One More Knight

Chapter 4

July 2, 1977

Dear Diary,

I can’t believe it! This has been just the best day. First it was kind of scary, you know, because I decided I was going to let Richie know I like him, and I was really nervous about it. I mean, what if I made a total fool of myself, right? So anyway, Kelly Grace and I were down at Dottie’s having a coke, and he and Bobby came in together. So I just sort of flirted with him-more than usual, you know-like I brushed up against him accidentally-on-purpose, so that my breast touched his arm. Oh, God, I thought I would die when that happened. It was like I got this weird, tingly feeling all over, and my skin felt all hot, and I couldn’t get my breath. Anyway, then he said he’d walk me home, and…you guessed it, he did it. He asked me to go to the Fourth of July picnic with him! Of course I said yes. But I made him wait awhile before I did-I’m not a complete dufus.

Thought for the Day: I don’t think it’s a good idea to let boys get too sure of themselves, do you?

After Bubba had taken care of business and run off some of his excess enthusiasm, Troy took him back to the truck. This time, since it was clear his new passenger wasn’t likely to enjoy having a great big ol’ pup licking and slobbering down the back of her neck, he put the dog in the cargo compartment and tied his leash to the rear door handle.

She-the passenger-didn’t have a word to say to him when he climbed into the driver’s seat and stuck the key in the ignition. Since he’d given himself a pretty good talking to, out there in the darkness, reminding himself of all the reasons why he ought to cut her a little slack, he waited a moment and then put both hands on the steering wheel and said “Okay, where to…?” He only just remembered not to add “ma’am.”

He heard her pull in a breath-sort of priming the pump-and then the words came in a rush, if still a little gruff and crusty “Hey, listen, I really do appreciate this. You coming all this way I didn’t want-didn’t expect anybody to do that. And it was nice of you to pay my bail. I want you to know I’ll pay you back.”

He kept his face deadpan. “I was countin’ on that.”

“No.” She stopped to clear her throat. “I mean I’ll pay you back right away. Now. I just have to get my purse.”

Troy had been reaching for the ignition key again; now he let go of it and turned his head to look at her. “You know where it is? From what the man said-”

“I have a pretty good idea.” She was staring straight ahead so he couldn’t see her expression, but her voice had the same hollow note he’d heard earlier on the phone when she’d said the words “Mourning Spring.”

He tapped his fingers on the wheel and waited for her to explain, telling himself he didn’t need to know any more about her business than she cared to tell him, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pry. But at the same time, he had a normal store of curiosity, which had been building up inside him for a while, and damn if he was going to sit in this parking lot all night waiting for her to clue him in. So, when it was obvious she wasn’t going to, he didn’t think it would hurt to give her a little nudge.

He looked over at her once more and said with exaggerated patience, “So, you want to go get it now.? Say the word.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you?” He could see the corner of her mouth turn upward, more with irony than amusement. “At this time of night? People turn in pretty early around here.”

“I noticed that.” He gave her a similar smile in return, which was wasted effort since she still wasn’t willing to look at him. He waited another moment or two, then prodded some more. “Okay, so what do you want to do? You hungry? Want to go get somethin’ to eat?” There were some eager whimpers from the back of the Cherokee at that, the words hungry and eat being of major importance in Bubba’s command of human language.

Charly’s profile tilted and took on a look of surprise. “I am kind of hungry, actually.” She glanced down at the place on her arm where her watch should have been, realized it was in the manila envelope she was holding and frowned. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Gettin’ on toward midnight”

“Jeez…all right, well-” she took a deep breath “-the only place that’s going to be open is B.B.’s, out on the highway.”

“I saw it on the way in,” Troy said, giving the key a turn. “They have food there?”

“Just the basics-hamburgers, hot dogs. Maybe steaks. At least, they used to.”

“Sounds good to me.” He put the Cherokee in gear and drove out of the lot, turning left toward the town square. He looked over at Charly. “You know this town pretty well?”

She didn’t answer that. Instead she cleared her throat and said, in a voice that was still a little rusty, “You know, you don’t need to stay here. If you need to get back-” He stopped her with a snort and a shake of his head just to politely let her know how dumb that was, but she plowed on anyway. “I mean it. It was nice of you to get me out of jail, but there’s no reason you should have to wait around while I get all this straightened out.”

