The Heart Knows What the Heart Wants (10 page)

Derek circled the lot, waiting for someone to leave so he could find a place to park. Saturday night at Crow's Landing always left the place swarming with people, and the parking lot overflowed. He cursed under his breath and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he made another loop. He was asking for trouble by going into the bar, but he'd already had enough to drink that he didn't give a shit -- he was spoiling for a good, old-fashioned barroom brawl.

He had to search deep within himself for a thread of patience. He needed to keep from blowing his cool before he got inside. Finally, after an hour of swigging from the brown paper bag wrapped bottle of cheap bourbon, someone vacated the lot, leaving a space for him to park near the back door. Derek maneuvered his truck into the narrow spot and climbed from the cab.

He combed his fingers through his shaggy hair and palmed his glassy eyes. He was already about half drunk. He willed himself sober, put one foot in front of the other, and made his way to the rear entrance of the noisy dive.

As he approached the bar, the door flung open, banging noisily against the building before bouncing back. He heard someone shout, "Get the fuck out and stay out!" as an unkempt looking individual stumbled through the door and landed face first in the gravel at Derek's feet.

Derek caught the door before it closed behind the giant bouncer. He followed the man he recognized as Estelle's friend, Taylor, inside the darkened shit-hole. Taylor glanced over his shoulder at Derek, neither dismissing nor acknowledging him.

Derek's unspoken intimidation parted the crowd inside as effectively as Moses did the Red Sea. He wasn't a big man, but he had a certain "don't fuck with me" aura about him that made him unapproachable. He took a stool at the corner of the bar and straddled it with his muscular legs.

He scanned the room, not focusing on any one person until his eyes lit on Roxy. She leaned on the bar directly across from him, her cleavage spilling sloppily out of her too-tight top. He observed her flirting openly with the disinterested bartender.
Maybe I could use her to my advantage.

"Beam and Coke, no ice, short," Derek shouted his order over the noise to Taylor.

Taylor recognized Derek. He'd wondered how long it would take the crazy bastard to show up at Crow's Landing, snooping around for Stelly. Derek played it off like he didn't recognize the man, which was easy, considering they'd never been formally introduced. They didn't actually know each other, but they secretly despised one another for the same reason: Estelle.

Roxy worked her way over to where Derek sat sipping his drink. She stood close behind him, pressing her boobs against his back. He felt bile rise at the back of his throat. She disgusted him, but now that Estelle was gone, he'd take what he could get. A piece of ass was a piece of ass.

"What brings you in tonight?" she asked. She stood close enough to him that her sour breath hit his face like a fist, causing him to recoil momentarily. She reached between his jacket and shirt and traced her fingernail up his spine.

He shrugged. "Bored."

"Maybe we can change that," she purred.

"Yeah, maybe," he said. His jaw twitched imperceptibly. He ran the back of his hand over her cheek. "You do a favor for me; I'll do a favor for you. You in?" he asked. He painted on his best panty dropping smile for her, knowing she'd melt like butter in July.

"What's that, sexy?" She licked her lips and scooted onto the stool next to his. She made sure her dress hitched up on her long legs to give him a tease.

"I need you to get your hands on his cell phone for me," Derek said, nodding where Taylor stood at the beer tapper.

"How do you propose I do that? Just stick my hand down his pants and grab it?" Roxy snorted at her choice of words.

Derek clenched his jaw in irritation. "Isn't that his phone on the counter, back there by the register?" he asked, shifting his eyes in that direction.

Roxy gave a one shoulder shrug. "Probably."

"Who's that other bartender?" Derek asked.

Roxy's eyes lifted to the new woman her dad had hired to replace Estelle. "I think her name is Finn or Flynn, or something. I don't know, she's not my type." Roxy giggled.

Derek slid his hand up her leg and dipped his finger between her silky smooth thighs. Since she had the attention span of a toddler, he knew he had to do something to hold her interest. The corners of his mouth twitched as she pressed her thigh against his, opening her legs a little more to allow him easier access.
It was amazing
what a little skin on skin contact did to get her to pay attention to the task he needed her to complete for him
.

He leaned into her and whispered in her ear, "I don't care how you do it. But I want you to get that fucking phone."

Her bottom lip jutted out. "Why are you so interested in Taylor's cell phone?"

Derek closed his eyes and mentally counted to ten. She was testing his patience.
Why do you have to have an IQ that matches your shoe size?
As he pressed his pinky finger against her sex, she wriggled closer. "Don't you ever wear panties?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Why bother?" she said huskily.

