by Mary McBride
Her hand slashed out in the darkness, clipping Dan’s jaw. He thought about restraining her, but then decided against it. If the big Crown Victoria cruiser was lurking somewhere nearby, better Gil Watson should see Molly confronting his wife than Dan being confronted by her. Granted, it put Molly’s reputation at stake, but having been in law enforcement for as long as he had, Dan knew the degree of damage a small-town sheriff was permitted to get away with, and he really didn’t feel like having a bruised kidney or a couple of broken ribs at the moment. In the end, that might be more detrimental to Molly than a bruised reputation.
“Go for it, Rocky,” he said, lying back down and cocking his arms behind his head.
Molly swung open the door of the trailer and stomped down its little stairs. She cinched her flannel robe tighter as she looked around for Linda Watson, who was leaning casually against the rear bumper, striking a match to light the cigarette that dangled from her lips.
In the flare of the flame, Molly got a good look at the woman, from her big gold hoop earrings to the gold lamé sash at the waist of her white jumpsuit, all the way to her gold sandals. She couldn’t help but think how much Raylene would have loved the outfit. My Lord.
“Excuse me,” Molly said. “People are trying to sleep here, if you don’t mind.”
Linda shook out the match and dropped it. “Oh, I don’t mind, hon. Tell Danny I’m here, will you?”
Molly felt her jaw come unhinged and her mouth drop open idiotically. That hadn’t been the response she was expecting. She’d had visions of the Watson woman mumbling an embarrassed apology once she realized that Dan already had female companionship, then slinking away into the night. Any decent person would, after all. Instead, Linda Watson stood her ground, regarding Molly as if she were as much competition as a bowl of chopped liver.
“Tell him,” Linda said, gesturing toward the door.
“I won’t tell him any such thing,” Molly replied. “He’s in bed. I mean, he’s not awake.”
Linda blew out a stream of smoke, then glanced at her wide gold watch. “At ten-thirty? What’d you do, honey, put him to sleep?”
Molly’s mouth gaped wider. Ordinarily, she wasn’t a person who lost her temper easily. She liked to think of herself as calm and reasonable, cool and completely logical. But suddenly something sort of ripped loose inside her.
“Put him to sleep?” She laughed. Well, it was closer to a cackle. “Maybe I wore him out, honey.”
Now it was the other woman’s turn to look surprised. She recovered fairly quickly, however, glaring at Molly hard before flicking her half-smoked cigarette onto the ground so close to the hem of Molly’s flannel robe that she had to jump back.
“Never mind,” Linda said, then raised her voice in the direction of the Airstream’s open window to add, “Danny can find me down at the Blue Moon whenever he’s in the mood. See you around, honey.”
“Not if I see you first,” Molly muttered childishly at the woman’s sashaying backside. “Witch,” she added under her breath.
She slammed back into the trailer.
“I can’t believe that woman!” she shrieked. “Did you hear her? Did you hear what she said?”
“I heard,” Dan said.
He didn’t sound too outraged, though, Molly thought. More than anything, he sounded amused.
“I don’t know what you think is so damned funny,” she snarled as she felt her way through the darkness toward the air mattress.
Somewhere near her knees, Dan chuckled. “You wore me out, Molly?”
She located the little bed and flopped on it. “Well, what was I supposed to say to somebody who was looking at me like I was about as sexy as a dead armadillo on the side of the road?”
“I think you’re sexy,” he said.
Molly blinked. “You do?”
“Uh-huh. Way more than a dead armadillo on the side of the road.” He yawned. The sleeping bag rustled as he turned on his side. “G’night, Molly.”
Chapter 6
Dan pressed the accelerator to the floor on his way to the little town of Idella just across the county line. It had been a while since he’d unwound the big engine in the BMW, and the raw speed felt as good as an ancient brandy blazing down his throat. He blew by mile after mile of mesquite and prickly pear and one dead armadillo by the side of the road.
