Just Let Go...

“Why are you giving me this?” she asked, nervous at the seriousness in his voice. “You’re going to stay, right?”

He laughed. “For a week. This is for you to count down the time. I can’t give you much.” He pressed it into her hands. “Take it.”

She fingered the worn metal, the scratched glass, and beamed up at him, touched by the gesture. “Really?”

“Sure. Be good.”

“Aren’t I always?” she asked, not quite as happy about that as she should be. “You’re going to rent a tux?”

He glanced over, eyes unblinking. “Sure.”

“You’ll look nice in a tux. Nearly as good as you’ll look without it,” she teased.

“You have a very dirty mind,” he teased in return. So normal, so happy, so perfect.

“Thank you for noticing.”

As he started over the hill, Gillian held the watch close to her heart, and fell back onto the grass, not caring too much about the chiggers at the moment.

Five more days, and then they’d be making love. She should buy some sexy lingerie. Sexy, but not trampy. Maybe white. A soft ecru that matched her skin.

Maybe after that, she could get him to change his mind and stay. A little white lace, some dramatic cleavage. A man’s biological urges were a powerful force. She pulled her shirt away from her chest and checked. Feeling more confident, she silently thanked God for giving her perky tits and a curvy ass that would never go fat.

Prom night. Five days till paradise. And she wanted to make their night together just as special for him as it was going to be for her.

Looking back, she should have realized the truth, but Gillian had never been skilled at reading signs that didn’t point in her own fortuitous direction. Five days later, all that changed, but at least then she had someone to blame.

Easy-loving, easy-lying, easy-leaving Austen Hart.

1

BROKEN HEARTS WERE A familiar cause of mayhem in Tin Cup, Texas. Arnold Cervantes had broadsided his girlfriend’s F-150 with his riding lawnmower after he learned she’d been stepping out on him with the landscaper. When Doc Emerson filed for divorce, Mrs. Emerson had laced her husband’s tapioca pudding with a laxative, a charge that was ultimately overturned by Judge Lansdale, who was the second cousin to the defendant. Oscar Ramirez had flown his wife’s plus-sized unmentionables in the Memorial Day parade after she refused him certain sexual favors which Harley considered his right, but which were also illegal according to Texas state law.

In the three years since Gillian Wanamaker had been sworn in as sheriff of Tin Cup, she’d seen a lifetime’s worth of passion, foolishness and general human stupidity. In Gillian’s humble opinion, people needed to practice more self-control and show a little concern for their own reputation within the community. As a card-carrying member of the Broken Hearts Club herself, Gillian had never been tempted to spray-paint a human being, nor set fire to items of clothing. Or at least, not in a really long time.

Usually Gillian avoided dwelling on past unpleasantries, or those fleeting moments when she had wanted to dig out a fellow human being’s heart with a dull nail file, but this morning was different. First she’d stopped at Harley’s Five & Dime to sneak a glance at the Austin newspaper, just as she did every day. While checking Thursday’s style section, she’d seen the watchful worry in Harley’s eyes. Like he expected Gillian to bust out into great heartbroken sobs. Ha. Maybe when she’d been a gauche seventeen, but now? At twenty-seven? Ha. Ha.

Two doors down, at Dot’s Good Eats, Dot had been extra nice, giving her a sausage biscuit for free. Free sausage was a soft-hearted act of pity by even the most liberal definition of the word. As if Gillian was someone people felt sorry for. Sorry! She had been crowned Miss Tin Cup four times running. She had been All-State in softball, with a fastball that could kill a man if he wasn’t paying attention. Gillian Wanamaker of the San Angelo Wanamakers was a force to be reckoned with, not a pity case. She was an icon, a role model. She was a goddamned institution, much like Lady Bird Johnson, Jackie O, Lady Di and Barbie.

Needing to escape all the sympathetic stares, but without looking as if she needed to, Gillian left the restaurant and headed for the sanctity of the courthouse, where she could cower in peace. Nearly two hundred years ago, they were driving cattle down this street, instead of pick-ups. There was a permanence in Tin Cup, a consistency that Gillian appreciated more than most. As she passed the red-bricked storefronts on Main Street, they were just opening the doors, some of the old-timers shopping before the heat of the day set in. In Texas, if you weren’t practical, you didn’t survive.

