocky young challenger, who proclaimed he would keep trying until he had beat Harry’s record of consecutive hits, which the carnie had written on cardboard and pasted up, trying to encourage business.
“Best to stop while I’m king,” Harry said low in her ear, as he guided her away from the booth.
“I think you’ve already made the carnie’s profit for this carnival, anyway,” she said.
She was having trouble seeing around all the stuffed animals—she had lost count along the way but estimated at least fifteen—and the puppy was tugging at the end of his leash, which she could not hand to Harry, as it was buried beneath her armload.
“What are they going to do with all these?” she said, when Harry had taken half of them from her—there turned out to be sixteen. “There’s already those ten you won yesterday on the bed in my trailer. There won’t be room for me.”
Harry looked at her, then at the toys, and then at a small boy passing by with his parents. Quickly he stepped over and gave a bright-green dinosaur to the boy, turning away before the parents could say a word of protest or thanks.
Immediately they went through the carnival giving away the stuffed toys to surprised and delighted children, who undoubtedly had been told repeatedly not to take anything from strangers, and to two startled silver-haired women sitting on a bench, who reacted with the same surprised delight as the children.
They gave away all except the china-faced clown, which Rainey told Harry she adored.
“Maybe I’ll save it for Leanne’s baby,” she said. Then she looked at him. “I told Leanne I would take her baby if she didn’t want it. Clay wants her to have an abortion…did she tell you that?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” he said with a somewhat surprised expression.
So she told him all about it, and how she would very much like to take Leanne’s baby, pointing out her age and ticking biological clock.
“It seems a solution,” he said in a way she could not gauge.
“Will that be a problem for us?” she asked point-blank. Her mind was racing ahead to consider all manner of possible complications. Harry might not want to continue with a woman who already had a baby, and he might be a man who did not care for adoption.
“I don’t see that it should,” he said, seeming a little surprised at the question. Then he added, “I like kids.”
“Oh, I know you do,” she said. “I just thought I should tell you that I may very soon be having one. Leanne’s still making up her mind. I guess the best thing would be for her to keep the baby, but really, I hope she decides in my favor.”
“I think I’d like to have two children at least,” he said and cast her a questioning look.
“Two is good.”
They walked a bit farther, both of them thinking.
“Well, what if we don’t have any?” she asked. “What if I can’t have a child?”
“That’s fine with me, too,” he said.
They had come to the carousel and decided to take a ride. They tied the puppy to a post, and every time they revolved around into his sight, he would yip. Then suddenly there he was, chasing around the carousel after them. This about gave her a heart attack. She had not tied him securely enough, and he had pulled his leash loose from the post, and it was dragging after him. She was afraid he was going to get it caught and choke himself to death right before her eyes.
“Oh, Roscoe!” she cried, stumbling from pumping horse to pumping elephant in her anxiousness to meet the dog, who had now jumped up on the spinning machine, and grab the leash that was dragging on the ground.
“Come here, Roscoe!” With great relief, she drew him to her and captured the end of his leash.
Then Harry was there, helping her to her feet. “Roscoe?” he said with a little smile.
“Don’t go there,” she said.
The carousel operator was so affected by the puppy’s devotion that he told them if they wanted to ride again, the puppy could ride, too.
Harry thought they could not disappoint the generous man, nor the puppy, and she agreed, so they went three more times on the carousel, Harry on one pumping steed and her on one beside him, with the puppy at the end of his silver leash, sitting happily in front of them. In just the few days the puppy had been with them, he seemed to have grown by amazing proportions, and he appeared a regal sight when sitting like that. Full of themselves and the spectacle they made, Rainey and Harry waved to people, until the carousel operator’s boss came over and yelled at him for allowing a dog on the machine.
Harry hurried over and told the man, “My wife is almost blind. She and her dog are learning to work together, and he can’t be separated from her.” This bold lie, even if it was met with skepticism, appeared to save the carousel operator his job.
As they went away, Rainey did her best to appear dependent on the puppy, and as if he understood perfectly, the puppy went straight and proud at the end of his leash. “Good boy, Roscoe,” she told him.
They were sitting on a bench eating hamburgers and drinking Cokes when her eye caught a jet flying in the clear blue sky. It was rather close, obviously having just taken off from the airport that was not far away.
“Do you want me to take you to the airport tomorrow, on my way home?” she asked.
“I guess that’d be a good idea,” he said.
This reply annoyed her, as she had expected more. Just what more, she couldn’t have said, but she was still annoyed.
Then she realized he was looking at her. He said, “We should exchange phone numbers and addresses.”
She didn’t think this was exactly what she’d had in mind for him to say, either, but at least it was something, and she felt comforted. Since neither of them had paper or pen, Harry said that his phone number was listed in the Houston directory, and she told him hers was in the Valentine directory, just in case.
The distance between the two places seemed awfully long to her.
“I’ve been considering this past week,” Harry said. “I’ll have to go back to school for psychiatry. Two or three years at least.”
This did not surprise her.
“Well, I think it is a perfect field for you,” she said, wanting to be encouraging, yet wondering where this would leave their relationship.
“I don’t want it to put a wedge between us,” he said.
She looked at him a long time. “What do you want?” she said at last.
“Well, maybe you’ll come down to Houston some.”
“Maybe,” she said.
It all came back to her, what she had gone through with Robert, and suddenly she was thinking of Valentine.
He was studying her, and she thought she saw disappointment flicker over his face. She might have imagined it, but she don’t think so. It was probably becoming as plain to him as it was to her that they had gotten carried away with thinking they could have anything more than this interlude. They would separate at the end of this weekend, and it was difficult, if not impossible, for two people to develop a relationship with a distance of five hundred miles and vastly different life-styles between them.
She got up very quickly and walked over to throw the hamburger paper and empty cup in the trash barrel, giving herself time to gather what she could of h
er good humor. There was no need to let doubtful sadness over the future ruin the beauty of this day.
“Come on…I need to go exercise Lulu now,” she said, forcing a lightness into her tone and onto her face when she returned to him. “I may just come in second tonight and make some good money. If I do, dinner’s on me.”
He responded with one of his charming smiles and said, “I’ll buy champagne, either way.”
They would return to the Mexican restaurant, they agreed, and have the Spanish dessert and champagne and dance until the place closed.
When Harry prepared to leave while she worked Lulu, she told him to stay and watch. He looked surprised but pleased, and he stood at the railing the entire time, with the puppy at his feet. She thought his showing this attention was awfully nice of him, as it could not have been all that exciting watching her ride around and around, and turn this way and that.
When she was satisfied that she had worked Lulu enough, she suggested Harry go off and get them a couple of cold drinks while she cooled Lulu down.
She was watching him walk away, taking note of his attractiveness from the rear, when the young woman who had tied for third place with her the night before rode up next to her. Her horse was a flat-brown with a lovely silver mane.
“He’s awful cute,” the young woman said, her gaze on Harry.
Rainey agreed, although cute was not a word she would use to describe Harry. He was handsome, or attractive, or good-looking, or maybe even a stud.
“Leanne’s in there measurin’ placement for the barrels,” the woman said, nodding toward the arena. “She always does that. Then she’ll put special marks for her horse.”
“How does she do that?” Rainey thought of all that goes on in an arena before they ran the barrels.
“Well, she’ll put a mark on the wall and note the length from the wall in pencil. Last night she marked with a piece of tape. I think she uses that to gauge her turning point.”
Rainey wondered if this wasn’t all sour grapes on the part of this young woman. She told her then, in case she didn’t know, that Leanne was her cousin. By the young woman’s expression, she gathered that had been the case.
Lost Highways (A Valentine Novel) Page 23
