Fathers and Other Strangers

And since none of this was any of his business, he could just do himself a favor and keep his butt out and his mouth shut. All she and the gal were, were paying customers. Since he didn’t come by those any too often, ticking them off probably wasn’t the smartest thing he could do.

“Thanks again for doing this,” she said through the open passenger side window when he pulled up. He’d noticed earlier she’d changed into one of those dresses that looked like a too-long golf shirt, ending just above her knees. Navy blue, white collar. Might’ve even been dowdy if it weren’t for the way the jersey clung to a curve here and there, especially when it hiked up her thighs as she climbed up into the truck. Since her hair was now hanging loose around her shoulders, he figured she must have washed it. Sure enough, the instant she settled in beside him, the cab smelled all flowery and womanly. Sweet. Sexy.

He yanked the gearshift into drive. “So…what’d Darryl say? About the air conditioner?”

She let out a sigh. “He has to order some part or something. So, like you said, it’ll be a couple of days. But his estimate did seem fair, at least.”

Hank drove through the station and was out onto the road when, out of the blue, he said, “You need to pick up anything while we’re out?”

She turned, her brows lifted over her sunglasses.

“I don’t know what prompted me to say that, either,” he said, wanting a smoke so bad he thought he’d die, but figuring she probably wouldn’t appreciate him mucking up that sweet-smelling hair with cigarette smoke. “So you might as well take advantage of it, ’cause God alone knows when you’ll get an offer this good again.”

A half laugh burbled out of her throat; he glanced over, noticed that the little commas around her mouth—which had a real nice shape to it—seemed a mite more pronounced.

“I brought a ton of food with us,” she said, “so I don’t need to do any major shopping for a while. But I could stand to stop by a 7-Eleven or something for milk and juice. If it’s no bother.”

“Nope. Not at all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cross her arms, staring out the windshield like it didn’t matter two hoots to her whether they talked or not. Well, fine. Offering to take her shopping didn’t mean he felt like having a conversation. But after about three seconds, he figured that was a damn sight better than sitting there and letting all that sweet, sexy, just-washed-hair scent take his mind down paths it had no business going down.

“So,” he said. “What do you write?”

She brushed her hair out of her face. In the sunlight, he could see it was about a hundred different shades of gold. He knew it was dyed—he’d seen the special shampoo in her bathroom—but that was okay. “Mystery novels,” she said.

“Yeah? Under your own name?”

“No. As Jennifer Phillips.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen those around.”

She did this little mm-mm laugh. He glanced over. “What?”

“I take it you’re not a fan, then?”

“Well, no, can’t say that I am. Since I haven’t read them. No offense,” he added quickly. “I just got the feeling they were kinda girly.”

Now she laughed full out, the sound doing far worse things for his mind-wandering problem than the shampoo fragrance ever even thought about. “Girly, huh? So. Who do you read? Assuming you do?”

“Yeah, I read. My mama was real big on reading, so all of us were hooked early. Read every Hardy Boys there was. Then in high school I started in on Stephen King, went on to Koontz, Grisham, Lawrence Block. Just recently started reading Jeffrey Deaver.”

He could feel, more than see, her smile. “You have good taste. If a bit gory at times.” And while Hank was wondering why it should make one shred of difference to him whether or not she approved of his reading matter, she added, “King’s just about my favorite writer. And probably one of the biggest influences on my own writing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Huh. Hank wouldn’t’ve thought that a woman who blushed as easily as Jenna Stanton would get off on Stephen King. Let alone write stuff like that.

At the Git ’n’ Go, Hank figured he might as well pick up a carton of cigarettes and a six-pack, since he was here. Not that he drank much, but he’d probably end up having pizza tonight, so the beer was a no-brainer.

While Jenna went off in search of her milk and juice, Hank grabbed his Bud and a carton of Marlboros, then noticed the rack of paperbacks by the magazines. Like a beacon, Jennifer Phillips jumped out at him, emblazoned in metallic hot pink across the entire upper half of the bright-green book cover. He plucked it off the rack, caught phrases like kick-ass and steamy and pulse-pounding before turning to the inside back cover, where a black-and-white Jenna—in makeup, her hair softly waved around her face and shoulders—smiled back at him. He tried to think of Jenna in terms of kick-ass and steamy. He couldn’t.

“You ever read one of her books before?”

