Designer Genes Read online

  The man uncoiled from his truck. With a backward glance, she gauged him at around six feet, but they must have been Texas feet, because he looked taller than California men who claimed to be the same height.

  “Do you do this a lot?” she asked, trying to keep up a conversation as he strode over to assess the situation.

  “Fix cars? Yes, ma’am.”

  She felt like an idiot. “I mean, rescue ladies in distress.”

  “You don’t look like you’re in too much distress to me.” Carter popped the hood. “What did you say it was doing?”

  He had no business giving her the third degree. “Who cares what it’s doing? It won’t run. There’s your tow truck, so tow me!”

  “If we can start the motor, it might spare your paint a few scratches.” Flicking on an oversize flashlight, he examined the smoky interior.

  The man hadn’t tried to flirt with her. Buffy frowned. Did that mean he didn’t care for the way she looked?

  As Roger had emphasized, she was barely five foot six and had a tendency to gain weight if she smelled French cooking. And her hair required a gallon of conditioner to tame the split ends.

  But she worked hard not to be plain. Maybe the man just couldn’t see her very well in the dark.

  As Carter closed the hood, Buffy edged into the flashlight beam. “Did you figure out what’s wrong?”

  He started to lower his arm, but she nudged his wrist upward to keep her face in the light. There certainly were a lot of muscles in his wrist, she noticed.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “That was my question.”

  “I mean, how come you’re holding my hand?”

  “That isn’t your hand, it’s your arm,” she pointed out.

  He weighed her comment. “There must be some state in which that answer makes sense, but it isn’t Texas.”

  He appeared as unimpressed as ever. Well, no wonder. She hadn’t repaired her makeup for hours, and the flashlight beam was forcing her to squint. With a shrug, Buffy let go. “Sorry for the confusion.”

  “You are one strange lady.” Carter switched off the flashlight with one hand and, with the other, lifted his baseball cap and shoved back his thick brown hair. A shock near the crown twisted upright, defying gravity.

  “We’re discussing my car, not my personality,” she said. “Did you figure out what’s wrong?”

  “Sure,” he said without hesitation. “You fried the engine.”

  “Is that a technical term--‘fried’?”

  “Ma’am, you can’t run these things without oil.” Apparently Carter figured he’d covered the subject because he turned to hook the car to his truck.

  “Stop!” Buffy cried. “You can’t do that!”

  He paused. “You told me to tow it.”

  “My daughter Allie’s in the back.”

  He scratched his head. Buffy had never seen a man scratch his head in perplexity before. It was rustic and endearing. “You can either leave her in there or put her in my truck.”

  “Your truck,” she said.

  “Better get on with it, then.” He didn’t offer to help. So much for chivalry.

  As she went to retrieve Alison and the safety seat, Buffy wondered if coming to Texas had been the biggest mistake of her life. Well, the second biggest. Her marriage still ranked first.

  *

  In the truck cab, the woman’s presence infused the air with delicate scents and emotional undercurrents. Carter struggled not to let his body follow its natural tendency to react.

  Pretty she might be, but this lady had a mouth on her. Maybe that kind of sharp talk got things done in the city, but around here it made people itchy. He certainly felt itchy—in all kinds of places that it wasn’t polite to talk about.

  Since they were riding along together, he figured they ought to be talking. That’s what they’d do if she lived around here. They’d chew over the school situation and speculate about what Willie and Billy Dell Grimes were going to call their new baby, since they’d named the last three Adam, Eve and Abel, and the next likely choice was Cain. He’d heard folks were taking bets on that score, although Pastor O’Rourke said it was a sin to gamble.

  Anyway, he had no clue what you talked about with a shiny lady from L.A. He could hardly mention that he thought he’d met her before. It seemed preposterous.

  He decided to try a safer topic. “That’s a cute little girl you have there.”

  ”Do you like babies?” she asked.

  Carter stared at the road as he drove and gave the matter the serious thought it deserved. “I don’t dislike them,” he concluded.

