Return of the Stardust Cowgirl by Marsha Moyer

Author:Marsha Moyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307410085
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2008-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Denny

THERE WERE TWO girls in front of me at the Miracle Mart buying a six-pack of wine coolers, all decked out like drugstore cowgirls: Cruel Girl jeans, snap-button shirts, tooled belts, and polished Ropers. They caught me staring and gave me the kind of look that used to wilt me back in high school, a slow head-to-toe taking-in of my tank top and Levi’s with the knees out, my scuffed-up, pointy-toed boots.

“Where’re y’all headed?” I asked, flashing my teeth. I wasn’t in high school anymore.

“The Round-Up,” one of the girls, the blonde, said.

“Yeah? Who’s playing?”

She pushed some money at the leering old guy behind the register.

“The Lonesome Pines. Just like every other damn Saturday night since the beginning of time.” She gave the old man a look just to let him know she was on to him, and he rang her up and put the six-pack in a bag.

“Ash Farrell used to play at the Round-Up, didn’t he?”

“So the story goes. Now it’s just his lame-ass backup band. But what else you gonna do for fun in a town like this?”

“I might could hep you out there, honey,” said the guy behind the register. A front tooth was missing, and he had about four strands of hair, grown long and combed in whorls on top of his head. He wore a greasy apron tied around his waist and a T-shirt that read SOUTH PADRE SPRING BREAK 1997.

“In your dreams, Klaus.” The girls rolled their eyes at each other and headed out to a silver Toyota Tundra.

I stepped up and set my bottle of spring water on the counter, scanning the rows of cigarettes behind the register. A little voice seemed to whisper in my ear, teasing me with the memory of nicotine, that first sweet rush as the smoke hits your lungs.

“We got a sale on Merits,” the man behind the counter said helpfully.

“Just a second.” I was thinking about the conversation Will and I’d had that morning in the trailer. I’d been trying to explain to him that actions had consequences, that he needed to step up to the plate and help me face what we’d done. That was as far as I’d gotten before he started kissing my neck and groping me through my shirt, and I’d pushed him away and gone back to the house.

“Hey. I know you,” the counterman suddenly said.

“No, sir. I’m not from around here.”

“I seen you someplace before. On the TV, could be.”

“Well, you never know. America’s Most Wanted, maybe?”

I paid for my water, stuck the change in the Lung Cancer Association can next to the register, and walked back out to my truck, wondering why it was that I always had so much trouble taking my own advice.

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