Troy let a minute or two go by. Then he said, in a quiet tone not very many people ever heard and fewer cared to argue with, “Look, ma‘am. it’s late. I’m not goin’ anywhere tonight, and neither are you. Now, what I figured I’d do is, I’ll get us a couple rooms at that motel I saw comin’ into town-”

“You mean the Moanin’ Springs?”

That surprised him. He gave a bark of laughter. “You know the place?”

“By reputation only, I assure you.” She glanced at him briefly, then away again. But she was looking more relaxed. Maybe even like she’d remembered her sense of humor.

Troy grinned his appreciation and drove awhile in silence. It wasn’t a comfortable one; for some reason it seemed to him to have grown stuffy in the car. Downright sultry, even with the air conditioning going. He rolled down the window.

Charly leaned over and reached for the radio, cocking her head toward him to ask belatedly, “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

But when she turned it on, there was only a rush of static, so Troy, being helpful, punched in the tape he’d been listening to since he’d lost the golden-oldies station out of Atlanta. It was a seventies greatest-hits collection, and he’d had it turned up pretty loud, so the theme from Saturday Night Fever suddenly pulsed through the car like jungle drums: “…huh, huh, huh, huh, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…”

Charly swore like a hissing cat. Her hand shot out and silence fell, so suddenly that for a minute or two it seemed as loud as the music it had just eclipsed. Troy held on to his surprise and threw her a mildly questioning look, but she just sat dead still and stared straight ahead, and there wasn’t much he could tell about what was going on with her from that frozen profile.

Then suddenly she laughed, a light, false-sounding ripple, pure Alabama belle. “My, my, you are full of surprises. I’d have taken you for a country boy, for sure.”

“Hell, I like country,” Troy said, keeping it light, too, since that seemed to be the way she wanted it. Keeping it easy. “Don’t know anybody that doesn‘t-exceptin’ maybe Mirabella, and she’s comin’ around. But this-” he made a smacking sound with his lips and waved a hand at the now silent tape deck “-this is the music of my youth.”

She exhaled softly, all traces of lightness gone. “Yeah, mine, too.”

“Brings back a lot of memories, though, doesn’t it?”

He could feel her turn her head toward him, but she didn’t speak. And when he looked over at her a moment later, she’d turned away and was staring out the window again.

He thought about pursuing the conversation anyway but didn’t. He was starting to get an inkling that maybe it was memories that were the crux of her problem.

As late as it was, B.B.’s Barn was still jumping, judging from the number of cars and pickup trucks and assorted characters gathered around and the country beat pumping out into the parking lot. Which, according to some signs plastered on the front of the building was Live! on Friday and Saturday nights. A hand-lettered sign tacked up on the door identified tonight’s featured attraction as Mudcat Casey’s Band, The Pride Of Chattanooga!

“We use to call this place the Beer an’ Boogie,” Charly said out of the side of her mouth as she passed under the arm Troy was using to hold the door with. “Doesn’t look like it’s changed all that much.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You knew the place well, did you?”

She made that snorting sound again, and he suddenly realized it must be her version of laughter. “You kidding? I was underage. Plus, my father would have skinned me alive.”

Which confirmed what he’d already guessed-she’d spent at least part of her growing-up years in this town. At the same time, one thing she’d said did surprise him. He thought Charly Phelps might be the first Southern-raised woman he’d ever met that didn’t refer to her male parent as “Daddy.”

Strange, Charly thought as she crossed the dimly lighted vestibule, listening to the music thumping out a country two-step and breathing in the smell of tobacco smoke, beer and sweat In all the years she’d lived in this town, after all the talk, the jokes, the rumors and wild stories about this place, it was the first time she’d ever been inside. B.B.’s had been the forbidden zone, the hangout of the “fast” crowd, the sort of no-account trash no daughter of Judge Charles Phelps would ever be caught dead associating with. Which was probably why, in the years since she’d left Mourning Spring, she’d seen the inside of a lot of places just like it. It had a familiar feel to it, even though it had been years now since those troubled, searching times. There was something womblike about the warm, smoky darkness, the throbbing beat of the music, the crush of bodies, the muffled voices and laughter.

Quite a few people were up and dancing, making it hard to tell which tables were occupied and which weren’t, but Charly spotted a small one that hadn’t yet acquired an overflowing ashtray and a collection of beer bottles. She made for it, leaving her all-American Boy Scout rescuer to follow if he chose to.

He was getting on her nerves in ways she couldn’t quite figure out. For instance, as soon as she dropped into a chair she found herself immediately twisting and turning, making a big deal out of looking for a waitress, just because she didn’t want to have to watch the man pull out the chair across from her and lower himself into it. Because he was too damn good to watch, and in the reckless mood she was in, she didn’t trust herself.

