Just Let Go… (4 page)

“A hard knock in the head from a crew of gang-bangers who know how to hot-wire a car, that’s what she’s going to have on her hands if she’s not careful.”

Austen didn’t even flinch. “Your father’s tough on crime. It’ll look good on his campaign posters.”

Carolyn giggled because in her world she wouldn’t know how to hotwire a battery. But Austen did.

“There’s a new band playing at Antone’s tonight. Jack Haywood doesn’t want to go alone.”

“Jack’s an okay guy, but don’t let him make you pay for dinner. That boy doesn’t have any class at all.”

She laughed again, and he moved toward the bed, hearing the reception go spotty. “Listen, Carolyn, I’m having trouble with the lines out here. Gotta go,” he told her, and then hung up, letting himself breathe.

Once again, he sacked out on the bed, but the curtains were half-open, letting him see to the outside, letting him see exactly what nothingness was putting the sweat on his neck. Idiot, that’s what he was. He moved to the window, and pushed back the sheers, and gazed out on the land. His shoulders ached from the drive, and he rolled them back, slowing his pulse, embracing the calm.

Why did he let the ghost of Frank Hart get to him? Why did he let this town crawl under his skin? Because it was who he was.

He picked up his cell, called Maggie only to find out that L.T., one of the boys in the program, had gone for a joyride. Maggie’s afterschool program was her pride and joy, but criminal activities always put a damper on its fundraising, so Austen did what he always did and promised to clean up the mess. Quietly, of course, and then he called Captain Juarez of the Austin P.D. After promising that L.T. would attend one weekend of Youth Corps Training and then sweetening the deal with a few seats to the Longhorns’ home opener for the captain’s trouble, Austen called Maggie and let her know that L.T. had been sprung.

One more delinquent back on the street. In Austen’s expert opinion, sure, you could put lipstick on a pig, but no matter how much you tried, it’s still a pig, and before long, that pig is going to end up being cooked and served up for breakfast, alongside scrambled eggs and a hot cup of coffee.

The next moment, he heard a discreet tap on the door. There wasn’t room service at the Spotlight Inn, and he hoped to God it wasn’t the cops…

Unless it was Gillian.

Not a chance in hell, answer the damned door.

It was Delores, still wearing the same flirty smile, only now it looked apologetic, as well. “I know that I shouldn’t be here, but Gillian called to check up on things, which I know wasn’t the truth, but during the conversation, she let it slip that she was going to Smitty’s—not that she wasn’t being completely obvious because the girl doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body, and I almost didn’t tell you—”

Delores took a breath. “—but I decided I should, because, even though it’s not my place to poke my nose where it doesn’t belong, I thought, what if she’s there, and you’re not, and everybody thinks poorly of you because you’re not, and then I’d have to live with the guilt of my actions. In the end, I just couldn’t do it.”

Austen stared flatly, tempted to feign illness, maybe the ebola virus, but no. Sure, he was being played like a cheap violin, but he still wanted to go. He wanted to see Gillian again.

“I’ll think about it.”

He thought about it for a long seven and a half minutes before his mind was made up. He changed into something a little nicer, washed his hands and polished his boots, and then left the safety of his room behind him.

Delores was still at the front desk, reading from the latest issue of
People
, and Austen strolled past like a man with no place to go, and no woman to see. “You know, I’ve changed my mind. Smitty’s, huh? I remember that place. Still over behind the Texaco?”

“Hasn’t moved. Landry’s still tending bar, and she gets cranky if you don’t laugh at her jokes. Been known to cut off more than one man for not showing proper appreciation for the entertainment. Such as it is.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be careful. Lots of people there on a Thursday?”

“Everybody in town,” she promised, and as he walked away, he could hear Delores picking up the phone and starting to dial. In less than ten minutes, everybody would know exactly where he was, including Gillian.

Austen suspected that he was putting lipstick on a pig. In fact, considering the way he had left Tin Cup, Texas, he suspected that he was going to end up on a plate, served alongside scrambled eggs and a hot cup of coffee.

And yet still he walked out into the night.

Some things never changed.

