Barbara Samuel (35 page)

She pursed her lips. “A little. He has a lot of power and very little conscience.”

Thomas touched her hand. “Sorry.”

“My mother will help this time. Before, none of us had any money to battle him. Now she’s married to a millionaire.” She raised her eyebrows. “Not such a bad thing.”

He laughed.

“You want to borrow him? Maybe it’ll help with your ex, too.”

He shook his head, lowering his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see that faint worry in her eyes. “Not gonna help.”

“What’s going on, Thomas? Did you bring me here to
tell me you can’t see me anymore because you’re getting back together?”

Astonished, he said, “No! Good God.”

She nodded, her eyes steady and disbelieving.

“But she did ask in a roundabout way, if she could stay with me.”

“I see.”

“How did you know?”

Luna lifted a shoulder. “Good guess.”

“I told her no, Luna,” he said.

She looked away, toward the band, and the sight of her profile, guarded and careful, made his chest ache. He put his hand over hers. “I told her no because of you.” When she still didn’t say anything, he said, “Was that the wrong thing to do?”

“You know,” she said, taking her hand away, “this is really awkward and I don’t know what you want me to do or say. We hardly know each other. We’ve had sex a couple of times. Big deal.” She pushed her chair back. “If you want to let her come stay with you, I can really understand that. You wanted a baby. She’s got one.”

He took her wrist in a firm, insistent grip. “Luna,” he said quietly. “Please don’t go.”

She took a breath. Looked at him. He met her gaze, trying to show her he didn’t have anything to hide. “Please,” he said.

All at once, she relented, sat back down. “How could I leave a hot brownie?”

Relief made him dive over the table and kiss her. Hard. “Thank you.”

She scooted her chair back, lifted her tea and took a long sip. “You know, that made me want a cigarette so badly that I nearly went over and bummed one from that woman over there. I broke down and had one earlier today, too.”

“I know. Tiny told me.”

“He did? That rat. He promised not to.”

“I’m not judging you, Luna.”

“I’m judging myself. I really want to get off them this time. It’s just hard.”

The waitress brought their plates. “You don’t really seem like a smoker,” Thomas said.

“What’s a smoker like?” She bent her head over the brownie, inhaling deeply, her eyes half-mast as she made a noise of pleasure. It was unconsciously sensual, and made him think of the way she looked that morning he saw her at dawn, as if she were inhaling all the light in the world, filling herself up on it. A pang of desire struck him deep, a hunger to taste that light again. He picked up the ketchup.

“I don’t know,” he said in answer to her question. “More blue-collar, maybe.”

She laughed. “My mother was a cocktail waitress my whole life. I work in a grocery store.”

He shook his head. “That’s not your real work and you know it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just not who you are. Too easy.” He picked up his burger, aware suddenly that his stomach was growling. He tore into it. Hot, salty beef juices filled his mouth.

Luna swirled her spoon through chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream and took a bite, closing her eyes. “Oh, that’s why I’ll never be a waif. This is so good.”

He chuckled. “Waifdom is overrated.”

In silence, they ate, both engrossed in the pleasure of food. After a minute, Thomas paused to take a sip of his beer. “I think,” he said, “that you’re still a counselor. You think about it a lot.”

She hesitated. “Sure. I think about it all the time. I
loved it. I was pretty good at it.” Taking exact fifty-fifty proportions of ice cream and brownie on to her spoon. “You used to smoke, right?”

“Yep.”

“Why’d you quit?”

He carefully pulled onion off the burger. He would want to kiss her some more. Later. “My ex hated it,” he said, and winked, patting his belly. He’d been working on it the past few weeks, doing sit-ups in the mornings, and maybe it was getting a little better. “That’s where most of this came from.”

“Don’t tell me that,” she snapped. “I don’t need to gain any weight.”

“Ah, it’s worth it. Think of your daughter.”

She took a breath. Nodded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He looked at her as he ate, feeling such a sense of connection that it was almost visible. He’d wanted, tonight, to prove to her that it wasn’t all about sex, but her eyes glittered a little, and one side of her mouth turned up, and just like that—he wanted to go some place quiet, kiss her and touch her and lie close, side by side.

They ate for a while. It was a companionable quiet, and something in him ached at that. It was all he’d wanted with Nadine, a peaceful union where they helped each other. Was something like that possible with Luna?

