Burn It Up(96)

“Quite the party,” someone called. She and Christine turned to find Casey striding down the slope.

“If I’d known you were coming I’d have packed another sandwich,” Christine said, and scooted over to make more room on the blanket. She had no clue that he and Abilene had just broken up, of course. For all Abilene knew, Miah’s hopelessly romantic mother was banking on the two of them getting together.

That ship’s already sailed. And sunk.

“I hadn’t planned to come back out,” Casey said, “but I stopped by the bar and figured I’d bring Abilene the week’s schedule. And your last paycheck,” he added, meeting her eyes. “I left both on your dresser.”

“Thanks.”

There was hesitance tensing his smile, like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome on this blanket, in her estimations.

For all the heartache, she didn’t mind him joining them. It wasn’t as though her feelings could be flipped on and off like a switch. Her feelings were messy and sticky, and she knew it. They clung like summer heat or winter’s chill, slow to fade.

Mercy held her arms out to Casey, and a piece of Abilene’s heart broke. Her body wanted that same thing still—to reach out to him, be close to him. Her body hadn’t forgotten what his could do to hers, when they came together.

Uncertainty passed across Casey’s face as he watched the squirming infant, blue eyes glancing to Abilene’s.

He’s not a monster, she reminded herself. He was a con man who’d made a lot of selfish decisions for the sake of money, but he wasn’t evil. Reckless and lacking in empathy, perhaps, but not cruel or sadistic. She lifted Mercy and got to her knees, passing her over. Casey’s smile was brief and vulnerable, and he spread his legs and propped the baby between them. He knew most of the ranch hands—many were regulars at the bar—and some came over to say hello, the guys razzing him about the baby, the girls looking more approving, intrigued by the scene.

The young woman who’d come by the house the other night wrapped in a blanket was among them. She was wearing the hands’ unofficial uniform, boots and jeans and plaid flannel, and she dropped to a crouch next to Casey. Denny, Abilene thought her name was.

“Good look for you, Grossier,” she said, and gave Mercy’s outstretched, chubby hand a little squeeze. She’d know Mercy wasn’t Casey’s, of course—all of the hands had been given the broad strokes, back when James coming around had still been a danger. “Gonna make a few of these yourself someday?” she teased. “Only in red?”

“Time’ll tell,” he said. “I’m in no rush.”

Casey wasn’t flirting back, but Abilene felt her insides curdle all the same. That handsome, charming, funny man had been hers for not even a week. But it would hurt like hell to one day see him flirting with another woman for real. To one day hear that he was seeing someone. To spot him kissing that someone, maybe. The thought alone burned.

Abilene panned the crowd and found Miah joking with his employees, and felt a deep vein of sympathy open up in her heart for him. Few wounds healed so slowly as love interrupted.

? ? ?

“Two minutes!” somebody yelled from the crowd, and the milling ranch hands began to settle, shielding their eyes with their hands, figuring out which direction to face to best watch the eclipse. The sun was high overhead, just beginning its westward descent.

One of the hands came around, handing out paper plates with holes pricked in them, for people to watch through. Casey thanked her and took three, passing them around. He also passed Mercy back to Abilene, deciding he wanted no part in accidentally blinding her. Though he missed the warmth and smell of her, both whisked away on the breeze. He wished Christine hadn’t grabbed him when he’d arrived. It was hard being this close to Abilene and knowing he couldn’t touch her. He’d have much preferred to be hanging out with Miah, and for all he knew, she wished the same.

In a way, he got his wish shortly. Miah jogged over with a plate of his own in hand and plopped down on the blanket’s edge beside his mother. “Here we go! Natural wonder commencing in three, two, one . . .”

More like half a minute, as it turned out. Abilene turned Mercy to face her middle and they held the plates up to their faces, finding the sun through the pinpricks. At first it was nothing more than a funny little clipping snipped off the lower edge of the sun, as the moon began its trespass. Then more of a bite mark, and the sky grew eerily, unmistakably darker.

“You think Dad’s secretly watching this?” Miah asked his mom, muffled by the paper plate.

“If he isn’t he’s the silliest sort of stubborn.”

“Oooh.” This from Abilene, as the sky took on a reddish cast and the nibbled corner of the sun turned rusty black.

Casey felt twelve again, or however old he’d been the last time he’d seen a solar eclipse around here. Middle school, easily. All he remembered for sure was that it had been May or June, just a week or two before school let out for the summer. His blood felt restless at the memory, itchy for escape.

I’ve spent enough of my life running, he reminded himself. And it never got me anyplace worth bragging about.

As the moon swallowed the sun to the one-quarter mark, the sky went full-on dusky, and he conjured other memories. Like of his dad teaching him and Vince how to hold a magnifying glass on a sunny day, at just the right distance to burn the eyeballs out of the people on the cover of TV Guide. Your typically classy Tom Grossier wisdom, and Casey had to wonder how old he’d been. Four, surely, as his father had left when he was five. Too young, no doubt, though he couldn’t blame any of his pyro crap on the guy’s sketchy life lessons. That shit was in his blood. If there was a gene for it, no doubt that LifeMap analyst could’ve confirmed it for him. Just thinking about those old issues of TV Guide, he could fairly smell the burning paper and ink. Taste the inside of his mouth, as it began, unmistakably, to water.