“Scottie is safe with the aunts and he-who-shall-not-be-named has taken himself out the door.”
When she finally got the nerve to look up, she didn’t see Scott anywhere. She didn’t see Will Baron, either.
She bowed her head again and filled another mug. So much for getting out and having a good time.
“What was that all about?”
Will glanced at Specialist Bernie Copus and considered his options. He could answer the question now and get it over with, or he could answer it any one of the thousands of times Copus would ask for the rest of their natural lives.
“I thought you were going to clean that young man’s clock for him,” Copus said. He grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth, a feature women found irresistible.
Or so he said.
“I don’t know what it was about,” Will said, hoping the truth would bring an end to the interrogation. All he had understood of the situation was that Arley Meehan had been afraid.
“Listen to your old Uncle Bernie, now. I have to admit the former Mrs. McGowan is a good-looking woman—a good-looking woman. But, you’re not wanting to go there, son, believe me. You’re not wanting to get between the McGowan heir and something he prizes. No sirree.”
“Copus, I’m not—”
“No, now, I am serious, William. I know how this thing works.”
“And how is that?”
“You are in the military. He is in the money. His family owns the whole damn world. What do you own?”
“Not much,” Will said.
“Well, there you go. Need I say more?”
“I hope not.”
Copus grinned, showing his gap again. “I’m just trying to help you out, son.”
“Yeah, and how much is that going to cost me?” Will asked, because Specialist Copus was nothing if not mercenary.
“Not one cent—this time. I can see how tempting that little flower is, but I’m telling you, this thing has got trouble written all over it. I am a man of vast experience and I know.”
“Copus, I told you. It’s not—” Will stopped. “I don’t even know her.”
“Okay, okay. You just think of me as that television robot—the one that looks like an old-time wringer washing machine—and I’m going, ‘Danger, Will Baron!’”
Copus waved his arms for emphasis, knocking somebody’s beer to the floor in the process. Will grinned and walked away, leaving Copus to do what he did so well, apologize profusely in the hopes of not getting pitched across the premises.
The music stopped abruptly as the band made room on the small stage for the bride and groom to say farewell and get on with married life. Will joined in the toasts, laughing at the heavy-handed newlywed commentaries served up by a number of the paratrooper guests. He was determined to enjoy the rest of the evening. Even without Copus’s dubious advice, Will knew better than to get involved in whatever was going on between the bride’s sister and her ex-husband. He deliberately stood so he could see Arley out of the corner of his eye, however. She stayed behind the bar, participating in one toast after another, just as he did, laughing in all the right places and, as far as he could tell, completely unaffected by the incident earlier.
Except that he didn’t think that was the case.
The bride and groom were leaving—or trying to. Clearly, it was the custom for everyone at the postnuptial party to escort them to their car. The band members struck up another song, playing as they walked, a reprise of something they’d done earlier.
Will stood back to let them pass, losing track of Arley in the surge of people heading toward the door.
He was one of the last to reach the outside, and he had to force himself into the mugginess of the summer night. He had grown up in the desert and he was used to hot temperatures, but he would never adjust to the oppressive heat and humidity so rampant in this part of the country. He always felt as if he were walking into a living being.
The band played as enthusiastically as ever, but outside the music dissipated into the night air.
“So how homesick are you?” someone said.
Arley stood on the sidewalk near the door.
“Not very,” he said this time. He realized she was starting their conversation over, rewinding it to the point before her ex-husband arrived.
“Really,” he added, and she smiled.
“Maybe you ought to tell your face that.”
“Aren’t you going to go say goodbye to Kate?” he said to divert the conversation to a safer topic.
“I did earlier. Besides, I might catch the bouquet.”
“Wouldn’t want to do that, I guess.”
“No way. So I thought I’d annoy you instead.”
“Any…particular reason?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “You’re so serene. Even when you’re not having a good time.”
He laughed softly, because, at this moment, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Is that a Navajo thing?”
“What?”
“Serenity,” she said pointedly. “Pay attention, Baron.”
“It’s kind of hard to do both—be serene and pay attention,” he said, smiling still.
“Just answer the question.”
“Which one?”
“The serenity one.”
“Yes. It’s a Navajo thing.”
“Must be hard to do—in the military, I mean.”
“Sometimes.”
“Now answer the other question. How homesick are you?”
He drew a quiet breath, aware of the night sounds around them, the kind that didn’t mean home to him. “Well, all the pine trees help—except they’re too tall and the wrong variety.”
“That’s what I thought. Did you leave a girl behind? In Window Rock?”
“Ah…no,” he said.
“A lot of family, though.”
“A lot, yes.”
“How many brothers and sisters?”
“One half brother. One half sister.”
