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When they got to the bus station, he got out with her and carried her guitar to the ticket window for her. Pulling out his wallet, he said, “You gave your sleazy manager all your money, didn’t you—”
“No, but I left my purse in my, er, dressing room.”
He counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills.
“I don’t need nearly that much.”
“It’s a loan.” He handed her his card.
“I’ll pay it back. All of it. I really will….”
His face was grim as she read his card. “A.T.F. You’re A.T.F.” Her voice softened when she read his name. “Cole Yardley.”
“Good luck,” was all he said before he strode away.
“Thank you, Mr. Yardley,” she whispered after him. “Thank you.” Although he’d refused to open up, something about him made her long for Phillip.
She broke the first hundred and bought a one-way ticket to Mission Creek, Texas, where Phillip now lived. Phillip’s uncle had died, and he’d inherited the ranch and made it his home.
Oh, Phillip—
Two
Mission Creek, Texas
It was 10:00 a.m. when the bus driver roared to a stop in front of the café in a swirl of dust under wide, hot, Texas skies. Not that the slim little girl behind him in what looked to be her mama’s sophisticated black evening dress noticed. She was curled into a tight ball, her pretty face squashed against the back of her seat cushion.
Stella jumped when the driver shook her gently and said, “Mission Creek.”
Not Stella anymore, she reminded herself drowsily. Not in Mission Creek. Here, she was Celeste Cavanaugh, a nobody.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the driver said as she rubbed her eyes and blinked into the white glare.
“Thanks. Give me a minute, okay?”
“Take your time. It’s hot out there,” he warned.
July. In Texas. Of course it was hot.
“No hotter than Vegas,” she replied.
From the frying pan into the fire, she thought as she got up, gathered her guitar and stumbled out of the bus in her low-cut black dress and strappy high heels. For a long moment she just stood there in the dust and the baking heat. Then lifting her torn skirt up so it wouldn’t drag in the dirt, she slung her guitar over her bare shoulder. Cocking her head at a saucy angle, she fought to pretend she was a star even though all she was doing was limping across an empty parking lot toward the café that was Mission Creek’s answer for a bus station.
The historic square with its southwestern flair hadn’t changed much. With a single glance she saw the quaint courthouse, the bank, the post office and the library. She was back in Mission Creek, the town she’d almost chosen to be her home. She was back—not that anybody knew or cared.
Inside the café, she hobbled to the ladies’ room before she selected a table. It was a bad feeling to look in the mirror and hate the person she saw. The harsh fluorescent lighting combined with the white glare from the bathroom window revealed the thirty-hour bus ride’s damage and way more reality than Celeste could face this early. Shutting her eyes, she splashed cold water on her cheeks and throat.
What would Phillip think when he saw her? Her eye-liner was smudged. What was left of her glossy red lipstick had caked and dried in the middle of her bottom lip. Her long yellow hair was greasy and stringy. She didn’t have a comb, but she licked off her lipstick.
When she was done, she had a bad taste in her mouth, so she gargled and rinsed with lukewarm tap water. Oh, how she longed for a shower and a change of underwear and clothes.
Just when she’d thought she couldn’t sink lower than Harry’s, here she was at the Mission Creek Café in a ripped evening gown with a sprained ankle. Mission Creek Café. Phillip had brought her to lunch here once. The café was noted for its down-home country cooking. Oh, how Phillip had adored the biscuits.
Carbs. Celeste hadn’t approved of him eating so many carbs.
She glanced at her reflection again. She was thirty-two. There were faint lines beneath her eyes. Faint.
Seven years later, and she was right back where she started. Still… Someday…
“I’m going to be big! A star! I am!”
A girl could dream, couldn’t she?
The smell of biscuits wafted in the air.
Biscuits! In between dreaming, a girl had to eat. She was starving suddenly, and she had nearly four hundred dollars tucked snugly against her heart—more than enough for breakfast. After all, this wasn’t the Ritz in Paris. This was Texas where carbs, and lots of them, the greasier the better, came cheap.
Celeste found a table in the back and ordered. When her plump waitress with the mop of curly brown hair returned with platters of eggs and mountains of hash browns and biscuits slathered in butter, Celeste decided to work up her nerve to ask about Phillip.
“More coffee, please,” Celeste began.
“Sure, honey.”
As the waitress poured, Celeste bit her lip and stared out the window. Not that there was much of a view other than the highway and a mesquite bush and a prickly pear or two.
Celeste could feel the woman’s eyes on her. Still, she managed to get out her question in a small, shy voice.
“Does Phillip Westin still hang out at the Lazy W?”
The coffee pouring stopped instantly. “Who’s asking?” The friendly, motherly voice had sharpened. The woman’s black eyes seared her like lasers.
Celeste cringed a little deeper into her booth. “Can’t a girl ask a simple question?”
“Not in this town, honey. Everybody’s business is everybody’s business.”
“And I had such high hopes the town would mature.”
“So—who’s asking about Phillip?”
“Just an old friend.”
“Westin has lots of lady friends.”
“He does?” Celeste squeaked, and then covered her mouth.
“He meets them out at those fancy dances at the club.”
“The Lone Star Country Club?”
“You been there?”
“A time or two.”
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Forget it.”
“You’re mighty secretive all of a sudden.”
