“What’s wrong with him?”
“Heart trouble. Serious heart trouble. But he’s always done a good job. He’s honest and conscientious.”
Terry sat down opposite her at the dining table. “Are you here as Mr. Tubbs’ representative?” Or your own? he wondered.
For the first time, her demeanor softened. She looked down at the mug of coffee, hooked her finger in the handle and pulled it toward her. “No, I’m just Gordon’s friend.” She said it almost affectionately and he realized the simple admission had deep meaning for her.
His own attitude softened, a reaction that rarely happened when someone approached him aggressively. He had to admire her loyalty to this Gordon fellow. And her chutzpah. Terry drank from his mug, watching her over the rim. And with her expressive almond-shaped eyes and fine features, she was worth watching. Taking in her black hair and tan skin, he wondered if she was Mexican, but she had no trace of an accent. “Something tells me you want me to do something. What is it?”
“The trailer park makes money. It always has.”
“And you know this how?”
“The former owner, Clyde Campbell, was friends with my mother before he died.
Good
friends.”
Terry almost grinned. Just a few minutes earlier she had declared she knew nothing about Campbell’s business. So this was not Raylene Rutherford; it was her daughter.
Human beings fascinated Terry and this one was starting to interest him more than he wanted her to. Golden brown eyes, heart-shaped red lips and a small mole at the corner of her mouth. Her facial features were almost perfect. What could a woman this good-looking be doing in this remote place and how had Kim missed her in her research?
“Gordon’s been living on borrowed time for a couple of years,” she said. “He was on Clyde’s group insurance. Since the trailer park’s profitable, maybe it wouldn’t interfere with your plans to let him stay on. He needs a job and he’s desperate for health insurance. Besides that, having the RV park open is good for all of our businesses. We depend on tourists.” She looked him sharply in the eye. “Of course, if you plan to close us all down, that’s another story.”
Terry sat back in his chair, emotions conflicting. Something about her had driven straight to his masculinity and that part wanted to get to know her better, but his pragmatic side warned him she would be a handful. She definitely had ideas of her own about the town he had just bought and they probably clashed with his. His business sense nudged him, pointing out the folly of discussing his plans with her or any other stranger.
But for the most part, she was right. The RV park wasn’t in his way. The thing did make a small profit. Terry was reluctant to start his venture with pissing off everyone in the town. The public relations persona that had served him well in his real estate career stepped up. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll leave the RV park as is for the moment. I’ve got other things to take care of right now anyway. Since Mister Tubbs is already on the payroll I’ve got no problem adding him to my company’s group insurance plan. Would that make you happy?”
But I can’t promise how long I can do that
, he refrained from saying.
For the first time since she knocked on his door, she smiled. And what a smile. Dancing eyes and straight white teeth. The little mole moved with her mouth.
“Gordon will be so relieved,” she said. “I’m relieved, too. I was worried about him.” As she picked up the mug and sipped, Terry felt a mysterious weight lift from his chest.
“Well, I’ve got to get going.” She stood up. “I haven’t opened the café yet and I might be losing business.”
Terry felt a need to delay her leaving, just for a few more seconds. He stood, too. “Look, I’ll be having some people come and go, doing some work. They’ll need a place to eat and I’ll be paying their expenses. For that matter, I’m going to be around here quite a bit myself. Can I start a tab in your café? I can write you a check when I leave or if you’d rather, I can give you a credit card number.”
“Sure. Either one’s okay. I do serve three meals a day if I’ve got customers. And the food’s always fresh.”
With the stridency of anger removed, her voice had a soft alto tone that made him think of phone sex. Her eyes had turned warm and friendly and for some damn reason, he was having difficulty relinquishing the moment. “Great,” he said.
She smiled up at him.“You say that a lot, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Great. That’s one of the things I remember about that first day you came into the café. You thought everything was great.
He shrugged and grinned. “What can I say? I’m an optimist.”
“Why didn’t you tell me who you are? I was shocked and a little upset when you opened the door this morning and I realized you’re the town’s new owner.”
He lifted a shoulder. “You were so unhappy that day. I didn’t want to make things, whatever they were, worse. I don’t like seeing a pretty girl cry.”
“Well...” She looked down, almost shy. “I don’t cry very often.” She started for the door.
“Listen,” he said, and she stopped. “What happened to...you know, the guy?”
A little frown of puzzlement formed between her brows. “Guy?...Oh,
that
guy. His name’s Woody.” She toyed with a ring on her finger. “By now he’s probably a bridegroom. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me.” She smiled again. “Well, I gotta go.”
Terry stood in the doorway and watched her cross his deck, jog down his steps and walk out into the sunny morning. She made her way through the sparse bunch grass and brush, toward a singlewide mobile home parked behind the flea market. A confusing mix of emotions stirred within him. Instead of wading into the confusion, he focused on the fact that there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with how she looked in a pair of tight jeans. He did like a woman with a fine ass. Woody, whoever he was, must be a damn fool.
A pesky question niggled at him. She had picked up the standard for Gordon Tubbs, so why hadn’t she asked him about his plans for the flea market and café? If any building in town was in his way, it was the one she and the adjacent beauty shop occupied.
****
Not once had Marisa suspected Agua Dulce’s buyer would be young and good-looking. Or that vitality would leap from his pores. Weren’t rich guys supposed to be old and fat like Tanya said? She kept her steps even and her chin level as she hiked toward her mother’s singlewide. She had barely sat through the meeting with Mr. Ledger without crawling under the furniture in humiliation. How could he have let her open herself up so completely that day in the café and not reveal his identity?
