Moonglow, Texas

by Mary McBride

  Wiping her eyes, Molly turned to see Buddy Jr., his arms full of various lengths of wood, a leather tool belt slung around his narrow hips, and the ever-present earphones circling his neck.

  “I’ve got these pieces for the door all measured and mitered,” he said. “Once I nail them up, there’s just the painting left. Want me to go ahead with it now?”

  “Sure.”

  The boy had already angled through the door on his way to the bathroom when Molly remembered Dan in the shower. She started to call out to Buddy, then decided he’d figure it out for himself once he saw all the steam drifting out from the broken door. He could just stack the lumber in the hallway and come back later.

  “Ms. Hansen?” he called out to her.

  “I know,” she called back. “You can finish up later this afternoon if that’s all right with you.”

  “Well, yeah. But I think you better come in here. Something’s real wrong with Mr. Shackelford.”

  Molly’s feet barely touched the floor between the kitchen and the bathroom. She brushed past Buddy, waving steam away from her face as she entered the little room, half expecting to find Dan lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Instead, he was standing in the tub, both arms braced on the wet tile wall, while hot water poured over his head and cascaded down his naked body from the unadorned, uncapped, headless shower pipe above.

  Under other circumstances, Molly might have laughed or even made some kind of sarcastic remark about his plumbing skills, but one look at the expression on Dan’s face told her that this wasn’t the time for levity. His mouth was twisted in a brutal, anguished curve, and even though his eyes were squeezed closed, she could tell that not all of the moisture pouring down his cheeks was from the shower. Some of the wetness was tears.

  She reached out and turned the hot and cold handles off. For a second the only sound in the little room was the gurgle of water in the drain. Dan didn’t move. He simply stood there, eyes closed, dripping. When Molly snapped open the towel and began drying him, he didn’t even seem to be aware of it.

  “Dan,” she said with some urgency, “what’s wrong? Tell me.”

  He dragged in several rough breaths, then mumbled something she couldn’t quite understand. It sounded like I killed her, but that didn’t make any sense at all to Molly.

  “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” she asked again, rubbing him harder with the towel as if that would somehow clear his head.

  “Is he okay, Ms. Hansen?” Buddy Jr. inquired hesitantly from the doorway.

  Molly had nearly forgotten he was there, but the boy’s voice seemed to bring Dan out of whatever hellish trance he was in. He twisted his head and snarled, “Get out of here, kid.”

  “Go on, Buddy,” Molly said quietly. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Well, if you’re sure—”

  “Get the hell out,” Dan yelled. Then he opened his red-rimmed eyes, finally focusing on her. “Molly?”

  “Yes. It’s me, Dan. Tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt? What is it? Let me help you.”

  He shook his head, then blinked.

  “No one can help me,” he said.

  Get a grip, Dan kept telling himself, but there was nothing to hold on to. Even Molly’s arms, as she led him out of the bathroom, felt too fragile to keep him from sliding closer and closer to the edge. The harder he tried to pin his consciousness to the here and now, the more he kept flashing back to that corridor and the second just before the elevator doors opened.

  That’s it. Move up so you’re between Carrie and the doors. No. Not that. Do it different. Screw the elevator. Take the stairs. Morales will bitch all the way down, but that’s okay. He’ll end up in the lobby alive.

  “Dan, here. You’re shivering. Get under the covers.”

  “We need to take the stairs,” he said. “The damned stairs.”

  “All right. Just get into bed and rest for a minute. We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Not later. Now, Carrie. Do it now, dammit.”

  “Look at me, Dan. It’s me. Molly.”

  He knew that. Dammit. He knew where he was. In Moonglow. In Molly’s woebegone, stripped bedroom. He’d just watched her whisk the covers back on the bed. He could see her face all crimped with worry and her mouth flattening in a stubborn line. She wanted to help him. She didn’t know he was way beyond that.

