Designer Genes Page 8

  It was strange but pleasant to hear Buffy and Mazeppa chattering away at the other side of the house. And the phone ringing, and being answered. Most of the calls he’d received today at the shop had been for them. Finally, he’d quit picking up and let them go through on the extension.

  What were those women up to, anyway? If it involved roasting chickens for dinner, he was in favor.

  A short while later, his hair slicked back and lotion stinging his freshly shaved cheeks, Carter found Buffy alone in the kitchen. In the heat of cooking, her blonde hair had gone softly frizzy around her face.

  He liked seeing her nose shiny and her lipstick faded. The jeans and soft top she’d changed into after her trip to town highlighted a healthy feminine body. Best of all, she was smiling.

  “I hope you like chicken,” she said, lifting a baking dish out of the oven with oversize pot holders.

  “Smells fantastic. It isn’t one of Finella’s recipes, I hope.”

  She glanced around, as if afraid that lady might appear from midair. “She carries creativity to extremes, in my opinion.”

  “Mine, too.” The table was only set for two, he noticed. “Mazeppa isn’t joining us?”

  “No. She filled up on that lemon-corned beef thing.” With tongs, Buffy removed two large baked potatoes. “She begged and pleaded till I agreed to let Allie spend the evening with her, so I imagine they’re cuddled up together in the tornado shelter.” They’d finished fancying it up, and Zeppa swore she enjoyed the cavelike ambiance.

  “I guess it makes her less lonely.” Carter hadn’t been looking forward to dinner for three, especially given the sharpness of Mazeppa’s tongue.

  “She’s very nice,” Buffy chattered on. “Everybody in this town is amazingly friendly. We figured out a way I can earn a down payment on my car repairs, and raise money for the school at the same time. Isn’t that great? Do you want to hear the details?”

  “It’s not necessary.” Carter didn’t care to put his mind to whatever fund-raising project the women were fluttering about. After his experience in L.A., he’d decided that the less involvement he had with such matters, the better.

  Buffy set a green salad and two glasses of ice water on the table. “Care for wine or beer? I mean, assuming there’s some around.”

  “There isn’t.” He pulled out her chair and held it for her. “I don’t drink.”

  She managed to scoot forward without scraping the chair against the floor. The woman possessed a natural lightness, like a hummingbird among the town’s sparrows.

  Carter’s legs felt too long under the table, and he angled them so as not to bump her. He hoped his cowlick wasn’t springing to attention, and wished he could remember how to cut food properly. Or swallow. Or breathe.

  Hell, Buffy was one beautiful woman, all rainbows and sunflash. He could sit here for hours, luxuriating in her presence.

  “This thing about alcohol,” she said. “Is it because of what happened in L.A.? As I understand it, the hotel accidentally spiked the punch. You certainly aren’t to blame.”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t the first time. Also, alcohol affects me oddly.” Since she appeared to be awaiting clarification, he said, “I act impulsive.”

  “We all do that.”

  “With me, it gets downright ridiculous.”

  She nibbled her food before inquiring, “What was the other incident?”

  He was too caught up in watching her movements to catch her drift. “What other incident?”

  “You said L.A. wasn’t the first time.”

  Carter had never told anyone the story, but then, in a town this small, he hadn’t needed to. Word got around as if by magic. “I used to date a girl named Amy in high school,” he told his attentive dinner companion. “Her family lived in Groundhog Station. My parents disapproved of her.”

  “Because she lived in that other town?”

  “No, because she cut classes and drank beer and had a car,” he said. “I found her fascinating.” Also, magnetic and irresistible to a socially backward kid like him.

  “She sounds like me in high school, except I only cut classes a couple of times and I preferred energy drinks. Also, I didn’t have a car,” Buffy said.

  “So how was she like you in high school?”

  “Fascinating,” she teased.

  “You’ll hear no disagreement from me.”

  The compliment simmered between them for a moment, Then Buffy asked, “Were you in love with her?”

