Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning Page 6

  Mo leaned on her uncle’s brawny shoulder. He shifted and tucked her under his arm. Nested like this with the family she had, she knew this was the life she should want.

  She brushed her fingers over her wrist and remembered the touch of a rough hand.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Brian parked his chopper around the corner from the drugstore and halfway up the block. He’d come through Shayton a few times over the past week, finding himself pulled in this direction whenever he had time to kill, and the little dark-haired Irish lass had caught him out once, as she’d climbed out of a ten-year-old Chevy convertible. He’d ridden by, and she’d stood there, her hand on the open driver’s door, and watched him. Now, he tried to be more subtle.

  She wasn’t so little, Miss Irish Mo. Statuesque was a better word. Nearly as tall as he was and built like … like something out of a dream. Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Ann-Margret, and Maureen. Raven-dark hair, but glints of red where the sunlight hit. And arctic-blue eyes sharp enough to etch glass.

  And Jesus Christ, that accent.

  The five minutes Brian had spent in Quinn’s Drug & Sundry last Saturday had been the only five minutes in fuck knew how long—years—that his head had been simply quiet. More than the focus he found during work, when the noise and restlessness drew back into the shadows, when his mind got hold of this girl, it had gone fully quiet. Real calm. He hadn’t been reliving anything, trying to overcome anything, guarding against anything, trying to get anything started. He’d simply been there, and calm, and enjoying the moment.

  She was feisty. He liked that.

  He figured her for a good girl. She’d been dressed in a not-too-short pink striped dress, with a matching pink band holding her mass of long hair back from her face, and she wore a gold cross around her neck. Also, he guessed her to be in her mid-twenties, and there wasn’t a ring on her finger.

  Times were changing—hell, things had changed so much between 1963, when he’d left the country, and 1967, when he’d returned, that he could hardly figure out how to act—but he thought a beautiful girl like Mo, here in the middle of the heartland, without a ring and with a cross around her neck, no matter how keen her wit or assertive her attitude, or exotic her accent, was probably a good girl. A virgin. Considering her looks, and her age, virgin meant Good Girl. With capital Gs.

  But then there was that almost-dirty joke she’d made about his collection of purchases. Before, during, and after. Brian chuckled, remembering. Feisty.

  Brian knew he was too twisted up in mind and soul anymore to be anything but poison to a decent girl. Like that little chippie he’d picked up at the bar last weekend. He’d intended to shame her, find some dark grimy place and do things to her she’d hate herself for loving, make her pay for her embarrassment over her cousin. But she’d been so fucking innocent. He’d taken her to her dorm and left her on the sidewalk before he did something darker than he could take back.

  If he was going to get back in the girl game, he needed to set his sights farther away. Find somebody who wasn’t so close to home she might well know the people he knew. Go into the City. Maybe pay a professional. Somebody who wouldn’t balk at his scars, or shrink from his darkness.

  And yet he’d been thinking of this girl all week. Every thought of her had turned the volume down on his brain, and here he was, again, in Shayton, staring at the side of Quinn Drug & Sundry. That blue-on-white Bel Air was parked near the stop sign.

  Last Saturday at this time, she’d been alone in the store. Would she be again?

  One way to find out.

  He swung off the chopper and strode to the corner and around to the door of the store.

  She wasn’t alone. There was a woman at the counter, with a toddler on her hip, and Mo was ringing her up. Across the store were three not-quite-teenage girls, flipping through magazines and giggling.

  Rock music was on the radio again. Jimi Hendrix.

  No one else seemed to be working, so Brian stayed, meaning to wait out the customers. He strolled toward the back again, where he could get some distance from everybody else and see anyone new come in.

  Mo said goodbye to the woman and her toddler and saw them to the door, holding it open as the woman wrangled her bags and squirming little girl.

  Then she went to the magazines. “Girls, unless you mean to pay for them, you’ll need to stop drooling on the Tiger Beats. Come now. Who’s got any allowance left?”

