Love in a Small Town (42 page)

Then a strangely familiar man was coming down the hall toward them, a tall, well-built man with thick white hair dressed in expensive-looking casual clothes and shiny shoes.

“Good Lord, it is
Stirling,”
Molly said as she watched her mother greet him.

Mama was still in her robe, of course, which Kaye had had a fit about. But as if she wore a fine evening gown, she took Stirling’s arm and came toward Molly and Tommy Lee.

Stirling kissed Molly’s cheek, shook Tommy Lee’s hand, congratulated them, and said, “Now, I’d like to see that new mother and baby. This is sort of my great-granddaughter, isn’t it?” He went on into Savannah’s room and was met with stunned but happy greetings. A few minutes later Molly heard him say, “Ah . . . another Collier girl, Odessa.”

There in the hall, Tommy Lee laughed and laughed, and put a hand to Molly’s neck and drew her against him. Molly held on, savoring being able to do so.

By noon, the head nurse came with all her authority and ordered everyone out and the mother to sleep. Stephen could rest in the reclining chair. As everyone started to group in the hall, the nurse told them they had to “leave!”

“I guess I’ll hitch a ride home with Sam,” Tommy Lee told Molly. He had his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets. Molly thought he looked tired but not much like a grandfather. “Are you gonna wait and go with your mother?”

His eyes were anxious, questioning, although he did not voice the questions that Molly was asking herself.

She nodded. “We’re gonna go and buy Savannah a few things she needs. That’ll be easier than runnin’ home for her bags we left in Stephen’s car."

His eyes searched hers for long seconds and then he gave her a quick kiss, turned, and walked away down the corridor. Molly watched him, watched his familiar saunter and the way his shoulder muscles moved beneath his shirt and the way his jeans fit over his slim hips, until he disappeared through the double doors.

She kept having the sensation of shifting time, of yesterdays mingling with todays, until she couldn’t recall what had happened when, or if it even mattered.

* * * *

It was late afternoon when Molly and her mother drove back through Valentine. Mama waved at people and called out about her new great-granddaughter. She caught Jaydee Mayall walking down the sidewalk and hollered to him to put new Molly Lynn down in her will. Then they were pulling into the driveway, and Mama said, “Safe home again,” with a big sigh.

Molly gazed at the cottage once more from behind sunglasses.

Mama started gathering her purse and packages. She now wore a tunic and big pants in crinkled cotton, very expensive because Kaye had bought the outfit for her, insisting she must get dressed. Molly helped her mother with the packages, and then, slowly, she opened the car door, got out, and stood there, gazing at the cottage.

Mama said quietly, “You can come back for your things later, Molly.”

“No.” Molly shook her head. “I think I’ll take them now."

She went to the cottage, changed into jeans and a sleeveless cotton shirt and her boots, and began throwing clothes into her suitcases. Mama brought a box and began emptying the refrigerator, and shortly Rennie arrived to help. The entire time Rennie chattered about a house she thought she might buy up on Church Street.

Before Molly left she made certain to replace all the books onto their shelves, stack those that didn’t fit, strip the bedsheets for washing, and respread the coverlet. Making everything ready for the next occupant.

Finished, she stroked her hand one last time over the pillow and looked around the room. The scent was different, she thought. The entire cottage seemed lighter, even though the day was heavy with heat.

Then Molly had the horse trailer hooked up, Marker inside it, and Ace in his carrier in the back of the El Camino.

She hugged Mama. “Oh, thank you, Mama.”

“I do my best, honey,” Mama said.

“I’ll help with your house, Rennie.”

“Tomorrow. I want to show it to you tomorrow. Oh, good luck, Sissy.”

Molly got behind the wheel and waved as she drove away. Heading home. She didn’t look back, didn’t even think to.

* * * *

The sun was a golden ball in the west when Tommy Lee heard Molly’s El Camino coming down the road. He was out on the back step, feeding Jake. He walked to where he could see the El Camino turn into the driveway. He saw that the horse trailer was hooked behind, that Molly’s bags were in the back. His throat got all tight.

She stopped and looked at him, but he couldn’t see her eyes through the dark glasses. He didn’t need to; he could feel them. She smiled, and he smiled, and then she drove on down to the pasture gate.

