My Give a Damn's Busted (11 page)

A few white puffy clouds flirted with each other across the summer blue sky. The lake water made very little noise as it slapped against the grassy knoll where they’d thrown out their quilt. A bird with a long neck and legs lit a few feet away and tried to convince them that it was big and mean enough to send them packing but finally gave up and took to the air. A couple of frogs had a contest going to see who had the deepest voice. A few crickets were singing out of tune. The mosquitoes were lazy and had stayed home, but a fly or two had braved the heat and tried to suck up a drop of beer occasionally.

Larissa kicked off her sandals and lazed back on a patchwork quilt and watched the red bobble out in the water. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a white eyelet lace halter top tied around her neck. She’d pulled her hair up into a ponytail but it kept sneaking down to stick to her sweaty neck. Hank’s faded jeans had holes in the knees and his unbuttoned chambray shirt gave her peeks of his broad chest. His sandals were with hers at the edge of the quilt. She was glad that she’d worn dark sunglasses so that she could check out that Longhorn belt buckle whenever she wanted.

A portable CD player kept George Strait’s fifty number one songs going while they sipped icy beer from longneck bottles. Hank stretched out on his back and kept an eye on his fishing line. He’d propped both their poles in the metal vee of a device he’d brought along.

“So this is fishin’,” she said.

“Fun, ain’t it?”

“I could get used to it on Sunday after a busy week in the Honky Tonk.”

“So how is Sharlene working out?”

“After two nights I wish she’d quit the newspaper and come to work for me exclusively. We hit it off from the beginning. That don’t happen nearly enough in today’s crazy world.”

“You and I have hit it off pretty good after you got over being mad at me for hitting a deer and making you slide into a ditch,” he said.

She smiled. “We did, didn’t we?”

“Where do you think this will go?” he asked.

Nowhere! It can go nowhere because of who I really am and who I work for. But today I’m an old dirt farmer with a red neck and a love for country music and I’m going to enjoy being just that. I’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here,
he thought, answering the question for himself.

Larissa shrugged. “Depends on whether we catch fish and whether you know how to clean them if we do. If you can get them into the right sized pieces, I’ll call Linda and ask her how to fry them.”

“You never cooked fish?” Hank asked.

She shook her head. “Love fried catfish or grilled trout or that—” she almost said the fish they served at the little Italian restaurant right near the Vatican, “but I wouldn’t have any idea how to cook them.”

He scooted over next to her, slipped an arm under her, and drew her close to his side. “I wasn’t talking about fish when I asked that question, Larissa.”

“I know what you were talking about and I don’t have an answer. What do you think?”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Right now I just want this day.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have. One day at a time.”

He shut his eyes. If only he was Henry Wells’ son every month of the year and not just the one month he had vacation time.

That idea brought him up short. He’d never wanted to live on the ranch indefinitely until that moment. He’d always looked forward to his month in Palo Pinto but he’d always been more than ready to go home when it was finished. The past week he’d dreamed of Larissa every night and they were always on the ranch, not in Dallas.

Two detectives had spent most of the night and the morning and had come up with absolutely nothing on Doreen Morley, which suggested to him that the woman flew so low under the radar that no one knew jack shit about her. It also fully supported his theory that her mother was probably trailer trash. She must’ve worked for some rich people before she landed in Mingus, Texas, to know so much about France and Italy.

One day at a time,
she thought. That’s all anyone got anyway. No one on the face of the earth had the promise of any more than that, be it the Queen of England or the lowliest, homeless hobo in Harlem. One day was all any of them got and Larissa was going to enjoy her day in the sunshine.

She’d called her investigator immediately after Hank left the beer joint the night before, apologized for calling so late and told him what she wanted. An hour before Hank picked her up that morning she’d heard back from him. There was no Victoria Wells anywhere in the world that had the right age, credentials, and a son by the name of Hank. There were no Victoria Wells listed in the business directories in Dallas. There was an interesting article or two on Henry and his ranch. He raised prime Angus, had an interest in a couple of oil companies, and could buy Fort Knox out of his petty cash drawer.