The sight of that unfortunate critter made Dan smile, almost against his will. It was because of Molly—the sexiest woman he’d ever known, although he hadn’t told her so—that he was beating a fast path to a secluded pharmacy for the protection he swore he wouldn’t need. Telling himself, again and again, that you didn’t take a woman like Molly to bed unless you had a lot more to offer her than a few wild and steamy nights wasn’t doing much good to cool his ardor. Sadly, nothing was going to accomplish that except to get this damned assignment over and get away from temptation. Away from Molly. Far away.
He’d left her this morning in the safe young hands of Buddy Jr., not that he expected any terrorists to emerge from the woodwork. In fact, what Dan was really expecting at any moment was notification from the service that the crisis was over.
He could already hear Bobby’s laid-back voice when he called him with the news. “All’s well, amigo. Time to quit screwing around and get back to some real work. You ready?”
Was he ready? As Dan dropped back to the speed limit on the fringes of Idella, he was glad that today wasn’t the day he had to make that particular decision. Once inside the pharmacy, it was all he could do to decide which protection to buy from a huge and multi-colored array.
He tossed the turquoise-and-black package as casually as possible on the counter, then studied a display of mini flashlights and key chains while the female clerk rang up his purchase. Still without making eye contact, Dan handed over a twenty dollar bill.
“You look so familiar,” the clerk said. “You’re Daniel Shackelford, aren’t you?”
A silent little sigh broke in his throat. He thought he’d be safe in Idella. What did he have to do? Wear a wig and a pair of thick glasses with a false nose? Now he noticed that the clerk was a pretty brunette with frank gray eyes, probably not too much younger than he was. He offered up a quick little prayer that he hadn’t slept with her.
“I don’t mean to be intruding,” she continued, “it’s just that if you are Daniel Shackelford, you were one of my mother’s favorite students.”
“Mrs. Booth?” he asked, astonished. “The history teacher?”
“Right. Mildred Booth.”
“It should have clicked as soon as you said Daniel,” he said. “Mrs. Booth is the only person in the world who ever called me that. How is she? Still teaching?”
“Oh, no. She retired about eighteen years ago. She’s seventy-eight now, but still going strong.”
Dan couldn’t help but chuckle. “Tough lady, your mom. She could turn a kid’s blood to cherry Popsicles with one of her stares.”
“Don’t I know? Remember, I had to live with her.” She handed Dan his receipt and change. “It was good seeing you, Daniel. I can’t wait to tell my mother. She’d be thrilled if you stopped by for a chat. She’s still in the same house in Moonglow. Right behind the elementary school.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, shoving the change in his pocket. “Good seeing you.”
“You, too.” She held out a small plastic bag. “Here. Don’t forget your…um…your purchase.”
On the drive back to Moonglow, Dan held to the speed limit and thought about Mildred Booth, the only teacher who’d ever treated him like a human being instead of a Shackelford. He could still picture her, a mountain of a woman whose face could harden like Mount Rushmore or soften like a pale pink rose. Mrs. Booth hadn’t just taught him history. She’d taught him he was a worthy individual. It was because of her belief in his abilities that he’d gone on to college after the Marine Corps, and it was her letter of recommendation that had probably been at least partly responsible for his acceptance in the U.S.
Marshals Service. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Booth, he thought, he probably would be an itinerant handyman right now, or worse.
Too bad he couldn’t stop by and see her while he was working undercover. Too bad he couldn’t take Molly to meet her. The two of them would really hit it off.
On the other hand, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to see his iron-clad mentor now that his career was on the skids. She’d see right through him, too. She always did. He didn’t think he could bear to see one of her disappointed looks.
When he arrived at Molly’s, he stashed his purchase in the trailer, locking the condoms in the drawer with his badge and gun, before going into the house to check on Buddy Jr.’s progress. Amazingly enough, the kid had two walls completely stripped and was just beginning on a third.
“Nice work,” Dan said from the doorway, squinting as the fumes got to his eyes.
