Pink Neon Dreams (22 page)

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “Cecily, you ready to
try to get some rest?”

Two steps and she stood at his side. “Sure, sugar.
I’m ready when you are.”

 
A yawn stretched
his sore jaw and he slid an arm around her waist. “Let’s go, then. I’m tired.”

Without waiting for Cecily, Daniel headed into her
bedroom, removed his shoes, and sank down on the bed. His headache expanded and
he rested his head in his hands for a single moment and massaged his
temples.
 
Preoccupied, he failed to hear Cecily
enter, but he caught a whiff of her perfume and looked up.
 

“Does your head hurt?” she asked in her dark sugar
voice. “Here, let me.”

Her fingers, cooler than his, moved with light
motions over his skin.
 
Her touch created
delicate circles, soothing and steady.
 
Cecily
stood in front of him, her breasts at eye level, and concentrated on what she
did.

“Damn, it feels good,” he said.

“Does it help?”

“Yeah,” he said, surprised. Although his headache
didn’t vanish, it diminished enough to make a difference. “Thanks.”

Cecily laughed, soft and low. “I’ll do you better
than this,” she said. “Take off your shirt and lay down on your belly.
 
I’ll give you a real massage.”

His flesh tingled with anticipation but Daniel said,
“You don’t have to,
chica.
You must
be tired, too.”

“I am,” she said. “But I want to do it for you.
 
You’re tenser than I’ve ever seen you and you
won’t sleep if you can’t relax.”

She made a good case.
 
“All right,” he said with a groan.
 
He removed his shirt and sprawled face down
on the bed. Daniel couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this vulnerable to
anyone. “Do your magic.”

“Is that what you think this is?” she asked as her
hands worked and kneaded his flesh with skill.
 
His granite-hard shoulders resisted at first but as Cecily worked,
Daniel felt the taut flesh begin to yield.
 
She caressed from the nape of his neck to just above his ass, her hands
skimming with light strokes.
 
Sometimes
she used the heel of her hand with force to work out a rough spot and often
paused to focus her attentions on a particular area.
 
Her thumbs gouged and poked, then stroked
with a gentle touch.
 
Five, maybe ten
minutes into the massage a rich and encompassing somnolence crept over
Daniel.
 
His flesh melted and bones
softened.
 
Until she said something about
it, he hadn’t realized he uttered small sounds of pleasure. “If you were a cat,
I swear you’d purr,” Cecily said. “Feels good, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said. No one had ever given him a massage
before and he’d never thought he would like one.
 
Maybe he wouldn’t from anyone else, he mused,
but Cecily erased his tensions.
 
I couldn’t get it up if my life depended on
it, though so I hope she doesn’t want sex after this.
 
I don’t think I can.
 
Not sure if I can move, either and I sure as
hell don’t want to.

Something damp and cold oozed onto his back and he
shivered. “Easy, sugar,” Cecily said. “It’s just a little lotion, that’s all.”

Daniel relaxed.
 
He recognized the familiar scent of Jergen’s, the same brand his mother
used. It evoked a powerful sense of home and affection.
 
Cecily rubbed lotion into his skin, each
stroke a caress.
 
“You’re making me
sleepy,” he said but it wasn’t a complaint.
 
God, he liked this.

“That’s the idea, sugar,” she said. “Soon as you go
to sleep, I’m going to take a long soak in the tub.
 
It’ll do for me what this is for you, then
I’ll catch some winks, too.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. His mind drifted, lazy and
without destination.
 
He hadn’t been this
unwound in years without sex or tequila.
 
After a moment’s consideration, he decided tequila couldn’t deliver this
level of tranquility.
 
Sex, with anyone
except Cecily, missed the mark, too. “I could get used to this,
querida.
”

“Good,” she said. “Give me a chance and I’ll spoil
you.
 
You’ve earned it.”

He snorted but said nothing. Speech required too
much energy and he didn’t want to expend any.
 
Drowsiness invaded his consciousness, but he hadn’t yielded to sleep
when Cecily quit. Daniel laid still and listened as she ran her bath, the sound
of the water splashing into the tub pleasant in his laid back state.
 
When she began to sing, her music filtered
through his layers of relaxation and he heard the words, sharp and clear.

Cecily sang poignant lyrics, her voice powerful and
true. She sang about the beautiful and yet sometimes terrible affect love could
have.

Daniel recognized
The Rose
, a song sung in different versions by both Bette Midler
and Conway Twitter, a diverse range by any standard.
 
He preferred Midler’s version, poignant and
packed with emotion.
 
Damn she’s got good taste in music, she
likes the ones sure to rip your heart out but touch your soul, just like I do.
 
Daniel wondered why Cecily sang it now
and then listened as she finished the song.

Her voice trailed off into silence and he knew, felt
it down to the bottom of his being.
She
loves me. And sweet Christ I love her, too.
 
I’ve never felt like this about any woman, ever.
 
I want to be with her.
 
She lights my fires and burns them hot.
 
I need her touch, I crave her sass, and I’d
keep her safe no matter what.
 

Maybe he should get up and go say the words.
 
But Daniel doubted enough he held back.
 
Besides he didn’t want to leave the cocoon
she’d woven around him.
 
He needed sleep
and so did she.
 
They faced a long trip
and probably more tribulation than anyone deserved.
 
If he told her and she didn’t share his
feelings, it’d get awkward with speed and they didn’t need complications.
I’ll wait until I know for sure, until its
right and we’re both free of this mess, home safe.

