She was certainly confused, but she did know one thing: If she'd been at home with Tommy Lee, he wouldn’t have called her for a date.
Chapter 24
Then Again
Molly was startled to realize she had gotten so preoccupied thinking about her date with Tommy Lee that she had clean forgotten about the horrible threat of Eddie Pendarvis. The sound of a car driving into the yard reminded her. Visions of a man jumping out of a vehicle with a gun made her leave her makeup spread all over the bathroom sink and run to go look out the window.
Why, it was Sam, and he had parked on Mama’s side of the drive.
Gazing at him, Molly thought she should speak. That she was disheveled didn’t matter. She had to speak to him, and wondering exactly what she would say, she hurried out the back door to catch him.
At her call, he turned. Barefoot, she stayed on the back step, arms wrapped around herself, while he came toward her, a cautious look on his face. She thought of how he used to come toward her with a happy, expectant look on his face.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you did for us last night, Sam.” His eyes jumped, an odd look. “It was very kind of you to come with Tommy Lee and help bring us home.”
“Oh . . . it wasn’t anything.” He was looking in the vicinity of her chin.
“I’m glad you and Tommy Lee worked things out,” she said earnestly. She was so very glad; she didn’t want to carry the guilt of having broken up a rare, lifelong friendship.
“We never have stayed mad long, I guess.” His eyes seemed to drift up and meet hers. They were sad, yet intent. She found herself saying, “I loved your roses. I really did.”
He didn’t say anything.
Molly said, “I . . . well, if things weren’t as they are, I would have kept them.”
His sad eyes gazed at her intently, and the understanding passed between them. She hadn’t taken his heart for granted. She cared, he cared . . . another time, another place.
“Do you think we can get back to bein’ the friends that we were?” Molly asked. Searching his eyes, she thought maybe she shouldn’t have asked that. Maybe there wasn’t an answer for that.
Then suddenly Sam bent and brushed his lips across hers in a kiss that was light yet intimate.
Trembling, Molly made a smile for him. When he smiled in return, hers became real, smiles to let go and accept.
“You’re goin’ in to see Rennie?”
“Thought I might.”
They looked at each other again.
“Well . . . I’m glad.” She told herself that she really was.
He went off, and she watched him a moment and felt a little peculiar. Rather like closing a door and wondering if she had forgotten something just on the other side. Molly decided on the chambray dress Lillybeth had given her, a bra but no panties—ohmygosh, but it was her little intimate secret fun!—her new shoes with the ribbons tied up around her legs, hair pulled back loosely because she would be riding in the Corvette, silver earrings, Chanel dabbed between her breasts. The perfume sort of dribbled with the perspiration there. Molly stood in front of the fan to dry herself. At the last minute, when she heard the unmistakable sound of Tommy Lee’s Corvette coming down the drive, she slipped on the bangle bracelets Rennie had left on the dresser. In the past Molly never had felt she could wear bangle bracelets, but she really thought she could now.
From the kitchen window, she saw Tommy Lee stop the Corvette, saw him smooth his hair with both hands and then unfold himself out of the car. He wore his azure blue sport shirt, long sleeves, cuffs turned up like he preferred, showing his strong wrists. For him, it was dressed up. He was so handsome in that shirt!
Molly pushed from the sink, grabbed her small purse, and ran to the back door to meet him. His eyes jumped when he saw her, and then he told her she looked nice. His blue eyes were shining and all for her. She told him he looked nice and let her eyes shine all for him.
He had brought her a present!
It was in a small box with a red satin ribbon. The way the ribbon was tied, she knew he had done it. She opened it, there, on the step. A set of wind chimes. They were brass pipes and calibrated for certain tones, so beautiful that Molly kept looking at them and saying, “Thank you, oh, thank you.”
Here she had run off from him and he was having to make his own meals and pick up after himself, and he had given her a rose bush and wind chimes. She held up the chimes and jiggled them, delighting in the sound.
“They’re door chimes,” Tommy Lee said. “You hang them where they jingle when you open the door.”
He was gazing at her. . . as if she was a desirable woman. She looked back at him. No pressure, he had said. “Just forget everything for a while and have a nice time.” What a relief to do that, to not think that she had to know what to do, had to make a decision. She could let herself look at him, flirt with him . . . let decisions and doubt and fear just blow away.
Tommy Lee was driving down the road before they even settled on where to go for supper. He always did that. He couldn’t just sit behind the wheel of the car and wait until they decided where they were going. He had to drive.
“Where are we goin’?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know. Where do you want to eat?”
“You’re drivin’.”
“What would you like to eat?”
He had no idea where he was going, but he was heading right on through town like he did.
“You’re drivin’,” Molly said. “You choose. You just drive, until we come to some place.”
He sort of slowed down. “I don’t know where,” he said.
“We’ll come to someplace.”
Forget everything . . . have a nice time. Molly felt herself drifting upward on a beautiful balloon, cracking right through the clouds of dread. Tommy Lee kept glancing over at her, grinning, his eyes sparkling. As if he was glad to be with her. She felt so glad to be with him. Happiness just seemed to be wafting up around them. It was like in an old romantic movie, that’s what it was like.
