Kathleen O'Reilly - Just Let Go...

Her mother’s serene expression never wavered, and sometimes Gillian wished that her own nature was a little more…forgiving. “I’m cooking King Ranch Chicken for supper. Your favorite.”

“I’ve got a meeting with Wayne over at the Chamber of Commerce. He’s wasn’t happy with the security for the Fourth of July last year. A twenty-five percent drop in business because the sidewalks were locked down. I’ve got constituents, Momma. I’m an elected official who lives and dies by the voters of this town. The chicken will have to wait.”

Gillian made a mental note to call Wayne as soon as her mother left. If she did that, then it wasn’t exactly lying, more anticipating what she should have done anyway.

“Can’t you leave that sort of business to the mayor?”

Gillian stared silently. Leroy Parson was the mayor of Tin Cup, a ninety-three-year-old war hero from WWII. On every Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day and the Fourth of July, Leroy led the usual parade, but that was pretty much the only time that Leroy showed up for work. Nobody was willing to oust a war hero, so instead the town was waiting for him to kick the bucket, leaving Gillian pretty much the top bureaucrat in charge—which her mother considered one more roadblock in the way of her future baby-making.

In the end, Modine knew she was beat. “I’ll leave you a plate in the fridge,” she said. “Don’t be home too late. You know the grapevine in this town. They’ll have you pregnant and on a nine-month trip to Europe before you can say Hester…Hester… Well, never you mind what the name is. You know it’s that woman from the Scarlet Letter.”

“This is the twenty-first century, Momma. We’re not all living in medieval times.”

Her mother clucked her tongue. “Never underestimate the power of reputation. It can shame a woman, it can make a woman. In the dark ages, they had stonings. Now they have Facebook.”

Gillian shot her mother an innocent look. “I thought the internet was the work of the devil.”

“Certainly not. I found the best recipe site…” She stopped the moment she caught on to Gillian’s tricks. “I will not be sidetracked. It’s time Jeff Junior made an honest woman out of you, Gillian. I was married when I was seventeen, your grandmother married when she was fourteen.”

“Good thing I wasn’t sheriff then, or I’d have to arrest Grandpa Charlie for it. Thank you for the snickerdoodles, Momma. The council always loves it when you feed them.”

“There’s a plate without nuts for Martin. See you at the house. And don’t stay out too late.” With that, her mother was gone, and peace and sanity were once more restored.

Fortunately, the rest of the day passed quietly. One arrest for shoplifting, one hour spent promising Wayne that in lieu of barricades, the town would provide two extra officers for this year’s holiday celebrations. In the afternoon, they’d retrieved one would-be runaway, twelve-year-old Aaron Metzger who was found hiding in his neighbor’s garage. The last item on her calendar, the town council meeting, had ended on a sour note, because nobody wanted to hire the mayor’s good-for-nothing great-grand-nephew to build the new train station, although no one wanted to tell the mayor either. All in all, an ordinary day in town, and not a further word about Austen Hart, not that she was bothered by that. Not at all.

She hadn’t expected a big to-do. She hadn’t expected a phone call from the man. Not at all.

Frowning, Gillian looked at the clock, and decided that half past seven was late enough. Time to go home, spend some quality time with her mom and dad and convince her parents that her insides weren’t twisted in nervous knots because the perpetrator of Gillian’s Worst Day Ever was back in town.

She had almost finished organizing a few reports in her messenger bag, when Joelle burst through the door, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling with criminal intent. “Got a nine-one-one call from Delores. Kids are throwing eggs at passing cars on the interstate, right outside the Spotlight Inn.”

Gillian frowned because there were no egg-throwers in Tin Cup. There were paint-sprayers, there were turkey-tossers, there were Silly-Stringers, but not egg-throwers. Everybody knew that the Texas heat fried the eggs before they could do any damage. “Sounds vaguely suspicious,” she murmured, continuing to organize the contents of her bag.

“I only take the calls.” Joelle shrugged, not bothering to dispute the suspicious part.

Gillian drummed her nails on the desk. “Can you get a patrolman out there?”

“You want Martin to take it? You know it’s their anniversary. They’re headed for San Angelo for the night.”

Gillian’s frown deepened. “And I bet Delores knew that.”

“Everybody knew that, Gilly.”

“She hates me.”

“She wanted head cheerleader. You’re going to pay for that for the rest of your life.”

“Fine,” snapped Gillian, quelling the flicker of excitement in her gut. “Can you put out a call from dispatch, saying that I’ll be on patrol?”

“You got it. Five-oh on the scene.”

“This isn’t Hawaii, Jo.”

“Sorry. Sometimes I get caught up in the drama,” muttered Joelle as she fussed with her curls, now having been put in her place, and making Gillian feel like a heel in the process. Life had been a lot easier when Gillian didn’t have to worry about whether other people thought she was a bitch or not. High school had been all about being the alpha girl, the top dog, the queen bee. When Austen had left town, everyone snickered, because then she was only the alpha girl who’d been ingloriously dumped. That was one trend that nobody wanted to follow. Jackie O had never been dumped.

Gillian gave Joelle an uneasy smile. “Dano, put out the call.”

Joelle grinned, good spirits back in place. “That’s a big ten-four, boss.”

Pushing back from her desk, Gillian slipped on the dark sunglasses and checked herself in the mirror. Khaki wasn’t her best color, it washed out the blond of her hair, but the tiny handcuffs pin at the collar was a nice touch.

These days she carried a Glock 19 instead of pompoms, and wore a sheriff’s star-studded uniform instead of the blue-and-white tank top miniskirt of the Tin Cup Lionettes. Her hair was a foot shorter, too. Now, she had a nice sensible bob that fell a few inches below her shoulders. No way would Austen recognize her in a regulation brown, cotton-polyester blend.

No, the princessy Gillian Wanamaker had disappeared forever. She patted the revolver at her hip. Hot, armed and dangerous. Just the way God had intended women to be.

THE SPOTLIGHT INN WAS on Interstate 78, just behind the orange-and-white stripes of WhataBurger. The hotel was far enough from town that cars would not be spotted in the parking lot. It was close enough to town that those that weren’t smart enough to park their cars behind the hotel would most likely get noticed by the UPS man, who was close friends with the receptionist at the Tin Cup Gazette, who also served as a deacon at First Baptist on Sundays. People joked about six degrees of separation, but in Tin Cup, one degree of separation was usually overstating the truth.

As Gillian pulled into the front drive, the sun was disappearing beneath the horizon, casting a red tint to the sky. The dusky heat was still a killer, waves of it rising from the concrete and making everything look hazy and surreal. In the movies, when the world shimmered, it signaled a trip to the past, but when summer hit Tin Cup, the world was in permanent shimmer, a town not ready to give up its past, while simultaneously trying to grab hold of the future. It was a dilemma that Gillian understood well.

It wasn’t exactly that she wanted to see Austen, she told herself as she poked around outside, looking for egg-shells, egg-streaked road signs or any other indication that somebody was egg-spressly messing with her town. It was more that she wanted to see Austen in order to finally write him out of her life.