When he reached her, she already had Marker out of the trailer. He couldn’t see her eyes because she was still wearing her sunglasses. Tommy Lee opened the pasture gate for her and Marker and turned on the spigot to fill the water trough. When they walked out, he checked the gate to make certain it was secure. Then he helped her unhook the trailer. All the time neither of them said more than thank you to each other. As Molly headed back for the house, he jumped into the back of the El Camino, like he was a young fella, instead of a grandpa. He didn’t think he was so old. He’d just started young.

He’d started good, too, he thought, despite all his mistakes.

Molly came to a stop behind Savannah’s car. Tommy Lee opened the car door for her, and she looked up at him. Slowly, she removed her sunglasses, unfolded herself from the seat, closed the door and leaned against it, gazing at him. Her eyes were like polished turquoise. With deliberate slowness, he placed a hand on either side of her, against the top of the door. He looked long and deep into her eyes. They were achingly sad and sensuous and warm. Welcoming.

“Did you find what you went after?” he asked, his heart beating rapidly.

“I think so. Well”—her lips twitched wryly—”if I even know what I went after.”

For a moment they shared knowing amusement, and Tommy Lee felt his life going around a bend, straight open highway ahead.

Molly tucked her hair behind her ear, and he watched her search for words.

Her eyes came back to his, and she said, “I’ve gone from thinkin’ that we have lost anything that was ever there, to knowin’ that we have an awful lot together. I don’t want to live without you, Tommy Lee. Not that I
can’t . .
. that I
don’t want to.”

Tommy Lee took her words in as she said them, slowly and deliberately. What he saw in her green eyes made him have the urge to stand a little straighter, a little taller. What he saw in her eyes was something a man could take hold of and know deep inside that it was true.

He swallowed and looked off in the distance. Tears filling his eyes startled him. He had to get ahold of himself before he could speak, for fear he was going to out-and-out cry.

Finally he looked at her. “I guess I found a lot when you went lookin’, too,” he admitted in a hoarse voice.

He felt his words not quite adequate, but Molly’s eyes softened and warmed, and the next thing she had wrapped her hands behind his neck and brought his lips to hers in a soft, seductive kiss.

Then he took her hand, entwining his fingers tightly in hers. He managed to get out, “How ‘bout we get a couple of Cokes and go watch the sun finish settin’?”

As they walked toward the house, Molly slipped her arm around him and rubbed her face against his shoulder. She was home.

Chapter 30

Time Marches
On

On
Saturday the anniversary party was back on at the VFW hall. Lillybeth and Season and Rennie insisted. Molly felt so guilty about taking the party back from Kaye that she let Kaye do everything she wished, from hiring a live band that played ballroom music, Kaye’s favorite, to laying out Country Interior Design brochures all over the tables. Lillybeth had a fit about this and went around picking them all back up again. Kaye threw her own fit when she discovered what her sister was doing.

“I don’t see anything wrong with givin’ out my Country Interior brochures,” she said, shaking one in Lillybeth’s face. “There are goin’ to be a lot of disappointed people since I postponed my party.”

“It is an
anniversary
party now,” Lillybeth maintained. “You are not going to be so tacky as to
sell
at it.”

Molly settled it by telling Kaye to leave the brochures on the entry table for anyone who was interested. A few minutes later she saw that Lillybeth had gone and set an enormous bouquet on the table, almost obscuring the brochures.

Then Season and Rennie came hurrying in the side door and behind them came Sam and Winn, rolling in the Wurlitzer jukebox from Rio’s, which was loaded with country music tunes.

“We’ll take turns,” Rennie said. “Kaye’s music for an hour, ours for two.”

Mama appeared in the doorway. “Molly!” She motioned for Molly to come. Her voice and manner drew Lillybeth and Kaye from nearby in the kitchen.

“What is it? Well, hello, Stirling.”

Mama had admitted to seeing Stirling since Christmas, but she would not tell how serious it was. It looked serious. Stirling’s car had been seen early mornings at the big brown Collier home.

People were arriving in the parking lot. Here came Colter and Boone driving in, Boone coming in his own pickup truck behind Colter’s yellow one. Boone had said that one trip with his brother had been enough. Stephen was helping Savannah out of the car with the baby. Just out of the hospital that morning, Savannah and the baby would only stay an hour, but Savannah had been determined to come. “We are here,” she kept telling Stephen.

