Secrets in the Sand - Carolyn Brown Page 0,4
sung along with the radio in his new red Camaro, and he hadn’t been able to tell which was the real singer and which was Angela. Who would have ever thought she’d be running around in her own bus with a band of women who looked like candidates for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders?
Tonight had been crazy. Clancy hadn’t even thought about Angela showing up. She was almost the one voted most likely not to succeed. Although hardly a day had gone by in the past ten years that something didn’t make him think of Angela Conrad, he’d long since learned to disassociate himself from what had really happened that summer. It was as if it happened to someone in a book, and he’d just read about it. He hadn’t really sat on the creek bank with her late into the nights and let the minnows nibble their toes. He hadn’t actually walked away that last night, knowing she was crying. No, it couldn’t have been him. It was someone else in a novel or a movie, and he just remembered the details too well.
***
“Whew.” Allie dabbed her face with a tissue. “Pretty lively crowd for a bunch of has-beens.”
“Hey.” Angel giggled nervously. “I graduated from this place. I belong to that crowd.”
“Yeah, like I belong at the pearly gates of heaven.” Susan’s blue eyes twinkled. “You outgrew them years ago. Don’t let these hicks make you think you still belong to their world.”
“Thanks.” Angel pretended to slap her cheek. “I needed that.”
“Well, I can see why you were so stuck on that Clancy. He fills out them Wranglers pretty damned good.” Patty sighed. “And those big, wide shoulders about gave me the vapors.” She fluttered her long eyelashes. “Maybe you oughta give him another chance, Angel. Lord, handsome as he is, I’d give him a chance if he wasn’t already wearin’ your brand.”
“Hell,” Angel snorted. “He never wore my brand. He’s free for the taking if you’re interested. I don’t think he’s still married. If he is, his wife didn’t come with him. But rest assured he’s about as trustworthy as those two little devils painted on the side of this bus.”
“No, thanks,” Patty said, putting on fresh lipstick. “You can keep him. Then tame him or kill him, but don’t give him to me.”
“Me neither.” Mindy gulped in the hot night air and looked up at the starlit sky to see if there might be a stray cloud with a few raindrops to spare. “Hey, look up on the balcony when you come outside, Angel. Clancy’s up there staring down here like he can’t believe his little eyeballs.”
“Yeah? That’s nothing new. He always did look down on me.” Angel was suddenly tired. Her bones ached as never before during a performance…and so did her stupid heart. “Another hour and a half and we’ll take this bus home and park it. Then I’ll forget about Clancy Morgan and get on with life. I was here for closure, and I’ve got it.”
“Sure, you do.” Bonnie chuckled. “You’ll forget Clancy when you’re stone-cold dead and planted six feet down. Women don’t forget first loves, and they never forget a first love who did them dirty.”
Chapter 2
Angel flipped the light switch just inside the massive doors of her office and slipped off her shoes. She padded across the thick ivory carpet and plopped down in an oversize blue velvet chair behind an antique French provincial desk. She tossed the alumni newsletter on the desk, laced her hands behind her head, and tried to calm down.
She’d gone to the reunion to give her former classmates a dose of comeuppance. She had planned to leave with a smile on her face and never think about any of them again. Several former acquaintances had made a point of stopping by the stage between songs and saying hello to her, but Clancy left just after the last song without a word. But then, what could he say? He’d made his choice ten years ago, and there was no room for a change of heart.
Angel got up and went to the window. Patty was the last one leaving the parking lot. The other girls had already left in the early-morning darkness. Next Friday they would be playing at a honky-tonk just south of Davis, Oklahoma, and then a new band called The Gamblers would pick up the bus and have it repainted with their logo. It was high time for the Honky Tonk Band to go out with