She felt his eyes on her back all the way to the singlewide’s door and was glad to reach home. Her heart hammered as she closed her door and leaned against it. A sense of doom hung on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. He may have said he would leave the RV park alone, but she had enough common sense to know it was only a temporary commitment. In time, he would leave nothing alone, including Pecos Belle’s Emporium & Eats. Unless she could pull a rabbit out of a hat and find a job and a home in another town, she and her mother were as good as homeless. She shut her eyes and pressed her forehead against the door for a moment.
When she opened her eyes and turned, Mama was standing at the kitchen counter, holding the phone
receiver, her brow knit into a frown and a distant look in her eyes.
“Who’s on the phone?” Marisa asked her.
Mama looked at the receiver, then at Marisa. Tears welled in her eyes and she began to cry.
“I don’t know.”
Marisa went to her and hugged her close. At the same time, she put the receiver to her ear and said, “Hello?” She heard only a dial tone, so she would never know if someone had called, if Mama had made a call or had simply picked up the receiver.
Her mother’s body shook with sobs and Marisa cooed to her and rubbed her back. When Marisa had first returned, Mama cried often, knowing she was losing touch with the world and grieving over it. In those days Marisa heard her say things like her body was going to outlast her mind or that she was becoming a prisoner in her own skin and Marisa had even feared she might do something drastic, like take her own life.
Lately the fleeting moments of awareness occurred less often. Now it was Marisa who grieved, functioning in a constant state of stress and debating in the deepest recesses of her heart if Mama was better off alive and crazy or dead and at peace.
“I don’t know, Marisa,” Mama said again, sobbing. “Oh, Lord, I don’t know.”
Chapter 9
Marisa headed for Pecos Belle’s too late to catch breakfast customers who might have spent the night in the motel. Sessions like the one she had just had with her mother always left her drained. It had taken one of the knock-out pills to calm Mama and now she would be out for the rest of the day.
Marisa entered Pecos Belle’s through the apartment’s back door and made her way through to the café, then through the flea market to the front door, sidling past and stepping over this and that. Mr. Patel, Bob Nichols and Ben Seagrave were standing on the sidewalk by the front door waiting for her. Knowing--and dreading--that an impromptu meeting of some kind loomed, she unlocked the front door and let them in.
The three men passed in front of her single-file and silent, with Ben bringing up the rear. She hadn’t seen him in nearly two weeks. He wore a silly grin and reeked of whiskey. His gray T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts looked as if he had been wearing them for days. Both were covered with stains, the origin of which Marisa dared not speculate. Bob had been right. Ben was drinking.
“Hello, Marisssa,” he said. In his cups, he always pronounced her name as if it were spelled with three Ss.
“Hi, Ben,” she answered, unsmiling.
As she dragged mugs off the shelf, the men sat down on the padded vinyl stools at the lunch counter. The trio made an odd-looking group if she ever saw one. Ben, tall and skinny with leathery skin tanned to the color of toasted almonds; Bob, short and pale, his face and tiny no-color eyes almost hidden by a bush of white hair and beard; Mr. Patel, short, thin and dark and intense.
Ben declined coffee. He had brought something over ice with him. She allowed him to drink liquor in the café if he brought it, but she refused to serve him. She had no license to sell or serve alcohol.
The men sat grim-faced and silent, sipping their respective beverages. When no one said anything, she threw some crushed ice in a cup and drew a Diet Coke for herself. “Okay, y’all, what’s this about?
Bob’s eyes bored into her in an accusing way. “We saw you go to the new owner’s trailer.”
“Lemme guess. You want to know what we talked about.”
“Yes,” they said in chorus.
She sighed. Of course they were worried. Knowing that was the only reason she tolerated their waiting at her front door for a report. “Well, if you must know, Gordon mentioned the guy might close down the trailer park, which would leave poor Gordon in a pretty bad spot. So that’s what we talked about. The man said he would leave the RV park alone temporarily and he won’t can Gordon.”
At least not right away, she didn’t say.
That is all?” the East Indian asked, suspicion evident in his tone.
Though she liked Mandan Patel’s wife and his two daughters, his evident distrust of everything and everyone annoyed her. In fact, he irritated her so much, she didn’t feel comfortable calling him by his first name. “Yes, Mr. Patel, that’s all. What did you think, that I’m plotting against you somehow?”
“We don’t know how to approach him,” Bob Nichols said in his usual soft voice that served to apologize for Mr. Patel’s sharpness. “He hasn’t spoken to us at all. I know his name only because he stayed in the motel.”
For the first time Marisa realized she didn’t know the new owner’s name, either. How had she had two encounters with a sexy guy and not even learned his name? “What
is
his name?”
“Terry W. Ledger is what was on his credit card. It was a Master Card, as I recall.”
“Hunh,” Marisa said, the name jingling a distant bell in her mind. She pictured a serene landscape on a billboard standing alongside Interstate 30 between Fort Worth and Dallas, advertising ANOTHER LEGENDARY COMMUNITY BY TERRY LEDGER. Oh, Jesus. Did he intend to sub-divide Agua Dulce? “Did you say he’s from Fort Worth?”
“He doesn’t own my motel or Mandan’s service station,” Bob continued as if he hadn’t heard her question, “but what he plans will affect us. We just want to know what he’s going to do.”
“It is only fair that he buy my business,” Mr. Patel said. “If he will take away my income, then he should pay. I have already been cheated.”
Marisa had no idea if that was true. Mr. Patel had bought his service station and the squatty stucco house behind it from Harvey Skillern the year Marisa graduated from high school sixteen years back. Marisa only vaguely remembered Harvey, but
talk had always swirled among Agua Dulcians about his shady deals.
“I hate to bust your bubble, Man-dan,” Ben said, “but you ain’t been cheated. You took your own risk when you bought that service station. And this Legend fella don’t have to pay you jack. That’s the American way, buddy.” Ben followed that pronouncement with a long glug from his drink.