  All three girls hunched guiltily, and Mo collected the magazines from their greedy hands. “Go on now. The library’ll be open at noon, and you can mangle their magazines. Take a wee gumball on your way out.” As the girls made their way to the big fish bowl on the counter, Mo called out, “I’ve my eye on you! Just one each!”

  Chattering like little finches, the girls took their treat and bumbled from the store. Now they were alone, so Brian headed her way.

  She was dressed conservatively again, in feminine colors. This time, she wore skirt with a busy floral pattern, at the same just-above-the-knee length, with a simple white knit top that snugged around her amazing rack in a way that was far less demure than she’d probably intended. Her dark hair was mostly loose again, the front caught in a barrette at the back of her head.

  Her ears were pierced, and she wore tiny gold hoops. To match the cross at her throat.

  Mo put the magazines away, shaking her head as she deemed one too mangled for the rack and set it aside. Then she set to straightening out the whole rack. Without looking away from her work, she said, “In need of more supply already? Goodness me, but aren’t you a busy one.”

  The rubbers he’d bought last week, she meant. He still had the whole box, tucked in the back of his sock and underwear drawer. The box was open; he’d put one in his wallet, but he hadn’t had cause to use it this week. Or in months. He’d bought the box because it had occurred to him that he’d meant to fuck little Barbie last week, and he hadn’t had any protection. If his stormy mood hadn’t broken, he would have done it anyway, and that was risky fucking business. For both parties.

  Mo was giving him shit again, and he loved it. “Not that busy. I’m here for you,” he said, and that turned her head.

  Blazing blue eyes scanned his face. “You shaved,” she said.

  He brushed a hand over his smooth cheek. “I did.”

  A sly, bright smile lifted cheekbones sky high. Freckles scattered over those cheekbones and across her nose, barely darker than her creamy complexion, so they were only apparent to someone up close and personal with her. Damn, this girl was pretty.

  “For me?” she asked pertly.

  He shrugged and stepped closer. “Would that make you happy?”

  Now her expression shifted to cynicism, and she popped a hip and set a hand on it. “What’s your angle, mister?”

  “I told you my name last week. Remember?” If she didn’t, that would be a blast of icy water on his plans.

  “Brian. What’s your angle, Brian?”

  “I want to take you out. You like movies? The Derrickland has a double feature—2001 and Planet of the Apes.”

  “You’re asking me on a date. To the drive-in.” Her attitude replaced the question marks with flat sarcasm.

  “I am. It’s been a while since I asked anybody on a date, but I’m pretty sure this is still how you do it.”

  “Why’s it been a while? You’ve taken residence in a cave, perhaps?”

  Though he didn’t like to lead with his service, or talk about it at all except with those who knew the same things he knew, Brian answered her honestly. “No. The jungle.”

  She blinked, and all the challenge drained from her stance. “You served?”

  “Two tours. Been home since the new year.” Trying to read the change in her, he added, “Is that a problem for you?”

  “No,” she answered softly. “But why’re you askin’? You don’t know me.”

  “I’d like to. Figured a date would be a way to do that. I thought that was kinda the point.” H
e got even closer, close enough to hear her breath. “Or did that change while I was away?”

  Her gaze locked with his, she shook her head. “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  She stepped back. “I can’t. Tomorrow’s Easter.”

  He closed in again. “But tonight’s not.”

  “Aye, but we’ve things to do at home.”

  “Who’s we?” Had he been wrong about her lack of attachment?

  “Me uncle and aunt. I live with them. This is their shop.”

  Her accent had deepened suddenly, and Brian thought he’d flustered her. The idea pleased him. He didn’t think Miss Irish was so easy to put off her feet.

  One thick tress of black hair lay over her shoulder, ending with a subtle curl. Brian picked it up and slid it silkily through his fingers. Her chest heaved unsteadily.

  “You don’t need to be scared of me, Irish.”

  All at once, she stood taller, and squarer, and plucked her hair from his grasp. “Nothing of you scares me. And I’ve a name as well.”

  “Mo.”