She was feeling too damn strange. As if all the wires in her system were crossed, hissing and spitting and in imminent danger of short-circuiting. And maybe she wouldn’t care all that much if they did.

“Hey, how you folks doin’ this evenin’? My name’s Lori. What can I getcha?”

A cocktail waitress wearing skin tight Levi’s and a tank top had appeared at Troy’s elbow, balancing her tray on one perky hip. She had frizzy blond hair pulled up in a stubby little ponytail and was chewing gum. Charly squinted at her for a moment but decided she was too young to be anybody she ought to know.

“Well, Lori, tell you what, we’re kind of hungry. You got anything left back there to eat?” Troy was smiling up at the waitress, Charly thought, as if his teeth had been set with diamonds and he was offering them for sale.

And she was obviously ready to buy. Charly watched in a restless state somewhere between amusement and annoyance as Lori stuck out her hip even more, making sure it brushed up against Troy’s arm. “Kitchen’s closed.” She cracked her gum, lowered her eyelashes to half-mast and smiled. “But I think we still got hot dogs and nachos.”

“Okay, why don’t you bring me a couple of those hot dogs?” Troy looked at Charly, who shrugged. “Make that two more over there.”

Lori took time out from flirting just long enough to spare Charly a speculative glance. “That be all the way?”

All the way. Oh, my. It had been twenty years since Charly had heard those words in that context, which in the South meant the works, including onions and the brown glop they called chili.

“All the way,” Troy confirmed, beaming.

Charly seconded it, which was a waste of time since Lori had already taken Troy’s answer for both of them. “Okay,” she chirped, cracking gum, “that’s four all the way. Now, what can I get y’all to drink?”

“Black Jack on the rocks,” Charly snapped.

Lori looked as if she thought she might be in the company of aliens-at least one. She edged a little closer to Troy, if that were possible, and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this here’s a dry county.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, ma’am. We’re only allowed to serve beer.”

Good ol’ Troy cheerfully ordered a light beer. Charly moodily seconded it, and waited until the waitress had given her cute little wiggle and departed before she shook her head and muttered, “I can’t believe this town.”

Troy leaned back in his chair and drawled, “Ah, hell, that’s not too unusual. There’s lots of dry counties in the South.”

Charly all but ground her teeth. “Tell me about it. And right now I’d about give my left-” she could see by the anticipatory glint in his eyes that he knew exactly which part of her anatomy she was about to barter, and just to aggravate him, changed it at the last second “-toe for a shot of good old Tennessee bourbon.”

For a minute there it looked like he might go ahead and smile. Then he looked down at his hands, folded together on the tabletop, and his eyes vanished behind lashes any woman would pay money for. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but isn’t that what got you into this mess in the first place?” The lashes rose suddenly, his blue-eyed gaze skewering her like spear points.

She stared back at him, bitterness and resentment building inside her until she could feel its vibration in her teeth. She clamped them together and said softly, “What gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it seemed like the most likely explanation for why somebody’ d be in the drunk tank after runnin’ a car into a tree, instead of, say, in a hospital.” Now his smile was friendly, designed to disarm.

She resisted it with every ounce of her strength, and offered a stony, unforgiving stare. “Yeah, that’s what the cops thought, too. You’re probably not going to believe me, either, but the last drop of alcohol I had was in a strawberry margarita at Acapulco’s in Brentwood, California. That was…Tuesday. The blood test they gave me at the hospital confirmed it-you can read the arrest report if you don’t believe me.”

“Hell, I believe you.” He said it in that same annoyingly easygoing way, but his eyes remained intent and thanks to those damn lashes, impossible to read.

He really did have beautiful eyes.

The beat of the music was faster now, a rockabilly tune popular with the younger crowd. Charly listened with her eyes half-closed, letting her body move to it. Shutting out the eyes. Closing off thought.

“So, what did they arrest you for?”

Unfortunately Lori the waitress arrived with their drinks just in time to catch that. She gave Charly a nervous look as she set two sweating long-necks on the tabletop, accepted the bills Troy gave her without dallying, for once, and hurriedly scooted away.

Charly waited until she was out of earshot, then lifted her bottle, tilted it toward his in a mock toast and recited with lip-smacking relish, “Reckless driving, operating a motor vehicle without a license and open-container violation.”

