Love in a Small Town (23 page)

She headed for Rennie’s Mustang. The image of Tommy Lee and young Annette kept spinning inside her head, and she thought she might throw up. She reached the car, put her hand on the door to steady herself. Sam followed her, and he hovered at her back.

“Molly.” His voice floated over her, and then his hand touched her shoulder tentatively. “You can use my shirttail to wipe your eyes.”

She shook her head, fearful that if she said anything she would break out in horrible wracking sobs.
Oh, Lord, it was embarrassing, having him see her like this.
Little sobs slipped out.

Sam moved nervously. “Molly?”

“I’m okay.” She sucked in a breath. “I j-just need the air. And a tissue . . . I need a tissue.” She fumbled for the door handle, opened the door and slid down into the passenger seat, located the box of tissues and blew her nose, and pinched it tight to press down the sobs.

“Feel better now?” Sam’s voice was concerned. He crouched at her knees.

Molly nodded. She wished she could hide. She wished there was a hole she could crawl into. She wanted to throw herself down and cry until there was nothing left of her at all.

The next instant Sam’s face was blocking out light and his hands had cupped her face, and he was kissing her. Prying open her lips with his own, and kissing her deeply and seductively and completely.

Molly was too shocked to respond or to stop him. But then she did not want to stop him. She needed to be kissed and to be held, and the next instant Sam had pulled her against his chest. She clutched his shirt and buried her head against his warm chest and sucked in the sensual scent of cologne and male body. She wanted to hold on to Sam forever, while at the same time she wondered how they could possibly part without embarrassing each other. She actually thought that maybe they could stay so entangled forever.

Then a voice penetrated her fuzzy brain—Rennie, saying, “Ouch . . . ooh . . . oooch.”

Sam’s arms fell away, and he moved back. Rennie, carrying her shoes because she had developed blisters and removed them, came tiptoeing and ouching across the gravel parking lot. Sam hurried over and scooped her up into his arms. Rennie laughed and called him her knight in shining armor. Molly watched them, feeling strangely unable to move.

* * * *

A hand jerked Tommy Lee around, and he found Sam glaring at him.

“I hope you got what you wanted, shovin’ Annette in Molly’s face. Geez, T.L., what in the hell is the matter with you?”

“With me? I’m not doin’ anything Molly isn’t doin’—if it is any of your business."

He had seen Molly and Sam go out the front door, and he had the powerful urge to punch Sam in the face. Seeing Sam now confused him, though, because he wondered where Molly had gone. He wasn’t going to ask. He was having trouble keeping up with the conversation as it was, with his head all full of tequila.

Sam shifted his stance. “You just don’t get it. Molly was dancin’ with a lot of guys, flirtin’ with a bunch, meanin’ none of it counted for anything. But you, oh, no . . . you had to go and carry on with Annette.”

A heat popped inside Tommy Lee’s chest and spread upward. “I don’t remember askin’ your opinion of any of it.”

Sam regarded him. “No, but I’m givin’ it just the same. You better make up your mind whether or not you want to keep Molly, because you’re both headin’ for a big wreck. I know, man. I’ve been there.”

“Aw, don’t give me that. You haven’t been there. You can’t call what you’ve done hardly bein’ married at all. You can’t stay with a woman long enough to understand.”

“Maybe I could have, if I’d had Molly,” Sam said. Tommy Lee stared at him, feeling as if his feet were lifting right off the ground. Then Annette came up, saying that she had her stuff and was ready to go. She slipped her arm through his.

Stepping around Sam, Tommy Lee left with her. It was mostly that he suddenly found himself walking outside with her while his mind kept seeing the way Sam had looked at him and said “if I’d had Molly.”

And then Annette was saying, “You want to come to my place?”

Tommy realized they’d stopped beside a white Camaro, yellowish in the lights from Rio’s.

“I have my own car,” he said, his head spinning and tequila in the back of his throat.

“You
can follow me,” Annette said, “or I can bring you back for it.”

He looked down at her hand lying on his chest and then into her face, into her dark, sensual eyes. A chill prickled up his back, and suddenly he felt all desire shrivel up and die right then and there.

“No . . ." and because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, “Thanks a lot, for tonight, but I’m not ready to take on more.” He felt like a dirty dog for the way he’d used her.