  “’Tis what my friends and folk call me. I told you to call me Maureen.”

  “I know, Mo.”

  Those keen blue beams scanned his face. “Do you know the dentist office down the way from the drive-in?”

  “With the big tooth sign? I know it.”

  “Meet me there, six o’clock.”

  He needed a beat to realize she’d just agreed to the date—and he thought it had happened because he’d dared her. Good intel. But she didn’t want him to pick her up and meet her family. Well, that worked out for them both, then.

  “I’ll be there. In a green Ford pickup.”

  Finally, her bright grin returned. “Well, there’s that sorted, then. I’d wondered how the motorcycle would do for the drive-in.”

  ~oOo~

  She wasn’t in the empty parking lot outside the dentist’s office, and Brian pulled Lenny’s truck in and parked, hoping she hadn’t changed her mind. He hadn’t gotten her number. There was a phone booth at the end of the lot, with two phone books hanging beneath the phone, so he supposed he could look up the Quinn family in Shayton.

  But she hadn’t wanted him to pick her up, so she probably wouldn’t want him to call. Oddly, as the afternoon had passed, he’d felt increasingly bothered by that.

  Frankly, he was as nervous as he’d been on his first date, way back in high school. And for all that, this night might as well be a first date. It had been years since he’d had a real date, and he was not the same person as that boy who’d taken Lynetta Porter to a sock hop in the high school gym. He was not the same person, and the world was not the same world. He felt like a man out of time.

  Before he could let that thought drag him into the shadows, he heard wheels on the gravel, and the Bel Air was pulling up alongside him. She had the top down and the radio up, and the deejay was doing his slick schtick for KOMA. She had sunglasses on against the sunset, and a flowery, filmy scarf over her hair against the wind. Like a Hollywood star.

  As Brian climbed out of the cab of the pickup, Mo unwound the scarf from her head. She tucked it in the glove box with her sunglasses. By then, Brian was at her door, and he helped her out.

  “Ta,” she said, and turned back to her car for her things.

  He’d expected her to be dressed as she’d been each time he’d seen her, in a cute, conservative skirt or dress, with pretty little shoes. But tonight, she wore bell-bottom jeans and sneakers. The waistband was slung surprisingly low, low enough that as she reached into the car for her handbag and jacket, and her top—a snug black knit shirt—hiked up, Brian saw an inch or two of bare skin at her waist and belly.

  And holy hell, look at her ass.

  He couldn’t help himself. Using the pretext of chivalry, he stepped beside her and leaned in, setting his hand right on that beautiful sweep of bare waist. Ah, warm and smooth and firm. Satiny. His cock swelled. He was a twenty-eight-year-old man, a fucking veteran, and he stood here with a hard-on at the scantest touch of an attractive woman.

  Not merely attractive. Beautiful.

  “Here, let me.” With the hand that wasn’t lucky enough to hold her, and with his longer reach, he picked up her jacket. She already had her bag, but she didn’t stand up and step back right away. For just a second or two, they stayed like that, Brian leaning over her a little, his arm almost around her, his fingers on her bare skin. Her head was close enough to his that he felt her hair brushing against his newly smooth cheek.

  Then she did step back. He lost contact, and the moment was over.

  “You ready?” he asked as he pulled himself together.

  “I am.”

  Brian helped her into her jacket, indulging his thumbs in a quick brush of her sweet neck as she pulled her hair free, and led her to his brother-in-law’s truck.

  ~oOo~

  Daylight Savings Time didn’t start for a couple weeks, so it was dark enough for the cartoon to start before six-thirty. By then, Brian had made his first trip to the concession stand. It was a warm Saturday evening in April, in a part of the world that didn’t have a whole lot of nightlife to offer, so the drive-in was packed.

  One thing that hadn’t much changed while he was away was this: Saturday night at the drive-in. The communal crush of people at the concession stand before and between features. The little kids playing at the playground until dark set fully in. The families, the groups of rowdy teenagers, and the quiet couples who weren’t much interested in what was on the giant screen.

