My Hero

by Mary McBride

  The beautician blinked back the mist in her eyes. “But the truth is that, in spite of all those steamy nights in the backseat of Cal's mother's old Plymouth or on the couch in my parents' den or wherever, we never did it. We never made love. Not once.” A wistful little laugh broke in her throat. “And since we're being so damned honest, it wasn't because I said no, either.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment, and Holly wasn't sure if the silence was out of disappointment at a shattered myth or disbelief or a kind of awe at such long-ago restraint on the part of a teenage boy. Whatever it was, though, it was very, very personal. This information was not for an audience of sixteen million. Holly leaned forward and shut off her tape recorder.

  “Hard to believe, huh, guys?” Nita summoned up a fraction of a smile.

  “Well…” Carol and Jen were both obviously at a loss for words. “Um…”

  Once again, Ellie intervened with a dismissive flap of her hand. “Well, I never listened to gossip back then, myself. Still don't. And for what it's worth, I'd say Cal was a good boy with a bad reputation. And a handsome devil, to boot.”

  “Nobody's mentioned Hec Garcia,” Holly said, assisting her hostess by nudging the conversation in a new direction. “I gather he and Cal got into it once or twice.”

  They all looked at her—even unflappable Ellie—as if she'd spoken in a foreign language. Way more foreign than New York. Swahili, maybe.

  “Well, he showed me that scar on his arm,” she said, “and I just assumed there had been some sort of fight.”

  “Oh, I remember that,” Carol said.

  Jen leaned forward for another cookie. “A fight? Are you thinking about that football game against aMendocito, Carol?”

  The blonde nodded, and then said to Holly, “But Cal wasn't in the fight. He got slashed breaking up the fight.”

  “Oh.” Holly sat back. Hot damn. Hero Week was on again.

  “Lord Almighty,” Ellie said. “It's after four o'clock already. Jen, didn't you tell me you had to get home to bake a cake or something?”

  There was a flurry of movement as the women all looked at their watches, each of them expressing surprise that the past hour and a half had flown so fast. Holly stood, searching for the right words to properly thank each one of them, particularly Nita, for her candor and helpfulness. But then, just as she opened her mouth to speak, she closed it abruptly when she saw Cal coming around the side of Ellie's house.

  The good boy with the bad reputation was wearing a conservative light gray suit, a solemn tie, and polished shoes, nearly the same uniform in which she'd first seen him at the airport. He looked professional, thoroughly urban, and absolutely out of place. At the same time his face had never looked quite so handsome, and his eyes had never looked so blue. And Holly's heart had never before gone from zero to sixty in a single, bounding beat.

  “Well, now.” Ellie laughed. “Speak of the devil, and who should appear?”

  Holy mother of…!

  Ahead of him, on the shady patio, Cal saw what looked like a coven of summer witches wrapping up a Tupperware party. Worse. It looked like a hen party, awaiting the arrival of the cock. Him. He would've turned tail and run if he hadn't thought he'd fall flat on his face.

  Jesus. There was Ellie and Carol and…What was her name? The pretty redhead?…and Nita and last, but hardly least, little Miss Holly Red Hot Chili Pepper Hicks, the date breaker.

  He clenched his teeth, stifled a groan, and then put on a smile that said he really didn't give a rip if she went out with him or not. Hell. He was only here to drop off the yearbook Ruth had found. Right? Forget that he had showered and shaved and slapped on enough cologne to devastate a regiment of women over and above one little reneging New Yorker. Forget that he'd even put on the uniform to enable him to feel, if not look, competent and in control.

  “Well, look who's here,” Ellie said. “Were your ears burning, Cal?”

  “Ladies,” he murmured, finding it hard to believe a man breaking out in a slick cold sweat could sound even half that cool. His gaze skimmed Ellie and Carol and the redhead and Nita, then came to rest on the date breaker. “Holly.”

  “Hi,” she said a bit breathlessly. Her green eyes were nearly glowing and her mouth twitched into a grin that seemed beyond her control. That pretty face of hers almost blossomed. A person might even call it a blush. Well, if she was so damned delighted to see him, why the hell had she canceled their date? This was probably not the proper time to inquire.