He gently pinched the tender skin on the inside of her leg and licked his lower lip. Her eyes zeroed in on his mouth. "I'm going to make my way slowly to the back door. Then I'll create some sort of diversion. That's your cue to snag the phone. Meet me at my truck, and we'll get out of this hole. What do you say?" He squeezed her chin with his thumb and forefinger, making her look at him, and said, "Do you think you can do this without fucking things up?"

"Yeah, I can do it." She pushed his hand away from her face and scowled at him. "But it's going to cost you more than a five minute quickie in the parking lot."

He held up his glass, indicating to the new bartender that he wanted a refill. "Hey, darlin', bring me another Beam and Coke."

The pretty young bartender smiled and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder. "I don't think I've seen you in here before," she told him while topping off his drink.

"I don't get out here much," he said.

She smiled and took his money. When she returned with his change, she told him, "My name's Finn. Maybe I'll see you around."

Derek nodded and downed the drink in one gulp. Turning to Roxy, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah," she gave a little wave of her fingers, "let's do this."

He stood and strode with purpose toward the exit. With one glance over his shoulder, he locked eyes with Roxy in an unspoken "game on" affirmation. She gave him a glassy-eyed grin. He quickly spun on his heels and yanked a pool cue from the hands of a skinny kid who was just taking aim.

"Hey! What is your problem, dude?" the young man asked.

"What's my problem? You mean what's your problem.
Dude
," he slurred. With one swift move of the hands, he broke the cue over his knee and handed the two pieces back to the dumbfounded pool player. "What the fuck you gonna do now,
dude
?"

Derek easily deflected the ill-aimed punch and tossed the kid aside as though he weighed no more than a paper bag. He didn't have anything against the boy; he'd never seen him before. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, the diversion Derek needed.

Before Derek was able to return the punch, two hands the size of baseball gloves grabbed him by the shirt collar and ejected him from the bar. He laughed with perverse satisfaction. He stumbled forward, but caught himself before he fell. He dug in his pocket for the truck keys.

A few minutes later, Roxy was grinning at him through the passenger side window. He unlocked the door, and she climbed inside. She held up her hands, revealing the coveted cell phone. Snatching it from her hands, he whispered, "Score! Let's get the fuck out of here."

The weather was unseasonably warm for the latter part of November. No one complained about the rain, because they knew it could be much worse. The torrential downpour could just as easily have come in the form of snow. In spite of the mild temperatures, the lack of sunlight gave the big, old house a gloomy chill, but the kitchen glowed with comfort.

Thanksgiving morning, Star put on some comfy clothes and was in the kitchen by seven. It had been a while since she'd cooked for anyone other than Derrick, and she was a little nervous about making a large meal.

"Morning, Blue," Shane greeted her when he came in a short time later. He bent over and kissed her on the cheek, as though this were their kitchen, and morning kisses were an everyday occurrence. Star blushed and rubbed the spot where his lips had been. His eyes twinkled as they drifted languidly up from her fuzzy slippers to the top of her head, and he let out a soft whistle. "So beautiful," he whispered.

"Don't bullshit me, Shane Harper. I just crawled out of bed. I haven't had a shower yet, and I probably smell like hell," she chastised him with a scowl.

He smiled and tugged at one of her loose curls. "Looks like you've been to see Ami. You've got handful hair."

"Handful hair? What the hell is
handful hair
?" she asked peering over her shoulder at him.

"Are you sure you want to know?" He snorted.

"Yes, I'm sure." She frowned and popped the turkey in the oven.

A sexy grin tugged up the corners of his mouth. "You've got the kind of hair that makes a guy want to wrap his hands around while doing all kinds of things to the rest of you." Her cheeks flamed, and she stared at him agape. He shrugged and said, "Hey, I warned you."

"I'll keep that in mind." She chewed on her lower lip to keep from smiling and poured herself a cup of coffee. She leaned against the counter, watching him concentrate while he rolled out a pie crust. "Where'd you learn how to bake?"

"My mom used to run the bakery in town. I went to work with her on the weekends, and she showed me. Pies were her specialty," he said. "Hey, that reminds me. I guess we sort of forgot about our twenty-one questions game. How many are we up to now?"

"I don't remember," she admitted. With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she ran her index finger through some flour on the table and brushed it across the stubble on his cheek. "I'm going to grab a shower. When I get back, you can ask me whatever you want."

He smirked and wiped the flour from his face on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Can I hold you to that?"

