Moonglow, Texas

by Mary McBride

  “Great. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Molly tiptoed past her bedroom door and then was surprised when she saw Dan perched on his crutches at the kitchen sink.

  “Hey,” she said softly, feeling her heart perform a tiny pirouette, hoping it didn’t show on her face.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “Did you sleep well?”

  He nodded. “Well enough. Who’ve you got stashed in your office?”

  “Mr. Buddy Earl Jr. is composing an essay about his three favorite places in Moonglow, even as we speak.”

  “Three places.” Dan let out a low whistle. “I’d be hard-pressed to think of more than one.”

  “Really?” Molly cocked her head. “And what would that one place be?”

  “Right here.”

  A kind of silly grin worked its way across his mouth, and Molly felt her heart melt like a double dip of peppermint ice cream on a hot summer day. “This poor, pitiful pit?”

  “Which reminds me,” Dan said, putting down his coffee cup and lodging the crutches under his arms, “I’ve gotta pick up a few more things at Cooley’s this morning. They haven’t by any chance opened a bookstore in town, have they?”

  Molly shook her head. “Two honky-tonks, a dozen bars, three movie rental emporiums, but no bookstores. The library isn’t too bad, though. I have a card if you’d like to borrow it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll just get my own.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know if you can without being a resident.”

  “I can.”

  Yes, he probably could. The head librarian, Marly Eversole, was about Dan’s age, which meant she’d more than likely been inducted into the Danny Shackelford Fan Club two decades before and was still carrying her membership card tucked away in her wallet. Or her heart.

  Molly had had to show three pieces of identification—all newly issued by the Justice Department—to get her own library card right after she’d arrived here. Dan, she suspected, would only have to lean his crutches against the counter and flash a grin to get his.

  Sometimes life just wasn’t fair. Not to Molly, anyway.

  “Of all the libraries in all the world,” Marly Eversole said with a chuckle as she filled out a card request, “you had to walk into mine, Danny Shackelford.”

  “Well, you know what they say about bad pennies, Marly.”

  “You weren’t bad, Danny,” the chunky little brunette said, blinking behind her thick glasses. “You just got caught up in some bad circumstances.”

  “Story of my life,” he said, a grimmer note to his voice than he intended as he wheeled around toward the tall stacks, wondering where the home-improvement section was and unwilling to ask for fear word would get back to Molly.

  Half an hour later, he was checking out a western, a biography of Dwight Eisenhower and The Dummies Guide to Home Repair, which he tucked under his shirt to free his arms. Hobbling out to his car, he fully expected to hear a warning blip from the siren on Gil Watson’s patrol car and then Gil’s voice booming out, “I got you now, you book-stealing son of a bitch.”

  Dan stashed the books in the trunk of his car, then stabbed his way down Main Street in search of a tavern that was doing a brisk morning business, where he could put in a call to Houston without being overheard.

  “You calling from a bodega, son?” Bobby inquired right after he’d said hello.

  “Nope,” Dan said. “Just got the radio turned up real loud, boss. Those glasses you hear clinking are just Molly Hansen doing up the breakfast dishes.”

  “I hope that’s true.”

  “And I hope you’re going to tell me that you’ve got a lock on whoever broke into the computer system and that you’re about to make an arrest.”

  “No such luck,” Bobby said. “Anything going on with the Claiborn woman?”

  It took a second to register that Bobby was referring to Molly. And then it took an additional second for him to realize that what his boss meant by going on wasn’t personal.

  “Nothing,” he replied. There was no way he was going to mention the weird phone call Molly had received and bring half a dozen deputies down on her little house. That would scare the daylights out of her, not to mention put a decided crimp in his time alone with her. Besides, he was convinced the call meant nothing.

  “I’ll stay in touch,” Dan said.

  “You do that, amigo. You doing all right otherwise?”

  Otherwise was Bobby’s code for “Is your head straight on your shoulders these days?”