Evidently Hank’s mother was a small business owner who didn’t make the Forbes list and he’d divided his time between her and Henry. She’d asked her investigator to find out all he could about the Radners and he’d sent sheets of information but said they were a very private bunch of folks and there were no pictures floating around. She’d give half her inheritance, which was enough to buy half the state of Texas, to see a picture of Hayes Radner. She imagined him to be a short, fat little fellow with a rim of thin hair around a bald head. Maybe little nondescript piggy eyes behind black plastic glasses. To prove that she was right would give her a hell of a lot of satisfaction.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Hank said.

“I was thinking about Hayes Radner,” she said.

“What about him?” Hank’s heart sank. Of all the people in the world, he did not want to talk about Hayes right then.

“Daisy and Cathy saw him once but I haven’t. They knew the enemy. I don’t. I can’t find a single picture of him on the Internet or in a magazine, yet he has enough money to buy a whole town for an amusement park? Is he a ghost or a descendent of Howard Hughes? I called Cathy and asked about him but she couldn’t remember much. It was raining the night he stopped by the Honky Tonk and talked to them. She said couldn’t remember any details except that he was cocky as a Banty rooster and had a driver that he ordered around like a puppy dog.”

Hank chuckled. “Maybe he and his family like privacy. Maybe they aren’t glory hounds who live and breathe for front page tabloid coverage. What makes you think he’s the enemy?”

“I’m the third owner of the Honky Tonk since Ruby died and he’s approached all of us to buy the beer joint either in person or by phone. He sent people to buy it for him and they were very adamant. It appears that he gets what he wants and doesn’t give up. Neither do I. He only thought he hit a brick wall with Daisy and Cathy.”

Hank sat up quickly and grabbed his fishing pole. “Damn it. Just got a teaser. The bobble went under and I thought for sure I had a fish on the line.” Damn the job he had to do. She was going to cuss, rant, and throw things when she found out who he worked for in Dallas.

“Looks like we might be depending on Long John Silver’s for our fish tonight,” she teased.

He fell back on the quilt. “Might be too hot for them to bite.”

“Oh, they’re always biting at Long John’s. Never been in there and heard the waitress say that they didn’t have any fish because it was too hot for them to take the bait.”

Hank rolled over on his side and propped up on an elbow. “You are beautiful, Larissa Morley. Your eyes sparkle when you are teasing.”

“Thank you.” She got that much out before he leaned forward and kissed her hard and passionately.

A movement at her foot caused her to jerk away from him and grab her fishing pole, which was inching out toward the edge of the water.

“What?” He frowned.

“I got a fish,” she yelled.

He grinned but didn’t move. “Well, bring the sucker on in and we’ll cheat Long John’s out of a profit today.”

When she picked up the rod, it bent into an arch and the line was tight. “What do I do?” she gasped.

He looked up and was on his feet in one swift motion. He wrapped his arms around her waist and covered her small hands with his larger ones. “We’ll give him some line and tire him out. Like this.” He released the lock on the reel and let it play out until the line was taut but not ready to break and the rod was straight. “Now let him swim around a little and then reel in a few inches at a time.” He couldn’t remember when he’d had so much fun as he’d had that summer. All the expensive vacations he’d had in the past didn’t compare to hauling hay, scraping a house, and now fishing with Larissa.

“I feel like I’m on one of those boats and fishing for whales or marlin or something that hangs on the wall,” she said.

She looked at the thin fishing line moving rapidly away from her instead of getting closer. That’s the way it was with her and Hank. She was right there beside him and when he kissed her the line was tight and the rod bent into a rainbow arc but in a few minutes she was moving away from him.

Hank reeled the fish back in a few feet and locked the reel, letting it relax before repeating the process several more times. Finally, she could see something coming toward the bank just under the water’s surface. “Hot damn! We’re going to catch it, Hank! We’re really catching a fish. Can you believe it and it’s a big one?”

He backed up and let her finish the job alone. “You’ve played it out. Bring it on in.”