So he kept driving, and they went all the way to the lake, where there was a little restaurant. Neither of them had been to the lake in years, and the restaurant had changed.
“What do you think?” Tommy Lee asked, looking doubtfully at the new restaurant. It was a strange place, and he didn’t much care for strange places.
“We should try it,” Molly said. She didn’t usually care for strange restaurants, either, but she thought she needed to get beyond that. She needed to get beyond a lot of things. “I’m really starving.”
The place turned out not to be a real restaurant but more or less a take-out place that served fried catfish and barbecue and hamburger baskets, with soft drinks in styrofoam cups. There were nice tables, though, out on a wooden deck at the edge of the lake. Molly wondered at the few people there, and when they began to eat, they discovered why. The food was awful, just awful.
“So much for trying a new restaurant,” Molly said, dumping their baskets into the trash; she wouldn’t even feed it to the ducks. She was still starving, and when she got hungry, her mood generally turned poor.
“I guess,” Tommy Lee said, and he looked so dejected that Molly tried to think of something to praise.
“It’s nice to sit out here . . . nice it isn’t crowded, either.”
“Are you still hungry?” Tommy Lee asked.
“A little.”
“I saw a freezer in there with packaged ice cream. I’ll go check it out.”
He came back grinning triumphantly. “Ice cream sandwiches, Madam?” He brought her two; he knew she loved ice cream sandwiches.
“My hero,” she said.
Just forget everything for a while and have a nice time. They were, but maybe they didn’t forget everything, Molly thought. Maybe memories of how things had once been lingered deep in their minds, and in their eyes, too.
As time wore on, however, Molly felt herself growing more and more relaxed, and she sensed that To
mmy Lee did, too. The two of them seemed to get a lot better at forgetting everything and having a nice time. They decided not to go to a show but to drive and walk around the lake. They watched people fishing, watched ducks, watched a man start a big pile of brush on fire, which Tommy Lee said was a really stupid thing to do with the breeze blowing as it was. They watched to see if the brush pile would ignite a grass fire, but thankfully and miraculously it did not. They came by a bait shop-convenience store and bought Coca-Colas in little bottles and snack cakes, not the most nutritious food, but they were forgetting everything and having a really nice time now.
Tommy Lee gave Molly a bite of his brownie, and Molly gave him a bite of her oatmeal cream cookie. Then she leaned over and licked cream from the corner of his mouth with the tip of her tongue. He looked startled, and she knew he was self-conscious because they were right out in public—no matter that no one was around. Still, she gave his lips another lick, and then Tommy Lee started laughing and almost fell off the retaining wall where they sat.
When they got back into the Corvette, Tommy Lee took her hand and kept hold of it even as he shifted the stick of the Corvette, like he used to do back in high school.
Following a rutted road off from the lake, they came to a fenced pasture. Two horses were inside the fence. They were well-cared-for horses, muscular and tame and obviously well used. They came right up to the fence when Molly smooched to them. Delighted, she blew in their noses and petted and talked to them. The two were amusing in their attempts to gain attention.
Tommy Lee touched one, then got bored and went off, looking at an old falling-down cabin. Next thing, he gave a shout. He had found an old truck. A Ford, he said, but how he knew it was beyond Molly; she didn’t see an emblem when she finally picked her way, in her new shoes and slim-fitting dress, through the tall weeds to have a look at what had once been a truck. Tommy Lee was inspecting every rusty part.
“It’s hot,” Molly said after several minutes, and went to sit in the Corvette parked in the shade and wait for Tommy Lee to get through his enthusiasm for a hunk of metal with rotted tires.
Waiting, trying not to sweat, Molly began to get sad. She told herself it was silly, especially when he came back so excited and talking about finding out who owned the old truck and buying it and how he could put a four-sixty into it, which was apparently some great motor. How could she be sad when his eyes were dancing like that? When he took her hand like that? Did it really matter that he didn’t have one iota of interest in horses and she didn’t care one whit about that truck? What she cared about was being with him. And what he truly seemed to care about was being with her.
Tommy Lee drove around the lake until he came to a small beach area with no one in sight. He lolled on the grass while Molly took off her shoes and went wading, holding her skirt up and feeling very seductive. She felt Tommy Lee’s eyes on her. She looked over her shoulder at him. Slowly she turned and, her eyes on his, walked toward him. She sat beside him and kissed him, and he propped her against his chest while they watched the sun getting really low in the sky.
“We both like to look at the sunset,” Tommy Lee said suddenly.
“Yes . . ." Molly said, ". . . and to drive around and do nothin’.”
“We like Cokes,” he said and kissed her neck.
“Ah . . . we like summer.” He was kissing down her neck now, and she was starting to tingle. The grass was summer brown and prickly and they had no blanket or even a towel, so they got into the Corvette to neck. It wasn’t the most comfortable place, but they tried forgetting that, too. Molly couldn’t help thinking how silly, when they had beds back in Valentine. Even if a person was young, could a body possibly be able to bend to the extent needed to enjoy passion in a two-seated sports car?