  “Fine,” Dan said. Just peachy.

  Molly returned to her office from seeing Buddy Jr. out the door. The boy hadn’t done all that poorly on his paragraphs, although his spelling was a hit-or-miss proposition. Mostly miss. She didn’t give him any homework, having decided he probably wouldn’t do it, anyway, and told him she’d see him at the same time tomorrow.

  When she wandered back into the living room, Dan was back, fooling with the phone. “What are you doing?”

  “I picked up a caller ID,” he said. “I thought it might be useful if Raylene’s going to be gabbing your ear off. This way you can kind of prepare yourself mentally before you pick up the phone.”

  Molly laughed. “That’s not such a bad idea.” She wasn’t thinking about Raylene, though. She wondered why she hadn’t thought to use one of those boxes a long time ago. If she’d already had the ID device, she could have identified her mysterious caller the other night.

  “I was just kidding,” Dan said. “Don’t look so worried.”

  Making a deliberate effort to iron out the frown lines in her face, she said, “The only thing I’m worried about is that if I talk to Raylene too much, I’ll wind up sounding just like her. My Lord.”

  “There.” He plugged the cord back into its outlet. “Now all we have to do is wait for the thing to ring.”

  “I don’t suppose standing here watching it will make it do that any faster, do you?”

  “I doubt it. Anyway, I’m not being paid to stand around. I’m going to tackle that leaky showerhead next.” He started off in the direction of the bathroom.

  “How much are they paying you?” she asked.

  Dan’s crutches came to a thudding halt. “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”

  She shrugged. “I was just curious.”

  “They pay me enough, Molly. Okay?”

  “Don’t be so touchy, Dan. For heaven’s sake. I was just wondering. It’s no big deal.”

  “Maybe I’m just a little reluctant to compare paycheck stubs with a college professor,” he said irritably. “Maybe it’s an ego thing. Did you ever consider that?”

  “No. I…” Molly bit softly into her lower lip. “How did you even know I was a college professor?”

  He shifted his weight and glared at the floor a second before he said, “I can read, you know. I couldn’t help but see that online university deal on your computer screen.”

  “But how did you know I was a professor?”

  “You’re a smart woman, for God’s sake. And you’re considerably over twenty-one, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Hell, it never once occurred to me that you were a student.”

  Her frown was back. She could feel it. But her inclination was to believe him. “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “Good,” he snapped. “Now, if you’ll quit playing Twenty Questions, I’ll get on with my work.”

  Molly watched him stomp toward the bathroom, and had to stifle a giggle. It wasn’t so easy, looking aggrieved and all bent out of shape, on crutches. She chided herself for asking Dan how much he was being paid for this job. He had such a chip on his shoulder when it came to his occupation, she should have known he’d blow a gasket or two.

  She let out a tiny sigh. Now that she was finding him so damned attractive, she hated that his male ego was coming between them like a barbed-wire fence. What difference did their professional status make? She wished she had told him she was only a lowly instructor now, any
way, and made a mental note to slip that into a conversation in the not-so-distant future.

  In her office, she booted up her computer again. If she didn’t pay more attention to business, she wouldn’t even be a lowly instructor for very long.

  Changing the showerhead turned out to be easy enough, even though the crutches nearly cost him his life on the slick surface of the bathtub. After that, however, Dan wasn’t ready to tackle the leak in the kitchen sink without first returning to the trailer to take a look at the book he’d borrowed from the library.

  He must have nodded off somewhere between washers and wing nuts, because when he woke, the light had dimmed considerably inside his trailer. It took a second to realize that what had awakened him was the sound of Molly screaming.

  One second after that he had retrieved a key from beneath a floor panel and was taking his Glock from the metal drawer where he kept it locked away. He shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans and was halfway across the backyard before the pain in his ankle reminded him that he’d forgotten the crutches.

  As best he could determine, the screams were coming from Molly’s bathroom. The back door wasn’t locked, but it didn’t appear to be jimmied in any way. Dan headed immediately for the bathroom. That door was locked.

