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

  She broke off abruptly when Angel appeared in the doorway.

  "Clancy! Please come in."

  After the treatment her girlfriends had put him through, Clancy was surprised to hear the genuine welcome in her voice. Patty threw him a warning look that Angel somehow missed, and made herself scarce. Angel chattered on nervously as Clancy sat down by her desk.

  "I've got a few loose ends to tie up here and then we can go to dinner. Do you still like Mexican food? I know a little place where they serve the real stuff, but the spices will fry your innards, so I hope you like it hot," she finished up, feeling a little foolish. "So. Did the girls give you the official tour of Conrad Oil?"

  "They sure did. I was impressed."

  "Wonderful bunch, aren't they?" She closed a folder and shut down her computer. "Met them my first semester in college. That's when we formed the band. Played the honky-tonks and dives in those days for extra money to help pay our way through school. Lord knows, I never would have made it through that first year without them. They were the first real friends I ever had, and we've stayed together through thick and thin, marriages, divorces, tears, and giggles. There now, I think everything else can wait until tomorrow. Are you ready?"

  "I'm ready." He smiled for the first time. "And I love Mexican. They can't make it too hot for this Okie."

  "Elevator or stairs?" she asked as they passed Patty's desk.

  "Elevator," he said bluntly. "I think I've had enough exercise for today."

  The Mexican waitress seated them at the back of the restaurant, at Angel's usual table. "Margarita?" she asked.

  "Iced tea for me," Angel unrolled the bandanna wrapped around the silver utensils and put it over her lap. "Clancy?"

  "Iced tea is fine," he said.

  "Now what do you want to talk about?" She picked up the menu and scanned it.

  "Us. I still want to know what you've done this past ten years, even though your friends each filled me in a little," he said, then looked up at the waitress. "I'll have the chicken enchiladas. Do they come with refried beans and rice?"

  "Yes, sir." The waitress nodded. "And a side order of hot vegetables and flour tortillas?" she asked Angel, remembering what her favorite customer liked.

  "That would be good, Linda," Angel said. "Bring me the beef fajitas, a full pound tonight. I'm hungry."

  "Yes, ma'am," she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  "You're pretty persistent. I was hoping all your questions would be answered by now."

  "How did you get started in the oil business?" he asked, ignoring her remark.

  "My great-grandfather died just about the time you and Melissa went to Norman to college. He left us the farm, twenty acres of the prettiest green grass in the state. We left Tishomingo since we could live in Kemp rent free and it was closer to the university which had given me a grant and a scholarship. Guess you forgot about me telling you that," she said. "Anyway, four years later Granny died and I graduated with a major in geology and a minor in business. I had a hunch and drilled on the property. Everyone thought I was a fool, because there wasn't an oil well anywhere around Kemp, Oklahoma, but it turned out right and I was pretty well off overnight Then I played a few more hunches and everything I touched turned to gold. The girls helped me a lot. Allie is a geologist, Mindy is a lawyer, and Bonnie is a wizard at accounting."

  "And Susan is great at PR with everyone but me, and Patty is a top-notch secretary who would like to feed my heart to the buzzards," he finished for her.

  "You can't blame them," she defended her friends.

  "I guess not, if I'm honest. And while we're being honest, I've got a couple of things to tell you. That night you told me you were pregnant I wanted to sit down and promise you the moon, but my mother and father would have died if I'd come home and told them I'd gotten you pregnant. Not to mention Melissa. I'd already proposed to her. We got married the week after we graduated, and she taught school while I was in the Air Force. Until one fine day when she announced she wanted to split so she could marry the principal at her school. I moved out, filed for divorce, and came home. End of story.

  "I tried my best not to think about you, Angel. When I did, it was with a sigh of relief that you hadn't made a fuss and a fool out of me. Now I know I made myself a fool. I loved you as much as a stupid kid can love anyone."

  Angel looked everywhere but at him, and Clancy continued.

