Lone Star (3 page)

“This isn’t from the accident. This is how my feet always look.”

Mamie looked even more horrified. She turned to Web as though expecting him to come up with a solution. Web grimaced. He was staring at Mitch’s feet too.

Mitch set the stack of dishes on the table. “All professional ballet dancers have feet like this. It’s normal,” he reassured Mamie.

Or tried to reassure her. Mamie wasn’t buying it for a moment. “Why, that’s plum terrible. Y’all look so elegant and graceful and that’s what’s going on all the time?”

Mitch shrugged. “That’s just the life of a dancer. Anyway, it looks worse than it feels.” That wasn’t quite true. There had been times when he’d been sure getting stabbed with a hot poker would have hurt less than dancing on bleeding feet. But it was most definitely the life of a dancer. He glanced at Web.

Meeting his gaze, Web shook his head. He could have meant anything from
you’re a nutcase
to
you’re one tough hombre.
Mitch took it to mean
you’re a nutcase
. Web hadn’t exactly embraced Mitch’s ambition to be a dancer when they were boys, and it was unlikely someone who chose to become a Texas Ranger would see a man who spent his days in leotards working over a
barre
as a regular guy.

But there was no mockery in Web’s gaze. He was staring back at Mitch with every appearance of seriousness, and damn. Web Eisley was one good-looking cowboy.

More so because, unless he’d changed a lot, he never gave a thought to his looks. He was fit from living an active life, but his idea of grooming was still probably a comb and toothpaste. Not that there was anything wrong with that—in fact, it was kind of refreshing. The men Mitch knew made their living from their physical prowess, and it was only natural that they were obsessed with their bodies and looks. He was the same. He was his own commodity, and he had to take care of himself.

Mitch said lightly, “I still scream like a girl when I see spiders.”

Web laughed. Mitch felt that old flare of satisfaction. He’d always liked being able to make Web laugh.

The memory brought him back to earth. What was he doing? Sure, Web was an attractive guy. So what? If he was a cop he was undoubtedly still in the closet. And if he wasn’t in the closet, he was in a relationship. And either way, Mitch was in a relationship. Or, more exactly, recovering from a relationship, which was pretty much the same thing.

More to the point, they lived in two completely different worlds. Worlds separated by about eighteen hundred miles.

Mitch pulled out a chair at the table. “You may as well sit too, because no way am I trying to eat all this on my own.”

Mamie looked at Web, who shrugged. Mitch deduced that Web had warned her they weren’t to overstay their welcome. But Mitch’s antisocial tendencies didn’t include Mamie. Or at least they didn’t now that he was confronted by the reality of her.

Mamie sat down across from Mitch and reached for his plate. After a second, Web sat down too.

Mamie handed Mitch’s piled plate back to him. “You need to get some meat on those bones.”

He opened his mouth—he was all muscle and strong enough to lift a grown woman over his head—but he let it go.

“No need to stand on ceremony. You just tuck right in.” Mamie carved a wedge of quiche and piled it onto Web’s plate.

Web muttered thanks.

Plates filled, coffee from the thermos poured, they concentrated on their food. Or at least, Web and Mitch concentrated on their food. Mamie chattered on about people she seemed to believe Mitch knew, filling in what probably would have been a mostly unbroken and largely uncomfortable silence.

“Do you still drink chocolate milk like it was going out of style?” Web asked during one of Mamie’s rare pauses.

“Yeah.” Funny that Web remembered that. “And pickle juice right out of the jar when I have leg cramps.”

Mamie exclaimed, “Pickle juice!”

“It works.” Mitch smiled. In some ways it was kind of nice to be with people who’d known him forever. People removed from his professional life. The dance world was so ferociously competitive he would never admit in public to having the occasional hangnail, let alone muscle cramp.

“We saw a picture of you in
People
magazine.” Aunt Mamie turned to Web. “What show was it from, Web?”

“I don’t remember,” Web said through a mouthful of blueberry pecan muffin.

Mitch tried to picture Web thumbing through
People
magazine. Maybe while he was on a stakeout? Yeah, right.