  “Have you given any thought to having one?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m not married.”

  “I meant in the future!”

  “Why would I think about having children when I’m not married?” he asked. “That’s putting the cart before the horse.”

  She folded her arms. “It’s normal to think about having babies. In fact, that’s the reason some people get married in the first place.”

  He knew what the pastor would say about that. “Yes, ma’am, but not if they’ve been behaving themselves.”

  Buffy Arden began to laugh and the merry, lilting sound tickled his heart. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she said at last. “I meant because they want to have babies, not because they’re already having them.”

  “Guess I misunderstood.”

  “Guess you did.”

  The truck fell silent save for the rump-rump of tires on pavement. Why was this blonde lady interested in his opinions on babies? he wondered. Did she seek reassurance? “I hope you didn’t think I was criticizing. I mean, you haven’t mentioned whether there’s a Mr. Arden.”

  “Unfortunately, yes, there’s a Mr. Arden, my ex,” she said. “And a bigger louse never walked the earth. Or crawled upon the earth, or whatever lice do.”

  “Louse or not, he must miss his cute little girl,” he said as he turned from the highway onto Main Street.

  “He has his cute little girl,” Buffy said grimly. “Her name is Yoko and she’s been the centerfold in Amazing Asian Mammaries three times.”

  “Amazing Asian Mammaries?” he repeated. “Doesn’t that mean…”

  “Breasts,” she finished. “Bought and paid for by my husband.”

  Now, that was a sad situation. “I don’t hold with married men fooling around.”

  “That’s what I like about you.” She favored him with a smile that could light up the Fourth of July. “You’re an old-fashioned guy, aren’t you, Carter?”

  “You might say that.” In truth, every time he looked at her, his mind seethed with old-fashioned thoughts. Some of them were downright Neanderthal.

  The sports car jounced in place behind them as the tow truck rattled along the worn pavement, its edges marked by the occasional hitching post. As they passed the church, Buffy rolled down her window.

  “Did I read that right?” she asked, staring at the sign out front.

  Carter was glad the darkness hid his heated cheeks. “You mean the Nowhere Nearer to Thee 0 Lord Church?”

  “Is that really what it’s called?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s a ridiculous name,” said his passenger.

  “Not when you know the story,” he assured her. “It used to be a branch of a church in Groundhog Station, our town’s…” He wasn’t sure how to pronounce “nemesis,” so he finished, “…rival. Groundhogs are always claiming they’re the best and the first at everything, and when we prove ‘em wrong, they sneer at our name.”

  “People from Groundhog sneer at your name?” She appeared to find that notion amusing.

  “Yes’m, and we got mighty tired of attending the Groundhog Nearer to Thee 0 Lord Church, which sounds like more of their bragging. The congregation was dwindling till we changed it.”

  “Didn’t anybody think about the implication?” she asked. “That you’re nowhere nearer to God?”
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  “The Lord understands what we mean,” he said. “Unlike those snobs from Groundhog, we don’t consider ourselves any closer to God than anybody else. We’re all equal in His eyes.”

  “Good point.” Her attention shifted to their surroundings. “This can’t be your main street, is it?”

  He had to admit, there wasn’t much around except a storage yard and a warehouse. “We’ll be coming up on the downtown section in a minute,” he assured her.

  “I can hardly wait.”

  As they neared the center, he tried in vain to imagine how the block-long business district must seem to Buffy. Small and dark, he supposed, although a few signs glimmered in his headlights.

  Over the darkness lay Carter’s memories of crepe-paper-covered trucks carrying homemade parade floats every Memorial Day. He could see costumed schoolchildren trick-or-treating on Halloween at the grocery, the dry goods store and Binny’s Beauty Salon. And of course the Christmas season, with the school principal ho-ho-hoing as Santa Claus in the park and everyone gussying up their stores with colored lights. Despite the evening quiet, he couldn’t visualize the town empty and silent, even when he was staring right at it. But things must look very different to a visitor.