T
HERE WAS AN ART
to a world-class meringue. It required patience and control. The egg whites had to be whipped to an exact stiffness, the peaks had to be swirled with artistic precision. The toppings were spread on the chocolate cream pie with care, just waiting for Gillian to finish her masterpiece. The spatula was poised in midair, ready to rewrite culinary history, when Mindy burst in through the back door.

“You shouldn’t break in on a sheriff. I could shoot you dead and there’s no judge in the state that will convict me.”

Mindy took a long look at the pie, and shook her head, grabbing the spatula from Gillian’s hand. With a merciless smile, she began to massacre what had been a work of art.

“Give me a break. No criminal is going to bust in through the kitchen door,” Mindy insisted. “Emmett Wanamaker is usually out playing poker in his garage. Modine Wanamaker is usually found in the kitchen and Gillian Wanamaker is never one to be taken by surprise.”

Not anymore, thought Gillian to herself. “Why are you here?” she asked, thinking seriously about pulling the spatula away, but that was exactly what Mindy wanted.

“Are you going to go?” her former best friend asked.

Gillian pretended ignorance and poured two glasses of water from the pitcher on the counter. If Mindy wasn’t seven months pregnant, Gillian would have opted for wine. In fact, if she was a lesser friend, she would have poured herself wine, and made Mindy suffer with water. But she was a world-class friend, a world-class baker, a world-class basket case. After downing her glass, Gillian eyed the lopsided meringue. Unable to restrain herself, she grabbed the spatula out of Mindy’s hand.

Mindy checked her watch and laughed. “Three minutes. That’s a new record.”

“Eat this,” she shot back, adjusting the balance of the topping, putting the swirls back in their rightful place. “You’re baking.”

Gillian looked up and glared. “So?”

“You’ve heard. You’re in culinary denial.”

“I can bake without an ulterior motive. It’s not a crime. I would know.”

Mindy, damn her best-friended-ness, shot her a skeptical look. “You need to go.”

Undeterred, Gillian put the pie on the windowsill and started work on the next one.

“How many are you making?” Mindy asked.

“Seven,” Gillian muttered under her breath.

Mindy only whistled.

Gillian straightened, then scowled. “Are you going to stand there with your baby-momma smirk, or are you going to help? And no, that does not mean you can touch my meringue. Grab the bluebonnet tray from above the…”

Gillian never finished. Mindy’s head was already buried in the cabinet next to the stove. “You have to go,” Mindy insisted, sliding the tray on the white-tiled counter. Gillian had laid the tile herself, and painted the backsplash with a daisy-chain of flowers. She studied the grout with a critical eye. It was dingy, needing to be cleaned. Tonight, she could do that. And laundry. Maybe scrub the bathroom floors, as well.
Compulsive? Nah.

“Don’t wimp out now,”

“I can’t hear you,” Gillian answered loudly, so loudly that her mother poked her head in through the swinging kitchen door.

“Gillian?” she asked, and then spotted Mindy, and
of course,
had to lavish Mindy with a big, squeezy hug, not wise to the sadistic machinations in Mindy’s hormonally overcharged heart. “Mindy! Didn’t hear you come in, but when Emmett’s got the air conditioner running on high, I can’t hear a darn thing. Look at you,” she purred, standing back and assessing Mindy’s belly with a grandmotherly eye.

Then, just as they all knew she would, she turned to her daughter, shook her head once, and walked out of the room in heartbroken silence.

“You didn’t have to wear the pink checks,” Gillian pointed out, nodding at Mindy’s adorable maternity blouse in estrogen-exploding pink.

Mindy grinned. “Never underestimate the impact of your wardrobe decision.”

“What bubblehead said that?”

“You did,” Mindy reminded her cheerfully. “What are you going to wear?”

“I’m not going,” Gillian answered, spelling out vulgar words in the meringue and then swirling over them.

“You have to go. Think of your pride, your upstanding reputation with all the women in this town. You’re our Che Guevara, our Davy Crockett, our Gloria Steinem. Take pity on those of us who have succumbed to the bonds of marriage. We need your strength, your unsinkable spirit. Gillian Wanamaker cowers from no man, least of all this one. Do you want him to think that you are too yellow-bellied to see him again? If you can’t do it for yourself, think of the women of Tin Cup, Gillian. Think of us, the faceless, the nameless, the married.”

