Bad Moon On The Rise (14 page)

“
Who?” I asked.

“
It doesn’t matter. She’s
a good woman. X-ray technician. Hot. Blonde.”

“
How old?” I asked
sternly.

“
Older than
you.”

“
Really?” I admit, that
made me feel a little bit better. “Congratulations?”

“
That sounded like a
question,” Bill said.

“
It was,” I admitted. “I’m
not good at this. I never thought of you as the marrying type.” I
hesitated. “I guess I kind of liked having the company.”

“
Well, I’m getting older
and time makes me bolder,” Bill said. “Don’t make me sing
it.”

I laughed despite myself. “Call me
back about the sheriff?”

“
Will do,” he promised. “I
owe you.”

“
For what?” I
said.

“
Just for being you,
Moonbeam. Just for being you.”

Now I really needed a drink. I guess
the bartender saw it in my face. Two more fingers of Jack waited
for me at my seat.

“
Thanks,” I said. “You
read my poor, rejected mind.”

“
Don’t thank me.” He
nodded toward the end of the bar. “Thank him.”

Maybe it was the three ounces of Jack
I’d already slugged back. Maybe it was the thought of Burly and
Helen together. Maybe it was learning that Bill Butler had gotten
married and was forever out of my reach. Maybe it was the millions
of stars that had soaked into my soul from above. Who knows? All I
know is that when I looked at the stranger leaning against the far
end of the bar, grinning at me, the world stopped revolving on its
axis, the jukebox in the corner fell as mute as a tomb—and every
cell in my body stood up and began to sing.

I smiled back at him and he unfolded
into a string bean of a man plainly dressed in blue jeans and a
freshly-ironed work shirt. Cleanliness really is next to godliness
in a middle-aged man. He already had points in his favor. He stood
up from his seat at the end of the bar and started walking slowly
toward me.

It was the oddest thing. He was plain
looking, at least from far away. Tall, not more than a few pounds
of extra meat on his six foot frame, an ordinary nose on an
ordinary face, brown hair cut a little shorter than I liked it and
a smile that hovered around the edges of his mouth as he drew
closer. But then he slid into the seat next to me and stared right
into my eyes. No guile, no pretense, no nothing but poor curiosity.
I felt my world shift beneath my feet. He had the bluest eyes I had
ever seen—so dark they were nearly sapphire. His skin was tanned
from being outdoors. He smelled like soap and not only did he have
all of his teeth, they were as white as the stars above me had
been. This is not to be underestimated in a mountain man. It is the
icing on a very fine cake.

I’ve always had a thing for mountain
men, but this one was not only the real thing, he was clean as a
glacial stream. And I could tell from his eyes that he was also
smarter than most.

The other men in the bar agreed: they
evaporated away from me as he approached. Even the toothless old
man managed to effortlessly make room and a stool magically opened
up right beside me by the time he reached my seat. In fact, I
realized, the entire room was tracking his approach. Even two men
playing pool in a corner stopped to watch as he took a seat by
me.

“
Whoa,” I thought. “I do
believe I have just snagged the alpha male in town.” Something deep
inside me stirred to life. I reached for my drink.

“
Thanks for the drink,” I
said, downing it in one long gulp. “I needed that.”

“
Bad news?” he asked and
his voice was smoother than the Jack snaking its way down my throat
and into my stomach and straight south to the parts of me that were
gearing up to behave very irresponsibly indeed.

“
In a way,” I admitted. “I
just found out my ex- got married.”

“
That’s rough,” he said
sympathetically. “Been divorced long?”

“
Oh, this was an
ex-boyfriend, not an ex-husband. Though I’ve got one of those,
too.” That’s right, Casey—make yourself sound good. Maybe I should
tell him about that case of chlamydia while I was at it?

“
I think you need another
drink,” he said sagely. “And you know what else? I think I need
one, too.”

He was barely done saying the words
when the barman slid a highball glass of amber liquor his
way.

“
You must be a regular,” I
said.

He smiled like that was funny. “In a
way,” he admitted. “How about you? You are not from around here. I
know everyone.”

“
I bet you do,” I said and
it came out sounding dirty. “I mean, it’s not that big of a
place.”

“
No, it is not.” He cocked
his head and looked at me carefully. “But you don’t sound like
you’re even from North Carolina. I hear Alabama, or maybe Florida
in your voice.”

“
You’re good,” I admitted,
and the rubbery feel to my legs told me I better sip, and not gulp,
the drink heading my way. “The Panhandle.”

“
A country girl,” he said.
“I could tell. You look strong.”

I looked down at my body. “Is that a
euphemism?” I asked. “Because I worked hard for these
pounds.”

“
Not a euphemism,” he said
quickly. “I like a girl who doesn’t disappear when she turns
sideways.”

“
Do you? I’ll drink to
that.” As I raised my glass, I realized that the whole room was
still watching us. We clinked our glasses in a toast. “I guess you
do know a lot of people here,” I said. “People who like to know
your business?”

He shrugged. “I’m a popular
guy.”

“
What’s your name?” I
asked.

“
Shep.” He grinned. “Shep
Gaines.”

“
You sound like an
astronaut.”

“
Not even close.” He had
not taken those amazing eyes off me since he’d sat down next to me
and if he kept it up, I was going to have to rip my clothes off
right then and there and climb on top of him, whether the rest of
the customers were minding his business for him or not.

“
What’s your name?” he
asked, leaning so close I got another whiff of soap, which reminded
me of the shower, which sent me off on a whole other
fantasy.

“
Debbie,” I told him,
almost forgetting my cover story and giving him my real name, which
did not say a whole hell of a lot for my sobriety. But you know
what? I’m human. I was downtrodden and tired. I was lonely. I was a
little tipsy. I had gotten a few emotional kicks in the teeth that
week and his eyes were just… amazing.