"Of course. There's no limit to the number of questions I can skip, right?" she asked. She took Neona's favorite coffee mug from the dishwasher and filled it. "I'll take this into your aunt, but I'll be back."

"And then we can continue our game," he called to her as she left the room.

Shane sipped on his coffee and stared out the window. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Star. He wondered how deep she would allow him to dive into the waters of her psyche before closing off completely. He'd begrudgingly agreed with her to be
just friends
, and knew he had to tread carefully. If he started to get too personal, he'd lose any ground he'd managed to gain.

On the same token, he wasn't sure how much of
his
past he was willing to be forthcoming about. He'd made some pretty immature choices the past few years. He'd gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd and was still bouncing back from those mistakes. He'd been so preoccupied with his own misery, he wasn't always there for his mom, and now she was dead.

Star quickly showered and dressed in her favorite pair of jeans and a new emerald green sweater she'd bought the other evening after Ami cut her hair. She felt attractive for the first time since she couldn't remember when. She tugged on her bottom lip with her fingers and appraised her body. "Smokin'," she mused giddily.

Shane did a double take when she walked back into the kitchen. Star was the type of woman whose looks were completely understated. He liked that she wasn't all about the material things -- the latest styles or the most expensive shoes. "Damn, who are you and what the hell did you do with Blue?" He whistled softly.

She immediately felt her face flush. "Very funny."

He laughed. "I brought my guitar with me. I thought maybe we could work on that love song after dinner. You game?" he asked while he rolled out another pie crust.

"Sure," she said. "You want some help, here?"

"Yeah," he pointed to the bowl covered with a towel that was sitting on top of the stove, "there's some more dough over there, would you mind rolling out another crust?"

They worked together in companionable silence, interjecting some small talk here and there. When all of the pies had been made, the turkey in the oven, and another pot of coffee had been brewed, Shane reached for Star's hand. The Neptune tattoo caught his attention. "So, Neptune Girl, tell me about
your
planets."

She looked at him through lowered lashes. "My grandma got me started with astrology as soon as she thought I was old enough to understand."

"The scientific part of my brain," he paused, tapping his temple, "has a really hard time believing in all that stuff."

"Of course it does." She gave him a bemused look and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. "That's because the only thing you know about astrology is that crap you read in magazines and newspapers. Such bullshit, it's no wonder people are skeptical."

"So, tell me," he said. He grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew from the fridge and sat down at the table. "Am I a typical Capricorn?"

She sat down across the table from him. "In some ways, you are very Saturn-like. But, I'd bet you've got a lot of water in your chart. A sensitive side," she said.

She might as well be speaking Latin, but he was curious. "How do I find out?"

She leaned forward on her elbows and sipped from her coffee. "I'd need your exact time and place of birth...that and a computer. Then I could do your chart for you."

"I'll work on that for you," he said. He picked at the label on the soda bottle. "What about
you
? What makes you, you?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "The school of hard knocks?" she said bitterly.

"Seriously," he reached for her hand and squeezed, "tell me one thing about yourself. Something
shocking
."

"
Seriously
? You want something shocking?" She withdrew her hand from his grasp and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You were right, you know. When you asked me what I was running from? I
am
running...only thing is, I don't know if I'm running
from
something or running
to
something."

He leaned back on his chair and stared at her for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Some
thing
or some
one
?"

"Both, I guess." She shrugged. She moved away from the table and put on the oven mitts to check on the turkey.
What if life was like some giant blackboard that you could erase the mistakes, the wrong turns, and start over? Wasn't that what she wanted, more than anything?
"Your turn. Tell me something about you."

Shane wished he knew how to tell her she could stop running now -- she was safe here. What could he say about himself that wouldn't freak her out completely? He didn't exactly think the story about how he got hammered on graduation night, wrecked his truck, and killed his girlfriend was something he wanted her to know just yet.

"I'll save shocking for another day."

"Promise?" she asked, trying to lift his somber mood.

"Yeah, sure," he said. He watched her push the turkey back into the oven. Before she turned around he blurted, "I've never met my dad."

She washed her hands and glanced over her shoulder at him. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "Neither have I. I mean, I never met my dad either."

"Neona says he was around when I was a baby, but I don't remember anything about him. I think my mom hoped he'd come back home one day," he said quietly. He shook his head and snorted. "I'm not even sure he even knows she's dead."

