LITMIR.BIZ

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Raylene.” His grin wobbled somewhere between downright embarrassment and outright lust.

      The hairdresser rolled her eyes in Molly’s direction. “Did you hear that, hon? What a sweet thing to say. But then you always did have a silver tongue, Danny. My Lord. I can’t believe you’re back. Molly said so, but it just didn’t seem to sink in until I laid my very own eyes on you five seconds ago.”

      Dan just stood there, seemingly as hard-pressed for the proper response as Molly was. But that didn’t bother a single pink hair on Raylene’s head.

      “Look at you,” she said, threading her Strawberry Frappé fingertips through Dan’s hair. “You always did tend toward that scruffy look, didn’t you? You have Molly bring you down to my shop and I’ll give you a trim. I do Buddy’s hair and he likes it well enough. Both my boys, too. ’Course, it’s free so they can’t really complain.”

      “So, you and Buddy got married,” Dan said.

      “Only ’cause you upped and disappeared.” Raylene giggled and gave a brisk wave of her hand. “I’m kidding. I knew I’d be Mrs. Buddy Earl from the time I was in kindergarten. It just took me till I was nineteen to really settle in to the idea.”

      “Is he still the best mechanic in Moonglow?”

      “You bet your buns he is. The best in the whole county. He’s got his own garage now and even works weekends on the NASCAR circuit.”

      Raylene dragged in a breath and crossed her arms, a nearly impossible feat in Molly’s humble opinion. She shook her pink head in wonderment. “Danny Shackelford. My Lord. So, what’ve you been up to all these years?”

      “Oh, nothing. This and that. You know.”

      If his answer struck Molly as vague bordering on obscurity, it seemed to make complete sense to Raylene.

      “This and that,” she echoed, flinging a long-lashed wink toward Molly. “Probably a little more of this than of that, if I know you. Molly, this man is the world’s greatest kisser. I’m telling you that right now. The best bar none.”

      “Jeez, Raylene,” Dan muttered, donning his glasses again and turning up the collar of his shirt as if he wanted to disappear inside it.

      “Well, honey, I’d be proud of that, if I were you. I don’t care what your other talents turned out to be. In the smooching department, you were El Numero Uno. Probably still are, too.” She cocked her head. “Is he, Molly? Come on. ’Fess up now.”

      “Rrraaayleene.” Molly dragged the woman’s name out to at least four childish syllables.

      “Okay. All right. I’m nosy. I admit it. I…”

      A deep male voice on the store’s intercom cut her off as it boomed across the aisles, “Raylene, we got that hinge you were looking for up here at the counter.”

      “Well, I’d best collect that and get it home while Buddy’s still in the mood to fix my kitchen cabinet. Now, you come into the shop for that trim, Danny. Molly, you bring him in, you hear me? See y’all later.”

      “I feel like I’ve been picked up and put down by a tornado,” Dan said with a beleaguered sigh. “Let’s get out of here before she comes back.”

      Molly laughed. “Raylene’s got a good heart.”

      “I wonder how the hell I ever even managed to kiss a pair of lips that move ninety miles an hour.”

      “Well, I guess you used to be faster,” she said, “in the olden days.” Molly grinned in the face of Dan’s dark glare, then chuckled to herself as she again followed along behind him.

      “Will that be all for you, sir?” the young man at the counter asked.

      “That should do it,” Dan said, hoping his credit card still had a little play in it after he’d been on medical leave at reduced pay for so many months.

      “Oh, wait,” Molly said, suddenly appearing with a roll of wallpaper. “We need this, too.”

      “That’s just a sample roll,” the clerk said. “I’ll have to call in back for the real stuff. How many rolls do you want?”

      Dan could feel himself breaking out in a thin, cold sweat.

      “Did you measure?” Molly asked.

      “The bedroom? Nah. Didn’t need to. I just eyeballed it.” He leaned casually on the big, ancient counter, trying to speed-read the label on the paper roll and translate centimeters into square feet. This morning’s headache sprang back, full blown. “Gimme twenty rolls,” he told the clerk.

      “That’s a lot of paper,” the young man said. “You want a couple buckets of glue to go with that?”

      “Sure,” Dan said, pulling his sunglasses down his nose and glowering menacingly over the rims. “And gimme the good stuff. Not that kindergarten paste you people are always trying to hustle. You hear?”

      The young man swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

      It took two trips to haul everything out to his car, and when Dan came out of Cooley’s door the second time, with his arms loaded with wallpaper rolls as heavy as cordwood, he wasn’t exactly astonished to see Gil Watson’s big, shiny black boot up on the BMW’s front bumper.

      “This is a thirty-minute parking zone, Danny. ’Fraid I’m gonna have to write you a ticket.”

      “That isn’t fair,” Molly called out.

      “Sign’s right there.” Gil pointed his pen. “Nice Beamer, Danny. You got the registration slip?”

      As a matter of fact, he did, but despite the Texas plates, the car was registered in D.C. and there was no way Dan was going to show it to Gil or anybody else in town. “It’s back at the trailer. Someplace. Hell, I don’t know.”

      “But the car’s yours, right?”

      Molly scraped her hat off and slapped it against her thigh. “Well, of all the…”

      Dan batted her with a roll of wallpaper to hush her up. “Yeah, it’s mine,” he said, opening the trunk, dumping the rolls inside, then slamming it closed. “I saved all my pocket change for a decade, Gil. Worth every damned penny, too.”

      “Just checking.” The sheriff ripped a pink copy of the ticket out of his book. “Here. You can pay this any time in the next sixty days down at the city clerk’s office. I’m sure Anita will be right tickled to see you.”

      Dan jammed the ticket in his pocket, glaring at Gil’s big backside as he lumbered down the sidewalk. “Fascist,” he muttered just under his breath.

      Nearby, Molly looked as if she were about to take a bite out of her straw hat. “I’m going to write a letter to the Moonglow Weekly Press about this,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

      “It’s personal, Molly.”

      “I know,” she sputtered. “That’s what I mean.”

      “Well, I appreciate your wanting to fight my battles for me, but it really isn’t necessary.” He grabbed her hat and plopped it on her head, then opened the passenger side door. “Get in, Rocky. I want to show you someplace special.”

      “Where?”

      “Just get in.”

      Although she’d lived in Moonglow for nearly a year, Molly had never been east of First Street. In fact, she’d just assumed that the town didn’t exist beyond First, and when Dan’s car went flying over railroad tracks, she was even more surprised. She never knew they were there.

      “This must be the proverbial other side of the tracks,” she said with a little laugh.

      “Not proverbial, Molly, darlin’.” Dan turned the wheel and the car slid to a halt in a rock-strewn, weed-overgrown

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