He paused in the process of tucking his wallet away to give a low whistle. “All that without even bein’ drunk?”

“That’s right.”

He was shaking his head as he picked up his beer. “Sounds like you might be needin’ a lawyer.”

“I am a lawyer.”

The bottle halted just short of his lips, and his eyes leaped to hers. “No kiddin’?”

She couldn’t seem to shift her gaze away from his mouth. Hers had gone dry as dust. She drank some beer and licked her lips. “It’s the truth.”

There was a long pause, and then they were both laughing-real laughter, husky and mellow. Troy didn’t know which felt better in his belly, that or the beer.

“You feel like telling me what did happen?”

“It’s a long story.” Her eyes stared straight into his, a dark, lost look he took as a personal challenge.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he murmured. And knew right then and there that he wouldn’t be. For better or worse, he was committed to this mission.

Granted, his life had been pretty tame lately, but right now he was feeling more keyed up and alive than he had in months. This woman was turning out to be a real surprise, as full of tension and secrets as a Baghdad bazaar. Intriguing and tantalizing as a pair of beautiful eyes beckoning above a veil. He was developing a real curiosity about her, a growing itch to know. He wanted to see what was behind that damn veil.

But it was obvious she wasn’t going to show him, not yet. She frowned, suddenly edgy as a caged wolf, and said, “Hey, you don’t happen to have a cigarette on you, do you?”

“Hell, no.” He said it in surprise; he hadn’t pegged her as a smoker. “Those things’ll kill you.”

She was out of her chair before he’d finished it, heading for the bar. He didn’t try to stop her, just picked up his beer and lazily drank while he watched her edge her way in between a couple of guys who were sitting there nursing their Bud Lights and puffing away like chimneys. He could feel his jaw muscles tense as he watched her: the supple bend and sway of her body as she spoke to the two men; the way her hair brushed her neck when she tilted her head and smiled; the way her head fell back and her breasts pushed forward when she laughed.

He watched her take a cigarette from a proffered pack, tap it once on the bar and then put it between her lips, watched a flame sprout and her head dip close to a masculine hand. She lifted her head, her lips pouting around the cigarette as she shook back her hair. Her hand touched a masculine shirtsleeve.

He had to remind himself to breathe as his gaze followed the slender line of her hand and wrist, down her forearm, past the bend of her elbow and upward to the gentle curve of her biceps. He had a sudden, vivid image of Officer Baylor’s thick fingers wrapped around that smooth, naked arm.

His mouth had gone bone-dry. His eyes burned in their sockets. He shook himself and drank, but the beer tasted like ground glass going down.

“Ah, that’s better,” Charly said with a breathless laugh as she dropped into the chair across from him. She picked up her beer and took a swig, then a quick drag from the cigarette. And erupted in a fit of coughing.

Troy watched her struggle for a while, then silently reached over and took the cigarette from her fingers and stubbed it out in the ashtray.

She glared at him in outrage. “What’d you do that for?”

“Come on, you don’t want to be doin’ that.”

For a moment or two he could see she was thinking about arguing the point. Then she propped an elbow on the tabletop, rubbed wearily at her forehead and closed her eyes. “I haven’t smoked in years,” she said in a soft, tense voice. “It’s this damn town. Look at me-I’m here what, six hours? Seven? And it’s like I’ve lost twenty years of my life. I might as well be sixteen again.”

Troy got to his feet and kicked back his chair. Her eyes and mouth opened simultaneously, but before she could ask the questions he could see forming in her eyes, he reached across the table and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm. He’d prepared himself in advance for the jolt, but there was still a growl in his voice when he said, “Come on, let’s you and me dance.”

It was a reckless thing to do, and he knew it. And he had an idea, from the way she was looking at him, that she knew it, too. Her eyes locked on to his, darkened and held as she lifted her head in full acceptance of the challenge he’d thrown at her. Then she rose without a word. The muscles in her arm quivered and pulsed beneath his fingers as he guided her around the table. And beneath his belt buckle, his belly did likewise.

Their bodies brushed and bumped together as they wove their way through the tables to the crowded dance floor. To Charly it seemed like part of the dance…his hand on her waist, her shoulder against his chest, his body heat merging with hers. She could feel his breath in her hair, feel her own pulse beat in her throat and belly and wherever he touched her. And then they were on the dance floor, surrounded by music and moving bodies and gentle darkness, and with one slow turn, he gathered her into his arms.

