Love in a Small Town (22 page)

“We need to go to the police and press charges." Molly gripped the dishcloth. “You can get a restraining order.”

But Rennie was already shaking her head. “No.”

“Rennie, you can’t just let this go.”

“No,” Rennie said firmly. She looked at Molly. “I think it will be settled now that he’s seen I really mean business. I kicked him really good, Sissy.” She jabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “I’ve been once to the police, and I won’t go again.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “They asked, and I had to admit that I slept with Eddie. So in their view I pretty much asked for what I’m gettin’. I don’t need any more of that.” She stared into her coffee and drank deeply.

“You’ve been to the police once already.” That’s all Molly was thinking. That it had been bad enough for Rennie to go to the police, and yet she hadn’t said a word to Molly.

Rennie glanced at her, only then realizing she’d let the cat out of the bag.

“Oh, Rennie.” Molly reached for her sister’s hand, squeezing it. She thought that she might be capable of killing this man who had dared to hurt her Rennie, one of the kindest spirits on earth.
Oh, Lord, what if he gets her again and does worse harm?

“You’ll have to be more careful,” she told Rennie.

At that, Rennie snatched her hand away and stood up. “Thanks for the advice, dear sister.”

“What did I say?”

Rennie jabbed her hand to her hip. “You tell me to be careful, like what happened was my fault. Like I wasn’t careful enough, so I got hit. It wasn’t my fault, Molly. I didn’t do anything but be nice to a guy, try to have a good relationship, and he ends up smacking me for it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t. It wasn’t your fault, no, but Rennie, you cannot continue to take men you hardly know into an intimate relationship. It’s dangerous. You don’t know enough about a man before you’re having sex with him, for heavensakes!”

“Okay, so it’s my fault.” Rennie gestured wildly, then let her hand drop.

“No. No one should be hit, ever. And your sweetness and giving spirit shouldn’t be so rewarded. But the fact is that this world is a mean place with mean people. None of that is your fault, and it isn’t your fault that you need to be more careful, either. I think, though, that
you
think it’s your fault.”

Molly realized she was up and leaning over the table and poking her finger at Rennie in exactly the same annoying way Tommy Lee poked his when he got carried away. She jerked her hand back and behind her, as if to hide it.

Rennie looked down at the floor. “Eddie was really sweet at first.” She lifted her gaze, and her sad eyes hit Molly like a blow. “He was so kind, and we seemed, well . . . oh, Molly, I thought: Maybe this time. I keep thinking that, Molly . . . that maybe this time I’ll meet the right guy. But I just keep choosin’ the wrong ones.”

Molly came swiftly to put her arms around Rennie. “Oh, Rennie, you’ll meet somebody someday. You will.”

She held her sister close, knowing she was lying, knowing love is never quite like it is made out to be and that some never find it. Or when they do, somehow it slips away.

“I love you, Rennie.”

She and Rennie held each other tight for several minutes, and Rennie said, “I know,” into Molly’s neck.

When they broke apart, they gave each other hesitant, self-conscious smiles. Molly wiped her eyes and then wiped Rennie’s eyes.

“I’m okay, Sissy,” Rennie said. “Now, let’s get out of here, before we get waylaid by Miss Righteous Kaye. Let’s go out and howl.”

Chapter 14

A Woman’s Got A Right

Rodeo Rio’s was rocking on a Friday night, with a local country band and a good crowd. The noise level irritated Tommy Lee, and he would have gone elsewhere to play pool, if he could have thought of somewhere else to go.

He had become somewhat addicted to the game of pool during the past week. Each evening he had divided his time between pool and driving the Corvette. He would come to Rio’s to have either a steak or a hamburger and to play pool on one of the big tables beneath one of the long stained-glass lamps. When he was so full of pool that he could not stand it, he would go out driving around in the Corvette. He drove with the top off and the wind battering his hair and ears. He drove all the roads of the county and into the next. He drove down to the river valley road, where the kids still drag raced, and watched. Once he even succumbed to participation, racing a young fellow in a brand-new 240Z. The teen having a car like that annoyed him; when he was in his teens half the kids couldn’t even afford a car, much less a brand-new sports model. Tommy Lee beat him simply for the principle of the thing.