But there was something about it all—about the youthfulness of it, about reliving the memories it evoked, the daringness of it. There was just something wild and wonderful about it, causing them to not only disregard the uncomfortableness but to slip right beyond it to boiling blood and forgotten reason.
Then suddenly headlights and the sound of vehicles jerked them out of the depths of passion.
“Oh, my Lord,” Molly said. Tommy Lee said something stronger under his breath. Molly, blinking, only just then realized the sun was gone and dark had all but come. The headlights bounced over the grass and trees—a carload of teens, and a pickup truck followed them.
“Hey, man, cool car!” Teens pouring out of the car and out of the truck, coming across to admire the Corvette while Molly tried to pull her dress back down over her bottom and get it buttoned over her breasts.
Then Tommy Lee got out and showed the boys the engine. Five boys and one girl. Several other girls waited over in the car and truck, the same as Molly did, withered and hot and sweaty in the seat of the Corvette.
* * * *
Maybe it was the teens making them suddenly aware of their foolish actions, or perhaps it was simply being interrupted, but whatever the reason, their romantic night appeared to have ended. On the drive back to Valentine, Molly began to worry whether Tommy Lee would go to their house or to the cottage. He had fallen back into his usually quiet self, and she remained unusually quiet.
She didn’t think she was ready to return to their house. The more she thought of it, the more she concluded that she had reached her limit for forgetting everything for a while and just having a nice time. All the fears and doubts about her life and their marriage seemed to be falling right out of the sky and landing on her. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less to Tommy Lee, so she couldn’t tell him not to go to the house. She grew more and more nervous, waiting to see what he would do and hoping they didn’t end up in a big fight.
The closer they came to Valentine, the more tense she became. Then, when Tommy Lee drove past the turnoff for their house and kept on, heading for the cottage, Molly suddenly got very depressed. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to go to the house. She told herself she was being really unfair and erratic, and realizing this made her grow even more blue.
When Tommy Lee pulled into the drive and Molly saw the soft glow from her mother’s living room windows, she realized she had once more forgotten all about the threat of Eddie Pendarvis.
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t call and check on Mama and Rennie.”
“They’re okay. Sam’s still here.”
He was; there was the Bronco patterned in the thin moonlight. Apparently he was staying the night; it was after midnight.
Molly wondered where Sam slept. To her mind it would be poor taste for Rennie and Sam to carry on right in Mama’s house. But then Mama was quite liberal about these things, and in this Molly agreed with Kaye.
“I still should have called," Molly said, feeling guilty. Then she realized Rennie’s car sat on the far side of the Bronco. In the few seconds it took her to realize it was Rennie’s car, she was struck with alarm, thinking someone else was at her mother’s house and that that someone could be Eddie Pendarvis. The recognition of Rennie’s car came with great relief. “I guess Sam took Rennie to get her car.”
“He said he was going to,” Tommy Lee said absently.
Molly thought about that. “You might have told me.”
“Why?”
“I would have liked to know about my sister goin’ up in the vicinity of that madman. And I might have worried if I hadn’t been able to reach Rennie.”
She felt his surprise at her attack, and she realized it had been sort of an attack, although she hadn’t meant it to be. Or maybe she had. He was being way too calm again.
“I would have told you then,” he said. She could tell he was wondering at her; she could hear it in his voice.
But she continued right on. “Maybe you wouldn’t be with me, and I’d call, and she wouldn’t be at Mama’s and maybe Mama wouldn’t be there to tell me where they were."
“Well, none of that happened,” Tommy Lee said, which pretty much shut her mouth.
He had stopped
in the deep darkness beside the cottage and cut the engine. They sat there a few minutes. Molly realized she was taken by the strong reluctance to leave him, an emotion that seemed quite strange, considering how tense she also felt.
Apparently Tommy Lee didn’t want to leave her either, however, because he didn’t shove her out and zoom away. He was just sitting there, staring straight ahead, his profile a shadow in the darkness.
“Do you want to come inside?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, I guess not.”
After a minute, Molly said, “Okay.” Still, she sat there. “I had a nice time this evening, Tommy Lee. A really nice time.”
“I did, too.”
She felt around for her purse. Tommy Lee hopped out of the car and came around to open the door for her. He took her hand and walked her the few feet to the back door. Then with suddenness and strength, he pulled her into his arms and against his hard body.
Thin moonlight shone down upon them. She looked up into his face, into his eyes, before he lowered his head and kissed her. A hard kiss, seductive and deep, deeper and deeper, entering her and drawing her to him, until she lost her breath and just about everything else.
“Come inside, Tommy Lee,” she whispered hoarsely.
“No,” he replied, thick and firm.
Molly was somewhat stunned. Tommy Lee was gazing down at her. He brought his hand to her cheek, rubbed his calloused thumb over her lips.
“I can wait for you, Molly. Until you’re ready.”
He left her there.
She watched him stride away, then turned and fumbled for the handle of the screen door, hurrying inside so as not to stand there and watch him leave. She stood in the middle of the dark kitchen and listened to the Corvette engine disappear down the road. She knew that a part of her heart went with Tommy Lee, and a part of his stayed with her. They were each searching for the whole.
Love in a Small Town Page 28