  “Molly,” he shouted, banging his fist on the door.

  Her screams had diminished to staccato curses, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she was safe.

  “Molly, open the door.”

  “I can’t,” she wailed.

  There was no way he was going to be able to use his injured foot, either to kick or to support himself while using the other foot, so he moved back, held his automatic in his left hand, and rammed his right shoulder into the wooden door. The framing on the inside gave way with a harsh snapping noise, and, having switched his gun to the other hand, Dan lunged into the steamy little room.

  The flowered shower curtain was pulled closed across the tub. Dan reached out and opened it with one quick swing of his arm, and there stood Molly in all her glistening, naked glory. Her hair was dripping soapsuds and her eyes were squeezed closed. He was momentarily stupefied by the vision of wet, firm breasts and the sleek curve of her behind before he realized that water was spraying down on her, uncontrolled, from the uncapped pipe while the showerhead he’d installed sat in several inches of foamy water in the bottom of the tub.

  Dan shoved his gun into his jeans at the small of his back. With adrenaline still pouring through him, he shouted louder than he meant to. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Molly was scrambling to cover herself with her arms and trying to wipe her soapy eyes at the same time. She shouted back, “I was trying to wash my hair, dammit, and the stupid showerhead came off in my hand. Now I’ve got soap in my eyes and I can’t see to turn the water off and I can’t find my towel.” One wet arm flailed out blindly, smacking Dan on the side of the head.

  He reached in front of her to turn off the cascading water, then snapped the towel from the bar above the toilet. “You scared the hell out of me, Molly, you know that? Come here.”

  He curved a hand around her wet, soapy neck and guided her closer, then dabbed at her eyes with a corner of the towel. “Is that better?”

  Molly let out a strangled little whimper. One blue eye opened tentatively, then widened considerably. “My God, Dan. Look at my door!” she wailed. “What did you do to my door?”

  He shrugged while he wrapped the big bath towel around her. “I broke it. But that’s no big deal. I can fix it. Doors just happen to be my specialty. I’m a hell of a carpenter, Molly.”

  A rough growl loosened from her throat and she batted his hands away, taking a firm grip on the towel. “Well, it’s a pretty good bet you’re not a plumber, Dan,” she snarled. “Now, will you please get out of here so I can dry off and get dressed?”

  Molly was running the blow dryer over her hair, standing at the bathroom sink and contemplating the shattered door frame. Dan had only been here a few days and already he’d done at least a month’s worth of damage. She wondered if he wreaked as much havoc at every place he worked.

  It was a nice havoc, though. Well, except the part an hour or so ago when she was blind and buck naked in the shower. Even now her face colored rosily at the memory. Dan hadn’t seemed all that unsettled by it. That shouldn’t have surprised her, Molly supposed. Her not-all-that-voluptuous body probably made no impression whatsoever on him. He might as well have been rescuing a wet dog.

  She switched the blow dryer off, only to realize her phone was ringing, so she trotted into the living room and glanced at the caller ID.

  “Who is it?” Dan came up behind her.

  “I don’t know. It says ‘Pay Phone,’ then there’s a number underneath. Looks like it’s local.”

  “Don’t answer it,” he said.

  “Well, what if…?”

  “Just don’t answer it, Molly, all right? That’s what the damn ID is for. No sense giving some heavy breather his jollies for the night.”

  It kept ringing. And ringing. At least twenty times by Molly’s count. Every single ring sent a little shiver down her spine.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning Dan waited until young Buddy Jr. arrived for his English tutorial session before he drove the three blocks to First and Main, went back to the tavern where he’d used the phone the day before, and called Houston for a location on the pay phone number that had shown on Molly’s caller ID.

  It turned out to be in the back room of the pool hall right next door. No, nobody had seen any strangers around there the previous night. It had been a regular night, the proprietor told Dan, except for Clete Davis drinking a little too much Southern Comfort and tossing his cookies in the alley out back.