He would play pool and then drive and drive until he reached a zombie state, where pool balls and the black road leading off into the blackness took up his entire mind, body, and soul and kept him safe from thoughts of Molly.

Just then he sunk the seven ball and the eight ball with one shot, causing Sam to throw up his hands. “You’re ruthless, buddy. I’m quittin’ and takin’ away what pride I have left.”

“You’re the one who invited me here,” Tommy Lee said.

Sam’s wanting to quit annoyed him. He could recall when he and Sam would play pool half the night, and besides, he felt the need to go on playing. He felt comfortable at the pool table, whereas he didn’t at the bar or out at the tables. And if he went to the bar, Annette Rountree came and stood close to him.

As it was, Annette Rountree sat nearby, bouncing her crossed leg. She wore a really short skirt that seemed to inch upward with every bounce. She had been nearby all evening. She had the night off, something which she had to keep reminding Winn, who kept calling to her to serve someone. She would still get up and go serve, though. She brought Sam and Tommy Lee their beers, and she had even played a game of pool with Tommy Lee. She had played a number of times with him that week. It had become obvious to him that Annette was just waiting for him to make a move on her. Actually, he thought that any minute she might jump his bones. She made him feel excited and guilty and nervous as hell.

“Double or nothin’,” he told Sam, racking the balls. Sam grinned, shook his head, and then pulled out three tens. “Triple or nothin’.”

Sam broke and sunk a ball right off and was on his second shot when Tommy Lee glanced up and saw Molly and Rennie standing at the edge of the table area.

For a moment he told himself the two women wearing sunglasses in a dimly lit club were not Molly and Rennie. That blond woman with a dress that showed her curves was
not
his wife.

He jerked his attention back to the pool table and downed his beer while his mind kept seeing the two women in dark glasses. Sam missed his shot, and Tommy Lee got into position for his. As he and Sam played, he kept glancing out across the room, keeping an eye on the women, seeing when they took a table and when they spoke to the waitress. Ordering soft drinks, he guessed; Molly never drank much, and Rennie had given it up. But when he next looked at their table, he saw the waitress delivering two glasses of wine. He watched Molly lift her glass to her lips. Just then he saw Sam cast him a curious look.

Tommy Lee put his attention back on the pool table, but he missed his next shot. Then when it was his turn again, he forgot his were the solid balls and hit one of Sam’s striped ones into the pocket by mistake. He didn’t want to go on playing pool, didn’t want to go to the bar or sit at a table, but he did not intend to leave, either. And there was Sam watching him with worried eyes.

Molly and Rennie tapped their wineglasses together. “To sisters,” Rennie said.

“To dark glasses,” Molly said, and Rennie laughed. Then Molly sat back in a deliberately lazy fashion. She knew Tommy Lee had seen her. She felt his focus. Her own eyes kept moving to him. She could watch him, or anyone, from behind her dark glasses and not appear to be watching.

More people recognized Rennie with her sunglasses on than they did Molly. A couple of men said hello to Molly without knowing who she was and were surprised when she called them by name.

Corey Jessup, passing as she and Rennie stood looking for a table, bent close enough to Molly to brush her breasts, gave her a leering grin, and said, “Hello, beautiful. Where have you been all my life?”

“Hello, Corey.”

The man looked startled and peered closer. “Molly?”

“Yes. How’s Velma? Is she here tonight?”

“Uh, no. She’s at her sister’s this week.” He touched the brim of his hat, “Nice seein’ ya’,” and hurried away.

One great drawback to the dark glasses, however, was eye strain. Molly had a great deal of trouble seeing her way through the maze of tables, and once she mistook a stranger for Tommy Lee when she got confused and watched the wrong pool table. The stranger had the general shape of Tommy Lee’s back end, but not his muscular arms at all. Another time she returned from a trip to the ladies room and almost sat down with a strange woman. By then she was feeling tipsy.

Rennie had ordered 7Up served in a wineglass, saying, “I’m the designated driver,” but Molly ordered wine. When the waitress asked, “Sweet or dry?” Molly looked at Rennie, and Rennie said, “Red or white?”

“Red,” Molly told the waitress. The wine her mother usually kept in her refrigerator was red; Mama had taken up having a glass of red wine before bed each night. She said it was to purify her blood.