She could see Rita Talleyrand approaching with that “Let’s chat” gleam in her eye, so Gillian took the last hundred feet at a fast sprint, cutting across the well-tended lawn, ticking off the landscapers in the process. She waved an apology then darted inside the courthouse, and up the marble steps. The sheriff’s office was located on the second floor, and it wasn’t fancy or frilly, but it was more than enough. The old wooden desk had served the Tin Cup sheriff since the first world war. The chair creaked when you moved, and had a drunken tilt to the right, but there was a history here, and Gillian was now a part of it. The walls were lined with photos of the dignitaries who had passed through Tin Cup—but never stayed.

Soon all that was going to change with the upcoming Trans-Texas Light Rail line, a four-hour direct route from Austin to Midland via, yes, you heard it here first— Tin Cup.

There were plans for the new station, along with a few extra improvements. A nip and tuck to make Tin Cup, Texas, a travel destination all its own.

After one extra cup of coffee, Gillian settled in her chair, but the mindless paperwork only gave her more time to stew. As she hammered away on the old computer keyboard, she reminded herself that her days were too busy to be filled with ideas of revenge, or physical assault. The Enter key stuck, and she pounded it twice, accidentally cancelling the state’s processing form for last month, and she damned every vile participant in this technological conspiracy, along with one non-participant: Austen Hart.

Austen was lumped in merely because he was still living, breathing and now his personal space was a little closer to Tin Cup and already she could see the tiny prickles breaking out along her skin. Hives, she told herself. Nothing more. Not excitement. No siree, bob.

Gillian leaned back in her chair and inhaled deeply, mainlining oxygen, trying to find her happy place.

She had it all: great job; solid, stable, reliable almost-a-boyfriend; loving family. There was no reason to feel unsatisfied because that would mean she was picky. And Gillian was not picky. Particular, yes. Picky, no.

A loud knocking at her office door interrupted the train-wreck of her thoughts, and Joelle appeared before Gillian had a chance to answer.

“Gillian, your momma is here to see you. She brought the refreshments for the council’s lunch meeting, but I don’t think the snickerdoodles are going to last until noon. It’s the extra chocolate that gets me every time.” Joelle slid her hands over well-padded hips and then gave a resigned shrug. “Why aren’t you fat? Back in high school, I swore you took up smoking. It was the only logical explanation.”

After one blissful sniff, Gillian pushed aside the decadent smell of coconut, chocolate and nuts. “Joelle, how many sit-ups do you see me doing every morning?”

“Three hundred.”

“How many miles do I run every afternoon, even when the sidewalks are steaming?”

“Two-point-seven. Twice that, if you get a double-dip at Dot’s.”

“And how many snickerdoodles do you think I will eat?”

Joelle held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

Gillian gave a curt nod. “And do I subject myself to these tortures because I want to?”

“Not unless you have some sort of death wish. Speaking of death wish, the man who shall not be named has got a meeting at the lawyer’s tomorrow, and a reservation at the Spotlight Inn for tonight. Late arrival guaranteed by credit card, sometime between six and seven. Delores called first thing this morning. She wanted to know how you’d take the news.”

Gillian smiled evenly, calmly, because this information did not faze her. Not at all.

“I’m taking the news fine. Maybe I’ll call up Jeff for a date. Maybe we’ll rent a room at the Spotlight Inn and moan extra loud.”

Joelle wiggled her brows. “I bet he’d like that.”

Yeah, Gillian wished that Jeff would like that, but no. “Jeff’s too much a gentleman to get a room in town.” And that was a good thing, a respectable quality in a man. Definitely a good thing. Definitely.

“I was talking about Austen,” Joelle replied, a disgustingly knowing glare in her eyes.

“Can we not?”

“You want an extra snickerdoodle before I tell your mom you’re available?”

Gillian scanned the While You Were Out Messages piled neatly on her desk. Mindy had called. Five times. Mindy—who used to be Mindy Lansdale and was now Mrs. Mindy Shuck—would have heard the news about the man who shall not be named. She would want an update. Ever since second grade, Mindy had been Gillian’s best friend and knew all of her secrets. Mindy would understand the misery that Gillian was going through and would want Gillian to discuss it in tortuous detail. Gillian couldn’t call. Not yet. Did Jackie O whine about the miseries of her love life? No way.