Gathered her in. Yes, that was what it felt.like. So gentle and sure. She felt enfolded, surrounded, cocooned and protected; never had she felt so utterly and completely possessed. She wondered why such a notion didn’t terrify her, why instead she should feel a sense of safety and happiness like nothing she had ever known. As if she belonged here. Right here, in this stranger’s arms, on this murky little dance floor, in this noisy bar that reeked of cigarettes and stale beer and sweat and sawdust. She never wanted to leave.

She couldn’t feel her feet. Didn’t know any longer what song was playing, what the beat was, what steps they were using. And didn’t care. He filled her senses-all of them-with his body, his hands, his heat, his smell. When she swallowed, she could taste him. With her eyes closed she could see the smooth flesh beneath her fingers. Her skin tingled, prickled and caught fire, as if with a raging fever. And yet she shivered.

He murmured something she couldn’t hear as his arms shifted subtly, further enfolding her. Everywhere they touched, she could feel his heat flowing into her…and hers into him. It’s only dancing, she thought. But her heart hammered, drowning thought. Her throat moved convulsively. She felt parched…famished. The warm, moist hollow at the base of his throat tasted like manna from heaven; the tapping of his pulse against her lips was like the patter of raindrops on her thirsty soul…

Troy felt her lips move on his throat, and his stomach clenched. The muscles in his back tightened as he arched, drawing her body into his. She lifted her arms and slid her hands upward to meet behind his neck, kneading and stroking the taut cords, inviting them subtly to relax…let go. He could feel her breasts pillow against his chest, feel the pebbly brush of the nipples as if there were nothing but sweat between them. His thoughts began to flicker like a malfunctioning fuse.

With one of the last flares of lucidity before reason deserted him completely, he realized that his fingers were tugging at the silky knit fabric of her top, unconsciously seeking a way to the greater softness that lay beneath. His hands tightened, then grew still. He thought, What am I doing? What in the hell am I doing?

The inside of his chest felt as if an avalanche were taking place there. He cleared his throat and rumbled, “Looks like our food’s…uh, maybe we’d better go eat before it gets cold.”

There was a pause, during which he thought about saying, “The hell with it,” and walking out of there with his arm wrapped possessively around her and her body plastered up against his side, and not stopping until they were locked inside one of the rooms at the Moanin’ Springs Motel. He thought about it, with all the healthy male impulses in his body yelling “Yeah!” and egging him on.

It was hard saying no to those impulses, especially since they hadn’t had much to yell about lately. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to, either, if just then she hadn’t let her breath out in a long, slow sigh and pulled back from him just enough so he could look down and see the fall of dark hair across her pale forehead, the blackbird’s-wing arch of her eyebrows, the shadows her lashes cast across her cheeks. Just enough to remind him who it was he was holding in his arms. Who it was he’d been on the verge of making love to in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Enough to make him feel dishonorable and ashamed. Hell, he was supposed to be rescuing this woman, not seducing her.

They walked back to their table in awkward silence. Charly felt intensely aware of her body’s shape, its every nerve, fiber and flaw, its every movement, pulse beat and tremor. She was certain he must be, too, certain he could see how wobbly her legs were, how flushed her cheeks, how quick her breaths, how jerky and uncoordinated her hands.

And I don’t care, she thought. I don’t care!

She felt angry and thwarted, like a child who’d just had a much desired toy cruelly snatched from her hands. For a few moments, out there on that dance floor, she’d felt safe, happy… oblivious. For those few minutes in Troy’s arms, she’d felt no pain. Felt nothing except the most elemental impulses of hunger, sexual need, desire. She wanted to go back to that place where the universe consisted of his body and hers and thought was an enemy, banished to the remote edges of consciousness. She wanted to go back there and, if at all possible, stay forever.

“Looks good,” Troy commented, pulling back his chair. Obviously such thoughts and desires were far from his mind.

Damn Boy Scout, Charly thought as she gazed with disgust at the plastic basket before her, at the hot dogs nested there in waxed paper, smothered in onions and that noxious chili. She resented them-and him-with a passion that made her stomach burn. I can’t eat this, she thought. I can’t. She sat down and instead picked up her half-empty bottle of beer and drank.

Naturally Troy was already tucking into his hot dogs with good-ol’-boy gusto. It was such a revolting sight she couldn’t tear her gaze from him. Avidly she watched his supple fingers cradle and manipulate the bun and lift it gently to his mouth…watched his lips open and his teeth come down…watched his lips come together and the tip of his tongue appear to steal a morsel of chili that had stayed behind, leaving them glazed for a tantalizing moment before he touched them fastidiously with his napkin. And she thought about how they would feel…his lips, his teeth, his tongue. How they would feel on her lips. How they would taste on her tongue.

