Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella Read online

  By eight A.M. they had crossed the state line into Alabama and traveled sixty miles in three hours. They hadn't seen or passed another vehicle since leaving the motel. Finally the rain lessened, making it possible at least to see the road signs from a few feet away, and her stomach grumbled loudly enough for Clancy to hear it.

  "Hungry? I'm starving. Want to make a run for a McDonald's at the next exit?" he asked. "I'd do anything for a cup of coffee."

  Angel sighed. "Me, too. Black and strong. And one of those biscuit things with eggs and ham and cheese, and a hash brown. Is it going to rain on us all the way home?"

  Clancy grinned. "Probably." He eased the car off the exit ramp, noticed a McDonald's sign to the left, and after a quarter of a mile saw the familiar arches. "We're going to get soaked." He parked the car, amazed at how tense all his muscles were. "Unless you want to go to the drive-through window and eat in the car."

  "Nope." She unbuckled her seat belt. "I'm going in. I've got to go to the restroom. Better to be wet with rain water than with what would happen if I don't find the ladies' room. Besides, I'm not sugar or salt and I won't melt. All that will happen is my curly hair will curl all the way to my split ends."

  "Then let's make a run for it. Betcha I can beat you"

  "Oh, yeah?" She grinned back at him. "On your mark, open the door, go!" And Angel splashed through the water, ignoring all the mud puddles and laughing all the way. When he reached the door, she was holding it open for him like a butler. "Come right in, Clancy Morgan. You just lost the race," she teased. "So you can buy breakfast. Besides, I left my purse in the car. I'll be sitting at that booth after I dry off with paper towels in the restroom." She pointed to the back, and left him standing in a puddle.

  "Yes, ma'am," he called and went to order for them. By the time he had their breakfasts on a tray, Angel was sitting in the booth where she said she'd be. All her makeup was washed away, her shirt clung to every curve, and there wasn't a dry patch on her. She'd taken off her shoes and had them parked beside her, and every hair on her head was frizzed out. She was glad the management had turned off the air-conditioning because she shivered even without it.

  "Breakfast is served, ma'am." Clancy set the tray between them. "Chow down. The lady at the register said it's a hundred miles to Montgomery and there's not a dry inch of ground between here and there, so we might make it by lunchtime if we're lucky."

  "Ummmm." She tasted the coffee first, holding it in her mouth, enjoying the warmth and the flavor. "Want me to drive a while? How far is it by car to Dallas from Alabama, anyway?"

  "Depends on where you start from, but we've got two weeks to get there, don't we?" he teased

  "No." She bit into the biscuit. "I might keep company with you for two weeks in a resort, but not in a car. We can drive until we get there . . . straight through. You can sleep while I drive and I'll sleep while you drive. A day, two days?"

  "Two if the rain stops. One night in a motel on the way," he guessed. "You're off work for two weeks, though. Let's take our time."

  "I'm goin' home, Clancy," she declared as if that would make it final. "You can drop me in Denison on your way."

  "Is your car at the airport?" he asked.

  "Patty drove me to Dallas," she said between bites. "Oh, my Lord, I'd better call her. She'll think we both got blown away by Hurricane Blanche."

  "My truck is at the airport in Oklahoma City, and this car can be left there. Why don't you come home with me for the rest of the vacation? How long has it been since you went back to Tishomingo? Mama would love to see you." He threw out the ideas that had been turning in his mind all morning as he'd battled the wind and rain to get them this far.

  Angel practically choked on the hash brown patty. "Are you inviting me to go home with you? To Tishomingo—as a house guest in your mother's home?"

  "Yes I am." He nodded "Or I'll get you a room at the only motel left in town for the rest of your vacation if you'd be more comfortable there. But we've got a guest house out by the pool. It's got two separate rooms with two outside entrances. Thought maybe you could stay in one and I'll stay in the other. That way Mom and Tom can have a little bit of privacy in the house. It is their honeymoon, remember?"

