Just Let Go.... Kathleen O'Reilly
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that decided, he took out the old pocket watch from his jeans and checked the time. “I have to head home.”
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”
“Sure,” he said, kissing her first on the nose, and then more urgently on the lips. Then he pulled the watch from his pocket once again. “Here,” he told her, handing it to her, his face solemn.
“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