Or would it end the same way it always did—with broken hearts and broken visions all around, having to face the lonely rooms again, rooms that were fine before a lover filled them with laughter, and were hollow afterward.

It was hard to hope, having gone through so many dark valleys, but somehow, he hadn’t lost the knack.
Would it be worth it, loving Luna, if they ended in sorrow somewhere down the line?

He eyed her, digging a spoon into the pool of chocolate before her. She only swirled the bowl around, then licked it off, making her look young.

But even in the shadows, he could see the wear on her. She wasn’t a kid. There were faint lines at the corners of her eyes and a certain set of the jaw that spoke of many words uttered, many things seen. As he watched, something the singer said between sets caught her attention and she flashed a quick, one-sided smile before returning her attention to her chocolate. A tiny half circle of scar cut into the right side of her lower lip.

He liked her wrists, flat and brown beneath silver bracelets, and her forehead, and the edge of a breast showing between the buttons of her blouse. He liked the angles of her—a tilt to her eyes, the arch of cheekbone, the downturn of her mouth when she had no expression. “Are you Indian, Luna?”

She looked up. “Not much.” She gave a little shrug. “My dad was a quarter Apache. Why?”

“I just saw it,” he said, admiring the depth of her dark eyes. “The blond hair his, too?”

“Not at all. That’s a McGraw trait.”

“So McGraw is your mother’s name?”

“Yeah.” She bent her head suddenly. “Her maiden name. She took it back when she was divorced, and so did I.”

“What was your father’s name?”

“Esquivel,” she said. “Jesse Esquivel.”

“Spanish?”

Luna nodded. “I know. Neither my sister nor I look it.”

And with a searing sense of longing, Thomas suddenly saw what their babies might have been like, if they’d met sooner, soon enough, so they weren’t both so
old, so worn. He saw them, the babies, with wild curls and laughing dark eyes. Saw his father and hers, her mother and his grandmother, all blended into some perfection of southwestern union. The idea of it almost made him want to howl, and he reached for her hand. “I wish I’d met you a long time ago, Luna McGraw. Maybe when I was about seventeen.”

“I was too young for you then,” she said, turning her hand over so their palms touched.

He nodded sadly. Wasn’t like he could have given her babies then, either.

“What’s bothering you tonight, Thomas?” she asked softly.

He pressed his index finger to hers. “I’m not sure. Lotta things. I’m worried about Tiny and I think my grandma’s wearing out and my brother is cheating on his pregnant wife, a woman he supposedly wanted so bad he had to steal her from me.” He took a breath, said the truth. “It kills me so much sometimes, still. He lived with me for six months, and I had no idea, the whole time.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, what’re you gonna do, right?”

“It does get easier, Thomas.”

“No, it won’t. What I can do is make peace with the fact that it sucked, what they did to me. I always want to change it, and that won’t happen.”

“I know that feeling. If you see it in time, maybe you could stop it?”

“No.” He shook his head grimly. “I keep wanting to go back in time and catch them in the act so I can kick the shit out of them.”

Her eyes lit up. “Hey! A revenge fantasy. Sort of. That’s good.”

“I have some other fantasies, too,” he said. “But I’m trying to prove this isn’t just about sex.”

“It’s not?”

“Not just that.” He stroked her inner arm. “Want to go up to the casino for a while, play the slot machines? My treat.”

“Sure. I’d love it.”

Casinos were casinos, wherever you went, Luna thought. The noise, the lights, the chaotic feeling, that scent of nervous sweat. The Indian casinos she’d been to were no different aside from the fact that there was no drinking—not such a bad thing, if you thought about it—and at Taos, there was no smoking, either. It was a relief.

“What’s your pleasure?” Thomas asked as they wandered the rows.

“Slots, I guess. Are you a poker man?”

“Not like this.” He stopped to put a dollar in a machine. “I’m not that good.”

“Me, either.” They watched the symbols spin wildly and land on two cherries and a bar. Quarters clanked out into the tray. “Fairly auspicious beginning,” she said with a smile.

He winked at her. “I guess you’re a lucky charm.” He scooped the quarters out and grabbed one of the plastic cups stationed between the machines. “What do you like to play? Quarters, dollars?”