  "Can I think about it for a while?" Her big green eyes were softer than he'd seen them since they were in high school. With the ringlets around her face, she looked more like one of those dark-haired angels in his mother's curio cabinet than she did a real live woman.

  "Sure. I figure we might get in by tomorrow evening if the rain lets up. You can think about it until then." His heart skipped a beat because she hadn't definitely said no and demanded he take her to the airport in Montgomery to fly home from there.

  Angel had left a message on Patty's answering machine telling her friend that she was in a world of trouble, that the hurricane hadn't blown her and Clancy away yet, and she'd call again in a couple of days. Then she ran back to the car in the driving rain and hopped into the backseat. By the time he opened the door to his side of the car, she was opening a suitcase, taking out clean underwear, a dry shirt and pair of shorts, and jerking her wet shirt over her head "Keep your eyes on the front window," she told him when he dove for the front seat. "I'm changing clothes back here and then I'm crawling over the seat. You can do the same when I'm finished. Unless you're too damned tall and old to crawl over the seat. Lord, it feels wonderful to wear dry clothes. I'm glad I brought these old sweat pants and shirt. They're soft and warm. I may sleep all the way to Oklahoma City in them."

  "Why do I have to keep my eyes front and center? There's windows all around you in this vehicle," he reminded her as he dried his hair with a beach towel she threw over the seat.

  "Anyone would have to press his nose to the window to see inside in all this rain. Then he'd have to break his neck to cop a peek at a woman who can dress faster than the speed of lightning." She wiggled into her dry things. "Now," she shimmied over the seat. "Your turn."

  "You don't have to keep your eyes on the front." Clancy opened the door and quickly went from the front to the backseat where he opened his suitcase. "I don't mind one bit if you turn around and stare at me."

  "I'll just look forward," she declared, but she didn't tell him she could see him from the chest up in the corner of the mirror.

  He finished dressing, then crawled over the seat with as much agility as she had, amazing both himself and her at the same time. "I haven't been wet like that—"

  "Since early last night, but it didn't feel the same then, did it?" She finished the sentence for him.

  "That was voluntary." He grinned and started the car, and they drove for hours. Neither of them felt much like talking, until Angel spotted something.

  "Look!" Angel pointed out his window, just missing his nose by an inch in her excitement to show him. "That's the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen. The colors are so bright. Look at that purple, Clancy!"

  "I can see it, Angel, honest. Want me to stop the car so it won't get away before you've looked your fill?" he grinned.

  "No, but look at the blue. And I can see the whole arch. Do you think there's a pot of gold at the bottom?"

  "You're the one with the hunch power, Angel. What do you think is at the bottom of the arch? A pot of gold or an oil well?" he teased.

  "A motel with hot water and big, fluffy towels." She caught his light tone, glad the tension of the hurricane was finally over, but realizing in her heart she had a decision to make before the emotions surging in the center of her soul would calm down.

  "Your wish is my command," he said as he pulled under the awning of the Holiday Inn. "One room or two?" he asked before he got out of the car.

  Her heart screamed one and her mind screamed two just as loudly. "It doesn't matter. One if it's got two beds. Two if they've only got a bed in each. I'm not afraid of you, Clancy, but we're sleeping in separate beds tonight, and that's a fact."

  "Whatever you want," he said, and went inside to ask the desk clerk for a roo
m with two king-size beds.

  "Got one left," the clerk said "And it's close to the restaurant and club, too. Serve a pretty mean surf-and-turf supper there, and a band plays on Friday and Saturday, but not tonight." He took Clancy's credit card and handed him a key.

  "Dress for dinner," he said when he got back to the car. "But no dancing, since it's only Thursday night. However, if you'd like to stay over through tomorrow night, I'll take you back there and we can dance the soles right off your shoes."

  "Oh, sure, and take until Saturday night to get to Tishomingo. No, thank you! Cooling my heels in a motel is not exactly what I had in mind for a vacation after all these years. But then a hurricane, a twenty-four-hour drive and kinky hair wasn't either. Show me to the room and let me have a shower before I turn into a raving lunatic," she teased.