  “You're looking mighty fine, Cal,” Carol said. “How're you feeling these days?”

  “Good,” he said. “Better.” A lot better, in fact, now that he'd seen the welcoming expression on Holly's face. He sneaked another glance in her direction just to reassure himself it was still there. Oh, yeah.

  “We heard about what happened at the Longhorn this morning,” Nita said. “It's a good thing you were there to keep Jimmy Lee from killing poor ol' Kin. You ought to move back and take over as sheriff, Cal.”

  “Too much excitement,” he said.

  While all the women chuckled, Ellie surged across the flagstones toward him. “What in the world have you got there, Cal?” She pointed to the yearbook he'd wedged under his arm. “That's not an old copy of The Yellowjacket, is it?”

  With a little squeal, the redhead rushed forward to grab it. Jen! He suddenly remembered her name. She used to be Jen Williams. Or Willman. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “I lost my copy years ago.”

  “Me, too!” Nita exclaimed. “Let me see.” The two women nearly had a tug of war over the book.

  Meanwhile, Holly moved closer to Cal's side. “Hey, you found it,” she said quietly.

  “Ruth did.” He smiled down at her. God she was pretty with the late afternoon sun flaming in her hair and just teasing the freckles on her face. He caught himself wondering about the ones he couldn't see, and the late afternoon sun seemed to burn hotter all of a sudden. He cleared his throat. “I thought I'd bring the yearbook by and see if I couldn't change your mind about…”

  Jen whooped just then, winning the tug of war after Nita apparently snapped one of her red talons.

  “I can't believe you showed up with this, Cal, right when I have to get back home. Oh, I don't want y'all to go through it without me.” She stamped her foot while hugging the book to her chest. “Promise me you won't.”

  Nita plucked her wounded fingertip from her mouth just long enough to say, “I'm not promising shit, Jen. You broke my nail.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yes, you did,” dark-haired Nita snarled.

  “Well, I'm sorry, Nita. But I still don't want y'all to go through The Yellowjacket without me. Okay? It'd just be so much fun to look at it together.”

  “Then that's just what we'll do.” Ellie, ever the mediator, stepped in. “We'll all meet back here after church next Sunday. I'll fix the iced tea. Carol, how 'bout if you bring those good peanut butter cookies of yours? Nita can bring her double chocolate brownies, the ones with the white chocolate chips.”

  “You got it,” Carol said. “This'll be a blast. You come, too, Cal, okay? It's your yearbook, after all.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he answered. “Forget the damn tea and crumpets, Ellie. I'll bring a couple six-packs and pretzels.”

  Ellie pried the book from Jen's grasp. “I'll put this in a drawer for safekeeping in the meantime.”

  “Promise you won't look at it until next Sunday,” Jen said. “You have to promise, Ellie.”

  The big woman sketched a cross over her ample bosom, then turned to Holly. “Naturally you're invited, too, honey. Unless you've already heard way more than you ever wanted to know.”

  “Yes, please come, Holly,” Carol said.

  Jen laughed. “How could she resist?”

  “I wouldn't miss it for the world,” Holly replied.

  Cal wondered if he was the only one who picked up on the forced cheer in her tone. A quick glance at her face revealed a pinch of worry between her st
rawberry blond eyebrows, a faint withering of her rosy smile. He suddenly knew why. Aw, damn. She knew she wouldn't be here next Sunday.

  After that he was barely aware of what he was saying to his female classmates as they took their leave. He carried Ellie's big tea jar into the kitchen for her while Holly followed, carrying empty glasses on a silver tray.

  “I'll help you wash these, Ellie,” Holly said.

  Much to Cal's relief, Ellie shooed her away from the vicinity of the sink. “No, you won't.”

  “I don't mind. Really.”

  “Well, I mind,” Ellie said. “I enjoy cleaning up after a party. Gives me time to think about what all went on, who said what, and whether or not I had a good time.” She laughed. “Get out of here, you two. I expect you've got plans for dinner.”

  “We do,” said Cal at the same moment Holly said, “No, we don't.”

  The big woman crossed her arms and looked from Holly to Cal. “I think you've got your signals mixed, people. Which is it? Dinner or no dinner?”

