Bea Read Online Free

her feet, left her with the neon playing over her cool white blouse and her cool white skin. He thought he could leave her and never look back, but it didn’t turn out that way. He glanced in his rearview mirror just as she was lifting her head and squaring her shoulders. Guilt smote him. What if there were no vacancies at that motel? The sign could be wrong. And what about tomorrow? What if her car needed parts? The little garage he’d seen wouldn’t have parts for a foreign car. Why did he care?
    His brakes squealed as he stopped the truck and made a U-turn in the middle of the road. His fingers tapping the rhythm to Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya,” he headed back to Paradise.
    “Well, now, it looks like business is pickin’ up.” The man behind the motel’s reception desk smiled at Russ, his square, freckled face pleating with wrinkles. He blew dust off the counter and picked up a pen. “What can I do for you, sir?”
    “The lady who just checked in? Bea Adams?”
    “Yep. ‘Bout five minutes ago.”
    “I’d like an adjoining room.”
    The freckled-faced man laughed. “This is your lucky day. Ain’t but one room left, and that’s Number Three. Right next to Number Two.”
    “She’s in Number Two?”
    “I ain’t supposed to tell, but seein’ as how you left her here and seein’ as how you know her name and all, I guess it won’t do no harm.”
    “I guarantee it.”
    Russ took his modest belongings and settled into room Number Three. He tossed his duffle bag onto a chair and his ice chest onto the floor; then he settled back on the rickety bed with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling, counting the water spots and thinking. He didn’t want her to know he’d come back to watch after her. When he saw her in the morning, he’d just say he got tired and decided to spend the night himself. That would do. It sounded casual and uninvolved.
    And, heaven knows , involvement was the last thing in the world he wanted. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. And not just from Lurlene. As a matter of fact, Lurlene was a mistake he never should have made. He knew better, had known better since he was eight years old. All those years, going from one foster home to the next, getting his hopes up each time, thinking, “This time I’ve found a real home.”
    But it always turned out the same. Just when he would get to loving a new set of parents, he’d be moved to another home.
    Finally, his third foster father told him why. He was not worth all the trouble it took to keep him. And besides that, he was too small to earn his keep in the cotton field. He had been eight years old when he’d learned that lesson. He’d also found out that he wasn’t in all those homes because of love: he was there because of money. His foster parents were being paid to feed, clothe and shelter him.
    When he’d been taken out of that home and placed in another, he’d asked the welfare worker if she wouldn’t pay his next family enough money so they’d love him, too.
    She didn’t have an answer. He supposed there were no answers. It was best not to even think about it, best to keep on moving, best not to stop long enough to make a connection.
    One night wouldn’t hurt. One night didn’t add up to involvement.
    Russ turned his attention to his surroundings. The room was small and musty smelling, decorated with plastic-laminated furniture and Spanish paintings on velvet. He’d been in worse. And it was cheap. He’d be willing to bet the TV was black-and-white.
    Whistling “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” he got up from the bed and pulled a dog-eared book out of his duffle bag. He’d read until he got sleepy.
    He pushed his duffle bag off the chair and settled in, propping his feet on the footboard of the bed. Sounds of running water came from the next room. Bea was taking a shower. He wouldn’t even think about that—her naked with water beading her skin. Thinking of women with soft, wet skin was too much