Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [20]
Since Jay had gone, she’d hated the cheap feeling of being on the market. Once, she’d gone to one of those Houston singles bars on lower Westheimer. The guy who’d hit on her expected she wanted the same thing as he, a quickie at a chain motel. Even if she’d been into sex with somebody she’d barely met, she would have discounted that loser as married. Further forays in the dating world had confirmed that if a guy was halfway interesting, she could bet her back teeth there was a wife or long-term gal in the picture.
Deering continued to lounge, but she detected an awareness in him as he tossed off, “Where you staying?”
“I’ve got an employee cabin at Old Faithful.”
“That’s a forty mile drive,” Deering observed. “You ought to stay here in town like I do.”
“Old Faithful is central to my work.” She avoided his eyes by glancing toward the motels, restaurants and souvenir shops on the opposite side of the wide street. False fronts gave the impression of a Wild West town.
Following her gaze, Deering said, “Did you know that the streets were built this wide so a horse and stagecoach could turn around in them?”
“Hadn’t heard that.”
“Have you been in the Bear Pit Bar at Old Faithful?” His hand traced the arc of the metal rail.
“Haven’t had time.” Enjoying the game despite her instinctive reticence, she finally gave him a level look. His lazy smile intrigued.
“If you’re at Old Faithful this evening,” Deering was direct, “I’ll drive over and buy us a drink.”
Decision time. He’d conveyed his interest but not the slack-jawed lust of a man on the make. Old Faithful was her turf; he’d never find her cabin . . . unless she showed him the way.
“Seven-thirty,” she agreed.
In the Old Faithful Inn lobby, Clare checked the intricate metal clock on the towering fireplace of massive pink stones. Guests rested in rockers on an Indian print rug, an island in the polished golden floor. The appointed hour was near, and although the Bear Pit’s open door invited, she headed for the nearest pay phone and dialed.
If there was one thing she hated more than dealing with her ex, it was having his wife answer. “Elyssa,” she said flatly, twisting the phone cable. “Is Devon there?”
“Can’t heah you . . .”
“I said, is Devon there?” Clare raised her voice over the din in the lobby and felt like a fishwife. Elyssa knew who she was.
Thinking of dusty boots left in her cabin, she imagined Jay’s wife in her flowered chintz drawing room, her feet shod in soft Italian kid--Texas music in her voice when she wanted something like making the visitation more convenient for her.
“Ah imagine Devon’s heah somewhere.”
Yes, Clare knew how palatial the house Jay had built Elyssa was and how loosely she monitored the girl who was not her daughter.
Clare waited, imagining annoyance twisting Elyssa’s penciled lips like she’d bitten an unripe persimmon. By the long metal hands of the fireplace clock, it took four minutes of long distance until Devon came on. Muted background sounds were probably the twenty-four inch color television Jay had given her for her designer bedroom. Clare couldn’t afford a luxury like that for a teenager.
“Where are you, Mom?”
“I’m in the lobby at Old Faithful. Lots of folks coming in for the night.”
Through the open doors, she could see the loading zone with buses discharging passengers and pungent diesel smells. After what had happened at Grant Village, she wondered if they should think about an evacuation here.
Almost everyone who came through the red, wrought-iron-trimmed double doors stopped and looked up. The soaring atrium lobby, crafted entirely of local wood, had been conceived by architect Robert Reamer in 1902, long before Hyatt considered the concept. On the underside of the dark, shingled roof, Clare noted a network of pipes and sprinkler heads. She didn’t plan on telling her daughter that if the wind did not shift or lie down, she, along with a thousand other firefighters, was going to defend Old Faithful.
A pregnant woman entered, bending to hold the