As she pondered how best to avoid her best friend without seeming as if she was avoiding her best friend, the decadent aroma of chocolate and coconut lingered in the air, like a siren’s call that would give her the sugar-high that she’d need to get through this day. Realizing there wasn’t enough sugar on the planet to get her through this day, Gillian sighed. “Bring two cookies.”

“You’re going to do five miles?” Joelle asked in her sweetest, most polite voice.

In answer, Gillian massaged her temple with her middle finger. Joelle, never dumb, left four snickerdoodles on the desk. Gillian would have to run six miles, but it was worth it. Two seconds later, her mother muscled in.

“I came as soon as Vernelle told me. How are you feeling?” Modine Wanamaker put a warm hand on her daughter’s forehead. “You look a little flushed, but no fever.”

Gently Gillian moved her mother’s hand and tried to appear relaxed. “I’m fine, Momma.”

Gillian’s mother was a short dumpling of a woman, with a perpetual smile, which never wavered except for a small flash of disapproval when she witnessed her only daughter dressed in a regulation uniform with boots to match.

It was a sad fact that Gillian’s law enforcement career conflicted with Modine’s life goals for Gillian. Gillian’s mother respected the law and admired it, but like many other things, she didn’t want her only daughter doing it in case it interfered with Gillian’s grandkid-making ability. Three cross-stitched birth announcements sat near the top of Modine’s needlework bag, almost ready for framing. All that was missing were the names and birth dates.

Gillian always pretended she never saw them. Modine knew she had. But they smiled and loved each other anyway because that was what mothers and daughters did.

Now Modine took a step back and gave her daughter the once-over. “I told Vernelle there was nothing to worry about from that Hart boy. I told her you’d forgiven him.”

“I haven’t forgiven him, Momma. He ditched me at prom with no phone call, no letter. I had a new dress. I was elected Prom Queen.”

He was supposed to be my first.

“And in the end, look at how much better your life is without him,” her mother reminded her. “Frank Hart, bless his black heart, raised two misbegotten boys, and those sorts of doings put a dark shadow on the soul. The life of crime, the drugs. Certainly we have to provide for the unfortunate, but there’s nowhere in the good book that says you have to marry them. Besides, you have Jeff, who was raised proper and with the right sorts of values and respect for his fellow man. Vernelle let it slip that he was looking at diamonds. Anything I should know?” Her brows shot up, silently demanding confirmation in that way mothers had when they suspected their daughters were keeping secrets. Sure, Gillian had her secrets, but this wasn’t one of them.

Gillian shook her head. “Nothing to say.” Inwardly, though, she frowned at the thought of diamonds. She liked Jeff, he was fun and thoughtful, the salt of the earth. A vet. The man who healed all of God’s smallest and most helpless creatures, but…

Why did there have to be a but? There shouldn’t be a but. But there was a but.

No doubt, she was picky. Frankly, if she ever found happiness, it would be more than such a persnickety McFickle deserved.

No, that was negative thinking, and Gillian did not believe in negative thinking. Not ever. Not feeling the need to continue the conversation, Gillian huddled over the office printer. While she collected the last pages of the state’s processing forms, her mother pulled at the container of paper clips on her desk, bending each one this way and that before twisting three into a flower. Gillian sighed, but her mother, accustomed to Gillian’s particular nature, ignored her. “There’s a rummage sale at the church on Saturday and I’m putting together some boxes. You have any clothes you want to get rid of?”

There was one slinky white nightgown, never used, still sitting at the back of her closet. It would be perfect for some deserving female who couldn’t afford something pretty.

“I got nothing, Momma.” Not only picky, but selfish, too. She started to restore her paper clips to their proper place, but then thought better of it, removing her hand from the magnetic container. Metal conducted electricity, and who knew when lightning might strike within a brick-enclosed building.

“Surely you have something to give, Gilly.” Modine Wanamaker firmly believed that the road to heaven was paved with dramatic acts of Christian charity. It was a doctrine not without its problems. Six years ago, Gillian’s mother had given away the farm. Technically, it had been a two-story Colonial on two acres, which Modine had donated to the poor unfortunate Taylor family when they lost their house to the bank. The next morning, Gillian’s parents had shown up on her doorstep, claiming there was plenty of room at her house.

And how did you kick out your own parents?

You didn’t.

