a moment, while she was showering, she’d actually gotten a little excited about the prospect of fixing up this falling-down house. Not that she’d ever really like it, no matter the improvements, but maybe she’d hate it a little less. Now it looked as if any repairs would be accomplished in an alcoholic haze. Her house would probably look worse, not better, once Dan Shackelford was done with it.
All of a sudden Molly wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t let herself. If she started, even so much as a sniffle, there was no telling if she’d ever stop.
“I hate my life,” she muttered, settling once more in front of her computer screen and forcing herself to focus on sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph of the most unrelentingly boring and ungrammatical prose in the history of English composition.
When she’d applied for the position of English instructor at the online university, it seemed the perfect choice for her new persona. It didn’t pay much, but her need for privacy and safety was greater than her need for money. There was nothing to spend it on in Moonglow, anyway. She’d approached the job with her typical determination to succeed, but the challenge of correcting her invisible students’ errors in spelling and grammar had quickly dissipated when she found herself correcting the same mistakes over and over and over again.
“I hate your life, Molly Hansen,” she muttered at the screen. “I hate your cutesy-poo name, too. And I hate your bleached-blond hair. I hate everything about you, including that bum who’s set up residence in your backyard.”
It had all gone wrong so fast that she’d barely had time to comprehend it before she had been whisked into WITSEC. Kathryn Claiborn’s life, the one she had struggled so long and hard to achieve, had literally blown up in her face.
She’d been crossing the campus of venerable Van Dyne College, where she was director of financial affairs in addition to being associate professor of business, taking her usual shortcut through the basement of the Chemistry Department on her way to the Administration Building, when her world had exploded. One minute she was waving a cheerful hello to Dr. Ian Yates and the pale, white-haired fellow by his side, and the next she was waking up in a hospital with bandages on her face and half a dozen federal agents in her face.
Nothing had been the same after that. Kathryn Claiborn had died, giving birth to Molly Hansen. Kathryn Claiborn had been so frightened at the thought of having her throat cut by the white-haired terrorist whom only she could identify that she had willingly abandoned her job, her home, her fiancé, even her very self in order to insure her survival.
“Way to go, Kathryn,” Molly said with a sigh.
There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on slipshod essays this morning, so she turned off her computer, then went to the window to see if her handyman was still swilling beer. If he was, it wasn’t where he’d been swilling it earlier. His ratty lawn chair was empty.
Molly glanced at her watch. She had a one o’clock appointment for a root touch-up. Maybe, since it was Tuesday and hardly anybody in Moonglow got her hair done this early in the week, Raylene could fit her in a little bit early.
Raylene Earl wasn’t exactly a friend. Unable to disclose anything about her life prior to her arrival in Moonglow, Molly wasn’t in a position to make friends. Of course, that didn’t keep the hairdresser from talking her head off.
Raylene’s hair was pink this week.
“Well, I dunno,” she was saying. “They call it Sunset, so naturally I was expecting something on the gold side. You know, the way the sun sets here in Moonglow. I’m getting used to it now, but lemme tell you, it played hell with my Passionate Pink lipstick and nail polish. I’m wearing Strawberry Frappé now.” She waved a hand under Molly’s nose. “What do you think, hon?”
“I like it,” Molly replied, her typical three words in exchange for Raylene’s hundred.
“Yeah? I dunno. I think it looks like I stuck my fingers in a jam jar or something.” She pursed her lips, studying them in the mirror over the top of Molly’s head. “Buddy says why worry when they kiss just the same, but then what can you expect from a man who wears his skivvies inside out half the time and swears it doesn’t matter?”
“Does it matter?” Molly got in her three words while Raylene dragged in a breath through her strawberry-frappéed lips.
“Of course it matters. Good Lord, Molly, would you want somebody reading your waist size every time you bent over?”
Molly laughed. “I guess not.”
“Not that you’re not a tiny little thing, even if you do persist in wearing clothes that don’t show off your choicest parts. They’re having a sale at Minden’s this week. Thirty percent off everything, if you’re in the mood for a little change.”
“Oh, no thanks.”
What Raylene didn’t know was that Molly had already undergone a change of huge proportions. Kathryn had left behind a closet full of conservative suits and dark, understated shoes. There was no need to replace them. Nobody here wore suits except the banker and the undertaker, and those outfits tended toward odd colors and western cuts. In laid-back Moonglow, most people thought glen plaid was somebody’s name.
Ordering online, Molly had slowly filled her closet with soft skirts, tunics, a few khaki shorts and slacks. It had taken her a while to get the colors right. Kathryn, with her dark hair, light blue eyes and fair skin, was a Winter, who looked best in blacks and whites and true reds. Blond Molly, on the other hand, couldn’t handle Kathryn’s colors. She had no idea what season Molly had turned into, but, to her dismay, she now looked best in shades she’d always detested. Washed-out blues, sherbet hues. So, in addition to hating her life, she hated her clothes.
“Oh, I know what I meant to ask you the minute you came in,” Raylene said as she dabbed more bleach preparation on Molly’s roots. “What’s the deal with the trailer? You got relatives visiting from up north?”
“No. Not relatives. A handyman is doing some repairs on my house. He’s from around here, I guess. At least, that’s what I assumed.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s his name?”
“Shackelford.”
Raylene’s hands dropped to Molly’s shoulders. “Not Danny Shackelford!”
“Well. Dan.”
“Oh, my Lord!” Raylene whooped. “Oh, my dear sweet Lord.”
In the mirror Molly saw a woman she hadn’t yet met come through the door. The hairdresser saw her, too, and immediately called out, “JoEllen, you’re not gonna believe who’s back. Not in a million, jillion years.”
“Who?” JoEllen didn’t look all that interested until Raylene told her the handyman’s name, but once she heard it, she was whooping, too. “Danny Shackelford. If that’s not a blast from the past, I don’t know what is. How long’s he been gone, Raylene? Fourteen, fifteen years?”
“More like nineteen,” Raylene said over her shoulder. “He took off right after old Miss Hannah passed away, and that’s been close to twenty years.” She met Molly’s eyes in the mirror. “How’s he look? You’ll break my heart if you tell me he’s got a potbelly and a receding hairline.”
“He looks fine,” Molly said, lifting her shoulders