  “It’s okay,” he told her, trying to sound in control. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “The minute you bashed that stupid trailer of yours into my house, Dan Shackelford, everything about you became about me, too.”

  “Well, get over it, sweetheart.” He tried to sound cold. The tough guy. Bogey brushing off Bacall.

  “You get over it, Dan.” With surprising strength, she pushed him down onto the bed and whisked the covers over him. “Now, stay here while I figure out what to do.”

  There was nothing to do, he wanted to tell her, but she was already gone when he finally framed the thought from the wreckage in his head.

  Molly headed straight for the phone, then stood there stupidly staring at it. Who could she call? And even if she knew who, what could she say? That there was a man in her bed who seemed to be coming apart at the seams?

  If she were back on the Van Dyne campus, she’d call the Health Center’s hotline. But here in Moonglow? She didn’t even know if they had a shrink on staff at County Hospital.

  There was a knock on the back door just then and a Yoo-hoo! Anybody home? that made Molly want to cry. Raylene! Molly dashed to the kitchen. If angels had pink hair and incredible busts, then an angel had suddenly appeared.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Molly said.

  “Well, what’s going on, hon? My Lord. Buddy Jr. just came home looking like the sky was falling, babbling something about Danny losing his marbles in the shower.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. Gil Watson roughed him up last night and threw him in jail, and now Dan just…” Molly lifted her hands helplessly. “I just don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” Raylene said. She was digging in her huge black leather handbag, not looking at Molly as she spoke. “Nobody’ll be surprised if one of these days Gil walks into a bullet from his very own gun, and likely as not it’ll be his wife’s finger on the trigger.”

  Molly sighed. As much as the thought pleased her at the moment, it didn’t help Dan’s situation.

  “Did Gil hurt him?” Raylene asked. “Any bruises? Anything broken?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Nothing more than a few cuts. He’s just…I don’t know…confused, agitated. His head’s messed up. I wish I could get him to sleep.”

  “Ah-ha!” Raylene’s hand emerged from her bag, clutching a small plastic container. Despite her long pink nails, she efficiently popped the cap off the little bottle, then shook out two capsules which she pressed into Molly’s hand.

  “Those babies are extra-strength,” she said. “You give Danny both of those, tell him they’re sleeping pills, and I guarantee you he’ll zonk out for the next ten or twelve hours.”

  “Thanks, Raylene.”

  “Sure thing. A good sleep’s the best medicine there is for a messy head. You look like you could use forty good winks yourself, Molly. Here, hon.”

  She started tapping out more capsules, but Molly stopped her.

  “Thanks, anyway, but I think I better keep my eyes open and my head on straight for a while.”

  “You sure?”

  Molly nodded. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, all right, then. You call me if you need any help. You got the number of the shop?”

  Again, Molly nodded. “I can’t thank you enough, Raylene.”

  The hairdresser shrugged. “Then don’t, hon. That’s what friends are for. My Lord.” She adjusted the shoulder strap of her voluminous handbag across her voluminous chest and moved toward the door. “Everything’ll be just fine tomorrow. You’ll see.”

/>   With a glass of water, Molly carried the little capsules to the bedroom, hoping she’d find Dan already asleep. He wasn’t. He was lying right where she’d left him, staring vacantly at the ceiling.

  “I brought you something that will help you sleep,” she said, edging a hip onto the mattress beside him. “Dan? Did you hear me?”

  He shifted his gaze. As earlier in the jail cell, he didn’t seem to recognize her at first. Then he said very slowly and distinctly, “Call Houston, Molly. Tell them I quit. Tell them to send somebody else.”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” she said. “It’s not important. Here. Sit up a little so you can take these. They’ll help you sleep.”

  To her surprise, he did exactly as she asked. Docilely. Unquestioning. Like a trusting child. Then he dropped his head back on the pillow.

  “Maybe I won’t dream,” he murmured, staring overhead again. “These dreams. God. They’re wearing me out.”