  “I thought so.” He realized he couldn’t summon an image of Amy’s face anymore. When had that happened?

  “Where did the drinking come in?” she persisted.

  He might as well finish the tale, now that he’d begun it. “One Friday night, she showed up with a six-pack of beer. Halfway through it, she talked me into running away with her to Houston.” In all honesty, he added, “I don’t believe I gave her much of an argument.”

  “Did you have a plan?” Buffy rested her chin on her hand.

  “For what?”

  “What you were going to do after you got there.”

  “Maybe she did. I couldn’t think that far ahead,” Carter admitted. “I woke up the next morning in a motel, scared, with an awful headache. I tried to persuade her to go back, but she wouldn’t, so I hitchhiked home.”

  “Did you get into trouble?”

  The memory still filled him with shuddering. “Her stepfather threatened to beat Amy and me, too.” Carter shook his head. “He was a mean one.”

  “Did he hit you?” she asked worriedly, as if anything could change what had happened years ago.

  “Naw. His threats ticked off his wife. She accused him of being abusive, and they had a big fight,” he said. “That seemed to distract him.”

  “If Amy’s stepfather used to beat her, no wonder she ran away.”

  He agreed. “If she’d told me about that, I’d have— Well, I don’t know what I’d have done to that man,” he said. “In some ways, though, I’d have preferred a beating to what my parents did.”

  She watched him intently. “What was that?”

  “My mom started crying.” His throat clenched at the memory. “Dad said that he’d never expected to be ashamed of his own son. I vowed right then that I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to them. And I have, mostly.”

  He’d helped them every chance. Also, he’d worked hard, and served on the school board even though he had no kids. Still, sometimes his dad acted a little disappointed in him, but never said why. Might be the lack of grandchildren, Carter mused, but what was he supposed to do about that?

  “What happened to Amy?” Buffy’s question provided a welcome interruption to this thoughts.

  “The police brought her home. A few days later, she ran away again,” he said. “She disappeared for a while, then turned up in New York. I emailed to ask if she needed anything, but she never answered.”

  “What about finding her on the Internet?”

  “She must have changed her name.” He’d put in a half-hearted search, without success. “I figure that means she’d rather not be found.”

  That was the end of the story, and Buffy took a while reflecting on it. Carter got down to some serious eating until she said, “You know, Carter, that must have been fifteen years ago.”

  “Yep,” he muttered around a mouthful of food.

  “Excuse me for prying, but I’d think a good-looking man like you would have found another girlfriend fast,” she said. “And married her.”

  He shrugged. “After high school, I went to college in San Antonio for two years. Then I joined the army as a mechanic before coming home.”

  “Even so...”

  “I haven’t met the right woman. She’ll turn up eventually.”

  The problem was, he knew, that she had turned up. She wore tight-fitting clothes and drove a ridiculously impractical car. She breezed through life as if the ordinary rules didn’t apply to her, and if he wasn’t careful she would turn his l
ife wrong side out and leave it that way. He’d spend the rest of his days on his head, trying to figure out which end was up.

  “I guess it’s none of my business.” Buffy stretched in a sensual way that emphasized her curves, along with those tempting bumps on her breasts that he shouldn’t be staring at. “Aside from drinking or not drinking, what do people in Nowhere Junction do at night, anyway?”

  “Sleep,” Carter said.

  She waited a beat.

  “Oh, you mean before bedtime?” he asked.

  “Yes, for entertainment. Like, dancing?”

  “We square-dance occasionally. There’s a country club that everybody belongs to, with a swimming pool and a clubhouse. We have dances every other weekend,” he said.

  That didn’t appear to satisfy her. “How about movies?”

  “Used to be a drive-in, and then in the winter we’d set up a screen at the club,” he said. “Now everybody’s got videogames and satellite dishes.”

  “Videogames and satellite dishes?” She laughed. “I’m surprised you people get any work done with all the wild living.”