  Dan didn’t even bother to check the phone itself since he wasn’t equipped to take any prints and didn’t suppose any terrorist worth his salt would have left any, anyway. Hell, it was probably just some drunk who’d finally worked up enough courage to call the prettiest girl in town and ask her for a date.

  That notion didn’t put him in the brightest of moods as he drove back to Molly’s. He’d read in her file that she’d left behind a fiancé someplace in New York, but he hadn’t seen any evidence of a viable engagement. No ring on Molly’s finger. No wistful sighs or forlorn expressions on her face. He couldn’t imagine being engaged to Molly, then having her disappear into thin air. Why wasn’t this alleged fiancé moving heaven and earth and all the bureaucracies involved to get her back?

  Dan would have, by God. He gave the steering wheel a little slap for emphasis. If Molly were his fiancée, not even WITSEC could keep him from finding her.

  She was standing in the driveway, waving goodbye to Buddy Jr. when Dan pulled up. There was a little breeze shaping her skirt to her long, lovely legs. Dan pictured those lithe limbs all sleek and soapy, and found himself swallowing a sigh as he levered out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  “No crutches today?” she asked, moving closer to where he stood.

  “I didn’t have far to walk.”

  “Guess what?” she asked. A knowing grin inched across her lips. “I just happen to know who last night’s mystery caller was. Guess who?”

  He pulled his shades down his nose. “Just tell me.”

  “It was Buddy Jr. calling from the pool hall, trying to see if he could come by in the afternoon instead of the morning.”

  “Are you sure?” Dan asked.

  “Positive. He just told me.”

  That was good news, Dan thought, and probably what he should have suspected all along. Molly’s terrorists didn’t exist anymore. All sources indicated that. Nobody was threatening this woman or trying to silence her. If there had been any chance of that, they wouldn’t have sent Dan to keep an eye on her.

  “Well, that’s good news,” he said. “I told you not to worry.”

  Her forehead creased. “Speaking of worrying, I was wondering what you were planning to work on toda
y.”

  “I thought I’d have another go at that showerhead,” he said. “Damned screws must’ve been defective.”

  “Molly!”

  “What?” Molly called back, turning off her computer and swiveling her chair in the direction of Dan’s voice.

  “Come here a minute, will you?”

  He was in the bathroom. Well, more precisely he was in the bathtub, a screwdriver lodged over one ear while he reached up to further adjust the newly reattached showerhead.

  “Here I am,” she said. “What do you need?”

  “I need to know where you want this thing set so you won’t be reaching up and fiddling with it and bringing it down the way you did before.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “Just tell me how you want it set.”

  She crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the vanity. “Well, I don’t know. What are my choices?”

  “Let’s see.” He squinted up. “There’s Regular Shower. I guess that’s for people who just want to get clean. There’s something called Soft Pulse, which has a certain sensual appeal. The last setting, preferred by sexual deviates, no doubt, is called Pleasure Pulse.” He angled his head toward her and waggled his eyebrows. “I say go for it, Molly.”

  She laughed. “You go for it, Dan. The regular setting will do just fine.”

  “Killjoy.” He flipped a little lever. “That should do it. Okay. Take off your clothes and give her a try.”

  “I’ll wait. Why don’t you give her a try?”

  “Okay.”

  He had stripped off his Hawaiian shirt and was tugging his undershirt over his head almost before Molly could react.

  “Whoa. Wait a minute, Dan. I was just kidding.”

  He looked like a four-year-old who’d just been told they’d stopped making chocolate pudding. Forever. It occurred to her then that, living in the Airstream, Dan probably hadn’t had a really good shower in ages.

  “Well, I mean, if you really want to take a shower,” she said, “go ahead. Here.” She reached into the tiny closet for a towel. “Here’s a clean towel. Just for heaven’s sake wait till I get out of here, okay?”