“I don’t remember either, but it sure was…dramatic. Your hair was all wild and you had jeweled eye makeup on.” She added primly, “And not a lot of clothes.”

“Oh.
People
. That was Puck in
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
.”

“I guess that might have been it.” She looked to Web, who shrugged.

Yeah, well, Mitch had got a lot of acclaim for his Puck—had even been accused of stealing the show—but he’d looked like a crack whore after a rough night in the woods. No wonder Aunt Mamie was mildly shocked.

He said vaguely, “We have to wear a lot of makeup on stage.”

Mamie brightened. “I suppose that’s true.” She was off and running again.

Mitch listened with one ear. Most of his attention remained on Web, who was devoting himself to cleaning his plate like he was afraid he wouldn’t get dessert if every crumb didn’t disappear.

That hypersensitivity to everything Web was doing—or not doing—was aggravating. Surely Mitch should have outgrown that by now? If twelve years wasn’t the cure, what was?

He became aware that Mamie had paused. He glanced up guiltily.

She said briskly, “Now I don’t want to hear any hemming or hawing. You just say
thank you, ma’am
like the polite boy you always were.”

Had he always been a polite boy? Mitch suspected most people would have said he was a sullen, withdrawn boy. But he’d had his polite moments. He was having one now. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“He didn’t hear a word you said,” Web told Mamie.

She shook her head. “Mitchell Evans. You’re coming to dinner tonight.”

Oh. God
. “No. I can’t. I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but I’ve got things I need to get done.”

She was looking at him with frank disbelief.

“It’s nice of you to ask. It’s just that…with so much to do and me only staying a couple of days. But I’d like to. Maybe another time—” He was making the mistake of overexplaining, but he couldn’t seem to shut up.

“Maybe Mitch has plans.” Web cut right through the hemming and hawing.

“What plans?” Aunt Mamie demanded.

Mitch said. “Well, I’m only here for a day or two and I—”

“You still have to have supper.”

“Sure, but I can just fix something quick and keep sorting through all this junk.”

“Now that’s just plain foolishness,” Aunt Mamie pronounced. “You come to supper tonight, and I’ll bake my world-famous pecan pie.”

Mitch’s mouth started watering right on cue. That was the problem with eating carbs. The more you ate them, the more you wanted to eat them.

He looked automatically to Web—like everybody looked to Web.

“You gotta know you ain’t goin’ to win this battle,” Web told him. “I’d save your strength for wranglin’ with your insurance company.”

Mitch grimaced, but Web was right. It was obvious he couldn’t refuse this invitation without hurting Mamie’s feelings and somehow, despite his reputation for being a stone-cold bastard, he just couldn’t do that.

He said as meekly as though he was still a shy and backward country boy, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Mamie nodded as though the outcome had never been in doubt. Maybe it hadn’t.

For a time there was only the sound of forks scraping on plate. The food was very good, as food made with fats and salt always was. Mitch hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

“I got to get goin’,” Web finally announced, pushing back his chair. “Those outlaws don’t catch themselves. You want a ride into town, Mitch?”

No, he surely didn’t. But what else was he going to do? Anyway, Mamie was an effective buffer. “Thanks. If you could drop me off at the car rental place that would be great.”

“I told Mary Ann Royce to pick me up here.” Mamie was at the sink, squirting dish-washing soap into running water. “She’s going to drive me over to Kingsland for the Genealogical Society meeting, so if you don’t mind I’ll just wait here for her.”

So much for his buffer. Mitch studied her ramrod-straight back, looked automatically to Web, whose expression was just a little too grave to be real. Okay. So Mitch was making a fool out of himself. No news there.

“Well, if it’s no trouble.”

“No trouble,” Web replied.

“Okay. Fine. I mean, thanks.”

“Perfect!” Aunt Mamie gave the soap bottle a final squeeze. The bubbly raspberry it made seemed to Mitch to pretty much sum up the situation.

“It was nice seeing Mamie again.” Mitch broke the silence of the last few miles as they entered Llano’s city limits.

Web assented.

That was the extent of their conversation since leaving the ranch.