  Carter decided not to mention another popular activity, emptying a few six-packs of beer, lining up the cans and shooting them off a fence. It entertained the young men, but ladies tended not to understand the thrill. Besides, he’d quit participating because he disliked being ribbed for drinking soda pop.

  “What would you like to do, given your druthers?” he asked.

  “My druthers?”

  “As in, you’d druther do this or you’d druther to that.”

  Her mouth quirked. “You mentioned a swimming pool.”

  So he had. “It’s not heated.”

  “I’ll bet it’s warm from the sun,” she said.

  Carter shook his head. “I know it sounds small-town, Buffy, but the club pool closes at six o’clock. It’s locked and for good reason. The town doesn’t want kids sneaking out there and drowning.”

  “We’re not kids.” She whisked their plates to the sink. “Come on, Carter, let’s go!”

  “We can’t.” Hadn’t she heard the part about the lock? “I don’t have a key.”

  “A man who ran off to Houston wouldn’t let that stop him.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him to his feet. “I’m hot. Aren’t you?”

  He sure was. Hotter than an unmarried man had any right to be. “Buffy, I’m a member of the school board. I have to set a good example.”

  “For who? Allie? She doesn’t care, and besides, she’s snuggled up with Mazeppa.” She was dancing in place, close enough for him to smell the flowery perfume of her hair. “What’s the big deal? We could both use the exercise.”

  The kind of exercise he craved was the last thing on earth he ought to contemplate. But nobody had tempted him like this in fifteen years. Nobody in all this time had made him feel like an eager young man on the verge of bursting into life. Or just plain bursting.

  Had he become so stodgy that he didn’t even dare sneak into the country club pool for an evening dip? It was outside of town, isolated in the middle of a rather odd golf course, and nobody was likely to stop by.

  He wasn’t eighteen, he was thirty-three, and he ought to be able to resist temptation. If he wished to. Only he didn’t.

  “Let’s go,” Carter said. “Last one into a swimsuit has to wash dishes when we get home.”

  Chapter Six

  Buffy wasn’t sure what imp had prompted her to lure Carter into mischief. Maybe it was because that story about him and Amy had reawakened her own memories of getting into scrapes in high school and enjoying the hell out of them.

  Besides, she was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t as contented as she’d believed. Sometimes his eyes expressed a powerful yearning that she guessed was related to his confining routine. The man needed a break. Also, she itched to see what he looked like stripped down.

  A few minutes later, clad in a bikini, shorts and a knit top, she ventured into the hallway and was rewarded with a sumptuous view of Carter’s assets. Beneath his T-shirt, muscles rippled along his chest, while his swim trunks revealed corded thighs.

  When he took off his shirt to swim, things ought to get even better. Buffy could hardly wait.

  Her excitement grew as they drove out of town, in the opposite direction from Murdock’s ranch. There was a sense of freedom and open spaces as the houses thinned. Much as she enjoyed the friendliness of Nowhere Junction, it felt good to escape the snooping.

  Buffy supposed people would gossip if they got wind of this evening foray. And didn’t care one bit.

  Through the dusk, she made out handwritten signs tacked to telephone poles, advertising homemade tortillas and tamales. Thank goodness residents didn’t mind buying things on an informal basis. It boded well for her merchandising plans.

  After a few miles, they turned from the highway beneath an arched sign that read Nowhere Junction Country Club, and bounced along a two-lane road. The cactus-strewn land on either side, Carter assured her, constituted a nine-hole golf course.

  “Not that we’ve produced any championship golfers,” he admitted. “But we’ve never produced any champion swimmers, either. That doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy themselves.”

  “Looks like the whole place is a sand trap,” she observed.

  “On the other hand, there’s no water hazard.”

  Buffy had never taken to golf because she couldn’t hold still long enough to line up her shots. She wondered if, playing amid cactus, her erratic approach might not be as good as any.