Gillian couldn’t help but smile. She placed the pie on the breakfast table and pulled the next one from the refrigerator. “He doesn’t even know that I know where he is.”

“Oh, sure, Sherlock. Riddle me this. How do we know that he’s going to be at Smitty’s?”

“Delores told Bobby, who told the doc, who told your mother,” Gillian explained in her patient voice.

“Exactly! And how did Delores ascertain this intriguing fact?”

Gillian knew where this conversation was leading. She had thought through the paces herself, not that she’d ever admit it. “Delores knew because
apparently
he conversed with her and told her.”

“And do you think he would have conversed with her and let that piece of information loose unless he knew in the bowels of his black heart that it would get back to you? That conversation was no mere tongue-slip. It was a master plan, a public challenge, a gauntlet. If you don’t show up, then everybody will know that you know and decided to stay home alone. Once again.”

It was a cold reminder of Prom Night, when Gillian had stayed home alone, rather than endure the snickers. “I could have plans,” Gillian answered, more than a little defensively.

“Except that when Jeff called, you turned him down, ergo, everybody knows you don’t have plans.”

Gillian picked up the spatula and carved little daggers into the topping. “Maybe I don’t want to go to a bar.”

“Maybe,” agreed Mindy, “but that’s not what everybody is going to be thinking. You know what they’re going to think? They’re going to look at Gillian Wanamaker, the former pride of Crockett County, the only female to take blue ribbons in both baking and marksmanship, and they are going to feel sorry for her. They’re going to think that Gillian Wanamaker has gone soft.”

“I have not,” Gillian shot back.

“Then you have to go.”

Mindy was right. Gillian would be branded a coward, held up for ridicule—again. Sighing, she spun the pie around and started on the other side of the meringue. “You think he did this all to force my hand? Make me show up?” Gillian didn’t want to read things into the situation. She didn’t want to spend three hours analyzing the Austen Hart mind. Most of all, she didn’t want to make chocolate cream pies. Fat and flustered, all because of a man who wasn’t worth the calories. Dammit.

“Of course he did it to make you show up. It’s the way his mind thinks now. Assuming the worst about human behaviors. Assuming that greed will overcome statesmanship, that cowardice will triumph over bravery. And that’s not even taking into account rumors of his impending indictment. It’s the treacherous mind of a lobbyist.”

“Or someone who spends too much time watching soap operas,” Gillian added, putting the next pie on the counter.

Mindy was not deterred. “It’s the way you used to think. I used to admire you. You used to be the queen of sneaky.”

Gillian allowed herself a smile. “Maybe I still am.”

“So you’re going to go? I’ll go with you.”

Gillian took a long glance at Mindy’s swelling belly covered by the pink-ruffled maternity top. “You can’t drink.”

“Smitty’s serves more than beer. I’ll order me a Shirley Temple and give you the cherry in case you need an extra one.”

Gillian whacked her on the arm, but knew she’d been out-snookered…but only because she chose to be out-snookered. It was true. Gillian Wanamaker cowered for no man. “He looked good.”

“So tell me about it. Still hot?” Mindy asked, resting on the counter with a leer.

“Hotter,” replied Gillian, because she did have a reputation and responsibility and she took her role-model duties seriously. Well, that, and he did look good.

“How’s the hair? He had great hair.”

“It’s still a little wild. Longer than what an Eagle Scout wears, but it’s very…touchable.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He told me I shouldn’t have cut my hair.”

Mindy nodded. “It was the pigtails in the cheerleader outfit. It was more porn than wholesome.”

“Says who?”

“Says you.”

They both smiled and Gillian wasn’t even upset when Mindy stuck her finger in the pie, drilling through meringue to the rich chocolate below. Most everybody else went for the surface topping, but not Mindy. She knew that the best was what was inside. So did Gillian. It was the reason they were friends.

“I miss those days,” Gillian admitted with a sigh.

“Late nights, hand jobs and drinking behind the Piggly Wiggly?”

“I wish. Then I wouldn’t feel so old.” Mindy and Gillian had always held back, always played by the rules, until their first year in community college when Mindy had met her future husband, Brad. Immediately thereafter, Mindy had moved to the dark side and left Gillian alone.