  "Melissa only looked perfect. She was the cheerleader and the right girl from the right family who would know all the right things to say and do. She was also cold in the bedroom. She wasn't warm like you and she didn't make me feel like a million dollars the way you always did. At first I thought I just didn't know better because I'd only been with you and then her by the time we were in college a few months. But I've been with other women since then, and it's never been the same feeling I had on the creek bank with you. Not even close."

  She managed to look at him, but her expression was unreadable. Clancy wondered if he'd said too much.

  "Well, enough soul cleansing," Angel said as the waitress put the hot platters of food in front of them. "You know my story and now I know yours. But there isn't a future for us today, any more than there was that hot August night ten years ago. It's over, Clancy. We've both grown up and there's nothing left for us. Besides, it takes trust to build a relationship and I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you."

  Five

  Clancy drove back across the Red River to Oklahoma. He stopped in Durant at a liquor store and bought two six-packs of beer and a pint of Jack Daniel's, then went to Tishomingo meaning to drown his sorrows, somehow, even if it was childish and not one damned thing would be accomplished when the sun came up tomorrow morning. It had been years since he'd been drunk, and tonight he intended to get so plastered that by morning his head would feel like a drum was keeping time inside it and then maybe he wouldn't think about Angela.

  "Hey, Clancy!" his mother called from the kitchen when she heard him open the door. "I had salad with the ladies at the country club. Have you eaten?"

  "Yep." He nodded. "But I'm going out again to do a little fishing. Probably won't be back until morning."

  "Okay. I've got to make phone calls about the auxiliary picnic next week." His mother came into the living room. "I've got a hairdresser's appointment in the morning at nine, so please be quiet if you come in late." She smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. Meredith Morgan worked at keeping both her figure and her skin flawlessly young, and it was easy to see where Clancy had gotten his good looks.

  He went down the hall to the bedroom which had been his since he was a baby. He changed from navyblue pleated dress slacks and a pinstriped shirt into a pair of cut-off shorts and a faded tank top, kicked his good loafers in the floor of the closet and pulled on a pair of grungy white tennis shoes with no laces. "See you later," he called as he left the same way he'd come in, noticing that his mother did take a moment to look up from the phone and wave at him.

  He parked the Bronco near Pennington Creek, took an old blanket out of the back, and tucked it under his arm. He shuffled the beer and the bourbon until it fit under his other arm and plodded down the pathway to the sandbar. He fought the brambles back under the trees until he found the very spot where he and Angel had lain together so many times, and carefully spread out the blanket, scaring away a frog and a grass snake while he was at it. Then he picked up the first six-pack of beer and went to soak his feet in the edge of the water. He wanted to try and remember the good times while his brain was still lucid.

  Clancy popped the top on the first can and guzzled about half the contents before he came up for air. He hummed a few bars of a song until he remembered the lyrics . . . something about a man who'd never been happy until he had a wife and kids. He tilted the can back and let the rest of the beer slide down his throat in one big swallow.

  He sang the rest of the lyrics at the top of his lungs, off-tune and off-key, just to make himself feel worse. He popped the
tab on another silver can and continued to sing, until a sudden thought stopped him cold.

  "I could've had a wife and kids," he whispered to himself. "But I threw it all away because of my pride and my fears. Well, here's to all the mistakes made by all the young proud fools in the whole state of Oklahoma in the last ten years." Clancy opened the third can of beer and started sipping it slowly.

  He had almost finished the first six-pack by eleven o'clock and his fishing equipment was still in the back of the Bronco. He lay on his back, his feet in the water and beer cans stacked in a crazy pyramid next to him, and watched the moon rise, and thought of another song. He started to hum and whisper the words. "Try . . . try . . . hmmmm . . . try to remember why we fell in love."

  "Hello," a feminine voice said to his right.

  "Angel?" he didn't even look. The sound of her voice was probably just a drunken illusion, but even if it was an illusion, maybe he could carry on a make-believe conversation with her.

  "Who?" the voice asked, annoyed.

  "Angel?" he repeated without taking his bleary eyes off the moon.