  “Dinner,” Cal said, grasping the little date breaker firmly by the elbow. “Come on.”

  “Didn't you get my message?” Holly asked once they were out of the kitchen.

  For just a second, Cal's baby blues went all shifty beneath their dark and luxurious lashes, as if he were trying to come up with a lie, but then he met Holly's gaze squarely and said, “Yeah, I got it. I just decided to ignore it.”

  She made a strangled noise, a cross between a growl and a beleaguered sigh that seemed to float above her head like a cartoon arghh. “I really can't go out with you this evening, Cal. I'm sorry.” Boy, was she sorry.

  The sexiest grin she'd ever seen in her life flared across his mouth. “But you're flattered by my persistence, right?”

  “Staggered, actually,” Holly said in all sincerity. “I'm just not used to…”

  She stopped in mid-sentence. Just what was it she wasn't used to exactly? Being pursued? That happened on a fairly regular basis. After all, she was reasonably attractive. Her figure wasn't Pamela Anderson's, by any means, but it was okay. Her teeth were straight, and she usually smelled alluring even if she didn't particularly feel that way.

  No. The thing she wasn't used to was responding so vis-cerally to her pursuer. She wasn't used to being turned on by anything other than a well-honed opening sentence of a news piece or camerawork that set the perfect mood for a story. She wasn't used to her heart bashing against her ribs or edging up into her throat and then doing a dizzying back flip straight to the pit of her stomach.

  She wasn't used to feeling such intense heat from a man who was moving closer to her that very moment, a man whose expression seemed to mirror her own astonishing desire.

  “Not used to what?” His voice was somewhere between a whisper and the purr of a sleepy tomcat.

  “I…”

  It was a good thing that he kissed her just then, otherwise she would've said something incredibly stupid. The kiss wasn't one of those hell bent for leather varieties like the previous evening, but it stopped her heart all the same, especially when his tongue teased the seam of her lips. Just a sample, it seemed to say. An hors d'oeuvre. Wait'll dinner, babe. Wait'll dessert.

  Oh, God. Against her better judgment, in spite of all her protests, and to her everlasting shame—How could she be so weak?—she was going to go.

  While Holly was upstairs changing, Cal sat at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea and watching Ellie wash and dry glasses. She'd refused his offer of help.

  “I'd've offered you a beer, Cal, but there hasn't been anything stronger than iced tea in my house since Hank Kelleher stopped coming by about six or eight years ago.”

  “The tea's fine, Ellie.” He took another sip to prove it, then before he even knew he was going to say it, he confessed, “Anyway, I'm trying to cut back.”

  She nodded her gray head solemnly as if she understood all the unspoken implications of those few words. You didn't have to be the town historian to know that Calvin Griffin, Sr. had pissed his life away in Honeycomb's bars and back rooms.

  “It's hard, I expect,” she said. “You lived a pretty fast and furious life in Washington before you hit that brick wall last year. It might take some time, Cal, but you'll adjust. Whatever happens. You'll find your way.”

  Having dispensed that little nugget of Lone Star wisdom, Ellie turned back to the sink to concentrate on her glassware, leaving Cal to contemplate the meaning of whatever happens. He was beginning to sink into a proper funk when Holly reappeared in a little black wisp of a dress that nearly blew him out of his chair.

  “I'm ready,” she said.

  God help him. So was he.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cal had known that Bobby Brueckner from the bank and several other old buddies, along with their wives, would be at El Mariachi, the roadhouse ten miles east of town, he would've taken Holly somewhere else. Anywhere else. Even the Longhorn Café. And if he'd had his former wits about him, he and Holly wouldn't have been snagged the second they walked into the place and then wound up sitting at separate ends of a long red-and-white checkered table that was laden with enormous pitchers of beer and heaping platters of anachos.

  The band was too loud—Cubans, he guessed, in shiny black pants, gold cummerbunds, and ruffled yellow shirts—and the glare of the recessed ceiling fixtures on Bobby's bald head at the far end of the table was just about blinding Cal. For a guy so reluctant to talk two days ago, ol' Bobby was sure flapping his gums at the moment. But as much as it irritated him, Cal couldn't tear his gaze away because Bobby was sitting next to Holly, really bending her ear, and the little red hot Manhattan jalapeno in the little black scrap of a dress apparently didn't mind one bit. Not about Bobby exercising his jaw or the fact that there was a half mile of tablecloth between her and her so-called date.

