“Sure, sure, whatever. Only don’t do me any more favors. I can’t afford them.” He took a deep breath. “And about the fire. I’m sorry that happened to you. But why didn’t you tell me?”
“The authorities asked me not to speak to anyone until they had done their investigations.”
“From the sound of it, you risked your life for the last person who’d be grateful.”
“There was the dog.” Carly hung up before he could reply. For a moment she sat staring out her window, wondering how Noah was. He was free, so he was okay. Just the thought of him sitting in a cell made her stomach queasy.
She would stay away from him, because that was what was best for him at the moment. This was no time for her to make his life harder. The only way she could help was to get on with her life so she didn’t worry. Too much.
But not contacting Noah wasn’t the same as not thinking about him. Hardly a moment went by without Carly remembering a moment or two of the last time they’d been together.
Their love making had been interrupted by a particularly close lightning strike that made the hair on both their arms and heads stand on end. It must have happened to Harley, too, because he howled in sudden surprise, then ran in circles until Noah subdued him.
Her mouth softened in a smile, remembering Noah’s scramble to pull up jeans and leap off the truck bed at the same time. They were getting rained on by the time he turned to the truck cab, with Harley in tow.
Strange. She’d never thought anything in her life could make fodder for lyrics for of a country and western song. But last night there’d been the guy, the sky, the truck, and the dog. It didn’t get much more Texas than that. No longnecks needed.
She looked around her apartment, overloaded with items from Flawless. She needed to find a place for her vendors’ meeting. Churches and community centers usually had space for rent. And then she needed to hit Costco for lots of plastic bins in which to store things until then.
*
It was in the papers. And all over the local news channels. He’d bought the paper, which he rarely did, and recorded all the local channels at the same time to make certain he didn’t miss a single word about Noah Glover being arrested. This was better than the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. This was payback. It felt better than sex.
Now he knew why Noah hadn’t died in the fire. He hadn’t fucked up after all. Pure bad luck had screwed up his plan. And that hot chick.
There it was in print. The owner of the women’s boutique Flawless had been in her store and heard something that prompted her to call 911.
Carly Harrington-Reese. She had not only been on the premises that night, she’d saved Glover’s life.
He’d read all about her online this morning. Looked at her nasty pics again too. He remembered pilfering the catalogues of scantily clad women that had come in the mail for his mom when he was in junior high. Those women striking provocative poses were the closest thing to porn he could get his hands on. Whacking off to them was his first real thrill.
Carly could have and probably had had any man she ever wanted. Famous men. Actors and shit. But it was well known that uptown women liked to go slumming. Glover must have been fucking her crossways. That’s why they were sneaking around together.
But Glover had been eliminated.
He sat back with a silly grin on his face, flicking his lighter up and closed, entranced by the flame.
Carly must be a total freak, like the women in the porn he preferred. Darlene could never be like that. For all her love of liquor and a little weed, she stopped him whenever he wanted to try something different. Said she wasn’t no whore.
He’d bet Carly slept in satin sheets.
He was getting a hard-on. But not now. Now he had to be cool. But soon, fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I can salvage most of the feather headbands and collars.” Joi Caruthers had spread out her feather creations on one of the newspaper-covered banquet tables set up in the church basement. “They’ll need to be refluffed and restrung on dry leather.”
Carly looked up from where she was seated at the table, her fingers posed over her laptop keyboard. “How soon can you deliver two dozen?”
“Let’s see.” Joi nervously pushed a long strip of straight dirty-blonde hair back from her plump pleasant face. “I’m busy with an order for a dance troop over in Dallas. But Spirit and her friends are about to be on spring break. I could maybe get them to help.”
“That would be great. I’ll try to think of some way to reward them if they do a good fast job.” Carly smiled encouragingly at her client. “Thank you, Joi.”
Joi was very talented but she was also painfully shy. It wasn’t just the wheelchair that confined her spirit. Something long ago had stamped “damaged goods” on her features. A single mother, she made and sold whatever she could think of to keep a trailer around her and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Spirit.