  Molly smoothed his rumpled hair off his damp forehead. “You’ll have good dreams,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

  “Call Houston,” he said again, the focus fading from his eyes.

  “All right.”

  “It’s important.”

  “The house can wait,” she said softly.

  “I can’t do it, Molly. Tell them I can’t do it.”

  “Shh.”

  Chapter 8

  The bullets thunked almost silently into the wall a foot or so above the headboard. The first one stirred the part of Dan’s brain that was always on alert. By the time slugs five and six hit, he had shoved the deeply sleeping Molly off the bed and was sprawled on top of her on the floor.

  It was dark. That was about all he knew as he struggled to the surface of his capsule-induced stupor. What else? Dan prodded his dulled senses. A slight current of air grazed his bare back so he knew the bedroom window was open. No glass had shattered. There had been little or no concussion. That meant somebody using a silencer had fired from close range, and it meant he hadn’t missed. The shots had been intended as a warning. But whether that warning was for him or for Molly, he didn’t know.

  Molly twisted beneath him. “Dan, what in the world do you think you’re doing? Get off. You’re crushing me.”

  He rolled off, positioning himself between Molly and the window, deciding there was no reason to worry her until he knew just what was going on. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I must’ve had a nightmare or something.”

  “I guess you did,” she said, elbowing up. “You were talking in your sleep for the longest time. Hours. Crazy stuff.”

  “Crazy dreams. That’s all.” He got to his feet. “I’m going to get some clothes on. Don’t turn on the light yet, okay?”

  “Okay, but…”

  “Just don’t, Molly,” he said sternly.

  In the bathroom, Dan flipped on the light and caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, instantly recognizing the fierce concentration that came with the more intense moments of his job. Despite the pallor and the bloodshot eyes, it was the look of a hunter. A warrior, even.

  Old habits died hard, he thought, stabbing his legs into his jeans. Old visions died harder, he realized, as his dead partner’s bullet-riddled body appeared before him. Or was it Molly? His heart seized up, and it took nearly every ounce of his will to shunt the bloody image aside.

  Back in the bedroom, Molly was rearranging the bedcovers and plumping pillows in the dark. Dan wanted her out of there, not just for her own safety, but so he could inspect the bullet holes in the wall above the bed. He closed the window and drew the curtains closed before turning on the lamp on the dresser.

  “Oh, my God,” Molly softly exclaimed.

  Dan studied the direction of her gaze, hoping it wasn’t toward the area directly above the white wicker headboard. Still, considering the condition of Buddy Jr.’s stripped walls with their stains and gouge marks, he doubted she’d notice the six little holes that stood out so clearly to him.

  “This place looks like a war zone,” she said. “And the bed! I swear, Dan. How can one person, sound asleep, wreak so much havoc?” She shook her head. “Those must’ve been some nightmares, my dear.”

  “They were. I think I’ll just stay up for a while,” he said. “Are you tired?”

  “No. I slept a little while you did. In between bad dreams.”

  “How about making some coffee, then?”

  “Sure.” She adjusted one of the pillows. “I might even consider scrambling some eggs even if it is near midnight. Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah. That’d be great, Molly. I’ll come help as soon as I get the rest of my clothes on.”

  Her gaze, fully trained on him now, turned soft. Her blue eyes glistened with moisture. “You’re better, aren’t you, Dan? I mean, really better? I was so worried about you.”

  At the same moment he opened his arms, Molly hurried toward him. Her arms circled his waist and her cheek pressed against his chest. “Really worried,” she said again, while he stroked her hair.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, meaning it as much as he’d ever meant anything in his life. “I’m okay. Honest. It was just a lot of memories, all of them zapping me at once. Being back here in Moonglow is just tougher than I anticipated.” It wasn’t the whole truth, he thought, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either.

  “Tougher, indeed. No thanks to some people.”

  “Hey, that’s my problem,” he said. “Not yours.” He tilted back his head and urged up her face with a finger under her chin, then smiled a smile guaranteed to elicit one from her. “Your problem at the moment, woman, is how to feed a starving man.”