Mitch tried to think of something neutral to talk about. The silences were starting to get to him. Not because he minded silence. In fact, one of the best things about being with Web was that they had never had to talk to understand each other. But that was back then. The silences between them now were not easy. In fact, they seemed to brim over with things unspoken.

In the old days Web had been the one to broach the difficult subjects.

Mitch gave up the whole idea of polite chitchat and gazed out at the shop windows decorated for Christmas. Green wire garland shaped like stars and bells stretched across the streets. All the time he’d been growing up, he’d had been focused on getting out, but in the years since he’d been touring with the American Ballet Theater, Mitch had discovered that small towns had their charms too. Llano was small—its population just over 3,500—and surprisingly pretty. Founded in 1855, conscious effort had gone into preserving the past, and a number of buildings from the 1800s had been restored or were in the process of being restored. It had a rustic, western charm, and there were still plenty of art galleries, wineries, antique shops, and gift boutiques for the tourists. Not quite like he remembered it. Not at all, in fact. Was that because Llano had changed so much or because his memories had not been accurate?

“City Yoga?” he commented as they drove past a renovated building.

“Yep. How ’bout that?” Web’s eyes were on the road. “Next thing you know we’ll have noodle shops and a Pottery Barn.”

Mitch snorted. “You’re going to turn into one of those old farts sitting in front of the general store and talking about the Civil War—or their high school football days—if you don’t watch it, Eisley.”

Web’s mouth twisted into something more grimace than grin. “You could be right at that.” His gaze slanted toward Mitch. “I guess there’s nothin’ wrong with noodle shops.”

Mitch’s mouth tugged into an answering smile. “Is the Dance Box still open?” he asked of the studio where he had trained as a kid.

“No. Miss Nesou passed away last year. The building’s for sale now.”

That was a shock. “She couldn’t have been that old.”

“Sixty something.”

Mitch was silent, absorbing it. He’d always meant to thank her, to let her know those extra private lessons had not gone in vain. Miss Nesou, with her passion for vegetarian cooking and writing postcards and cake doughnuts with black coffee. She’d driven a 1963 Cadillac Coupe Deville and had a pet lop-eared rabbit. The coolest person the teenaged Mitch had ever known.

Now an adult, he recognized she’d been a lot cooler than he’d ever realized.

How weird was it that he was getting all worked up over Miss Nesou and he’d never shed a tear over his own father’s passing? He said over the unexpected tightness in his throat, “She’d been a soloist with the New York City Ballet. What do you think she was doing in a town like this?”

“I guess she liked it here.” There was an edge to Web’s voice. Maybe he remembered some of those old arguments too.

“I wish she’d known…”

Web looked away from the road again. “Known what?”

“What she did for me. That I…made it.” All the way to principal dancer with the ABT. At one time that goal had been as far away as the stars. The only person other than himself who had believed it possible—or desirable—was Miss Nesou.

Web was disbelieving. “You think she didn’t know?”

“Did she?”

“Everybody in this damned town knows.” Web added grimly, “Everybody who gives a shit about that kind of thing.”

Which Web clearly did not and never had. Their bond had not been built on a mutual love of the arts. More like being the only two gay kids in all of Llano County. Or so they’d believed at the time.

They passed a brick store with a huge plastic Santa and flying reindeer suspended over the rooftop. Mitch remembered his crazy vision of the night before. Maybe he
had
been falling asleep. But man, it had seemed real for those few seconds.

“Do they still do the lighted Christmas parade?”

Web said, “Uh-huh. First week of December. Right now they’re doin’ the Starry, Starry Nights on the river. They’ve got a fifty-five-foot Christmas tree in the park this year and a thirty-foot snowman.”

“That’s nice.” Mitch stared out the window as the shop windows painted with Christmas trees and bells and stars flashed by in the bright winter sunlight. Did Web remember that final Christmas Eve when they had walked through the lighted Christmas Park with its thousands of twinkling lights and animated displays of cute animals in toukes? Did he remember the ugly argument that had followed? Did Web remember that it had been Christmas Eve twelve years ago that Mitch had lit out for parts unknown and never looked back?

