January Gets Her Gunn–excerpt 2, PG-13

I forgot to mention that I will give away to one commenter the winners choice of a paperback  or download in teh winner's choice of format  of January Gets Her Gunn today! Meanwhile I'll share another excerpt to whet your appetite! Click on the image to see a larger version of the cover–which I really like!!

 

17 Aug 1982: 1925:

Thad pulled into the parking lot of the Riverton American Legion Post. Only after he'd parked and pulled his key from the ignition did he notice the unmistakable robin's egg blue Mustang. She's here. Shit!

He jammed the key back in the ignition, but didn't turn it on. For fifteen minutes he sat in the car arguing with himself. Oh, what the hell. I don't have to talk to her. I'll just do like I always do, sit at the end of the bar and mind my own business. He removed the key again and got out of the car.

Inside, the lights were dim. He did not see January when he came in. He went on to the bar and sat down. The bartender took his order and brought him his beer.

"Boy, you sure are lucky, Gunn."

"Why do you say that, Sam?"

"Having a partner like that." Sam nodded towards the pool table. Thad swiveled to see January, bent over to make a shot. She was wearing tight jeans that shaped her perfect ass and made her legs look a mile long. Thad couldn't take his gaze off of her. Watching her move, he could feel a stirring in his groin. What a woman.

January made her shot, then moved around the table for her next try. She was wearing a light cotton shirt with the tails tied, baring her midriff. It seemed to accent her breasts. With effort, Thad turned around and stared at the back bar.

"Gawd, Jan, I ain't playing against you no more. You're too good. Sam, give the lady another one."

January laughed, an unrestrained peel of mirth. "Thanks, Buddy. It's just luck."

"No way. I bet you cut your teeth on a cue stick." Buddy chuckled as he walked back to the bar.

"Anybody else want to try your luck?" Jan stood holding the cue stick with both hands near the tip. There was a shaking of heads and a few laughing "No's." January waited a moment. "How about you, Gunn, aren't you're perfect in all things?"

He half turned, but carefully kept his gaze off of her, barely registering her provocative pose, feet apart, back slightly arched. "Not everything, Farrell. I've never played pool in my life. I don't know a thing about the game." He turned back to face the bar.

January stood a moment studying Gunn, reading the tension in his tight shoulders and closed posture. She turned and put her cue stick in the rack. Going to the bar, she picked up her glass of beer and purse. She ambled down to where Gunn sat, laid her purse on the bar and hitched one hip on the adjacent barstool, facing him.

"I want to thank you for the things you told the chief and the judge. And you were right, Gordo really is a great guy."

Thad turned his head toward her, but kept his gaze averted. "I told them the truth, Farrell. One thing I don't do is lie."

"It wasn't necessary for you to lie. You could have just kept quiet. You didn't and I thank you for it." January looked at Gunn for a long moment, mulling her next words. "Monday night, you were considerate. I appreciate that. I'm sorry I was as sharp about it as I was, but you've conditioned me to mistrust your motives. All I want is to be a good cop and I don't want to fight with you. Okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay." Thad still wouldn't look at her. "Look, you do things to me. I had my life regulated until you came along. Now I get confused. You're good and you could work a car by yourself right now, but I don't want you to. I want to keep you where I can protect you. Does that make sense to you?"

He seemed so ill at ease all at once. She didn't quite know how to take it. "I suppose so, but…. I'm not a china doll, Thad. You can't baby sit me for twenty years and you know it. If I can't make it here, I'll try some place else. I have to have some purpose to my life."

"True, but it doesn't have to be as a cop. You could go to law school. You have the brains to be a damn good lawyer, right in there with Belen. You could be a nurse like Willie Hunt. She's an angel in disguise, though she hates my guts. She's the best thing that ever happened to that hospital. You don't have to be a cop."

"The same thing could be said about you, Thaddeus Gunn."

"No, not really." He turned and finally looked at her. "Hell, this is not going to get us anywhere. And this is no place to talk. If I buy a six pack, will you go some place private and talk with me?"

"Sure, why not? Let me go powder my nose."

***

They took Thad's car and he drove north over the bridge across the Centennial River and up the valley. About seven miles from town, he turned left on a paved road and drove another two miles. They entered a county park with a scatter of eucalyptus trees and ramadas. Thad drove up a small hill at the far end of the park. After he parked, they walked fifty yards to a ramada that overlooked the river two hundred feet below.

Thad pulled a can from the six pack, popped the top, and handed it to January after she seated herself on the concrete table, her feet on the bench. She sniffed the air, catching a faint whiff of stale beer, river moisture and desert, feeling Thad's gaze on her.

"This place is a zoo Friday and Saturday nights," he explained. "Favorite hang-out for kids and couples that are sneaking around. Sheriff's department keeps a deputy out here those nights, but mid week, hardly anybody comes out here, specially the deputies."

"It's quiet now. I heard a coyote as we got out of the car." January ran a hand through her hair. "It smells and feels good, too."

"In Scotland, there was a wee hill behind our cottage. On top was a large rock called Lyr's Seat. When my father was out in his boat, near sunset my mother would go up the hill and stand on the rock. When she saw Da's boat coming in, she would jump off and run down to the beach. I would follow. We would help Da pull the boat up above the tide line and carry the catch over to the quay. Sometimes, they would go up and sit with their backs to the rock, if they wanted to talk, privately. I think they did other things, as well, as sometimes they would come down the hill with their arms around the other and their faces shining. I never come here of a night that I don't think of that."

"You come here often?"

"Ach Aye, at least once most weeks." His voice held a gentle melancholy.

"And what do you do here?" She found she really wanted to know, to understand.

"Sit and remember."

"That's it? No women?"

"Aye, nae women. Yer the first I brought here."

"Why me?"

"Because yer fey, January Farrell."

January laughed. "And you're a whacko, Thaddeus Gunn. I'm no more fey than you are roanish."

Thad nodded. "I'm no selkie, that's the truth. But, yer fey, even if you don't recognize it. You see things others do not and you read my mind."

"I didn't see the man on the roof. I didn't know you were taking me to a whorehouse for a coffee break! I wish I could read your mind. Then I'd be prepared."

"Na, you didn't see the man on the roof, but you see things in people."

"No more than anyone else does."

"I'll no argue with you, lass." Thad tipped his head back, throat working as he finished his first beer.

They talked for a couple of hours… Thad told her about his friend Gus being stabbed. And then how he had decided that if he did not get close to anyone, he wouldn't lose anyone he cared for. "Then you came along and suddenly I wanted to care for you, never lose you.

"That first night, I took you to the Roost, hoping that you would quit in disgust and leave town. Then I wouldn't have to care or worry about losing you."

"Are you saying that you're falling in love with me?" The notion was unsettling but also curiously exciting.

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think I know what love is. But you stir up memories. Lately I've dreamt of my mother dying but when they carry out her corpse, it's always you. I wake up crying."

Now he could look at her, staring at the pale blur of her face. Her eyes glistened in the starlight from the tears that welled up. "You make me feel guilty." Her words sounded a little thick, as if her throat were tight.