“Better eat up,” Troy urged between mouthfuls.

She pushed the basket away with a shudder. “I’m not hungry.”

He shook his head. “Come on, now, you’ve had a long day. You need your strength.”

Having already dispatched his first hot dog, he wiped his mouth with his napkin, then his fingers, dropped the balled-up napkin into his basket and pushed it aside. Then he reached over and picked up one of her hot dogs and held it toward her, cradled in both of his hands. “Okay, now, open up.” His eyes smiled into hers.

He really does have the most beautiful eyes. It was Charly’s only thought as she gazed into them, lips parted, barely breathing. She could have sworn he wasn’t touching her, and yet everything she’d felt on that dance floor came flooding back-the heat and heaviness, the pounding pulses and shimmering nerves-as if she were still in his arms. She opened her mouth slowly, half-mesmerized, and took a bite and chewed without tasting. A lump formed in her throat that had nothing to do with hot dogs.

Something warm oozed down her chin. He caught it with the back of his finger, then wiped the spot clean with the ball of his thumb, laughing softly, intimately. And she laughed, too. How could she not?

“Good girl…ready for another? Yeah…” The words came from the back of his throat, like something erotic crooned in humid darkness amid tumbled sheets. Her own chuckle was a husky counterpoint, part of the same duet.

She put her hand on his to help steady the dripping hot dog and leaned forward to take a bite, while he braced his elbows on the tabletop and bent his head toward hers. It was a small table; his face was very close to hers, so close she could feel his warm, moist breath when he laughed. It was strange, she tasted nothing, her chest felt tight and crowded, her belly coiled and pulsed as if aliens had taken up residence there. And yet when the last bite of the hot dog had been swallowed and the last dribble of chili dabbed from her lips, she was sorry.

“There, now,” said Troy, leaning back and reaching for his own basket once more, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She shook her head and groped for her bottle of beer, lifted it unsteadily and drained the few swallows that were left. Troy asked her if she wanted another, but she shook her head. He told her she should eat her other hot dog. She muttered, “No, thanks, I’ve had plenty.” Plenty…and not nearly enough.

What in the hell was wrong with her? It seemed that when he was close to her, touching her, she was fine-more than fine. She was every dopey cliché you could think of-higher than a kite, drunk as a skunk, dizzy as a baby on a swing. And the minute he left her she felt…like this. Lousy. Like a baby, all right, a baby woken up too soon, wobbly and cranky and ready to cry at the drop of a hat. I don’t know how much more of this I can take, she thought.

She watched while Troy polished off the last bite of his second hot dog and washed it down with what was left of his beer. When he said, “Well, if you’re not gonna eat that, you ready to go?” she nodded. He pushed back his chair and stood up, and she noticed that he didn’t try to help her with hers, or take her arm, or anything that might have brought him into close contact with her again. Miserable and disappointed, she wondered if he was deliberately avoiding it.

He noticed that she was looking around for a rest-room sign, and leaned over and murmured, “I think I saw them up front, when we came in.”

She muttered, “Thanks,” and pushed ahead of him through the maze of tables.

The women’s rest room was deserted, but reeked of cigarette smoke. The glimpse Charly caught of herself as she slipped into a stall was something of an eye-opener to her. She looked like pure hell-bloodshot eyes in a pale, bloated face, hair hanging in lifeless strings, clothes that looked as if they’d been slept in-no wonder Troy didn’t care to get close to her. Who could blame him? She probably didn’t smell all that great, either.

It felt good to wash her face and hands. Of course, there wasn’t much she could do about her hair-or anything else, for that matter. Her purse had vanished, and she supposed all her luggage was still in the trunk of the rental car, wherever that was. She would have to see about that tomorrow. Tomorrow. There were a lot of things she was going to have to see about…tomorrow. Like that other famous Southern belle before her, she pushed the thought ruthlessly aside.

It was while she was mopping herself dry with paper towels that she noticed the vending machine on the wall-the kind that dispensed tampons and condoms. She knew most public rest rooms had them nowadays, but she’d never paid any attention to them before. This one she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from.

Forget it, she told herself. I said, forget it. And her heart beat faster.

Besides…well, of course, she had no purse. And therefore, no money.

Which, she told herself, was just as well.