She looked disappointed. But then she patted his chest and said, “You just remember, Tommy Lee Hayes—you can park your boots under my bed anytime.”

She slipped into the seat, and he closed the door. Shoving his fingers into his pockets, he stood back and watched as she drove away. Her red taillights and the hum of her engine faded quickly, leaving the loud chirping of crickets and katydids coming from the grass and the muffled beat of music coming from the building.

He looked around the parking lot for Molly’s El Camino; it seemed it ought to be there, but he didn’t see it. He wasn’t seeing very well anyway. Another car left, tires crunching in gravel. He started for the Corvette, thinking that what he wanted was to be out on the open road. He had certainly had enough of crowds.

He felt confused and reflected that he’d felt this way ever since Molly had broken those dishes. He had trouble digging his keys out of his pocket and finding the ignition, so he didn’t think he should drive. He sank down in the seat of the Corvette, leaned his head back, and looked up at the stars. They spun, so he closed his eyes. He thought how crazy it was that he hadn’t taken Annette up on her offer. If only to get a look at those breasts. But when he’d looked into her eyes, he’d felt totally empty, as if he didn’t even have a reason to breathe.

He wasn’t going to make a right by doing wrong. And it was Molly he wanted.
It was Molly.

Chapter 15

The Woman in Me

The Mustang headlights played upon the rutted driveway and then upon the cottage, and the bouncing light made Molly’s head pound harder. She had left her dark glasses somewhere back at Rio’s. With Tommy Lee and Annette, and Sam, who had kissed her.

“Mama’s still up,” Molly said. “She probably has a bottle of red wine in her refrigerator.”

“Drinking is not going to help the situation,” Rennie said in that tone of voice she always took on when speaking of alcohol. After her bout with the demon, she believed the shadow of the same hung over her sisters, just waiting to grab them at their weakest moment. “But maybe a hot fudge sundae would help.”

“And just where in Valentine would we get a hot fudge sundae at this time of night?” Molly tried to slam the car door, but her hand slipped.

She still felt a bit of wine spinning around her head and through her blood. It seemed the beating of her heart made a rhythm to the scenes in her mind: Tommy Lee and Annette’s bodies moving together, and then Sam’s lips upon her own. The images and emotions twirled in her mind like a cyclone, making it hard for her to breathe.

“I could get a package of brownies and a pint of ice cream down at the Texaco,” Rennie said.

‘‘I hate that cheap ice cream."

Molly went into the kitchen, where the light had been left on and almost blinded her, no matter that it was a single sixty-watt bulb. She went over and opened the cupboard door and stood there a minute, staring at the old mismatched plates. She took one out and broke it over the sink divider. Behind her, Rennie gave a little yelp. Molly got another plate and broke it, squeezing her eyes shut and smacking it a little harder.

“Oh, Sissy.” Rennie’s arm came around her from behind, and Rennie lean'."ed her head against hers. “You’re scarin’ meq

“Well . . ." Molly turned from the sink, pulling away from Rennie, too. “It didn’t help, either.”

She twisted her wedding ring, but it still wouldn’t come off. She thought vaguely of using cream on it, but something made her drop the entire idea, and then she was sliding downward into a deep, dark pit. She thought she might cry, but then she realized she felt too low for crying.

She said, “Don’t come through here barefooted.”

“Tommy Lee was just usin’ that tramp to make you jealous, Molly.” Rennie had already said this in the car. She added, “Annette isn’t his type at all. She’s just too sexy."

“Well, thank you, Rennie.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean bold—tacky, that’s what I mean. Tommy Lee likes class, and Annette isn’t. Lordy, there never was a classy woman with breasts the size of watermelons.”

Molly said, “You’re just jealous.”

“That could be,” Rennie admitted, lighting a cigarette. “But that doesn’t change that she’s tacky. There’s a line between trashy and tacky, and Annette crosses it.”

Mama and all of them felt like that. A bit of trashy was fun, but tacky was simply in poor taste. Kaye had trouble riding the line and usually ended up on the tacky side, but Mama, even at her age, was a master at appearing classy and trashy at the same time.

“We ought to go back to Rio’s and beat the crap out of her,” Rennie said, so suddenly and fiercely that she startled Molly.