  "Look at me, Clancy. God almighty, did you drink all these beers? What in the hell do you think you're doing? You're a grown man with a responsible job. The high school principal would probably fire you on the spot if he knew you were lying down here in the dirt half-crocked."

  He turned and looked at his ex-wife, Melissa, sitting on the sandbar beside him. Well, wasn't this just funnier than the time the preacher sat on the cake at the church social. He hadn't seen her in three years, not since their day in court. What a helluva time for her to show up. He noticed a few wrinkles around her eyes and her blond hair was shorter than he'd ever seen it. Other than that she was the same old Melissa, looking as if she'd just walked out of Vogue. He impulsively looked down at her feet . . . Yep, her toenails were showing at the ends of her sandals and they were freshly polished. How many times had he been ready to go somewhere and had to wait for Melissa's toenails to dry before they could leave?

  "Your mother said you might be down here fishing," she said. "I just thought I'd drop by."

  "And what, Melissa?" he asked. "What in the hell are you doin' here?"

  "I come home every summer for a week to see Momma and Grandma, remember?" she said. "Since we got divorced you've never been here when I am," she explained.

  "Have a beer?" He held up a full six-pack, still held together with the plastic webbing.

  "You know I hate beer," she snarled.

  "Then grab that bottle of bourbon under that tree bough and we'll drink to the good old days," he laughed sarcastically.

  "You're drunk," she snarled again.

  "And you're married," Clancy reminded her. "I'll get the damned bourbon. Never let it be said I was a bad host at my own self-pity party, even if you are an uninvited guest." He slurred the last word and wobbled just a little bit when he stood up. The sandbar swirled slightly and the moon dropped about six feet toward the horizon, but he didn't fall. He staggered back to the blanket.

  "Here's the stuff." He sat down, carefully, stuck his wrinkled feet back in the water and flopped back on his back to stare at the stars again. "Sorry, can't give you a crystal glass to drink it out of. Just tip the bottle back and drink it straight."

  "What's gotten into you?" she asked. "You never drank," she reminded him. "You always were the designated driver in high school and you wouldn't even drink a glass of wine with me on our first anniversary."

  "You wouldn't understand." He worked hard to make his words come out right.

  "Did I do this to you, Clancy?" she whispered dramatically.

  He chuckled down deep. The chuckle soon became a laugh, and he sat up to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

  "Oh, Clancy." She shook her head. "You were so brave through the divorce. I never knew I caused you this much grief. Have you been drinking ever since?"

  "Hell, no!" He raised his voice loud enough to be heard all the way across the creek.

  "You poor man. I'm so sorry," she sighed.

  "You ought to be." Clancy sat up slightly then fell back on his old blanket again. "You ought to be sorry, because you never did love me. You never loved anybody but yourself, Melissha." He heard himself slur her name and made a mental note to work harder at keeping his words straight, because he damned sure intended to tell her what he thought about her while she was sitting there, acting like a soap opera star.

  "Oh, Clancy, I loved you," she retorted.

  "Oh, sure, but it really don't matter a whole helluva lot, now, Meliss . . . a," he was proud of himself for not slurring. "Because I didn't love you, either. I just married you because everyone thought that's what we should do. You had the wedding planned and there were all those showers and presents, and I knew I'd be considered a real heel if I backed out of the marriage then. You know who I really loved? I loved Angela Conrad," he said.

  "You're full of it," she said, gracefully enough. "You couldn't love her. She was just poor white trash and she's probably off somewhere with a house full of snotty kids—"

  "Angel owns Conrad Oil Company in Denison, Texas," he said, as clearly as if he were stone-cold sober. "She's not white trash and never was."

  "Oh, she's Angel now, is she? Well, you didn't love her. You were in love with me from the eighth grade," she reminded him.

  "Nope, I wasn't. Remember the summer after we graduated? You told me that you thought I was acting funny. Distant, you said, and you asked me if I still loved you," Clancy reminded her.

