The Quiet Seduction. Dixie Browning
capable, without being any less feminine. Which pretty well summed up the woman herself.
From the TV coverage he’d seen, the rash of tornadoes that had barreled across the southwest corner of Texas before streaking up the Mississippi Valley had managed to miss the most heavily populated areas. Thank God for that, at least. The southeast portion of Lone Star County had suffered most of the damage.
Lone Star County. That definitely triggered a reaction, but for all he knew, he could have seen it on a road sign. He could’ve been just passing through on his way from—
From where? To where?
He swore softly and discovered that he was good at it. Came naturally. What else, he wondered, would come naturally? Talking to a kid? Yeah, that was no big strain.
Talking to a woman? Touching a woman?
Again it was Ellen Wagner he thought of—the image of her pale green eyes and tanned, hollow-cheeked face. He thought about the woman—about the soft, firm way she had of speaking to her son. The soft, firm way she had touched his brow that first night when she’d thought he was sleeping.
Back off, man. You’ve already got more than a full caseload of trouble.
There was a framed crayon drawing hanging on the wall over the bookcase. Crudely drawn horses standing in a lime-green pasture while seven fighter jets flew overhead. Pete’s signature was as big as the horses.
Oddly touched, he wondered if his own mother had ever hung one of his drawings in such a prominent place. Could he even draw? Did he have a mother?
Come on, folks, get on the ball! If I mean anything to anyone, come find me. Hide and seek gets pretty frustrating after the first few days.
Using the remote, he turned the TV on and switched channels until he found the CNN headline news. OPEC, Congress, Bosnia were in the news again.
Again? Shrugging, he switched channels, caught a name—Mercado—and swore as they went to commercial.
Mercado. Did the name mean anything, or was he grasping at straws? “Storm Mercado.” He spoke out aloud, trying it on for size. It didn’t fit. He muted the TV sound and reached for the newspaper. The more he scanned, the more his gut twisted. Several names snagged momentarily, but nothing came into sharp focus. Finally, in sheer desperation, he turned to the sports page.
Hell, he didn’t even know who—or what—to look for there. Was he a football fan? If so, which team?
A headline read Golf Pro At Lone Star Country Club Claims Vandalism.
Lone Star Country Club. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. It was there, just beyond his reach. Like a voyeur standing outside the fall of light, watching from the darkness, he tried to see into his own mind.
And felt like crying when he failed.
Three
Thank God for Saturdays. Leaving Pete to finish up in the horse barn, Ellen came in at noon to start setting out sandwich makings for lunch. She sliced a tomato and reached for a sweet Texas onion, working with short, jerky movements.
Clyde had showed up for work about ten, smelling like a brewery. Booker hadn’t made it in at all. Clyde said he had a headache.
“You mean a hangover,” she’d retorted. “That’s no excuse not to show up for work. I was counting on you two to repair that section of fence today.”
“Tell the truth, ma’am, he weren’t feelin’ no pain a’tall last time I seen him.” Clyde had smirked at her. He did that a lot, and it invariably drove her up a wall, but what could she do? She had to have someone. With Pete in school five days a week, she simply couldn’t keep up alone.
“Hi, Mom, where’s Storm?” Pete banged in through the kitchen door, stepped back, kicked off his boots, then reentered, smelling of sunshine, horses and little boy.
“Watching the noon news. I piled up pillows on the couch so he could keep his leg elevated and—”
Both turned at the sound that came from across the hall. A thud and a muffled moan. “Oh, Lord, what now?” Ellen muttered. Drying her hands on her shirt-tail, she hurried into the living room, colliding with Pete in the doorway.
Storm was on the floor, blinking awake. “What happened?” she cried, rushing to kneel beside him. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, this is my idea of a good time,” he said, his voice like crushed gravel. “I fell asleep and rolled off the damned couch!” Pete squatted beside him and he closed his eyes. “Sorry, son. Forget I said that.”
Pete, with one hand under the man’s arm and the other reaching for the crutch, said solemnly, “I know stuff lots worse than damn. You ought to hear what Booker calls that old Zeus! He calls him—”
“Never mind,” Ellen said repressively.
Together they managed to get him on his feet again, and Ellen suggested he move into the kitchen, as it was time for lunch. “I can pull up a stool so that you can sit and prop your foot on it.”
“I don’t need the stool, but thanks,” he said. They’d argued about it before. She made suggestions that he ignored for the most part, but he invariably apologized for putting her to so much extra work.
Ellen didn’t mind the extra effort, she really didn’t. It was nice having another adult in the house. Pete seemed to enjoy him, as well.
He hobbled into the kitchen just as the back door opened and a scruffy-looking individual wearing ragged jeans and a dirty shirt came in. “This is Clyde,” Ellen said, tight-lipped. “Clyde, this is Mr. Storm. Clyde, you might want to wash up.” She looked pointedly at his grimy hands, then busied herself pouring iced tea, leaving the decision up to him.
“Yes’m,” he said, disappearing into the washroom off the kitchen, where he stayed for all of five seconds.
“Don’t think I seen you around these parts before,” the hired hand said with a smirk, looking from Storm to Ellen and back.
Pete said gruffly, “Storm’s visiting.”
“That so?” Clyde had tracked mud into the kitchen, which Ellen made a point of sweeping up. “Sorry ’bout that, ma’am,” he said, leering at Ellen’s backside as she leaned into the cleaning closet to hang up the dust-pan.
Storm’s eyes met Pete’s. The boy was furious and embarrassed, but being a boy, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. Storm might be impaired in a lot of ways, but that much he picked up on easily.
“This looks mighty good,” he said with a smile that was patently false. Change the subject. You’re in no shape to take on the bastard in hand-to-hand, much less to take his place if he quits.
But he was getting there. One more day and she wouldn’t have to depend on that pair. Even with a sore head and a bum leg, he could shovel manure and push a wheelbarrow.
“I haven’t had time to shop for groceries this week,” Ellen apologized. “I heard part of the roof was torn off the warehouse next to the IGA.”
“And the church steeple,” Pete said with boyish excitement. “Man, it was busted to pieces! Joey said they found the pointy part way over by Mrs. Williams’s house.”
They made sandwiches from the ingredients she’d set out and drank iced tea and talked about the storm damage, reports of which were still coming in. Clyde didn’t have much to say, but he made the little he did say unpleasant by taking a big bite of bologna, onion and cheese on white bread and talking while he chewed. As far as Storm was concerned, that alone was a firing offense.
“Man, that sure is a ugly knot on your head,” Clyde said admiringly.
Storm wondered what he was supposed to say—thank you? If he’d been Pete’s age, he might have said, “That sure is an ugly knot on your shoulders. What is it, your