After her first sips, Molly decided the wine not only tasted good but it must do something good for the blood because she felt a very pleasant sensation spreading throughout her body. When she finished her first glass, she ordered a second, and halfway through it she removed her dark glasses. She crossed her legs and let the folds of the calf-length dress fall open from far above her knee, and she experimented with not averting her eyes when a man looked at her, and she accepted the first man who asked her to dance. And the whole time she was thinking,
See this, Tommy Lee.

Tommy Lee watched Molly. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help himself. He watched her lift the wineglass to her lips and drink, watched her laughing with people who stopped and spoke, watched her dance with different men. He couldn’t believe she would be here, acting like this.

He knew Sam saw her, too, caught Sam looking out across the crowded room. Finally Sam leaned close and said, “Aren’t you gonna go speak to her?”

“Nope.” Tommy Lee drank deeply from a fresh mug of beer, then pointed his stick, saying, “Number three ball in the side pocket.”

He told himself to ignore Molly, but every time he looked at Sam, he found Sam watching her. Sam’s watching her pricked Tommy Lee. He did not find it appropriate for Sam to watch his wife like that.

Then Sam said, “You’re bein’ a stubborn fool, you know. Can’t you see that Molly’s wantin’ you to go pay her attention?”

“Seem’s to me that she’s gettin’ plenty of attention. It’s your turn.”

Sam frowned. “Molly is still my friend. I’m not just gonna ignore her, T.L.”

“Fine," Tommy Lee said.

The next instant he was startled when Sam called to Loren Settle, “Finish my game for me,” and threw Loren his pool cue.

Tommy Lee watched Sam walk away toward Molly, watched him speak to her, saw her rising and Sam leading her out onto the dance floor, whirling her into his arms. Tommy Lee gripped his pool cue and for an instant felt like breaking it over the table.

Then he caught Annette watching him. Self-conscious, he proceeded to beat the socks off Loren in two games. Loren never had been very good at pool; he was just killing time until he went to train his hounds on coons.

Still, the whole time he played, Tommy Lee watched Molly dancing with Sam or Pinky Miller—who was at least ten years younger than her—or some guy he didn’t even know. He watched as one guy cut in on the dance floor and took her away from another guy. He watched these men put their hands on her, and hold her, and make her laugh.

Taking careful aim, he popped the four and six and eight balls into pockets at the same time, straightened, and laid down his stick.

“Will you dance with me, Annette?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before taking her by the hand.

He had a moment’s confusion when he reached the dance floor. “I’m pretty rusty at this.”

He hadn’t danced in years. He didn’t take hold of Annette so much as she took hold of him. He was suddenly staring at her big breasts pointing right at him.

“All we have to do is hold on to each other and move,” Annette said, putting her lips right up to his ear and pressing her body right on him.

For an instant his gaze met hers. Her eyes were dark and hot. And then she and he were moving out among the other dancers. Thankfully it was a slow tune. Tommy Lee could manage a slow tune. Annette put her head up near his shoulder.

Tommy Lee danced the slow tunes with Annette and sat out the fast ones up at the bar, where he switched to tequila shooters. It didn’t take long for the drinks to have an effect. When Annette’s hand smoothed up and down his back, he didn’t move away from her. When he danced with Annette, he held her close, felt her breasts press against his chest and her thighs brush his.

His eyes met Molly’s before she was whirled away.

Molly looked over her shoulder and saw Tommy Lee following Annette Rountree from the dance floor. His hand was pressed low on Annette’s back. Molly felt sick and murmured an apology to her partner—a young man who said his name was Gene—and headed for the table. The young man gallantly followed, holding her elbow.

The table was crowded now, and all the faces seemed to blur in front of her. She couldn’t locate Rennie, but then Sam was there, saying that Rennie was out dancing.

He took her arm. “Are you okay, Molly?”

“I feel sick.”

Her gaze, searching the room despite she didn’t want to, caught sight of Tommy Lee standing with Annette.

“Tell Rennie I’m goin’ to the car.”

She bumped into a shoulder and murmured an apology as she started through the maze of tables and people, music and voices pounding inside her ears. When she reached the door, Sam was beside her, his hand pushing the door handle. She burst outside and gulped in the fresh night air.