  "Then you are coming to Tishomingo with me?" Clancy asked incredulously, as he opened the door for her and then carried an armload of bags to the motel door she already had opened.

  "Sure,I am." Angel smiled radiantly, her mind made up at last. "And in a week, you'll send me packing back to Denison with your blessings. You might even get a bottle of wine to celebrate your good fortune in getting rid of me! I get the first shower and the bed over there is mine." She pointed to the bed farthest from the door and closest to the bathroom.

  "I'm honored," he said.

  "That I get the first shower and the bed closest to the bathroom," she taunted.

  "I mean that I'm honored that you're goin' home with me, you vixen," he laughed. "Go use up all the hot water and towels and put on something stunning so all the men in the restaurant will want to trade places with me tonight. Even if we can't dance forever, they'll be green with jealousy that they can't at least saunter over to our table and ask you for a waltz."

  "Yes, sir." Angel snapped a salute and, attempted to click her bare feet together. She unzipped the biggest case, took out her makeup kit and white terry bathrobe and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Clancy could hardly believe his good fortune. He was sure she would walk away from him last night at the beach when Melissa announced she was pregnant. Then he figured she'd throw a fit at even the mention of spending the rest of her vacation in Tishomingo. Lord the town was so tiny there wasn't anything to do but a little golfing and fishing. There wasn't even a nice place for dinner and dancing, but the thought of going there seemed to brighten her eyes and perk her up more than anything he'd mentioned in the past twenty-four hours. Then it dawned on him why it was so important to her and a heaviness replaced his light mood. How could he have been so thoughtless all those years ago? Well, he wasn't a stupid scared kid any more and he'd show her just what she really meant to him. . . right back where both their roots were!

  Angel let the hot water soak through her tired muscles. She poured apple-scented shampoo into her hair and lathered it until she looked like an upside-down Santa Claus. After she rinsed it, she wrapped her head in a white hotel towel, dried off, and slipped on her white terry robe. "Good grief!" she exclaimed when she looked into the vanity mirror. "I've agreed to go home with him." The idea hit her as hard as Hurricane Blanche had just hit the Florida coast, and would probably do her as much damage.

  "Hey!" Clancy yelled from outside the door. "Leave me some hot water. Remember I have to shave. You don't want to go out with me looking like a grizzly bear," he said.

  "Oh, hush." Angel opened the door to find him leaning against the jamb. "You do look like you need to shave." She touched his face and he almost jumped from the sensation. "I'll get dressed while you shower and find me a two-by-four."

  "Why do you need a two-by-four?" He cocked his head to one side, and gave her a questioning look.

  "To beat the women off of you." She shrugged. "Don't take all night. I'm starving. But weak as I am, I can knock out any woman in the place who thinks she can walk out with what's mine."

  Clancy just grinned.

  Eleven

  "Clancy, we can't expect to go back in time just because you're taking me to Tishomingo," she said over a sirloin, cooked rare just the way she liked it.

  "No, we can't," he agreed, cutting into his own steak, done medium well with just a faint strip of pink in the middle. "The last thing I want to do is go back in time. Lord, I wouldn't relive the past ten years for all the dirt in Texas and half the tea in China. Not unless I could go back with the full knowledge I have today and redo most of it, but that's not possible. I want to forget the past and enjoy the present—thanks to you"—Clancy held up his tea glass in a toast—"and have warm, fuzzy thoughts of the future. We've both got heartaches we need to get over. And the place to do it is in Tishomingo."

  "You're pretty wise for a selfish son-of-a-bitch." She smiled.

  "And you're pretty smart." He smiled back.

  It was still raining when they finished dinner, so they made a hasty run back to their room. Even though there was an awning between the room and the club, the wind had picked up again and blew a fine mist around them, curling the hair Angel had worked half-an-hour to get straight, and leaving water marks on Clancy's dark-blue silk shirt.