Buddy Jr. uttered a muffled thanks from behind his fumigator’s mask.
“Where’s Molly?” Dan asked.
“Dunno. She said something about the library.”
Dan slapped the doorjamb and muttered a curse. He’d told her not to go anywhere until he got back, hadn’t he? But then, in all honesty, why would any woman do what her resident repairman told her unless it suited her mood? Dammit. He was half tempted to tell Molly the truth just to protect her pretty neck.
On the other hand, since that pretty neck apparently wasn’t in any danger, he’d just keep up the stupid charade. If she barely bought his act as a handyman, she’d probably fall down laughing if he told her he was a federal agent.
Marly Eversole waved from the front desk when he walked into the library. “Looking for Molly Hansen?” she asked in a loud whisper.
Dan nodded, wondering bleakly if the whole town already knew about the incident with Linda Watson last night.
“She’s back in the stacks,” Marly said, pointing to the back room crammed with shelves where Dan had filched the home-repair book a few days before. It occurred to him he’d have to sneak it back pretty soon before he left town. Or maybe he’d keep it as a souvenir and just send Marly a nice-size check to cover his transgression.
“Thanks, Marly.”
He found Molly sitting cross-legged on the floor, paging through an old Moonglow Monitor yearbook.
“Hey,” she said softly when he settled beside her. “Look at this.” She flipped back a few pages.
Dan rolled his eyes. He didn’t even remember looking like the gawky kid in his senior picture. “Looks like an alien,” he muttered.
“You’ve improved considerably,” Molly said. She flipped a few more pages. “Here. Read what it says under ‘Where will they be in twenty years?’”
He scanned the list for his name and read aloud, “‘Serving ninety-nine to life.’ Yeah. That’s about right. I probably disappointed a hell of a lot of people showing up here after all these years without hand and leg cuffs.” He narrowed his gaze on Molly’s face, irritated that she’d dredged up his past once again. “What are you doing with this, anyway? Nobody looks at other people’s high school yearbooks, Molly.”
She smiled, undaunted by his glare. “I was just curious. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about way back then.” She thumbed back to his photograph and traced a finger over it. “I think you were pretty cute.”
“Cute,” Dan grumbled. “Just some idiot kid who imagined himself an outlaw. It’s a wonder I didn’t wind up serving ninety-nine to life.”
He hauled himself up off the floor and held out a hand. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
“I guess.”
Molly closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf before she took Dan’s hand and let him pull her to her feet. Once she was standing, though, she didn’t back away. There was barely an inch between them when she tipped her grinning face up to his.
“I’ll bet you made out like a bandit back here in the stacks,” she said. “Where I grew up, the library was always the best place for stealing a few kisses.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dan lifted an eyebrow. “Hung out at the library a lot, did you?”
“Well…” she drawled, “I studied, too.”
“Uh-huh. When you weren’t sneaking back into the stacks to be kissed.” As he spoke, his hand rose to cup her neck beneath her long blond hair. “I know your type, Molly Hansen.”
“Do you?”
Her face moved closer to his, and Dan wasn’t sure if that was his doing or hers. About the only thing he was certain of was that her smile had somehow changed from simple amusement to pure seduction, and that her blue eyes had taken on a darker, sensuous cast.
He swore softly as his mouth came down on hers, then it took all of ten seconds for the kiss to ignite and burn completely out of their control. While his hand was angling up under her loose cotton top, Molly’s right leg was climbing up his left. A moment later, after he’d reached around for a handful of her backside, Molly’s other leg came up, clamping around his hips, while her arms encircled his neck.
Dan couldn’t get close enough and neither could she, but Molly’s back was already jammed against a bookshelf, and while he moved against her, books started toppling onto the floor. A few at first, like a gentle rain, then more, volume after volume, harder and harder. Molly didn’t seem to notice. Dan noticed, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to care.
“What in the world is going on back there?” Marly Eversole’s voice carried through the stacks.