By the time he heard her light footsteps enter the
bedroom, he’d almost slid into a deep sleep.
 
Cecily approached the bed and leaned down to stroke his hair. Then she
folded her fingers against his cheek. “Sleep tight, sugar,” she whispered. “I think
I love you.”

The words penetrated his mental blanket, but he
didn’t rouse.
 
Struck dumb with the
reality, the unvarnished truth, Daniel folded the words into his heart and kept
them.
 
He snuggled up with them the way a
child cuddles a favorite stuffed animal and he slept, long and deep.
 
And, in time he dreamed with joy and light,
not a nightmare but a pleasant interlude.
 
When he woke, he couldn’t recall all the details of the dream, but he
knew it included Cecily.
 
Daniel savored
the lingering sense of well-being and joy, the scant remembered images of the
Rio Grande near El Paso.
 
He recalled
sunshine, her hand tucked into his, and the river stretching out as it had done
for centuries.

He opened his eyes and expected to see Cecily but
she wasn’t in bed.
 
Daniel sat up and ran
his hand across the sheet to find it cool.
 
She hadn’t been there for a while and he wondered if she’d ever
been.
 
Uncertain of the time he peered at
the digital clock.
 
At two o’clock in the
morning nothing but darkness showed beyond the curtains.
 
He groped for his pants before he realized he
still wore them.
 
Daniel moved with
stealth through the dark house, past Nia asleep on the couch in a huddle
beneath a blanket, and into the kitchen, but he didn’t find Cecily.
 
He stepped out into the backyard and stood
still until his eyes adjusted to the night.
 
Once they did, he saw her, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders, staring
upward at the night sky.

Ten thousand stars or more sparkled like glitter
tossed carelessly across the heavens.
 
Daniel crossed the space between them and put his arm around Cecily.
“What’re you doing out here?” he asked.

Without taking her gaze off the spectacular sky, she
said, “I’m talking to the dead.”

A shiver crept down his back.
 
He’d grown up with a lot of old superstitions
and his
Abuela
said such things with
everyday aplomb and so did Mama, but he hadn’t expected this from Cecily. “So
what are they saying?”

Her thick, warm laugh banished anything creepy. “Not
much and not the way you probably think,” she said. “I’m no psychic or medium
or anything although I get feelings once in a great while. I don’t see dead
people, but I’m just thinking about my mama and other people who’ve passed on,
maybe asking for their help if they can offer me any.”

The way she said it made it seem plausible, maybe
even possible. “Then maybe they will,” he said.
 
His lips nuzzled her bare shoulder as the quilt slipped to reveal skin.
“Did you sleep?”

She shrugged.
“A little, not much.
I know you did and you needed it. You okay now?”

“I’m good,” he said. “Want to hit the road?”

Surprise shifted her attention from the stars to
him.
“Now?
Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “We can get your pay as you go
phone down the highway, but the sooner we put miles between us and Tillman’s
agents, the better.”

 
“And whoever
else might be after my ass,” Cecily added.

“That too,
chica.”

Soon, they needed to brainstorm to come up with
ideas of who might have engineered the murder — names, places, and things.
 
We’ve
got a damn lot of work to do and all I want to do is make love to her again, to
stare at the stars and watch everything she does.
 
I’d
like to run my tongue deep into her pussy again and let her run those hands
over every inch of my body.

“It seems awfully early,” Cecily told him. “Maybe we
should go back to bed.”

Damn, she felt the sizzling attraction between them
and temptation almost pulled him toward saying ‘yes’.
 
But they couldn’t spare the time, so he shook
his head, “I’d like to,
querida,
but
we really need to make tracks.
 
Everything’s packed so let’s get going.
 
We can be almost to the Missouri state line
by dawn if we hurry up and go.”

Cecily drew a breath so deep it must’ve come up from
her toes and then exhaled it in a long sigh. “Okay, sugar,” she said. “If we have
to do it, let’s just do it.
 
Let me tell
Nia bye and grab my purse.”

All Daniel required was a shirt, his wallet and
keys, and this time, his shoulder holster and weapon.
 
He hadn’t worn it since coming to Branson,
figuring Cecily, even before he knew her, didn’t present much of a threat.
 
But he wore it now because he didn’t know
what dangers they might face and traveling could present unexpected
complications unrelated to any of their other issues. Give him a minute or two
to piss and he’d be ready to get behind the wheel, but Cecily took a little
longer.
 

He waited with hard won patience as she dressed, did
her make-up and hair, gathered her purse and other
belongings,
woke Nia, and indulged in a long farewell.
 
At three fifteen, they headed out the front door toward the truck, but Cecily
paused and looked back at the house.
 
He
didn’t think she’d lived there long enough to feel nostalgic about it, but he
said, “You aren’t going to miss the place, are you?”

She offered him a watery smile. “Yeah, I guess I am.
It felt more like home since you’ve been around than the house on Canal Street
ever did.”

“We’ll be back,” he said, hoping he could deliver on
the promise. Then Daniel realized he’d said “we” and decided he meant it.
 
If not here, somewhere.
He planned to be together with Cecily.

A brighter smile pleased him. “I hope so, sugar,”
she said. “Let’s go. I’m ready to get out of here.”

So was Daniel, but they had a few details to handle
first. “I am too but we need to fuel the truck and get you a pay as you go
phone.
 
Plus, I need coffee.”

“You should have said something, sugar,” Cecily said
as she climbed into the passenger seat. “I would’ve made some.”

And we would have been here
till dawn because she’d have made breakfast, too.
“I know but we can grab some somewhere.”