Then Molly said, “Wouldn’t that be more on the tacky side?”

“I think it could be safely trashy.”

“Well, Rennie, you lost the last time you got in a fight.” Molly was wondering what she could do—she felt she had to
do
something.

Rennie touched her bruised eye. “I suppose so—but that was against a man. I think I can take Annette. She may be younger, but I’m tougher—and I don’t have those watermelons holding me down.” She appeared intrigued with the prospect of violence.

Molly lit up one of Rennie’s cigarettes. “I do believe I have made enough of a fool out of myself for one evening.”

“Why do you say that? Because you had a little wine and danced and flirted a little? You didn’t sin, Molly.”

“It wasn’t me, Rennie.”

“It seemed to be you. And you seemed to be havin’ a darn good time, too.”

Molly shook her head. She felt the cottage closing around her, the musky scent of it becoming thick. The scent of all the lonely women who had spent lonely hours here. She watched Rennie’s blue cigarette smoke trail out toward the dark living room, growing narrower and fainter as it went. Just like her life, Molly thought.

She jabbed out the partially smoked cigarette, saying, “I’m goin’ ridin’,” and headed for the bedroom to change.

When Molly came back through the kitchen, Rennie was sweeping the floor. “You’re stayin’ the night, aren’t you?” Molly asked.

“I thought I would.”

They gazed at each other. Molly said hoarsely, “Thank you. I just need to know you’re here.”

She also needed to know Rennie was safe from Eddie Pendarvis, who might still be lurking in wait. She thought it best not to mention that, though. Fears given thought were strong enough.

She had a tussle with Marker, who didn’t want to leave the corral, but once headed away he kept going, as if eager to reach a destination. The moon was no longer full, but it gave enough light to see when out in the open. Only after she was riding away did she remember the bottle of wine in her mother’s refrigerator. She could have snuck in the back door and got it. Of course, she had not done well drinking at Rio’s, and she didn’t think she had any business drinking while riding a horse at night.

She didn’t have any business doing what all she was doing, and she didn’t know
what
she was doing. She did not know how she had come to this place in her life, where she was going off to Rio’s and flaunting herself in front of her husband and all kinds of strangers . . . and failing miserably, she added. A further disappointment was that she seemed incapable of going over the line. She could only go halfway, that’s about as far as she had gone at Rio’s, and she had messed up with even that halfway by running away.

Tommy Lee had not said a thing to her. Sam had kissed her.

She wondered if Tommy Lee had taken Annette home to their house, into their bed. The prospect haunted her and filled her mind with all kinds of weird imaginings. Shocking imaginings. The entire idea was shocking. Somehow she simply couldn’t believe that her husband would make love to another woman in their bed, that something like that would happen in her life, although she reminded herself she had not heretofore believed that any of her family could get knocked around by a man. She had been mistaken in her assessment of things all the way around.

Her knowledge of one of Tommy Lee’s idiosyncrasies, however, made her doubt that he had brought Annette into their house. Tommy Lee had an aversion to strangers in the house. He was a very private person. He used to have a hard time when Savannah or the boys brought home friends to stay the night.

Tommy Lee might have gone home to Annette’s, though. He might have done that. Although he was awfully funny about being in other people’s homes, too. He was never comfortable.

Molly reflected that after twenty-five years of marriage, she really only knew a few hard and fast things about Tommy Lee. Was it because people were always changing? She sighed and thought that at that moment she knew herself even less than she knew Tommy Lee. She never would have thought she would kiss Sam.

In thinking of the kiss, she supposed that technically she had not kissed Sam. She had simply not stopped him from kissing her. She might have kissed him, however, if she hadn’t been so surprised. And she
had
thrown herself on his chest and into his arms.

She kept on riding, keeping to open pastures and wide dirt roads. She startled a young couple out parking at a pasture gate, and Marker almost threw her when he spied three coyotes running across a ridge. It occurred to her that a nearly middle-aged modern woman out riding a horse all over the countryside in the middle of the night was a crazy thing. She might come across clandestine operations, such as drug dealers harvesting a hidden marijuana field, or a meeting of drug smugglers, or perhaps cattle rustlers, who could be every bit as ruthless as drug smugglers. Her imagination began to run wild, fed by stories she had heard.