Yes, Gillian was picky and selfish, but nothing trumped blood-relations in her mind. The way Gillian saw it, having her parents shack up with her was penance for not only everything bad she’d done prior, but an insurance policy against future acts of badness, as well. Her mother’s worried expression tugged at Gillian’s heartstrings. No, nothing could trump blood-relations in the cardiac region, either. She blew out a dramatic sigh, just like any unworthy daughter would. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Relieved that her only daughter was no longer going to hell, Modine began to poke through Gillian’s phone messages, until Gillian stopped her with a firm hand.

Her mother’s serene expression never wavered, and sometimes Gillian wished that her own nature was a little more…forgiving. “I’m cooking King Ranch Chicken for supper. Your favorite.”

“I’ve got a meeting with Wayne over at the Chamber of Commerce. He’s wasn’t happy with the security for the Fourth of July last year. A twenty-five percent drop in business because the sidewalks were locked down. I’ve got constituents, Momma. I’m an elected official who lives and dies by the voters of this town. The chicken will have to wait.”

Gillian made a mental note to call Wayne as soon as her mother left. If she did that, then it wasn’t exactly lying, more anticipating what she should have done anyway.

“Can’t you leave that sort of business to the mayor?”

Gillian stared silently. Leroy Parson was the mayor of Tin Cup, a ninety-three-year-old war hero from WWII. On every Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day and the Fourth of July, Leroy led the usual parade, but that was pretty much the only time that Leroy showed up for work. Nobody was willing to oust a war hero, so instead the town was waiting for him to kick the bucket, leaving Gillian pretty much the top bureaucrat in charge—which her mother considered one more roadblock in the way of her future baby-making.

In the end, Modine knew she was beat. “I’ll leave you a plate in the fridge,” she said. “Don’t be home too late. You know the grapevine in this town. They’ll have you pregnant and on a nine-month trip to Europe before you can say Hester…Hester… Well, never you mind what the name is. You know it’s that woman from the Scarlet Letter.”

“This is the twenty-first century, Momma. We’re not all living in medieval times.”

Her mother clucked her tongue. “Never underestimate the power of reputation. It can shame a woman, it can make a woman. In the dark ages, they had stonings. Now they have Facebook.”

Gillian shot her mother an innocent look. “I thought the internet was the work of the devil.”

“Certainly not. I found the best recipe site…” She stopped the moment she caught on to Gillian’s tricks. “I will not be sidetracked. It’s time Jeff Junior made an honest woman out of you, Gillian. I was married when I was seventeen, your grandmother married when she was fourteen.”

“Good thing I wasn’t sheriff then, or I’d have to arrest Grandpa Charlie for it. Thank you for the snickerdoodles, Momma. The council always loves it when you feed them.”

“There’s a plate without nuts for Martin. See you at the house. And don’t stay out too late.” With that, her mother was gone, and peace and sanity were once more restored.

Fortunately, the rest of the day passed quietly. One arrest for shoplifting, one hour spent promising Wayne that in lieu of barricades, the town would provide two extra officers for this year’s holiday celebrations. In the afternoon, they’d retrieved one would-be runaway, twelve-year-old Aaron Metzger who was found hiding in his neighbor’s garage. The last item on her calendar, the town council meeting, had ended on a sour note, because nobody wanted to hire the mayor’s good-for-nothing great-grand-nephew to build the new train station, although no one wanted to tell the mayor either. All in all, an ordinary day in town, and not a further word about Austen Hart, not that she was bothered by that. Not at all.

She hadn’t expected a big to-do. She hadn’t expected a phone call from the man. Not at all.

Frowning, Gillian looked at the clock, and decided that half past seven was late enough. Time to go home, spend some quality time with her mom and dad and convince her parents that her insides weren’t twisted in nervous knots because the perpetrator of Gillian’s Worst Day Ever was back in town.

She had almost finished organizing a few reports in her messenger bag, when Joelle burst through the door, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling with criminal intent. “Got a nine-one-one call from Delores. Kids are throwing eggs at passing cars on the interstate, right outside the Spotlight Inn.”

Gillian frowned because there were no egg-throwers in Tin Cup. There were paint-sprayers, there were turkey-tossers, there were Silly-Stringers, but not egg-throwers. Everybody knew that the Texas heat fried the eggs before they could do any damage. “Sounds vaguely suspicious,” she murmured, continuing to organize the contents of her bag.