Drawn by sight of the baby, Molly started off that way, but then Mama said, “Molly!” and tugged at her arm, pulling back her attention. “Look up there.” She pointed across the street, upward at the water tower.

Shielding her eyes from the bright afternoon sun, Molly gazed up at the gleaming, newly painted tower. Walter was awfully proud of that water tower. Mama’s manner already had Molly’s heart beating faster with curiosity, and when she saw the familiar figure up near the top, on the thin ladder, her heart just about leaped right out of her chest.

Tommy Lee? She peered harder and recognized his shirt and the shape of him.

“Oh, my God.” He kept going upward . . . and he had something in his hand. A can.
He was going to paint the water tower.

Lots of people were looking now, and a collective “Ohhh” went across the parking lot.

“Oh, my gosh, Mama. He shouldn’t be up there. Oh!” Molly stepped forward, thinking of helping in some way, tears coming to her eyes with a rush of excitement and joy and fear. What if he fell? She would be made a widow right there on her twenty-fifth anniversary. She had to
do
something. The only thing she could think of was going right up there with him.

Mama grabbed her arm. “You can’t go up there, Molly,” she said. “He’s a capable man. He’ll be okay, but you’ll kill yourself.”

Kaye’s voice came loudly, hollering for Walter to get Tommy Lee back down. “I don’t care if it is Tommy Lee, we have a fence around it just to stop this sort of vandalism. He’s settin’ a bad example. Walter, tell him there is a fine for what he’s doin’."

“Might make him fall if I yell,” Walter said.

Molly, with her hands shielding her eyes from the glare, watched as Tommy Lee reached the top and came around the narrow platform circling the tower. A cheer went up, and it was quite loud, as not only was the parking lot full, but people were watching from the car wash and the nearby laundry. Tommy Lee waved down.

Oh, so full of himself like he could be at those rare, shining times.

Still gazing upward, shielding her eyes, Molly began to cry. Boone and Colter came beside her, both of them grinning, looking from her up to Tommy Lee. Molly kept blinking, trying to clear her vision, watching Tommy Lee using red spray paint this time, writing
TOMMY LEE LOVES MOLLY, STILL.

Molly began to sob, and Kaye came over and hissed, “Molly . . . you’re embarrassin’ everybody.”

* * * *

The party was a great success and was talked about for weeks. People got teary-eyed watching Tommy Lee dance alone on the big dance floor with his firstborn granddaughter.

Someone—Kaye swore it wasn’t her—called the police, and Micky Oakes came over and gave Tommy Lee a ticket for painting on the water tower. Boone and Colter wouldn’t let their daddy pay. They scraped together the money and gave it to Mickey right then.

Lillybeth became a little tipsy and actually flirted with the bass player of the dance band. Sam came and asked Molly to dance, and soon afterward he and Rennie took a bottle of champagne and a big plate of food and left. Murlene and Eugene Swanda got Kaye and Walter line dancing to country music; that was something of a sight, Kaye in her flowing chiffon and Walter in his polyester trousers.

Loren Settle, who met Season for the first time, was so totally struck by her that he dared to make advances to her. Amazingly Season saw something in tall, skinny Loren, too. Loren, however, didn’t know of Season’s animal rights commitments and in trying to impress her, spoke of his dogs and went further to make the mistake of bragging about their coon-hunting abilities. Season was horrified and spent the rest of the evening trying to convince him of the error of his ways while he stared forlornly and adoringly into her eyes.

Molly and Tommy Lee didn’t go home that night, where all their children and their grandchild were. They took a bottle of champagne and drove out to the lake in the Corvette, played music and danced in the grass and watched the sun come up . . . among other things.

* * * *

Two weeks after the party, another vandal hit the water tower and
WALTER LOVES KAYE
appeared in blue on the fresh silver paint. Walter admitted his action and paid his fine, which had been increased to $500, and Kaye walked around with a dazed expression for days.

Mama and Stirling ran off and got remarried, and Stirling moved into the big Collier home, which Mama refused to leave. Stirling traveled a lot now, anyway, looking after a chain of dry cleaners that he had going. He would be gone for a week at a time, and the arrangement seemed to suit them both.