Hank tore his attention away from Jenna’s picture to look over at Angel Creekwater wedged behind the counter. An institution at the Git ’n’ Go for probably twenty-five years, the roly-poly woman’s straight black hair was pulled back so severely the corners of her eyes practically reached her ears, from which dangled a collection of brightly colored seed beads and feathers and other assorted doo-dads passing themselves off as earrings.

“Nope.” Hank checked over his shoulder to make sure Jenna wasn’t within earshot, then raised the book. “She any good?”

Angel shrugged; bowling-ball bosoms shimmied underneath her brown smock. It struck Hank that her pooched-out lips were nearly the same color as Jenna’s name on the cover. “She’s okay. If you like that sort of thing.”

Wondering what Angel considered “that sort of thing,” Hank quickly paid for his purchases, slipping the paperback into the bag with the cigarettes just as a familiar voice rumbled, “Hey—they let you out on good behavior?” behind him.

Without even looking, Hank threw up his left hand, knocking off his brother Cal’s cowboy hat in one smooth motion.

“Jerk!” Cal bent down and snatched his hat off the floor. “And who asked you?” he said to Angel, who was shaking with laughter. Cal rammed his hat back down over his wavy light-brown hair, then thunked his own six-pack up on the counter, reaching around to his back pocket for his wallet. “Been meaning to call you,” he said to Hank, handing Angel a twenty. “Finally got around to sorting through some of those boxes up in the attic and came across a whole bunch of old pictures of us as kids, and Mama and Daddy. You should come over, see if there’s any you want.”

The family farm had been left to all three brothers—Hank, Cal and Ryan—but Cal, who’d turned the place into a thriving horse farm, was in the process of buying Hank and Ryan out. For the past several years, he’d been making noises about sorting through all the junk in the attic, but it was only in the last little while that he’d begun to make any headway.

Hank shook his head. “Can’t imagine why I’d want any of that stuff.”

Cal pocketed the change Angel handed him, his green eyes darkening. “And damned if I’m just gonna toss it without you and Ryan at least giving it a look-see. If you don’t want it after that, fine, but you can at least get your butt out to the farm and…oh! Excuse me, ma’am!”

Cal flashed a smile for Jenna, who’d come up behind them while they’d been talking. As smoothly as Hank had knocked Cal’s hat off a minute before, his brother now reached out and relieved Jenna of the basket suspended from her left hand, weighted down with a gallon of skim milk and a carton of orange juice. Cal was a notorious flirt. And by all accounts a damn good one, too. Something about that stupid, dimpled grin of his just had women eating right out of his hand.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before—”

“Knock it off, Cal. She’s too…smart for you.” Jenna’s eyes darted to his, that almost-smile playing on her lips, but Hank told himself there was no way she could have known he’d nearly said “old” instead of “smart.”

“No such thing,” Cal said, that dumb grin of his still in place.

Hank blew out a sigh. “Jenna Stanton, my much younger brother Cal. Jenna’s staying out at the Double Arrow for a while.”

Cal’s hat lifted up a good inch to accommodate his raised eyebrows. “That a fact?”

Hank glowered at him, but Jenna just said, “Nice to meet you, Cal,” as she swiped her card through the little box at the front of the counter. Apparently, hunky young cowboys with dumb smiles and dimples didn’t do it for her. And amazingly enough, Cal took the hint. Now there was a first.

“Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Stanton,” he said, touching two fingers to his hat brim. Then, six-pack in hand, he pointed to Hank. “Remember now, you’re gonna come over and go through that stuff.”

“I never said—”

But then he was gone and everybody was paid up, so he supposed there was nothing for it but to go on back. The ride was a mostly silent one, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Except, after he dropped Jenna off, her scent stayed in the truck.

Some time later, after he’d finished up scraping the shingles off one of the cottages and the Petersons in number 10 had checked out and some salesman or somebody from Wichita had checked in, and after he’d decided going back out for pizza wasn’t worth the effort so he’d just heat up some beans and franks instead, he went for a cigarette and discovered the pack was empty. So it wasn’t until then, when he dumped the Marlboros out on his bed and Jenna’s novel had come tumbling out with it, that he remembered the book.

Settling back at his dinette table with his meal, he popped open one of the Buds, forked in a bite of beans and, chewing, started to read.

Blair looked up from her plate of vegetarian pasta and said, “Then Libby told me she sometimes has to take care of her five brothers all by herself. And she’s my age! Does that stink or what?”