  Yeah, well, he'd be kissing her again later, bent ears and all, even if he had to negotiate the half mile obstacle course of table top on his hands and knees. Holly wanted him just as much as he wanted her. He'd seen it in her eyes. They'd turned a deep and sensual jade after he'd kissed her in Ellie's hallway. He'd seen the desire in her glazed expression, and he'd tasted it on her lips. He was sure. Well, almost sure.

  He was warning himself about the deficiencies in his judgment of late when Kathy Brueckner, Bobby's wife, nudged his arm.

  “Be a sweetheart and pass me that pitcher of beer, will you, Cal?”

  He reached out for the heavy pitcher and filled her empty glass to the rim. “There you go, darlin',” he said while adding a conservative inch or so to his own glass. No sense courting impotence with too much booze, he told himself. No sense flirting with failure. Besides, he'd meant what he'd told Ellie about trying to dry out. Bad enough that he was nervous as a virgin on a very first date. A kid who'd been carrying a condom under the flap in his wallet for a long and hopeful year.

  Uh-oh.

  Shit.

  It had been so long since he'd had sex that he'd not only forgotten how to fucking do it, but he'd forgotten the necessary precautions that accompanied the act. He could almost hear a little pfft right now, the sound of his plans for tonight going up in smoke. Unless…

  He looked the length of the table again where Baldy and Curly had their heads together like two goofy conspirators planning to assassinate Mickey Mouse. Was she on the pill? Was there room enough in that little purse she carried for a diaphragm? Or did Miss Holly Hicks, like so many savvy women these days, carry her own selection of brightly colored, fancifully named square packets? What was it Diana had handed him the night he met her on the plane? Some damned French thing labeled Etna or Vesuvius or something.

  Somehow he couldn't picture Holly with a Parisian rubber in her purse, or even a diaphragm, for that matter. This woman wasn't a huntress like his so aptly named about-to-be-ex-wife.

  Then, while he was contemplating his pitiful, and now postponed, sex life, Cal suddenly felt a bare foot inching suggestively up his calf. Whoa. What the…?


  It would've been nice to think the sensuous foot belonged to Holly, but she would have to be a minimum of sixteen feet tall to have legs long enough to go the distance under this table. Since that was out of the question, highly trained investigator that he was, he took a sip of his beer and gazed casually around his end of the table at the wives of his buddies who were sitting within “playing footsie” distance.

  Kathy Brueckner, on his right, was turned away from him, deep in conversation with a waitress. As near as Cal could tell, they were debating the merits of Monterey Jack cheese versus Colby. On his left, Marv Preston's wife, Janiece, a pretty blonde no bigger than the minute hand on a watch, was searching through her handbag just then as if her life depended on finding whatever it was she was looking for. That left only sloe-eyed, big-haired, sequin-and-spandexed Sandy Carter, who was sitting directly across from him.

  The exploratory tootsie was approaching his knee as he slowly settled his gaze on Mrs. Bertram “Bud” Carter. Her foot held still, but her brown eyes widened perceptibly while her tongue made a wet pass across her lower lip. Oh, brother.

  How long had she and Bud been married? Twenty years at least. Cal had been an usher at their wedding that summer. Jesus, he remembered how hung over he was from the rehearsal dinner. Who the hell knew what made a woman like Sandy run her foot up a guy's leg? Maybe Bud wasn't paying enough attention to her. Maybe she was hitting some kind of mid-life deal, like Ruth, and instead of opting for a restaurant, Sandy was looking for a tryst in a turquoise convertible. Whatever.

  It just struck him as sad right then, and not that he was a white knight by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't want Sandy leaving here tonight feeling lousy about herself. He knew all about feeling lousy. And he'd recently begun to know more than he ever wanted to know about rejection.

  “Hey, Sandy,” he said, his voice low and not meant to be heard by anyone else. “Is that you in search of a foot rub, dar-lin'?”

  “Could be,” she said.