Dan tore his mouth away from Molly’s. Her legs were still locked around his hips. “It’s okay, Marly,” he called. “We’re just doing a little research. I think we found what we wanted.”
“Well, I hope so, Danny,” the librarian called back. “We’re closing in five minutes.”
Molly was trying her best to stifle a giggle in the collar of Dan’s shirt, but she wasn’t all that successful.
“This is a library, people,” Marly said just before her footsteps echoed on their way back to the main desk.
By now Molly had unwound herself from him and stood blinking at the book-strewn aisle.
“Some kiss,” Dan said.
Molly shook her head. “Some mess.”
She really had gotten herself into a mess, Molly thought as she and Dan walked the several blocks back to her house. Good grief. She hadn’t even been able to look Marly Eversole in the eye. She’d just sort of slunk out the library’s front door after she and Dan had replaced all the books that their sudden, explosive encounter had sent toppling to the floor.
Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. Or maybe, more accurately, nobody had ever happened to her before the way Dan Shackelford had happened back there in the stacks. Admittedly, it was she who’d come on to him first, but she’d really only expected a brief sample from the greatest kisser north of the Rio Grande. She hadn’t expected her entire body to start fizzing and then to explode out of her control.
“What are you thinking, Molly?” Dan asked, breaking the silence between them.
“Oh, nothing.” Liar. Liar.
“Really?” He sounded surprised, perhaps even disappointed.
“Really.” Pants on fire. My God, she thought, wasn’t that the truth?
“You know what I was thinking?” he asked.
“No.” She tried to sound casual, as if she could care less about what was on Dan’s mind after the fireworks in the library.
“I was thinking maybe we should cool it. Not that I didn’t like kissing you.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his mouth for a quick brush of his lips. “Believe it or not, Molly, nothing quite like that ever happened to me before.”
Molly was inclined to believe it. How, she wondered, could any human being sustain repeated sexual encounters like that and not be reduced to a little pile of smoking ashes? “Me, neither,” she said.
Dan laughed. “Really? And here I was thinking you shimmied up every man who kissed you as if he were a telephone pole.”
She looked away, feeling her fa
ce ablaze with color.
“I’m just teasing you,” he said. “I just think we need to be careful. Me, anyway. I’m not exactly in a position to get involved with anybody right now.”
Molly sucked in a breath. He must be married! Why hadn’t she considered that from the get-go? Men as gorgeous as Dan were never single. Not in her experience, anyway. His itinerant lifestyle had misled her. She felt like such a jerk.
“I’m really not in any position to get involved myself,” she said. “There’s a man…well, we’ve been sort of engaged for a long time.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She couldn’t tell if Dan sounded relieved or irritated, but there was definitely an emotional timbre in his voice.
“Yes,” she said. “I probably should have mentioned it before.” The way you should have at least hinted that there might be a Mrs. Dan Shackelford, you creep.
“All the more reason to cool it, then, don’t you think?” he said.
“Definitely.” Molly forced a little laugh, hoping it didn’t sound too brittle. “Besides, without a decent bookstore in Moonglow, I really don’t want to risk losing my library card.”
Dan knew it was too much to hope that Buddy Jr. would be finished with the wallpaper stripping by the time he and Molly got back from the library, and that the house would be free of fumes, allowing Molly to resume sleeping in her own bed. No such luck. The fumes just about bowled them over the moment they entered the house, and the kid still had a whole wall to go, plus nerve enough to ask for an advance on his two hundred dollars.
Dan took five bills from his wallet. “You pretty sure you’ll be finished with the stripping tomorrow?” he asked the boy.
“Oh, sure. Tomorrow, easy. Then it’ll be another day or two for the place to start smelling okay again.”
“Great,” Dan said.
Great. Another couple nights with Molly in his trailer was just what he was looking forward to, especially now that she’d divulged her engagement. Once again, Dan found himself wondering about the guy’s intelligence, letting a woman like Molly just disappear from his life.
