Just Let Go.... Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ described 99.7 percent of the juveniles in most of the state. “Sounds like we got us a mystery,” murmured Gillian, not wanting to call Delores a liar, which wouldn’t further what could turn into a beautiful friendship.

      Delores stared at the door, a cat-and-the-canary smile on her face, and Gillian froze because the prickles had returned. “My, my, my…” said Delores softly.

      Gillian instantly pushed her glasses down over her eyes and forced herself to move away from the security of the counter. “I’ll get back with you about those pesky kids.”

      Slowly she moved toward the door, her face expressionless, pretending to ignore the man who had just walked in with his easy way and knowing smile.

      Three more steps and then she would be past him.

      Two.

      One.

      At last the door was directly in front of her, and she pushed at it with unsteady hands. There was no one to notice the slight tremors…except for him.

      One steady hand beat her to it, tanned skin, long fingers, conspicuously clean nails. “Thank you,” she told him, eyes straight ahead, ignoring the faint whiff of some expensive cologne.

      “You shouldn’t have cut your hair,” he answered in a low voice meant for her ears alone. The husky sound created a long-forgotten spark, a flash of summer lightning that she thought she’d buried for good.

      Gillian didn’t bother to reply; wasn’t sure if she could. Her heart was hammering too loud in her chest. Head high, she strode toward the sheriff’s cruiser, and a mere four lifetimes later she had recovered her composure. With a hard foot on the accelerator, she gunned the engine, and was driving away.

      Away from Delores, away from the Spotlight Inn and away from the man who had grown up to be a long, hot mess of temptation. But Gillian was stronger than that.

      If this town wanted entertainment, then by God, they were going to have to spring for HBO.

      AUSTEN HART HAD spent the last ten years dreaming of Gillian Wanamaker. Over that long a span, a man could create elaborate ideals of a woman—or fantasies, if he wanted to call a spade a spade. In his mind, her mouth had always been wide, perfectly glossed with rosebud pink. Her blond hair had always fallen in long, silky rolls down her back. In his mind, everything about her had always been mouth-watering perfection.

      Unfortunately, Austen had never been much of a perfectionist. “Good enough” had served him well, and sometimes “not a chance in hell” seemed most appropriate. But that didn’t stop him from dreaming. He quit staring at the glass door and told himself, “Not a chance in hell.”

      Today she seemed different. Harder in a lot of ways, although that could be the gun at her hip.

      Damn. That was one career he would have never expected. Sheriff, he thought, remembering the badge. There were men who thought a woman packing heat was sexy. Austen had a healthy respect for the power of a gun. He’d been on the wrong end of one way too many times to be turned on, but Gillian… Mmm-mmm.

      The clerk coughed to clear her throat, and Austen smiled automatically.

      Normally, Austen didn’t mind being the object of attention. Hell, these days, he sought it out. Life of the party. Seeker of the limelight. Man of the hour.

      Normally, he didn’t mind knowing that everyone was watching, but not in this town. Everyone here lived and died by their family, and Austen had always wanted that, too. Family, connections, solidity. But for the Harts? Ha. That was a laugh.

      His older brother, Tyler, had left as soon as he could. Their mother had disappeared—no, she had deserted them, he corrected. He had a sister, Brooke—a sister he’d never known until recently and wasn’t sure he wanted to. No, the Harts should have been a family, but somehow, it’d gotten all screwed up. Gee, thanks, Frank.

      When Tyler had gotten a full scholarship to college—two-hundred long miles away in Houston—that meant all eyes in Tin Cup were watching Austen. They were waiting for him to follow in his father’s footsteps. To explode in a violent rage, or stash a few purloined dollars in his pocket, or yell obscenities at any female that walked by—just like Frank Hart used to do. Six to sixty, coed to grandmother, his father hadn’t been a discerning man.

      Austen had never liked the eyes watching him, judging him. He didn’t have Tyler’s brains, Tyler’s ability to shut everything out. So Austen had done what he could; when that didn’t work, he ran, possibly committing a class C felony in the process—as rumored around Tin Cup, where folks liked to believe the worst of the Hart family. Once he’d gotten the hell out of town, the air was a little clearer, and eventually Austen had made a quasi-respectable name for himself in the state’s capital.

      The receptionist at the desk was Delores Somebody, a girl who had flirted with him in high school. Most girls did at one time or another. It was a rite of passage: hurling spitballs at the principal, cheating on a math exam and screwing Austen Hart. Most adolescent males wouldn’t mind that part, would have actively encouraged it. Yes, Austen had actively encouraged it, but he had minded it, too. A Hart was late-night material, the 2:00 a.m. phone call on a Saturday night. Everybody knew it except for Gillian, who thought she had the power to change it all. Yeah, right.

      “When are you checking out?” Delores asked, nodding to the small bag he had packed, her eyes still a little flirty.

      “Tomorrow.” 9:30 a.m. to be exact. As soon as the papers were signed. After that, Austen would disappear from this town once again. He ran his fingers over the fresh daisies on the counter, simply because he could. Simply because there was no one to look at him sideways anymore, no one to follow him around in the stores.

      “That was Gillian Wanamaker you passed on the way in.”

      “No kidding?” he said, sliding his sunglasses into the suit pocket. “She’s changed.”

      “Not so much. Still thinks she runs this town.”

      Austen hid his smile. Knowing Gillian, she probably did. “I’ll grab my stuff and be out of your hair.” With a polite nod, he collected the room key and picked up his bag, heading for the privacy of his room.

      Her laughter caught him from behind, and Austen forced himself to slow down, walk easy. “No bother,” she called out. “It’s been a slow day. You should hit the night life. Get a beer at Smitty’s. There’s a lot of people who would like to see you again.”

      “Maybe,” he lied.

      A few minutes later, he had kicked off his boots and taken a shower, scrubbing off the dust of the road. The room was a clean, serviceable yellow, with a king-sized bed, a wall-mounted TV and a wide variety of flyers that extolled the virtues of Tin Cup, Texas: a modern recreation of Texas past. After reading a few pages, Austen put the booklets back in their place. In the ten years since he’d been gone, they’d built a new bank, a library, four churches and a ball field.

      Golly, gee willikers, Wally.

      That had been the hardest thing about Tin Cup, the consistency. Feeling not so much like a tourist, Austen stretched on the bed, closing his eyes, because he didn’t care, he didn’t have to care. It was in the middle of all that not caring when his cell rang.

      “Hey, honey. Missing me yet?”

      Carolyn СКАЧАТЬ