stuff.
Strolling toward the counter, he stepped behind her, waiting patiently as she unloaded peanut butter, white bread, milk, Gatorade and the toy car. Holding herself stiffly, she angled against him, away from him, her narrow shoulders hunched forward, protectively. In the TV screen above them, Buck saw the grainy gray blur of her downcast face.
Frowning, he narrowed his eyes and studied the screen while that scent of cinnamon and pulse-beat warm skin beguiled him.
“You’re gonna need a dollar and fifty-eight cents more. Or you could put something back.”
“Drat.” Gold and brown strands of hair trembled as she dug into her patchwork quilt purse. “I left in a big old hurry, Frankie.” She heaved wallet, daybook and three paperbacks onto the counter. “Fiddle, I can’t even find my checkbook. Phooey.”
The skinny teenager behind the counter lifted his shoulders. “Sorry, Miz McDonald, I’d loan you a couple of dollars, but I’m broke.” His grin was sheepish. “Me and Eva went out last night.”
“Ah, I see. Big date, huh?” A rawhide dog bone joined the stack on the counter. As Buck watched the monitor, she looked up at Frankie and a smile flashed across the screen. In that second Buck had a clear view of a square face with a stubborn jawline, a wide, generous mouth and enormous eyes behind round, metal-framed glasses. The screen blurred again as she scrabbled through her bottomless purse once more, dumping tissues, wads of paper and a yellow squirt gun onto the counter this time.
“Here.” Buck lifted the pistol and carefully placed a five-dollar bill under it. “No reason to hold up the joint. Keep the change.” He thought she’d look his way.
She didn’t. She fingered the jar of peanut butter, brushed the milk jug with a knuckle, and slid the racing car off to the side. “Ring my order up, please, Frankie, without the toy.” She nudged the bill along the counter, back toward Buck. “Not necessary. But thanks. Again.” The chilliness crisping the edges of her warmed-brandy voice was unmistakable.
Even rejecting him, she didn’t turn his way, not even a sidelong glance. Buck’s curiosity was killing him. He wanted to see her face up close, not in the grayness of the monitor. He had a hankering to see if the face matched the voice. If he could see her face, he could quiet that nagging familiarity.
But Frankie bagged her purchases with surprising efficiency, and she was out the door, leaving behind her a tantalizing scent of cinnamon on the humid night air circling into the Palmetto Mart.
“Hang on, Frankie. I’ll be back.” Buck shoved his beer and peanuts to the side, strode to the door and caught it before it swung closed.
Outside, damp air pressed against his skin, filled his lungs with heavy wetness. The air smelled of earth and kerosene from a distant plane. Low on the horizon, the golden moon cast fitful shadows across the concrete. He didn’t see the woman who’d intrigued him out of his funk, but headlights from a dark van suddenly switched on, blinding him, and he glimpsed a silhouette in the driver’s seat.
He knew it was the woman from the Palmetto. The engine idled, as if she were waiting, like him, indecisive, and Buck stood there, staring into the darkness of the van, his attention focused on that small shape behind the windshield. The lights from her van bridged the moonlit darkness between them, connected them in a curiously intimate way.
Brassy darkness and silence.
Heat rising from the dark pavement, the smell of cinnamon and jasmine floating on the wet air.
And the two of them at each end of that path of light, his blood pounding in his ears.
Shielding his eyes, Buck strained to see through the shimmering whiteness of the car lights. He needed to see her. Holding his hand up, he walked slowly toward her, from the darkness at the Palmetto’s exit into the lights of her van. Slowly, slowly, both hands hanging to his sides now, he walked toward her, blinded.
“So long, cowboy!”
The tinge of satisfaction in the throaty voice stopped him. Puzzled, he shoved his hat farther back on his head. As he did, the van reversed, smoothly turning toward the frontage road and the entrance to the highway. The left-turn signal winked triumphantly at him.
He could have loped across the parking lot and intercepted the car at the stoplight. But that edge of intimate hostility in her actions held him in place, thinking, as the light changed and the van turned left toward town.
She hadn’t been afraid of him. He knew that because she’d waited, watching him, even as he approached her. No, it wasn’t fear of him that caused her prickly wariness. Something altogether different. A kind of amused taunting, as if she’d proven something to herself.
“Well, well, well.” Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, he watched until the red lights vanished into the hot darkness.
And then he smiled.
In the moments when his eyes adjusted back to darkness before she’d turned onto the frontage road, he’d seen the van’s license plate. Gopher 1. Not a license plate he’d be apt to forget.
Back in the Palmetto Mart, Frankie’s scowled warning greeted him. “I was watching you, mister. I’d a called the cops if you bothered Miz McDonald.”
“Good for you, Frankie,” Buck said gently, defusing the bristling animosity radiating from the spindly boy. “That was exactly the right thing to do. You did good.”
“Sorry if I was rude, man,” Frankie muttered, checking prices, “but I didn’t know what you was up to. And I wasn’t gonna let you hurt her.”
“That wasn’t my intention.” Buck handed over a twenty, took his change.
“It’s late. I didn’t know what you had in mind.”
Buck laughed. “To tell you the truth, Frankie, I don’t know what I had in mind, either. I was—interested, that’s all. Miz McDonald is an interesting woman.”
Frankie’s face reddened. “Yeah. She’s nice.”
“I’m sure she is. I could tell.” Buck watched Frankie’s face turn a brighter shade of beet.
“Yeah, well, I’m the night manager, and my customers are my responsibility. I take care of Miz McDonald when she comes in.”
Buck recognized the signs of a teenage crush when he saw one. Hell, he’d lived through T.J. and Hank’s frequent throes of love. Then T.J. met Callie Jo, and everything changed for both his brothers. Buck had always had his suspicions about Hank’s feelings toward Callie Jo, but Hank, the most open man in the world, could keep his own counsel when he wanted. Anyway, Hank worshiped Jilly and their kids, so the past was the past.
In the meantime, the bantam across from him was scratching for a showdown. Shoot, the kid wouldn’t break a hundred and thirty pounds, but his heart was in the right place. Buck tried not to smile. The kid didn’t deserve that.
“Nobody’s going to mess with her while I’m here.” Frankie squared narrow shoulders defiantly and tried to stare Buck down.
Looking away, casually, easily, he gave Frankie the move, letting the kid save face, the same way he’d yielded to the heat of his younger brothers when they’d been on the brink of manhood. “She’s lucky you’re in charge, Frankie. I could tell she likes your store. I’ll bet she comes here a lot?”
Frankie nodded.
“She must feel safe. With you around, watching out for her. And for the rest of your customers.” Sticking a finger through the plastic loops of the six-pack, Buck smiled, tipped his hat with a finger, and strolled toward the door. “Nice meetin’ you, Frankie. Take care now, hear?”
“Sure thing, man.” Frankie held his shoulders so far back Buck could have clipped them together with a clothespin.
Kids. Sheesh. Buck stepped outside into the steamy night. Rolling his head back and forth, he considered his choices. Maxie’s