Star pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. "I'm an illegitimate love child of an affair that's lasted thirty-two-years. The sperm donor lives up in Chicago with his wife and kids. He knows about me, he did help out financially while I was growing up, but as far as being a real dad? Yeah. Not so much."

Shane reached over and rested his hand against her cheek. "Guess neither of our dads will be candidates for the Father of the Year award, huh?"

"Probably not." She stood and reached for the sack of potatoes.

***

Neona made her way into the kitchen to oversee the progress of Thanksgiving dinner preparations. "You're looking much better this morning, Aunt Neona," Shane commented cheerfully. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thanks," she said. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and her attention drifted lazily over to the counter where Star had started to scrub the potatoes. "Everything sure smells delicious. Now that I'm not taking those damn pain killers, I might actually be able to eat more than a couple bites."

Shane pulled out a chair for Neona to sit. He took her crutches from her and leaned them against the wall. He bent down and scooped a prancing Chili Dog into his arms. "Come on, Blue, take a break with me. Let's go for a walk."

Star looked at him as though he'd suddenly sprouted a third eye. "It's raining."

He leaned to the side and peered out the window over her shoulder. "It's just a little drizzle. I'm sure Neona has an umbrella. Right, Aunt Neona?"

"By the front door," she said. She turned toward Star, who was peeling potatoes. "Bring those things over here, let me do something. I'm not completely helpless, you know."

Star opened her mouth to protest, until she saw that she was outnumbered and decided it would do her some good to get out of the house for a while. The fresh air, no matter how soggy, would be a nice diversion, as would a little exercise. She sighed and said, "Fine. I guess I could use a break."

As Star and Shane stood just inside the front door, Ami arrived with her husband Paul in tow. Paul held the door open and asked, "Where are you two off to?"

"Taking Chili Dog for a walk around the block," Shane told him as he pulled the umbrella from the stand in the entryway.

Paul waited for Ami to get out of earshot before turning back to Shane. "Care if I join you?" he whispered.

Shane laughed knowingly and whispered, "Need a smoke?"

He nodded and called out to his wife, "Ami? Be back in a few minutes, precious."

"Don't think I don't know that you're just sneaking off to have a cigarette, Paul," Ami hissed.

Star bit her lip to stifle a giggle, and grabbed Chili Dog's leash from the hook by the door. She fastened it to the little dog's collar before extending her hand toward Paul. "Hi, I'm Star. I've heard so much about you," she told him.

"Don't believe everything Ami says about me," he said, shaking her hand. "She liked me better before she got pregnant."

Shane popped open the umbrella as soon as they were out on the front porch. "Your dad joining us for dinner?" he asked Paul.

"Sheriff Mike had to work this morning. Duty calls, you know." Paul rolled his eyes. "He said he'd swing by later for leftovers."

Shane reached for Star's hand, and she didn't resist. "Paul is Michael's son, you knew that, right?" he asked her.

She remembered learning that fact at one time or another and nodded in response. A happy feeling of warmth pooled inside of her, and she decided liked the natural way Shane's strong fingers felt as they intertwined with hers. It was comforting to her.

They took a quick stroll around the block, before cutting back through the alley across the street. Star noticed her old Honda was still sitting lifeless by the side of the repair shop. "Hey, Paul, I hear you work at a dealership up in Hannibal," she said.

Paul took a deep drag from his cigarette before flicking it into a nearby puddle. "I do. Why?"

"Think you could help me find a cheap, used car? It doesn't have to be anything fancy," she asked.

Shane felt queasy. He had sort of liked knowing that for now, Star was stuck in Red Vale. It hadn't occurred to him that she might actually want to leave. She had a job, a roof over her head, and, as far as he knew, she didn't have anywhere pressing to be.

Painful questions buzzed unwelcome through his brain like annoying mosquitoes:
Had she changed her mind about running away from West Memphis? Had she decided she wanted to go back there? Was someone special waiting for her up in Iowa? Or had she decided she'd reacted rashly and should never have left in the first place?

Paul suggested a couple cars he thought might be just what she was looking for. They talked back and forth, discussing the particulars while Shane zoned out, distracted by the assumptions spinning round his mind.

"Shane?" Star repeated and tugged on his hand.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Shane cleared his throat and asked.

Star rolled her eyes at him. "I wondered if you'd like to ride along with me tomorrow to check out a car."

He gave her a forced smile and said, "Sure. I can do that."

"Great, it's settled then." She beamed up at him, grateful for his friendship, even though she was more attracted to him than she had ever been another man.
Dammit, why does he have to be ten years younger than me?! And do I really care?