  "Sure." Melissa nodded, flipping back her blond hair, cut in a short pageboy. "You had the senior blues. Graduation was over. Football season was done. College hadn't started. Momma said you'd be all right when we went to college, and you were."

  Clancy didn't answer for a while. The six beers were wearing off faster than he thought they would, and he wasn't looking forward to the headache tomorrow morning—even if he did deserve it.

  "Melissa, that whole summer I was seeing Angela Conrad behind your back. You said you loved me but you wouldn't let me—"

  "Oh, hush," she said.

  "Well, you let me take off most of your clothes, but then you wouldn't go the final step and make love with me," he said. "So I took you home and came down here to go skinnydipping, and cool off. Angela was sitting right here on this sandbar, all alone. We talked until three o'clock in the morning and then I took her home. The next night I took you home and came back. She was here again, and before long she was giving me what you just teased me with. Only I was young and stupid and didn' t realize the girl was in love with me.''

  "You did what?" she screamed at him. "You were making it with her after you took me home?" She slapped his face, sobering him even more.

  "Don't hit me again, Melissa," he warned in an icy tone. "Don't ever hit me again. I'm just tellin' you what happened. I made wild, passionate love with her, and it was damned good. Better than any I ever made with you."

  "You bastard." She stood up and shook the sand off the bottom of her khaki walking shorts. "How dare you cheat on me before we were married!"

  "How dare you cheat on me after we were married?" His tone was even colder. "Guess we're about even, for what it's worth."

  "Shut up!" she said.

  "Angela got pregnant," he said. "I came down here that hot August night a week before we were to go to college. I was going to tell her I wasn't coming back any more no matter what, and she told me she was pregnant with my child. Know what I told her? I didn't stand beside her and face the wrath of my parents and yours. Oh, no, I was the biggest chicken of all time. I told her to marry Billy Joe and I walked away from her as if she was nothing to me."

  "Why are you telling me this now?" Melissa asked, outraged.

  "Because you need to know you're not the reason I'm trying to get drunk tonight. I don't give a damn about you. I'm still in love with Angela—Angel—and she won't have a thing to do with me, because I ran out and left her. My son was stillborn, Melissa, and I
didn't even care enough to find out until now."

  "Good-bye, Clancy," she said. "I hope you rot in hell. Does your mother know this? She's always hoped you and I would get back together. So evidently she hasn't got a clue. But she will tomorrow, Clancy. Because if you don't tell her, I will."

  "Bet you would just love to do that, wouldn't you?" he laughed heartily. "Go ahead."

  Melissa stomped off in the sand, not making a noise as she left, until she got into her car by the road. Then she lay down some smoking rubber as she squealed the tires in anger. Clancy pulled his feet from the water and looked at the wrinkled skin while he finished sobering up. So much for getting drunk and singing sad songs tonight, or for shutting the door on his past failures and secrets. But what the hell, at least Melissa hadn't gone away with a lilt in her step, thinking he was still madly in love with her and letting him corrode his liver to prove it.

  Clancy sat for hours, until he'd sobered up all the way. He gathered up his blanket, tossed the unopened bottle of bourbon in the back of the Bronco with the last six-pack of beer and started back home to tell his mother what had happened. At least that way she wouldn't find out at the beauty shop tomorrow morning.

  "Hello, Clancy." His mother was watching an old movie on late-night television when he crossed the living room and sat down in his dad's leather recliner next to her. She had on one of those mask things that made her face all green and cracked looking, and her hair was wrapped up in a towel. "Did Melissa find you? I told her you'd gone fishing. You know that girl comes to see me every year when she comes to visit her relatives. She says she still feels like I'm her mother-in-law. I think she regrets the way your marriage ended. I hope you wouldn't be silly enough to give her a second chance. I think she thinks I still like her, can you believe it?" She spoke without taking her eyes from the movie. "Good Lord," she finally noticed Clancy's feet. "What did you do? Fish barefoot in the water all evening?"

  "Nope. I put my feet in the water and then I laid back and watched the moon come up. I tried my damnedest to get sloppy drunk, but it didn't work," he said honestly.