  “Those signs.” Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe what they call their shops. No wonder you think the church’s name is normal.”

  “What do you mean, what they call their shops?”

  She waved her hand. “Gigi’s Grocery and Anderson’s Coffee Shop and Drugstore.”

  He puzzled over her meaning as they turned onto Cross Street. “What’s wrong with those names?”

  “They’re dull,” Buffy said.

  He supposed she had a point. “But accurate.”

  “This town could use some pizzazz.”

  Her mispronunciation surprised him. “There’s a pizza parlor down the road.”

  “Not pizza. Pizzazz. That means style and glamour.”

  “Who needs a glamorous grocery store?” They were passing the ten-bed Nowhere Junction Hospital, two blocks from his garage. To be polite, he added, “What kinds of names should they have?”

  “Just off the top of my head, how about the Smart Shopper Supermarket,” Buffy suggested, which wasn’t a bad idea, considering how Gigi was always laying in big supplies of whatever had fallen off the wholesaler’s truck. “Or the Poets’ Corner Café.”

  “We used to have a poet in Nowhere Junction,” Carter said. “Only he moved to Austin.”

  The lights had gone off at the school, he noticed, and wondered what else had been accomplished at the meeting. With the start of the new fiscal year less than three months away, there’d probably been a lot of talk about ways to raise funds.

  Five million dollars. Maybe they should change the name of the school district to the Broken-Down-But-Not-Out Education Association.

  That might rouse someone’s charitable instincts.

  *

  The large overhead door of the Nowhere Garage stood open. Buffy could understand how Mimsy Miles had walked in and answered the phone.

  In the dim light, she detected a couple of hulking vehicles awaiting repairs. “Don’t you worry that someone might steal something?”

  “Not likely.”

  “You can’t tell me nobody in this town ever feels temptation!”

  “I’m sure you’re right, because the pastor talks about that sort of thing all the time,” Carter said. “It’s not much of a risk, though. They couldn’t sell anything they stole in Nowhere Junction without getting caught. And since the main highway bypasses us, we don’t get many strangers.”

  She held her breath, afraid he was going to ask the obvious question: what was she doing here? Mercifully, he didn’t. Possibly he was too polite, or just lacked curiosity. Good, because she wasn’t ready to tell him.

  He pulled the truck around, backed it into the garage and lowered her car. The grinding noise of the tow mechanism woke Allie, who began to cry.

  Through the passenger window, Buffy peered around. “Where can I breast-feed her?” A garage was hardly likely to have a clean corner, she realized. “Never mind. When you’re done disconnecting my car, would you drop us at a motel?”

  “That could pose a problem,” Carter said.

  “Then call me a cab and I’ll go there myself.” She wondered if the First National Bank of Nowhere back on Main Street had an ATM, because she was running low on cash.

  “I’d drive you,” the man explained, “but we don’t have a motel. Billy and Willie Grimes used to rent out a spare room until they had their sixth kid, or maybe it was the seventh. Now people have to stay with relatives or go to Groundhog Station. They have two motels, although I wouldn’t recommend them, being as the folks in Groundhog aren’t nearly as nice as the people around here.”

  No motel? The energy that had powered Buffy all the way from California seemed to drain onto the concrete floor of the garage. She didn’t know anyone in this town, she had no place to go and her daughter was hungry.

  As usual, though, her depression lasted somewhere on the short side of thirty seconds. “Don’t you have a spare room?” she asked. “I’ll pay you to put me up overnight.”

  Carter made no move to exit the truck. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a small town. People will gossip.”

  “About what?” Allie started squalling full-out, cutting off his reply. This feeding couldn’t wait until the man worked through his ridiculous small-town qualms. After unstrapping the restraints, Buffy lifted her daughter out of the baby seat and began unbuttoning her blouse.

  Carter averted his face. “Do you have to do that with the garage door open?”

