“Raylene Earl.”
“Oh. Damn.”
He whipped off his glasses and came to a complete standstill on the sidewalk.
“Raylene Ford? Then I guess she must’ve married Buddy Earl. I’ll be damned. Is she still…?” His open palms came up in a descriptive fashion.
Ordinarily such a blatantly sexist gesture would have made Molly angry, but knowing the pride Raylene took in her generous endowments, she found herself laughing instead. “She remembers you pretty vividly, too.”
“We had our moments,” he said, repositioning the dark shades on the bridge of his nose, cutting off her view of his deep green eyes.
“I’ll bet you did.”
They were both quiet, caught up in their own thoughts, the rest of the way to the house. Molly couldn’t help but notice that Dan wore a goofy little half grin that she suspected had something to do with Raylene. For some strange reason, she found herself envying the hairdresser for that. Heaven knows, nobody had such fondly amusing memories of Kathryn Claiborn. Not even her fiancé.
She had stopped at the post office after she left Raylene’s, and picked up another letter from Ethan Ambrose, her longtime fiancé. He knew she was under the protection of WITSEC, but he didn’t know where. All of his letters to her from New York were filtered through Washington and Houston before they ever arrived in Moonglow. Molly picked them up each week, read them and put them in a desk drawer. For some reason she couldn’t begin to understand, she hadn’t written Ethan back. She just didn’t know what to say. She just didn’t feel like his Kathryn anymore.
They had reached the end of the driveway and were at the back door when Dan reached into the pocket of his palm-tree-studded shirt.
“Your new keys,” he said.
“Thanks.” Molly was wondering if she should invite him in for a glass of lemonade or something. She chided herself for not picking up a six-pack at the store.
“Guess I’ll knock off for today,” Dan said, already heading for the rear of the house. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you,” Molly said, fitting the shiny key into the shiny new lock, thinking of course he didn’t want to spend any time with her after his work was done. Who did she think she was, anyway? Raylene?
Dan stabbed a fork in the steak and flipped it, taking a moment to appreciate the fine parallel burn marks from the grill. It was the first time in a long time he wasn’t drinking his dinner with a bag of pretzels on the side. Smoke from the fire filtered up through the leaves of the live oak. Too bad there wasn’t a nice little breeze to blow it toward the house, he thought. Who could resist a steak on the grill?
Don’t, he cautioned himself. Easy as this job is, you can’t afford the distraction. You screw this up and it’s so long, Dan. When you were good, you were very, very good. When you went off the rails, you were gone.
He heard the screen door in back squeak open. He wouldn’t fix that, he thought. It was as good as any alarm.
What it signaled now was Molly, coming around the corner and sauntering barefoot across the lawn while the sunset tinted her hair a reddish gold.
“Smells good,” she said.
“Doesn’t it, though?” He jabbed at the steak with the fork. “Just about done, too.”
“Mmm.”
Her deep-throated murmur was so sensual, Dan nearly stabbed himself with the damn fork. He took a swallow of his beer to cool himself off. “There’s plenty here. Want to join me?”
“Oh, I… Well, I just made a Greek salad.”
He thought that was more of a yes than a no, but he didn’t want to press his luck. “They’re selling feta cheese in Moonglow? What is this world coming to?”
She laughed softly. “Would you like some?”
“Bring her on out,” he said.
By the time Molly was back with her big wooden salad bowl and—smart girl that she was—two steak knives, Dan had unfolded a second lawn chair, put half of the steak on each of two paper plates and popped open another bottle of beer. He opened one more when she said that sounded good.
“This is nice,” she said, digging into her steak. “I mean, it’s nice not having to eat alone.”
“Amen to that.”
For a minute, just on the edge of sundown, sharing a good meal with a pretty woman, Dan was nearly feeling human again. And then the big Crown Victoria cruiser with the Moonglow Sheriff’s Department insignia on the door swung into Molly’s driveway.
It figured, Dan thought. You couldn’t come home without a homecoming party.
Molly didn’t like the set of Sheriff Gil Watson’s thick jaw as he lumbered across the lawn, or the half-dare, half-smirk tilt of his lips. The man took his job way too seriously in her opinion. Moonglow wasn’t exactly the South Bronx.
Watson aimed a little nudge of his cap in her direction, mouthed a curt “Howdy, ma’am,” then stuck out one of his huge, hammy hands toward Dan.
“Heard you were back, Danny,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
“Gil,” Dan said. “Looks like you took over your old man’s business.”
Done shaking hands, the sheriff hooked his thumbs through his big black gun belt. “Dad retired five years ago. Just seemed natural then, me taking up where he left off. Folks were used to saying Sheriff Watson.”
“Hell, I know I was. Your daddy picked me up by the scruff of the neck and threw my butt in jail more times than I like to remember.”
There was a brittle edge to Dan’s laughter that was apparently lost on the lawman, but not on Molly. She swore she could feel static electricity coming from the handyman. It almost made the hair stand up on her arms.
The sheriff lifted a hand to run it across his jawline. “Been in town long?”
“Just got in today.”
“Doing some repair work on Miss Hansen’s house?”
“Yep.” Dan shifted his weight and took a long pull from his beer.
“Is that what you’ve been doing all these years?” Watson asked, shifting his considerable weight, too, and somehow looking down at Dan even though the two were roughly the same height. “Working as a handyman?”
“More or less.”
“In Texas?”
“Pretty much.”
“Plenty of work, I’d expect.”
“Enough.”
Molly could almost smell the testosterone. The evening air reeked of it. It was definitely time for a bit of feminine sweet talk.
“We were just having some dinner, Sheriff. Steak and Greek salad. Would you care to join us?”
Watson touched the brim of his hat again. “Oh, no, ma’am. I’ve got evening rounds to make. I just stopped by to say hi to Danny here.” He took a step back, adjusting his gun belt over his ample gut. “I’ll be going now. Nice seeing you, Miss Hansen. Danny, you, too. You keep your nose clean, you hear?”
My God. In all of her thirty-one years, Molly had never actually heard somebody seethe, but that was precisely what Dan Shackelford was doing at the moment. He was hot enough to cook a steak on. She could almost hear his temper crackle, so it surprised her when his voice emerged fairly level and calm.
“See you around, Gil.”
It was only after the cruiser had pulled