Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            “Nope, this is fine.” Angel readjusted her pillows and got comfortable. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched a movie or had two whole hours to do nothing. If Conrad Oil Enterprises didn’t claim her hours, then the farm did.

            “Oh!” she exclaimed, remembering a promise she’d made to herself. “I’ve got to call Patty before the movie starts and tell her that the guillotine that’s going to chop off her head is only held up by a skinny hair.” She dialed the familiar number and got voicemail, which she talked to in a tone she hated but always used when talking to a silly machine.

            “Patty, pick up the phone if you’re there.” She smiled when she thought again of the power of the tropical storm and her previous thoughts of Melissa doing a witchy version of the “Git Up” dance around a boiling cauldron. “We’ve survived another day and I’m going to Tishomingo for a while, but I’ll be home soon. Remember, all of you…are…in…trouble,” Angel singsonged.

            “Movie time,” Clancy announced.

            Thank goodness the movie started with the credits, so they didn’t miss anything when the delivery guy knocked on the hotel door. Clancy handed him some bills and set the boxes on the end of Angel’s bed, then grabbed the ice bucket and hurried out into the hallway. In seconds, he was back and filled two plastic hotel cups with ice. He poured root beer into each of them and handed one to her.

            “How do you want to do this?” he asked.

            “You can sit beside me, and we’ll have supper while we watch the movie.” She took a sip of the root beer. “We’re adults. We can sit on the same bed while we eat without…” She blushed and wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince—him or herself.

            Clancy tossed the pillows from his bed over to hers and made himself comfortable. He opened all the boxes and nodded toward her. “Dig in. I’ll share my Hawaiian if I can have a slice of your meat lover’s.”

            Aha, she thought. We aren’t as different as you thought, Miz Susan.

            They laughed all through the movie, and at one point, she sighed when the couple finally overcame all their problems, and it looked like they would get back together. Clancy declared he would never eat Angel’s cooking, since Julia Roberts, who played the wife, had made the unfaithful husband sick by putting ipecac in his food.

            “You don’t have to worry about it, Clancy. I don’t cook,” she said.

            “But—but—” he stammered. “You are so good at everything. I figured you’d be a gourmet cook. I mean, you play golf. You run an oil company, and even Red stands in awe of you.”

            “I don’t cook. Really and truly. I do not cook,” she answered. “Granny did the cooking when she was alive. And she did a fine job, so I didn’t need to know how. Then when she died, I learned I could live on cans of pork and beans and wieners from the grocery store. By the time I got tired of that menu, I was in the oil business. Hilda cooks for me, and she does a fine job. I suppose you won’t ever call me for a second date now, will you?”

            “That’s where you are wrong.” He picked up a breadstick and dipped it in marinara sauce. “I can cook. There are restaurants on every corner no matter where you go. Cooks can be hired.”

            Angel yawned. “That’s pretty much what I think.”

            “Sleepy?” Clancy asked.

            “A little,” Angel answered. “Watch whatever you want. Just wake me early enough so I can get dressed and do something with my hair before it’s time to leave,” she said as she closed her eyes.

            “Good night, Angel,” he said as he slid off the side of the bed, put all the leftovers on the desk, and got into his own bed.

            “Night, Clance,” she mumbled.

            ***

            That she called him Clance, as she’d done when they were meeting at the sandbar in Tishomingo, didn’t merely go over the top of his head. Sure, she was sleepy and tired, and it could have been just a slip of the tongue, but it meant something to Clancy.

            He watched a couple of reruns of NCIS, but he didn’t remember much of it. All he could think about was Angel, sleeping soundly beside him in the next bed. He wondered what it would be like to see her face the first thing every morning. He made a trip to the bathroom and stopped by her bed. He bent and brushed a sweet kiss across her lips.