“Last I heard that wasn’t a crime,” Celeste said.
The waitress’s smile died and she scurried off to the kitchen in a huff. Watching the doors slam, Celeste felt morose with guilt. She was running from killers, deliberately putting Phillip in danger. He’d moved on, made friends with real ladies at that fancy club he’d joined as soon as he’d moved here permanently.
He was wealthy. She was the last thing from a lady, the last thing he needed in his orderly life.
Her appetite gone, she set her fork down with a clatter. What was the matter with her? Why had she argued with the waitress like that? It was just that she felt so lonely and scared and desperate, and so self-conscious about how cheap she looked. And then the woman had told her Phillip had lots of classy girlfriends.
Oh, why had she come here? Why had she ever thought— If she was smart, she’d catch the next bus to San Antonio. Then she’d lose herself in the big city.
Celeste should have known that wouldn’t be the end of her exchange with the waitress. Not in a nosy little town like Mission Creek. Before her eggs had time to congeal, the plump woman was back with a cordless telephone and a great big gottcha smile.
“He’s home,” the waitress said.
“You didn’t call him—”
The waitress winked at her and grinned slyly as she listened to Phillip.
“Oh, no…. You didn’t. Hang up.”
“She’s got long yellow hair. It’s sort of dirty. And a low-cut black dress with a rip up the left thigh. Nice legs, though. Sensational figure. And a great big shiny guitar that has a booth seat all to itself.” She hesitated. “Yes, a guitar! And…and she’s hurt… Her ankle….” Another pause. “What?” Again there was a long silence.
Celeste stared out at the prickly pear and chewed her quivering bottom lip. Then she buried her face in her hands.
“He wants to talk to you.”
With a shaky hand, Celeste lifted the phone to her ear. “H-hello…?”
“Celeste?” Phillip’s deep Marine Corps-issue voice sliced out her name with a vengeance.
“Phillip?”
“Mabel said you’re limping.”
“I’m fine. Never better.”
“You’re in some kind of trouble—”
She bit her lip and coiled a greasy strand of gold around a fingertip with chipped pearly nail polish. What was the use of lying to him? “I—I wish I could deny it.”
“And you want me to rescue you….”
She swallowed as she thought of The Pope and Nero. If they followed her and killed Phillip, it would be all her fault.
Her throat burned and her eyes got hot. She squeezed them shut because the waitress was watching.
“How do you intend to play this? Sexy? Repentant? Do you see me riding into town on a white horse and carrying you out of the café in my arms?”
“Don’t make this harder.”
“What do you want from me then?”
Not to end up in some back alley with my skirt tossed over my head, my panties shredded and my throat slit.
“Just to see you,” she said softly.
He laughed, but the brittle sound wasn’t that deep chuckle she’d once loved. “You want way more than that and we both know it.”
He knew how she hated that military, big man, know-it-all tone. She couldn’t bear it any more than she could bear to answer him when he was feeling all self-righteous and judgmental.
“I wasn’t born rich…like you…. Maybe if you’d gone through even half of what…” She stopped. That was a low blow. “I—I’m sorry.”
For an instant—just for an instant—she saw her mother’s white, lifeless face in her coffin and remembered how little and helpless she’d felt.
“Stay at the café. I’ll send Juan to get you as soon as he gets back with the truck.”
“Juan? I’d… I’d rather you came….”
But he didn’t hear her heartfelt plea. He’d already hung up.
Thirty minutes later Phillip’s ranch hand arrived in a whirl of dust. When Celeste saw him, she grabbed her guitar.
The waitress stared at the blowing dust and said to no one in particular, “It’s awful dry out there. We could do with some rain.”
Juan was short and dark, and dressed in a red shirt and baggy jeans coated with a week’s supply of dirt. He didn’t speak much English, and she didn’t speak any Spanish. So she spent the ten-minute drive singing to the radio and watching the scenery go by. If you could call it scenery.
Unlike Vegas, south Texas was flat and covered with thorny brush. When they flew through the gate, Juan braked in front of a tall white house with a wraparound porch. Dust swirled around the truck and the wide front porch as he lit a cigarette.
She coughed. “Where’s Mr. Westin?”
“Señor Westin?” Juan clomped up the stairs and pointed inside the house. Then he opened the screen door like a gentleman and beckoned for her to go inside. She nodded. Picking up her long skirt, she hesitantly stepped across the threshold into the living room.
The second she saw the burgundy couch she’d picked out at Sears, her heart began to beat too fast. Nothing much had changed. The same easy chair she’d bought for Phillip still squatted in front of the television set. Maybe the set was a little larger. She wasn’t sure.
She knew her way around the house, not that she intended to explore the rooms in the house she’d once called home.
The Lazy W had been a rundown ranch Phillip had visited most summers as a kid. He’d grown up loving it. As an adult, he’d helped his uncle out when he’d been unable to do the work himself. Then a few years back, his elderly uncle had died and left him everything including the ranch.
Phillip had told her several of his friends who’d served under his command in the 14th Unit of the U.S. Marine Corps lived nearby, too. The guys had all belonged to the Lone Star Country Club, so Phillip had joined because they’d told him that’s where the prettiest girls in town were. Apparently when the 14th unit was off duty, their favorite sport was chasing women.