“I guess it’s a change from New York City.” Web’s voice broke into Mitch’s bleak thoughts.

“Yeah. Although in a way New York is just a bunch of little villages all crammed into one big village.”

Mitch thought of his apartment and was suddenly intensely homesick. He didn’t belong here anymore. He never had.

“Do you like being a Texas Ranger?” he asked, talking himself away from the loneliness.

“Yep. I sure do.” Web smiled. Well, that had been his dream as long as dancing had been Mitch’s.

“Are you—” Mitch stopped. It wasn’t his business for one thing.

“Am I?”

“Out?”

The easy good humor faded from Web’s face. “I’m as out as I need to be. But I don’t guess I fit your criteria for bein’ out.”

Just like that, the old resentment and hostility was back. “How do you know what my criterion is? You don’t know anything about me.”

“I don’t think you’ve changed that much.”

What the hell did that mean? “I doubt if you’ve changed that much either.”

“Folks don’t tend to,” Web agreed maddeningly.

Mitch simmered over that for a time. “I just wondered if being gay made your job harder. That’s all.”

“It doesn’t make it any easier, but then again I don’t sashay around in tights and eye makeup.” Web pulled neatly up in front of the rental car office.

“Whatever,” Mitch muttered, unsnapping his seat belt.

Web sounded brisk. “What are you gettin’ riled up about now, Mitch?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Davy Crockett.” Mitch opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride.”

The hand that landed on his shoulder startled him. Even more startling was the way that casual touch shot down through every nerve in his body and centered in his groin.

“That wasn’t aimed at you.”

“Yeah, right.”

Web drew a breath. He said in painstaking tones, “I said that about tights and eye makeup because of what Mamie was talkin’ about at breakfast.”

“I know why you said it.”

Web’s blue gaze held Mitch’s. “I’ve never known a touchier bastard than you. You’re worse-tempered than a stripper in a cactus patch. What I’m
tryin’
to say is, it’s okay for your job. It wouldn’t be okay for mine.”

“Maybe that’s part of what you’re saying, but I don’t think that’s all of it. It doesn’t matter because I stopped caring what you think a long time ago.”

“Then I guess I won’t waste any more breath apologizin’.”

“Fine by me.”

“Okay. Glad we got that settled. See you tonight?” Web’s blue eyes smiled teasingly into Mitch’s, and to Mitch’s exasperation, his bad temper faded beneath that double dose of deliberate charm.

Well, that was how it had always been between them. Mitch, moody and oversensitive, taking offense at some dumb thing, and Web, easygoing and low-key, joking him right out of it.

Until the last time.

There hadn’t been anything funny that night.

He nodded and jumped lightly to the blacktop parking lot.

“Tell Gidget I said hello,” Web said.

Mitch nodded and slammed the SUV door. Web raised his hand in farewell and Mitch automatically returned the gesture, watching as Web reversed the SUV and drove away.

Christmas music was playing inside the car rental office. Barbara Mandrell’s
Christmas at Our House
. Mitch’s mother had owned that record and Mitch had played it every Christmas growing up. It gave him a jolt of nostalgia to hear the starting notes of “It Must Have Been the Mistletoe” as the door buzzer announced his arrival.

A young woman with soft brown eyes and brown hair in a dancer’s topknot stood behind the counter. Her eyes widened at the sight of Mitch.

“Why, Mitch Evans! Is that really you?” Before he had time to confirm or deny, she was out from behind the counter and hugging him. “It
is
you. I heard you were back. It’s me. Gidget!”

“Wow. You look great, Gidget.” She did, although it was startling how little she’d changed. Still the tiny dancer. He’d have known her anywhere, despite the intervening twelve years. Together they’d been Miss Nesou’s most promising students, her “dream team.” Partnered in all the studio exhibitions and shows, it was inevitable that they’d get to know each other pretty well. Not totally well, though. Nobody but Web had completely known Mitch back then. In fact, in those days Gidget had had a crush on Mitch, which he’d taken pains not to encourage. He was happy to see she wore a wedding ring on her finger now, happy she’d found someone to love and appreciate her.

“Are you still dancing?” The inevitable question.