  "Yuk." Angel looked at herself in the mirror. "Why any woman on the face of this earth would pay to have a permanent put in their hair is a mystery to me! Oh, well, you're stuck with Shirley Temple until it quits raining. Turn on the television, please. We get HBO here. Maybe there's a movie we can watch. I hope it's not Waterworld, though. Lord, I may never fuss about summer droughts again!"

  Clancy fluffed the pillows on his bed, carefully took off his shoes and damp shirt, and lay back in comfort before he pushed the button on the remote, turning on the television. A news report showed the damage done by Hurricane Blanche, who hadn't finished tearing up the gulf coast of Florida just yet. A few seconds of footage along the strip where they'd been just last night flashed across the screen.

  Angel wondered if it had just been a dream that she'd lolled in the calm waters in her sundress and drunk wine from a crystal goblet with Clancy. Maybe after a while someone would pinch her and she'd awaken in her bedroom at the farm and smell the aroma of bacon coming from the kitchen where Hilda rattled pots and pans, and Jimmy puttered around in the garden.

  Clancy flipped through the channels until he found the one which scrolled the evenings offerings across the screen. "Something to Talk About, is coming on in ten minutes. It's a comedy with Julia Roberts," he said, as she dug through her suitcase in search of night-clothes.

  "Sounds safe enough." Angel disappeared into the bathroom and came out in less than a minute, barefoot and wearing the Betty Boop nightshirt. She hung her sundress on one of the hangers provided by the motel and pulled down the covers on her bed.

  "You could sit next me for the movie," Clancy patted the edge of the bed beside him. "We could pretend we were at the picture show. I think there's even one of those hurry-up bags of popcorn beside the microwave the table over there," he suggested.

  "Nope, this is fine," Angel fluffed her pillows and got comfortable. "This better be a funny movie or I'll fall asleep." She couldn't remember the last time she'd watched a movie, could scarcely remember the last time she had two whole hours to do nothing. If Conrad Oil Enterprises didn't claim her hours, then the farm did.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed, remembering a promise she'd made to herself. "I've got to call Patty before the movie starts and tell her that the guillotine that's going to chop off her head is only held up by a skinny hair." She dialed the familiar number and got the answering machine, which she talked to in a tone of voice she hated, but always used when talking to a silly machine.

  "Patty, pick up the phone if you're there. You can only avoid me so long before you have to face the music. Okay, it all adds to the force of the blow." She smiled when she thought again of the power of the hurricane and her previous thoughts of Melissa doing a witchy watusi around a boiling cauldron. "We've survived another day and I'm going to Tishomingo for a while, but I'll be home soon. Remember, you are in trouble," Ange
l singsonged and then smiled sweetly at Clancy as she put the phone receiver back in the cradle.

  "Movie time," he announced.

  They laughed, she sighed, and he declared he would never eat her cooking when the movie was over, since Julia Roberts, who played the wife, had made the unfaithful husband sick by putting something in his food.

  "You don't have to worry about it, Clancy. I don't cook," she said.

  "But—" He was astounded She played golf. She shot a mean game of pool. She ran an oil company with the moxie of a man, and even Red stood in awe of her abilities.

  "I don't. Really and truly. I do not cook," she said, unashamed. "Granny did the cooking when she was alive. And she did a fine job, I didn't need to know how. Then when she died, I learned I could live on cans of pork and beans and wieners from the grocery store. By the time I got tired of that menu, I was in the oil business. Hilda cooks for me, and she—"

  "Threw me down on the porch on my face," he laughed.

  "She did what?"

  "I was asleep in the porch swing and she flipped it so I'd fall out on the porch. Said she wasn't tellin' me where you were goin', and I'd better get in my fancy car and get out of there."

  "That Hilda." Angela shook her head. Damn it, had everyone been in on this since the first day?

  "Sleepy?" Clancy asked. "Or ready for another movie? Looks like Eraser with Arnold is next in line."

  "Leave it on if you want. I'll fall asleep in the middle of it I'm sure. Wake me early enough so I can enjoy a morning shower and brush my teeth." She cuddled down in the bed and shut her eyes.