  “I’m breast-feeding.” Buffy couldn’t believe anyone would object. “My clothes are designed not to show anything, okay?”

  The man opened his door and hopped out. “You take care of your business while I unhook your car, and then we’ll figure out where you can sleep.”

  “Fine.” For one night, she could handle anything within reason, Buffy figured. Thank goodness she’d brought a sleeping bag in case she got stuck between towns.

  She might look like a city slicker, but she’d seen practically every episode ever made of “Survivor.” And there were scissors in her manicure kit to cut the tags off the sleeping bag.

  The truck bounced a couple of times while Carter was freeing her car. The motion seemed to reassure the baby, who nursed lustily.

  The man returned while Buffy was still holding Allie. He kept his face averted.

  “Mimsy Miles rents a small apartment over the coffee shop,” he said. “She might put you up in the living room.”

  It would have been an acceptable suggestion, had Allie’s yawn not reminded Buffy of her mission in Nowhere Junction. If she stayed somewhere else, how would she get to know Carter Murchison?

  She’d come to Texas to give her daughter the one thing in life that Buffy had always lacked: a father. And she intended to complete her mission.

  “Why can’t I stay at your place?” she asked. “There’s no reason the town gossips have to find out about me.”

  He was so startled that he met her gaze just as she rearranged her blouse. Although he couldn’t have seen much, he turned bright red.

  “They, um, already know about you,” he stammered. “You called me during a school board meeting, remember? They took a vote that I should go help you right away.”

  “The school board sent you to help me?” Until now, Buffy hadn’t imagined that anything about this town could truly surprise her.

  “They did.”

  “Does it fall within their jurisdiction?”

  “Not technically.” With the shop illuminated, she saw that Carter’s skin—now that he’d stopped blushing like a schoolgirl—was a golden bronze that would put a surfer to shame. “But in Nowhere Junction, everything is everybody’s business.”

  “You have a spare room or at least a couch, right?” she pressed. “I’ll pay you. If anyone asks, you
can explain that it’s strictly business. I mean, how long will it take to fix my car? I could be out of here by...” Was tomorrow night too soon to ease him into the idea of parenthood? “Say, Thursday?”

  He shook his head.

  “Friday?”

  “Ms. Arden...”

  “Buffy,” she corrected.

  “Ms. Buffy,” he said, as if determined to keep his distance, “you don’t seem to grasp the meaning of the word ‘fried,’ which is what’s happened to your engine. ”

  “Maybe if you’d said ‘sautéed,’ I’d have understood you.” He didn’t laugh. “Okay, bad joke. What does fried mean, in technical terms?”

  “In technical terms, it means your engine is toast.” Carter stretched, a movement that pulled his T-shirt tight across his chest and demonstrated that working on cars ought to be a new craze for developing muscles. “You melted things I’ve never seen melted before. You’ll need a complete rebuild and I’ll have to send to San Antonio for parts. We don’t run into this kind of car around here very often.”

  She didn’t care how much the repairs cost, since her bills still went to Roger until the divorce was finalized. “How long will it take?”

  “Could be a week,” he said. “It depends on whether they have the parts in stock. As for the cost, I’ll give you an estimate tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” Buffy opened her door. “Would you mind helping us down?”

  He came around and reached for the baby. His big hands, although they nearly overwhelmed the child, were gentle as he took a firm grip.

  Allie held herself straight in the air and stared at the man as he lifted her. She didn’t fuss, as she sometimes did around strangers.

  “She has gray eyes with a hint of purple.” Carter gazed deep into them. “Kind of unusual. Takes after her father?”

  “You might say that.” Buffy hopped down beside him. In her weariness, she wobbled a little and caught his shoulder for support. It felt reassuringly sturdy.

  “You smell nice.” He made no attempt to move away.

  “Herbal shampoo and baby powder.” She didn’t feel inclined to move, either.

  “What I can’t figure out,” the man said, “is how your husband managed to notice some other woman, even if she is a centerfold.”