  When he got back to the truck, Mo was reading a book—and writing on the pages as she went.

  “What you got there?” he asked as he set the cardboard tray of burgers, fries, sodas, and popcorn on the dash and got in.

  “Sorry. Homework.” She tucked her pen in the book and closed it. He caught the title as she slid it into her bag: The Importance of Being Earnest.

  He handed her her Dr. Pepper and cheeseburger. “Homework?” Oh, Jesus. How old was she? He’d put her at mid-twenties, but what twenty-five-year-old woman had homework?

  “Aye. I’m finishing my freshman year at OU. Thank you.” Mo lifted her soda in a little toast and took a sip.

  She unwrapped her burger, unaware that she’d tossed a grenade. He’d thought she was a grown woman. At least she wasn’t still in high school, but a freshman? That made her eighteen, right?

  He’d carried the bodies of eighteen-year-olds from battlefields. The parts of their bodies. They’d been children. Too fucking young to be there, too fucking young to die.

  Eighteen was too fucking young for him.

  Brian stared at her. “Hey.”

  “Mm?” She looked up, curious.

  “How old are you, Irish?”

  Obvious confusion filled her frown. “Nineteen. Twenty in June. I had to repeat a grade when I come over, so I’m a wee bit behind.” There was challenge in her next words; she’d decided to be offended. “What of it? How old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight. As of last month.” And older than that, honestly. The war had aged him double time. Jesus, she was young. Goddammit.

  “Oh. Well … oh.”

  There was too much age between them, too much experience.

  “Is that too much?” he asked, because he wanted her to say no. Even though it was him who was old enough to know better, him who was too old and world-weary, he wanted her to give him permission not to care.

  She set her cheeseburger in its wrapping on her lap and swiped away a dot of mustard from the corner of her mouth with one finger, then sucked the mustard from her fingertip in a move as sultry as any Brian could imagine.

  “A wee bit more than eight years? I don’t know.” She considered him for a few moments. The cartoon was playing, and the colors danced over her face. “I think I understand it now,” she said at last.

  “Understand what?”

  “What it is in your eyes. They seem so angry, but you’ve not been angry.”

  “
I’m angry, Mo. I’m always angry.”

  “Even now? Right now, with me?”

  No. That was why they were here. Because he didn’t feel angry with her. She filled him with calm. He didn’t know her at all, but still she’d sunk deep into his marrow, into the grooves of his brain, and opened a path in him to reach peace. “No. Not with you.”

  She nodded, and suddenly looked as wise and ageless as an angel. “That’s it, then, isn’t it? It’s the war in your eyes.”

  Of course it was the war in his eyes. He knew it, and this girl wasn’t the first, or the second, or the tenth person to tell him they saw it, too. And yet her words bored through him, forging a twisty path through pain, and need, and loss, and Brian was struck dumb.

  But she didn’t give him time to reply, anyway. She handed him the double cheeseburger and said, “Eat your dinner before it’s cold.”

  ~oOo~

  “I don’t think I’m smart enough for this film,” Mo muttered and reached into their bucket of popcorn. “I think I must be missing all the fascinating nuance.”

  “I think a lot of drugs went into the making of this. It’s the only reasonable explanation.” 2001: A Space Odyssey had, an hour and a half in, been an endlessly dull, frequently confusing mess of a movie.

  A chill had entered the evening, so Brian had gone to the box in the truck bed and pulled out Lenny’s emergency blanket. Now, he and Mo were close enough to share it, but not much more. Brian was trying not to come on too strong with this girl who was a good five years younger than he’d thought. But her presence was like a magnet, and he’d been giving the movie only about half his attention; the rest had been on her. He wanted to be closer. Shit, the way he felt around her, he wanted to fuse her to his bones.

  “What do the apes have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “From the beginning? I don’t know. I was hoping you could explain it to me later, college girl.”

  She threw popcorn at him. He laughed and caught her hand before she could reload. Then, since he had her hand, he did the age-old trick and pulled her in close so he could get his arm around her. Finally.