“
I’ve got an idea,” he
said.

“
Bring it on.”

“
Let’s sit here and drink
and be two completely new people. Let’s tell each other only those
things we’d want a stranger to know about us,” he said. “We’ll make
ourselves sound irresistible. You go first. Tell me why I’m lucky I
ran into you.”

“
It might take me a week
to cover it all,” I warned him.

“
Bring it on,” he said
with a grin.

I can’t pretend to understand why
these things happen, or why the rules of time and space seem to
bend when you discover someone you are connected to, and someone
throws a couple bottles of hootch into the mix, and there are
winding roads and DUI’s to consider, and all of a sudden you
realize there’s a clean well-lighted place just a few steps away.
All I can tell you is that three hours later, I found myself in a
little cabin on the edge of a bluff a few hundred yards up the road
from the Dew Drop Inn, with my clothes hitting the floor and his
clothes hitting the chair, and a fire sputtering to life in a
fireplace and a dog well-bred enough to stay sleeping by it while
the humans wrestled and laughed and cried out on the bed a few feet
away in the dark.

I didn’t know if I had wandered into
Twin Peaks or would wake up next to the reincarnation of Davy
Crockett, but I do know that the man had the kind of body that had
felled whole states full of trees in the olden days and could bring
me to my knees. Repeatedly.

Within two minutes, I had forgotten
all about lost love. Within an hour, I was laughing like I had not
laughed in over a year. Within two more hours, I was so hungry I
ate three bowls of Fruit Loops by the fire and then shared my milk
with his dog so I could get back to bed where my mountain man
waited for me in the dark, grinning that crooked smile of his and
matching me move for move. And by the end of four more hours, I was
well and truly in lust, if not love, and planned to never return to
the real world again. I had never encountered such a cheerfully
carnal man before, nor one so considerate and skilled. His ordinary
exterior concealed an extraordinary maleness and an appreciation
for the female body that made me feel like a queen. No, I would not
leave his realm. I would stay by his side and carve little doll
faces out of apples for the tourists. I would wrap myself in
nothing but cellophane and greet him each night at the door with a
martini in hand before leading him to his nice hot supper. It would
be so worth it if we could spend our nights like this one. Why, the
days—and how we spent them—would hardly matter.

But then, inevitably, before I wanted
it to, the sun was coming up over Silver Mountain and I woke to the
sensation of soft nibbling at my ear. I raised my head groggily,
realized the love licks came the well-bred collie that had shared
my milk and cereal  just hours before and guessed that even
the most perfect dog has to take a pee sometimes. What the hell—I’d
let my new furry friend out. His owner had earned the right to
sleep in.

I stumbled from bed and stumbled to
the door to let the dog out. Our presence surprised a deer bounding
across the front yard. Both animals froze, looking at each other
warily, then, as if some sort of tacit agreement had been silently
reached, each dropped its eyes and wandered nonchalantly away as if
they had never spotted one another in the first place.

Lassie, as I had taken to thinking of
the dog in a burst of originality, took the longest pee ever
witnessed by mankind—I swear to god, it must have had an auxiliary
bladder stuffed under all that fur somewhere—before it sauntered
happily back to the cabin steps. I gave it a few scratches behind
the ears, and it sniffed my crotch in return and followed me back
inside.

That was when I saw the
badge.

I could have seen it the night before.
I should have seen it the night before. It was right there, pinned
just above the pocket of a dark blue uniform shirt hanging on the
outside of the closet door, the metal twinkling away in the morning
light that filtered through the cracks in the curtains. Five happy
star points, as gold as Marcus’s left front tooth.

I had just ravished the sheriff of
Bartow County and vice versa. Over and over again, to be
precise.

What the everloving hell had I
done?

I pulled a chair up to the edge of the
bed and sat on it naked, staring at the man sleeping soundly in
front of me.

What the hell had I just
done?

Without so much as a flicker of
warning, his eyes flew open and he stared back at me, not moving a
muscle, his voice as clear as if it were mid-day.

“
Is there a rabbit boiling
on the stove?” he asked. “Because you’re making me just a little
bit nervous sitting there like that.”

He did not look unappreciative, mind
you, of my nakedness, but I was not letting him off that
easily.

“
Why didn’t you tell me
you were the sheriff?” I demanded.

“
You didn’t ask,” he said.
“And not to piss you off or anything, but it wasn’t like I could
get much of a word in anyway.”

I hit him with a pillow and he groaned
and covered his face with the quilt. “I would have told you. What
difference does it make?” He peeked out from under the covers.
“Sheriffs are people, too, you know.”

I had to laugh despite myself. “I hate
you. You tricked me.”

“
I did not.” He sat up
indignantly, letting the quilt fall away from his amazing
shoulders. “I didn’t hide anything.”

“
But you weren’t exactly
forthcoming about it.”

“
You have a problem with
sheriffs?” he asked.

“
Of course not. I’ve slept
with dozens of them.”

“
Have you now?” He stared
at me, smile hovering. “Is that supposed to make me feel
better?”

“
Oh, shut up,” I said.
“And move over. I’ve earned a few more hours sleep.”

He laughed and made room for me in his
bed. “Get in here and I’ll give you a proper frisking.”

Talk about your walk of shame: I
arrived back at the Pampered Princess just in time to meet a dozen
other guests coming out of the dining room.  Somehow they just
knew, although the state of my hair, the lack of make-up, the pair
of panties sticking out of my back pocket and the fact that I was
wearing the clothes I’d had on the night before may have given me
away.

Half the men grinned at me, the other
half looked frightened, and all the women gave me the bug eye,
flaring their nostrils like they could smell the sex on me. Which,
come to think of it…