“Electronic poker,” she said. “Nickels only.”

“Dangerous.”

“Well, I’m just a danger-loving gal.”

They found a bank of nickel poker machines and Luna took out a five dollar bill. Thomas put his hand over hers. “Allow me. I talked you into it, after all.”

“All right. But the next round is mine.”

Next to her was an old woman, probably seventy-five, with her purse nestled in her lap. She wore comfy polyester pants and a flowered blouse and the kind of tennis shoes you buy on special at Wal-Mart for five bucks. “I played that one for a while,” she said of Luna’s machine. “Didn’t win a blasted thing. I’m doing pretty good on this one, though.” She shook her cup. It was full of coins.

“Thanks for the warning,” Luna said, but her money was already in, the lights flashing at her to come on and play, so she pushed the buttons. What the heck, go for broke—ten hands, full bet.

There was something hypnotic about gambling on slot machines. The noise, the lights, the way it took you completely away from everything on your mind. Luna never thought about anything while under the spell of a slot, and it said something that she could still lose herself like that when Thomas was sitting next to her in all his splendidness. She only came out of her hypnotic state briefly when the waitress brought around drinks— coffee for Luna, and it wasn’t bad, she had to say, and Coke for Thomas. The waitress was too professional to risk losing a tip, but Luna did notice that her smile was all for Thomas. She didn’t like him sitting there with an Anglo.

Luna played his five dollars, and then took out five of her own. Thomas, annoyed by the low stakes, stood up. “Mind if I go over there to the quarter machines? I never have liked the nickels.”

“Not at all.”

In ten minutes—just as she was about to lose her own five, and thought about quitting—he ambled over with a boyishly pleased grin. “Hey little girl. I’ll give you a quarter for a kiss.” He held it up between his dark fingers, wiggling his eyebrows at her impishly, and a pain
went through her. God, she liked him. Not just lusted, not just wanted to be madly in love with him. She
liked
him.

She held out her hand, and he poured a bunch of quarters into it. “How much did you win?” she asked.

“Fifty dollars.” He bent in and pressed a warm kiss to her mouth, his hand brushing her hair. In a low voice, he said, “I’ll collect the rest later.”

“Sounds good to me.” She fed the new quarters into the slot, loving the little electronic beep that went along with each gulp, and wondered idly if anyone had done studies on the sounds that were most appealing to human ears—this one made her think of a Nintendo game Joy used to play. Nintendo was addictive, too. “Hey,” Luna said before Thomas could get away. “Tell your adoring waitress that your love slave needs more coffee.”

He gave her that great, slow grin. “Will do.”

The woman next to Luna said, “Is he your husband?”

She laughed. “Not at all.”

“Humph. I can usually tell. You must have been together a long time, though, huh?”

“Nope, not that either.”

She snapped a bill between her fingers to straighten it. “Well, you’re gonna be, then.” She fed the machine and immersed, and Luna went back to hers, smiling softly to herself.

It couldn’t have been more than three hands later that the dealer gave her four aces. Ten hands, four aces in each one. Luna laughed softly, and bet everything it would let her, then took a breath and punched the button. The light went off and the noise of coins adding to the total beeped wildly. Such a satisfying sound.

But it was a bigger payoff than the machine could
give, more than Luna had calculated in her light-and-sound dazed state. It filled the tray, then the light on top started blinking madly and a little whir of an alarm sounded. The lady next to her said, “Oh, fiddlesticks! That should have been mine!”

Luna shrugged, waiting for the attendant to come check it out. “Just works out like that sometimes.”

“I reckon.” She punched her button and kept talking. “Once, in Las Vegas, I got behind this Oriental lady about my age with three giant cups of silver dollar tokens.” She paused to punch the buttons for the cards she wanted to keep. “I said, ‘Whooeee! You won big.’ She looked at me and said, ‘I still lose.’ ”

Luna laughed.

“That’s the way of it, huh?” the old woman said.

“‘Fraid so.” But tonight, she’d won. Won big. Two hundred and seventy-six dollars, to be exact. Taking the bills the attendant gave her, Luna went to find Thomas.

She spied him in a bank of quarter machines and headed toward him when a voice said, “Well, as I live and breathe, I’ve been stood up for a man.”