  She smiled, as he knew she would. “No problem.”

  After Molly left for the kitchen, Dan quickly shoved the bed and headboard away from the wall in order to inspect the bullet holes. With the nail file he found on the nightstand, he carefully dug out one of the slugs, examining it in the palm of his hand. He wasn’t a ballistics expert by any means, but he’d seen enough expended bullets to be fairly certain that this one came from a .357 Magnum. Not such an unusual pistol, especially here in gun-toting Texas. Gil Watson wore one on his ample hip. But then, so did his deputy and God only knew how many other Moonglow residents.

  Of course, not everybody in Moonglow wanted Dan out of town. That narrowed it down some.

  And even as he resisted the notion that the warning shots had been meant for Molly, Dan was mentally rehearsing his appeal to Bobby for an immediate, well-qualified replacement.

  Molly stood at the kitchen counter, unable to remember how long it had been since she’d fixed an omelette this late at night, although she suspected it had been for Ethan during the early days of their courtship.

  While she chopped onions and diced green peppers, she tried to remember those early days and nights with her fiancé, but they were just a blur for the most part, the same way Ethan’s face was a blur. Every time she tried to picture him, the only face she could conjure was Dan’s.

  How was it possible, when she’d known Ethan for years, when she’d planned to spend her entire life with him? How was it possible that Dan, after barely a week, was indelibly etched on her brain?

  It was ludicrous. Kathryn Claiborn was a successful academic. Professors didn’t fall in love with handymen. Did they?

  She stopped chopping, standing there with the knife poised over the cutting board and the onion fumes wafting up into her eyes, wondering all of a sudden where Kathryn Claiborn had gone, and why Molly Hansen seemed more real to her now than the woman she’d been for the first thirty years of her life.

  “Kathryn?” She whispered the name, bewildered, finding it awkward and unfamiliar on her lips, beginning to cry even as her mouth twitched in a baffled smile and her heart seemed so full it threatened to spill over, just like the tears in her eyes.

  She was Molly Hansen. Kathryn, the cool and calculating professor, was gone. She was truly Molly, living here in dusty Moonglow, in this dratted, falling-down house, and she
was wildly in love with a falling-apart handyman named Dan Shackelford. It was the damnedest thing that had ever happened to her. She stood there, laughing out loud while the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Dan was suddenly behind her, his warm breath close to her ear. Her heart rose up like a helium balloon with a happy face on it. She loved him! How did this happen? He’d think she was insane if she said so.

  “Onions,” she said instead.

  “I thought those were supposed to make you cry,” he said.

  “I’m doing that, too.” She turned in the circle of his arms. “See?”

  Beneath his rumpled hair, his brow worked into deep furrows, and those deep green eyes of his went soft with concern. For a second, she could have almost sworn it was love.

  “Aw, Molly,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I love you. It’s crazy. Maybe I am, too.

  “Something.” He swore softly. “You were doing just fine until I came along and messed everything up for you. I’m sorry, honey.” He bent his head so his forehead touched hers, then closed his eyes as he spoke. “You won’t have to put up with me much longer. I promise.”

  She stepped back, her fingers tightening on the knife handle. “What does that mean, Dan?”

  “It means that as soon as the company can send a new man, another repair guy, I’m outta here.”

  “Oh.” Molly’s heart—that happy balloon—went pop inside her chest. “Just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

  “Just like that,” he answered in a voice that seemed oddly rough. “That’s what I do, Molly. I leave. Hell, ask anybody in Moonglow.”

  “They don’t know you,” she said firmly. “Not the way I know you.” They don’t love you the way I love you.

  Something flickered in his eyes, something soft and warm, then it disappeared just before his face hardened like cement. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “I know how I feel. I wouldn’t have made love with you if I hadn’t cared. A lot.” She reached up to touch his cheek, hoping to soften his expression, but he deflected her hand.