The turtle was as big as a dinner plate and when it was on the bank, she sat down with a thud and sighed. “All that work and it’s a turtle. Shit!”

His laughter echoed off the water and bounced off the willow trees with their feathery leaves blowing in the Texas summer wind. When he caught his breath, he said, “Darlin’, that’s life.”

“Ain’t it the truth,” she fussed. “Get it off the hook and turn the critter loose unless you or Oma know how to make turtle soup. I can’t bear the thought of cracking its shell to get at the meat.”

Hank set the turtle free to paddle back out into the lake. “So when did you eat turtle soup?”

“Mother and I had it in… it doesn’t matter. We ate it together. She loved it and I hated it. Couldn’t get past the idea. Same with squirrel and venison. It might be wonderful vittles but I’d rather buy my meat in plastic covered packages at the supermarket.”

To Hank she’d just proven that she came from a poor background where her relatives were hunters and ate wild game. That would be the reason she hung on so tightly to her beer joint and why she wanted to paint her house such ungodly colors.

“Want another beer? It’s hotter’n seven kinds of hell out here, especially after using up all that energy to pull in a damned old turtle,” she said.

He raised a rakish eyebrow. “You’re hot?”

She opened the cooler and took out two beers. “That’s what I just said.”

His eyes twinkled. “Really, really hot?”

Her eyes widened until white showed around the dark brown pupils. “Are we talking about the weather?”

“How hot are you?” he asked as he scooped her up in his arms.

The beers rattled together when she dropped them on the quilt. “What are you doing?” she gasped.

He waded out into the water. “Cooling you off.”

She kicked her legs and squirmed. “Put me down. You wouldn’t dare. I didn’t bring anymore clothes. You didn’t say a word about swimming.”

He laughed and tossed her as far as he could. “Don’t ever dare me, darlin’.”

She came up spitting and spewing. Her feet barely touched bottom and whatever was on the bottom oozed between her toes. She’d swam in every ocean in the world, in pools small enough to barely qualify as a swimming place and those so big a dozen elephants could hide in them. But she’d never been thrown out into a Texas lake in her clothing.

Hank arose like a merman off to her left, water sluicing off him in sheets, his dark hair wet and his eyes sparkling. Heat that had nothing to do with the weather radiated off them as their gazes locked.

She reached up and untied her halter top, peeled it from her wet body, and slung it at the bushes along the side of the bank. After that she removed her shorts and underpants and hurled them to hang in the bush with her top. Naked in lake water was even more exhilarating than a hot tub in a bikini.

“Your turn,” she told Hank.

His shirt landed on the bush next to hers. His shorts missed and wound up near the pallet. His boxer shorts covered her underpants.

“Ever been skinny-dippin’?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Well, then we’re skinny-dippin’ virgins,” she giggled.

He walked toward her without taking his eyes from hers. George Strait’s voice came from the bank singing a song about how much better the world would be if the whole world was a honky tonk and revolved around an old jukebox. He said if you were looking for love or someone to heal that broken heart, you’d be in luck if the whole world was a honky tonk.

“Ain’t it the truth.” She nodded toward the CD player.

“Yes, ma’am.” He drew her into his arms.

The whole lake’s temperature rose by several degrees when their bodies melted together under the water. When wet skin touched wet skin and he pushed dripping hair from her face so he could kiss her lips, she thought she’d faint from desire. His mouth made love to hers while minnows nibbled at their toes.

“Wow!” she whispered when the kiss ended.

“I agree.” He hugged her tightly and then fell backwards with her into the water. “You ever made love under water?”

“Not yet,” she said.

He picked her up and carried her to the edge of the lake not far from where their clothing hung drying in the summer sun. He gently laid her in the shallow water with her head cradled in his arm on the grassy bank. The water felt like warm silk as it washed over her body. His calloused hands were filled with heat as they touched her. His lips sent passion surging through her every nerve. She arched against him and began a journey of her own, running her hands over his body, her fingertips becoming conduits for even more passion.

“Have I told you today that you are beautiful, Larissa Morley?” he whispered between kisses.