Free CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set by Billie Sue Mosiman Page A

counter had great buns--tight and small and cute as the cheeks of a panda bear--and just about the longest legs Molly had ever seen. Dwight Yoakum, the country singer who sang songs through his nose, had legs like that. Went on forever. The trucker wore gray lizard-skin cowboy boots, the pointy-toed ones, and his shirt had pearl snaps instead of buttons. He sat drinking coffee and kidding pretty Lynette about her silly apron.
    All of a sudden Molly felt loneliness descend, a black curtain settling just behind her eyes. She wished the cowboy would talk to her, kid her about something. She wished the damn sun would set, goddammit, so Cruise would wake up and keep her company. She might as well be invisible, sitting nursing a cup of coffee, trailing a finger through a puddle of water condensed off her yellow plastic glass of iced water.
    Just how was she going to make it in this world? When she got to California, that golden West, that Pacific paradise, just how was she going to keep herself off the street? She expected she was going to get hungry, learn all about how it felt to have your stomach shrink and your clothes fall off your hips. Learn all about staying out of the way of drug addicts, pimps, pushers, and muggers. Learn how to sleep standing up, leaning on a wall, arms folded. She'd seen people do that in downtown Miami. Stand there like a leaning pole, propped against the side of a wall, chin on chest, arms crossed, asleep. She guessed they locked their knees to keep from falling on their faces.
    It had to be hard.
    Life. It was a tough deal.
    Tears swarmed in her eyes and she angrily brushed them away by pretending to wipe her face with a napkin. Shit . Self-pitying asshole . She lurched up from the table and turned her back on the cute cowboy and his doll of a waitress. She paid at the cashier's counter and hurried out the door. The coolness of evening braced and refreshed her.
    She eyed the sky, measuring how far the sun had to go to hit sundown. An hour. Forty-five minutes.
    She glanced around the parking lot for a place to wait it out. She picked the parking curb near the Chrysler. She lay her head on crossed arms against her knees, face turned so she could see the western sky. She could count the colors of sunset, gift the layers with all new names. Clam white. Pussy pink. Well. She had to have some fun. Then there was larva lavender. Jazz blue. Bruise purple. Scalding red. Tabby-cat orange. Bone ivory. Summer squash yellow.
    Daydream . She could daydream about sex with Cruise. Or the cowboy with the lizard boots and pearl snap buttons. He was younger, though not quite as attractive. It was all right when she was awake and could control the images, not let it get too out of hand where her body started feeling all hot and achy and thrumming for a touch, any touch.
    Slowly a masculine hand pulled down the zipper of her jeans. Another hand, unattached to body, to face, slipped up under her blouse and tugged the padded bra aside.
    Tweaked one tiny pink-brown nipple. Covered her breast softly. Moved gently down over her abdomen past the elastic waist of her bikini panties...
    Hell and damnation.
    That wasn't all that much fun either. Made her start panting like a bitch in heat so anybody would know what she was thinking if they walked by her.
    Raging fucking hormones.
    And they said only guys got horny. Boy, were they wrong! If she didn't get this stuff out of her brain, she'd wind up trying to throw herself all over poor Cruise, and what would that look like, huh?
    He probably didn't even like her. She was too young. Looked thirteen, fourteen, he said. Probably too skinny. No boobs. Hardly any hips. She was just a hitchhiker he was taking along to keep him awake while he drove nights. He wouldn't touch her if she begged for it.
    The sun dipped through low-lying clouds. The colors over the land smeared unevenly and darkened.
    Molly watched the car door on the Chrysler for Cruise.
    Wake up .
    The cowboy of the long legs