  The clubhouse, a square stone-faced building, had a shaded porch along one side and a large patio. “That’s where we barbecue goats after the Memorial Day parade,” Carter said.

  “You have a parade?” She decided to skip the subject of goats.

  “We gussy up the trucks and compete for prizes,” he said. “It’s not like what you folks do at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, but I’ll bet we have more fun.”

  “I’ll bet you do, too,” she said, remembering the time she and her mother and sister had camped overnight on the sidewalk in Pasadena to have a good spot for viewing. It had been damp and chilly, she’d desperately needed to go to the bathroom and the floats, while spectacular, had taken forever to arrive.

  Later that night, watching the rerun on television, she’d been able to relax and pick out delightful details on the floats. Still, being there in person and sharing the moment with a crowd of happy families had been an experience to remember.

  The truck halted in an empty parking lot. Around them stretched the land, devoid of human habitation. With twilight falling, Buffy felt as if they’d landed on the far side of the moon.

  “The pool’s around back.” Carter grabbed their towels off the seat. “Ready?”

  Having lost the dressing contest, and not eager to do the dishes, Buffy flung open her door and jumped out. “Last one to the pool has to do the washing, and I’ll dry.”

  “I don’t much care for the way you put that.” Carter slammed the truck shut and started after her.

  Buffy lit out full speed, glad she’d worn tennis shoes in anticipation of some heavy-duty fence climbing. Head down, she set her legs to pumping. Not for nothing had she worked out daily since giving birth.

  Even so, she could feel Carter moving alongside, those long legs stretching. It was unfair! Tall men should receive more of a handicap than simply being caught off guard.

  “Look out!” she yelled, although there was nothing ahead but open space.

  He hesitated, just long enough. She sprinted to the wire mesh fence, grabbed it and whooped, “I win! I win!”

  Reaching the fence, Carter cocked his head as he regarded her. In the rising moonlight, she couldn’t tell if his expression indicated annoyance, disbelief or grudging admiration. Finally he said in a flat tone, “You cheated.”

  “Says who?” Buffy asked. “I didn’t trip you. It’s not my fault you fell for a stupid trick.” She could see she wasn’t making any headway
, so she went on the offensive. “Well, if you’re going to whine about it, never mind. I’ll do the dishes myself even though I cooked.”

  “We’ll both do the dishes.” In the quiet night air, his baritone voice rang with steely resolve. “Like you said, you can dry.”

  “Whatever.” She measured the fence with her gaze and judged it to be at least eight feet high. “This thing isn’t electrified, is it?”

  “We’re trying to keep the kids safe, not fry them,” he said. “And heaven help us if we zapped a skunk.”

  “Is there an alarm?”

  “Who’d hear it if there was?”

  “Good point,” said Buffy and, digging the toes of her shoes into the lower mesh openings, began to climb.

  A pair of strong hands clasped her waist. “I’ll give you a boost.” In his powerful grip, she rose lightly through the air.

  Working on car engines must do a superb job of building coordination as well as muscles, she thought. Having developed his strength through years of concentrated work, this man knew how to use it smoothly.

  His steadiness transmitted itself into her nervous system. Despite her position in midair, Buffy trusted him completely.

  He set her against the fence close to the top. “Think you can handle that?” Carter asked. “You might want to wait till I climb over so I can catch you. It’s quite a drop on the other side.”

  “No problem.” Buffy balanced, grateful for his steadying grip on her arm as she swung one leg across the top. She shifted her weight to the other side. “I’m in!” She scrabbled downward a few feet, then dropped the rest of the way. “Are you coming?”

  “Since you didn’t wait for my help, no reason for me to risk life and limb,” he returned easily. “Over there.”

  Buffy followed his gesture to where the moonlight showed her a locked gate. “Now what?”

  “There’s a safety device that lets you release it from the inside.” Carter pointed to a button on a freestanding post. Simple enough, Buffy thought. She pressed it and the gate snicked open.