The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [93]
“That you are,” he answered in the same light tone. “So tell me, ma’am.”
“Romy.”
“Romy. How’s your love life?”
A pretty obvious change of subject. Timely, too; she’d trespassed far enough into his personal territory. “Ah, Shorty,” she said, laying her Romy voice on thick. It made it easier to talk about herself, something she rarely did with callers. With Shorty, though, it felt natural. And like the least she could do. “Ah, Shorty, I am very unlucky in love.”
“Ever been married?” he asked.
“Yes, but I was quite young.” Twenty-one—not that young. “You?”
“Nope.”
“No one special?”
“Not really. Nobody to ride the river with.”
“Ride the river with. I like that cowboy expression.”
They sighed in unison, then laughed a little. They seemed so in sync now, it prompted her to say, “I have a man in my head these days, but he is no good for me. In fact, he makes me crazy.”
“Whaddaya like about him?”
“Nothing! He is nothing except good-looking. He is not even nice to me.”
“Dry gulch him. You don’t need a sidewinder like that.”
“I won’t be seeing him again. But it’s not so easy to forget someone who has crept inside you, is it? Your bad woman, your horse thief, she’s not so easy to—dry gulch, am I right?”
“You’re always right.”
“That is true, Shorty. That is so very true.”
“Except when—”
“No need to qualify.”
She could hear him smiling. A long, comfortable silence passed. “Late for you,” he said at the end of it. “Reckon I oughta let you go.”
“Yes.” But she was sorry.
“I’ll call you up again.”
“I hope so.”
She waited for him to say good-bye. Instead he said, “Thanks. I, uh . . .” Long pause. “I’ll think about what you said.”
A cowboy, a manly man, leader of others—she could only imagine what it cost him to say that. “Just be kind to yourself,” she said softly. “Dear one.”
TEN
“I was just thinking about you.”
“That’s what you always say.” Molly got a Coke from the fridge and carried it out to the front porch, Merlin in her wake. “You can’t be thinking about me all the time, Aunt Kit.”
“I’m always thinking about you right before you call, because I always know it’s you.”
“Plus I always call on Sunday.”
“What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing!” They both laughed. “So how are you? How’s your arthritis?”
“You know, I don’t appreciate that.”
“What?”
“The first thing you think of when you think of me is ‘old lady with arthritis.’ It’s only my big toe.”
“That’s not the first thing I think.”
“Shaquille O’Neal has arthritis in his big toe.”
“You know what you don’t do enough of, Aunt Kit?”
“What?”
“Complain.” She thought of all the little inconveniences her aunt only mentioned in passing, if at all. Like the virtual abandonment of the second floor of her tiny house, for instance, because the steps were too much for that arthritic big toe. All the little indignities, the gradual scaling back of a once-full life.
“Complaining’s for losers,” Aunt Kit said. “How was Cardiac Day?”
“Heart Attack Day. It was fine.”
“What went wrong?”
Molly sighed. “Don’t do that. Don’t read my mind.”
“I’m not, I just thought you sounded . . . discontent.”
Discontent. The very word. “No, I’m fine, and Heart Attack Day was fine, everything’s fine.”
“Well, if that’s your story, you’re entitled to stick to it. When you’re ready, feel free to tell me what’s wrong.”
“Thanks, but what makes you think—Oh, never mind.”
“Molly, I know something’s wrong. Has been for weeks.”
She tried not to think about her house. Don’t think about the house. Don’t think about the house. “Oh, it’s this Oliver guy,” she blurted out, purely to throw Aunt Kit off. “Charlie’s grandson.”
“The stuffed shirt?”
“He thinks I’m . . . It’s complicated, but he doesn’t have a good opinion of me, and I know it shouldn’t matter, since he’s a jerk, but it does.”
“You’re in love with him. Oh, honey.”
“What? No! Are you crazy? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
“But if he doesn’t have a good opinion of you, he is a jerk, so get