“Wait until you have to buy yourself some stretch-mark cream,” teased Mindy. “Then talk to me about getting old.” Gillian watched as Mindy pulled another pie from the refrigerator, closing it with the swell of her stomach.

“You’re not getting old. You’re carrying a bowling ball on top of your privates. It’s not natural.”

“How long are you going to stall in the kitchen? The town is waiting. It’s Austen vs. Gillian: The R-Rated Years.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“You wouldn’t be making seven chocolate cream pies if you didn’t want to see him.”

“He’s pond scum.”

“He’s a first-class son of a bitch. He’s a Hart. You want him. Trust me, it’s a female thing.”

“I don’t want to be stupid.”

“It’s only stupid if your heart gets smashed up against the rocks. Crush him under your heel, and then—” Mindy lowered her voice “—you have sex with him.”

“Why?” asked Gillian, morbidly curious.

“What happens if you don’t?”

“I go home.”

“What happens if you do?”

And then Gillian saw the track of Mindy’s more salacious thoughts. If Gillian slept with Austen, then she’d never have the fantasy playing in her head again. Never have the feeling of girl, interrupted, not anymore. Never feel like she’d had something good ripped away. This would just be a man, a woman and a bar. It was cheap and tawdry, nothing magical or romantic at all. It would be perfect. Gillian took stock of Mindy, who was silently waiting for her to see the brilliance of the idea. And she did. In fact, it was so brilliant that Gillian should have thought of it herself. She was the brains in the friendship, not Mindy. Maybe pregnancy had done something to Mindy’s brain, made her smarter, wiser.

But still carrying a large bowling ball on top of her privates.

Feeling better and more in control, Gillian dragged Mindy upstairs, where Gillian began to methodically inspect and reject the contents of her closet.

Finally, Gillian hit on The Perfect Outfit, and held up the shirt to the mirror, examining herself with a critical eye. “What do you think? The black silk unbuttoned two buttons, but not three, paired with the Gucci skirt and the Jimmy Choos.”

Mindy rolled her eyes. “You don’t own a pair of Jimmy Choos.”

“They look just like them,” Gillian answered, holding up the shoes as proof, pleased to see the stunned admiration in Mindy’s eyes.

“No! Where did you get ’em?”

“Ebay.”

“Shopping online so that no one knows the actual brand,” Mindy breathed, seeing the beauty of Gillian’s secrets. “The queen of sneak, yes, indeed.”

“Never underestimate the impact of your wardrobe decisions,” she stated calmly, but inside, her heart was ready to explode. This was about pride, she reminded herself. This was about correcting history and making Austen Hart know exactly what he missed out on….

And maybe, if he was lucky, she would let him put his hands on her, feel the pleasure of his mouth. Yes, maybe if he was lucky.

She brushed out her hair, coated her mouth in Scarlet Passion Red, and finally, when Mindy nodded with approval, Gillian was ready.

“You’re sure,” asked Mindy, perhaps noticing the dangerous gleam in Gillian’s eyes.

“I’m positive,” Gillian assured her, and then grabbed her purse, the one with the condom in its package hidden behind the picture of Princess Di, adorned in picture perfect wedding-day splendor. A girl had to have her dreams. As for the condom, that was her insurance policy, she told herself, eyeing the wayward girl in the mirror.

Just in case.

S
MITTY’S WAS A
Tin Cup institution. It was a hole-in-the-wall bar that had seen a good bit of line-dancing and table-dancing, all the more remarkable since Smitty’s had no dance floor, only a clientele that didn’t care. There was one main room with square tables for dominos, a pock-marked wooden bar, two pool tables in the back and an old barrel that was usually filled with crackers.

Ernestine Landry, the granddaughter of the original Smitty, paid the taxes on the place and poured the beer, but she wasn’t a big fan of the name Ernestine and went by Landry instead, which was a holy word in the Texas football vernacular, usually spoken with awe and hushed tones of respect. On Thursday nights, Smitty’s was always crowded, but tonight seemed especially packed, and Gillian didn’t want to speculate on the cause, mainly because she knew she was the cause, and it would make her stomach queasy, and it was never a good idea to drink on a queasy stomach. It was an even worse idea to see a former nonlover on a queasy stomach, but she didn’t want to dwell on that either, because it would only make her stomach troubles worse.