She shook her head regretfully. “No. You know how it is. Real life comes along.” She laughed. “Or I guess you don’t. You really did it! Miss Nesou was so proud of you. Mitchell Evans, principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater. She had framed pictures of you posted all over the studio from when you were a boy to when you danced Puck that first time as a soloist.”

“I was sorry to hear—I didn’t know.”

“It was fast,” Gidget said by way of comfort. “One day she was here and then the next she was gone. I guess that’s the way she’d have wanted it.”

“I guess so.”

“We were all real sorry to hear about your daddy. I guess we thought you’d be back for the funeral.”

“I couldn’t get away. We were on tour and scheduling is tight.”

“Oh sure. We all know you’re a big star now.”

She wasn’t being sarcastic. She meant it.

“It’s not like that,” Mitch found himself explaining. “The competition is fierce. You can’t ever let your guard down. There’s always someone younger, faster, stronger, newer coming up behind you.”

“But they’re not
you
.”

“No.” He didn’t know how to answer that. “They could be better than me. They could be the next Baryshnikov.”

Gidget wrinkled her nose, laughing at him. “Mitch, you talk so
la dee dah
now. What happened?”

“I do not!” For an instant he was sixteen again and bickering with her over the fact she always leaned forward on her shoulder lifts. But it was true that he’d consciously worked to eradicate the twang from his vowels, to erase any hint of his Texan heritage. Cowboys and ballet just didn’t fit in most people’s minds.

“Not when you get angry, anyway.” She was teasing him now, and he remembered that about her too.

He shook his head. “So how’ve you been?” It had been so long since he’d made conversation with someone who wasn’t in the dance world that he had to stop and think about the things that were a priority for the rest of the world. “You’re married? You have kids?”

She looked slightly put out. “Didn’t that low-down sidewinder Web Eisley tell you?”

“Tell me what?” For one alarmed moment Mitch thought she was going to tell him something like she was married to Web. “I married Erik Engstrom. Web’s partner.”

“Web’s…partner?”

“In the Rangers.” She smiled. “I guess you don’t remember Erik. He was a few years ahead of us in school.”

Mitch relaxed. “I remember. He used to play football, right?”

“Right.”

“Congratulations, Mrs. Engstrom.”

She smiled, a little smug, a lot contented. “Hey, if you’re stayin’ for the holidays we have a Christmas Eve party every year. Erik makes his world-famous tamales and I make my world-famous margaritas and we get Santa Claus to come out to the house and hand out presents to the kiddies. I guess it’s not the kind of thing you’re used to now, but it’s a lot of fun.”

The idea that Mitch had turned into some kind of sophisticate with champagne tastes was almost comical. He said apologetically, “Thanks. I’m not sure I’m staying.”

He was touched that she’d asked, but wild horses wouldn’t drag him to something like that. He hated parties. He always had. Not only was he lousy at small talk, he didn’t drink and he couldn’t dance. Not the kind of dancing they did at the parties he’d been to in high school.

“If you change your mind, Web will give you the details.”

“Web?” Mitch repeated warily.

“Sure, Web.” She was smiling at him. “Your
best friend
.” She punched him lightly on his shoulder.

What did that mean? Mitch wasn’t sure if she was making fun of his former relationship with Web or if she was serious. He couldn’t imagine Web out, let alone discussing his relationships with anyone.

But if Web
was
out, presumably people knew he had some kind of personal life.

Come to think of it, for all Mitch knew Web could be in a committed relationship. The idea didn’t fill him with any pleasure.

It was a relief when they finally got the rental paperwork complete and he was able to drive away with admonishments not to be a stranger ringing in his ears.

Leaving the car rental place, Mitch headed for the market. Maybe liking to grocery shop wasn’t stereotypical masculine behavior, but Mitch found it relaxing. Besides, excellent nutrition was one of the major components of a successful dancing career, so grocery shopping was part of his job description. Of course he would not be staying long enough to eat most of this stuff, but he had a very high metabolism and was always hungry. He didn’t have hobbies like ordinary people, so having a choice of lots of good things to eat was one of his main pleasures in life.