“I only take the calls.” Joelle shrugged, not bothering to dispute the suspicious part.

Gillian drummed her nails on the desk. “Can you get a patrolman out there?”

“You want Martin to take it? You know it’s their anniversary. They’re headed for San Angelo for the night.”

Gillian’s frown deepened. “And I bet Delores knew that.”

“Everybody knew that, Gilly.”

“She hates me.”

“She wanted head cheerleader. You’re going to pay for that for the rest of your life.”

“Fine,” snapped Gillian, quelling the flicker of excitement in her gut. “Can you put out a call from dispatch, saying that I’ll be on patrol?”

“You got it. Five-oh on the scene.”

“This isn’t Hawaii, Jo.”

“Sorry. Sometimes I get caught up in the drama,” muttered Joelle as she fussed with her curls, now having been put in her place, and making Gillian feel like a heel in the process. Life had been a lot easier when Gillian didn’t have to worry about whether other people thought she was a bitch or not. High school had been all about being the alpha girl, the top dog, the queen bee. When Austen had left town, everyone snickered, because then she was only the alpha girl who’d been ingloriously dumped. That was one trend that nobody wanted to follow. Jackie O had never been dumped.

Gillian gave Joelle an uneasy smile. “Dano, put out the call.”

Joelle grinned, good spirits back in place. “That’s a big ten-four, boss.”

Pushing back from her desk, Gillian slipped on the dark sunglasses and checked herself in the mirror. Khaki wasn’t her best color, it washed out the blond of her hair, but the tiny handcuffs pin at the collar was a nice touch.

These days she carried a Glock 19 instead of pompoms, and wore a sheriff’s star-studded uniform instead of the blue-and-white tank top miniskirt of the Tin Cup Lionettes. Her hair was a foot shorter, too. Now, she had a nice sensible bob that fell a few inches below her shoulders. No way would Austen recognize her in a regulation brown, cotton-polyester blend.

No, the princessy Gillian Wanamaker had disappeared forever. She patted the revolver at her hip. Hot, armed and dangerous. Just the way God had intended women to be.

2

THE SPOTLIGHT INN WAS on Interstate 78, just behind the orange-and-white stripes of WhataBurger. The hotel was far enough from town that cars would not be spotted in the parking lot. It was close enough to town that those that weren’t smart enough to park their cars behind the hotel would most likely get noticed by the UPS man, who was close friends with the receptionist at the Tin Cup Gazette, who also served as a deacon at First Baptist on Sundays. People joked about six degrees of separation, but in Tin Cup, one degree of separation was usually overstating the truth.

As Gillian pulled into the front drive, the sun was disappearing beneath the horizon, casting a red tint to the sky. The dusky heat was still a killer, waves of it rising from the concrete and making everything look hazy and surreal. In the movies, when the world shimmered, it signaled a trip to the past, but when summer hit Tin Cup, the world was in permanent shimmer, a town not ready to give up its past, while simultaneously trying to grab hold of the future. It was a dilemma that Gillian understood well.

It wasn’t exactly that she wanted to see Austen, she told herself as she poked around outside, looking for egg-shells, egg-streaked road signs or any other indication that somebody was egg-spressly messing with her town. It was more that she wanted to see Austen in order to finally write him out of her life.

For ten sweat-pouring minutes, she wandered outside the hotel, searching for evidence, but now all she had was frizzy hair, dusty boots and the sure knowledge that something was rotten in Tin Cup, and it wasn’t the mysteriously disappearing eggs. Feeling cranky, she chose to blame Austen Hart because if he wasn’t in town, nobody would be messing with her.

Maybe the myth of the man was bigger than the reality, she thought optimistically as she headed toward the motel’s covered entrance. If there was a lick of justice in the world, he would have a spare tire around his middle, and his hairline would be four inches behind the crown of his head.

A trucker roared by and sat on his horn and Gillian waved in response, before pushing her sunglasses on top of her hair. At the very least, the man could have written her a note to explain his actions. Another memento that she could have kept buried back in her closet. It was that sort of what-if thinking that made it hard to forget him. Hard to forget the too short nights spent star-gazing together on Peterson’s Ridge. Hard to forget the way he would twist her hair around his finger and then pull her close for a kiss.