The Cowboy And The Countess. Darlene Scalera

important part was he was alive and in L.A., and so was Anna.

      He sat on the edge of the bed, poured a glass of water from the plastic pitcher on the table and took a sip. He grimaced. City water. How did Anna stand it here?

      He set the cup down and pushed the table away. Leaning back on the pillows, he looked at the lights of the city, thinking. People had been here earlier—nodding doctors, a pug dog of a man, a T-bone of a woman. They’d confused him with another Kent Landover who owned some big company and was engaged to marry the lady. He stretched and folded his arms behind his head, wincing as his muscles protested. He hoped they got everything straightened out, because he didn’t intend to lie around here as useless as a .22 shell in a 12-gauge shotgun. He had plans.

      Wide awake, he looked around the room. He could take a walk down the hall, but then one of those nurses would be in here, prodding and poking him again. There was only one lady he wanted prodding and poking him, and tomorrow he was going to find her and pledge her his heart.

      His gaze landed on the small television set angled above him. He picked up the remote control on the nightstand and pressed On, muting it as the television came to life. He didn’t want to alert the nurses. He flipped through the channels, stopping at an old John Wayne movie—Red River, one of his favorites. He’d seen it well over a hundred times. He leaned back against the pillows, smiling as he mouthed the dialogue.

      The film broke for commercials. He was stretched out and smiling. He had John Wayne tonight. Tomorrow he’d have Anna. He was a happy man.

      An ad came on for A Little Bit of Seoul on Olympic Boulevard—the best in Korean barbecue. The next commercial promised you could learn to sell real estate in your spare time. Then a woman was on the screen, tap-dancing, singing. She moved her head. The light caught the gems in her crown.

      K.C. sat upright. He rose, and on his knees, crossed the bed until he was below the television set. His hand reached up slowly, shaking, as if to touch a dream. He placed it full-palm on the screen. The crowned woman did a high kick.

      “Anna,” he whispered.

      “ANNA,” MAUREEN DELANEY cried as her daughter came in the back door. Breathing heavily, Anna stopped in the doorway. Maureen took a step back.

      Ronnie, sitting behind the faux walnut desk, clapped her hands to rouged cheeks. “Chickie-boom-boom, was there a rumble at Sushi Boy?”

      Ignoring them both, Anna moved to the middle of the room and was about to collapse into one of the chairs angled before Ronnie’s desk.

      “No!” her mother cried.

      Anna poised midcrouch.

      “Not the crushed velour.”

      “Oh, doll.” Ronnie’s hand fanned the air. “I’m penciling you in for a steam cleaning at eleven.”

      Striking a wide stance, Anna exhaled a breath of exasperation. Her bangs lifted, and the wisps of hairs fallen from her hasty topknot stirred.

      “Come on.” Now Ronnie’s wave expressed impatience. “Spill the beans. Oops! That’s just a figure of speech, doll face.”

      She and Anna’s mother burst into laughter.

      Anna’s lips drew together. “Mrs. Lindsay stopped me during my morning run.”

      “Uh-oh.” Ronnie rolled her eyes.

      “‘Child, the boy who walks my babies couldn’t make it this morning,”’ Anna uttered in falsetto. “‘Since you’re already in the midst of your morning constitutional, couldn’t the puppies keep you company?”’

      Ronnie, her face cradled between her palms, said, “And?”

      “And? The ‘puppies’ are two full-grown greyhounds with legs longer than Michael Jordan’s.”

      “Do tell?” Ronnie’s eyebrows did a Groucho Marx dance.

      “It would’ve been easier to ride one of them.”

      “Bareback?”

      “The ‘puppies’ caught sight of a stray Siamese nosing around the garbage cans out back of Phil’s Fine Fish Fry, and…” Anna looked down at her oversize fuchsia T-shirt and favorite striped bike shorts. They were flecked with moist green bits she prayed were relish. A glob of white creamy stuff clung to the hem of her shirt. Please let that be mayonnaise, she prayed, staring at the shivering form.

      “Go no further. We get the picture….” Ronnie eyed her. “In glorious detail. Now go upstairs and take a shower in tomato juice or something. We’re the Clean Queens, not the Grunge Girls. Any minute now, someone is going to walk through that door, and what’s the first thing he sees? You prancing around the place, smelling like last Friday’s flounder special.”

      The phone rang. Ronnie whooped. “Business is booming!” She waved her hand once more, dismissing Anna, then picked up the phone. “Clean Queens. We’ll give your castle the royal treatment, and you won’t have to ransom the family jewels to pay for it.”

      “She loves saying that, doesn’t she?” Anna said to her mother as she crossed the reception area. To the left was another room with a folding table, metal chairs and easel. Anna would be training several new girls in there this morning while her mother interviewed other applicants in the opposite office. It looked as if Clean Queens would survive its first month of operation.

      “Are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?” her mother asked.

      Anna nodded. “As soon as I shower and change.”

      “Go on upstairs. Take a bubble bath,” her mother told her. “You’ve been working too hard. If you’re not here in the office, you’re cleaning with the afternoon and night crews.”

      “How else am I going to make you a rich old woman?”

      Her mother smiled. “Make sure you have some breakfast. You’re getting too skinny. The scones are still warm on top of the oven. We’ll be fine down here. The schedule’s all set, and so far, none of the girls have called in.” She crossed her fingers.

      Anna stopped at the doorway that connected the offices to the apartment upstairs. “So, is business booming?”

      Her mother looked up from the schedule book. “Ronnie and her theatrics aside, let’s just say we’re building…one dust bunny at a time. But you know those TV commercials you did?”

      “Yeah?”

      “They’ve brought in three calls.”

      “They only started airing two nights ago.” Anna gave the thumbs-up sign.

      Her mother blew her a kiss. “I’ll hug you later, sweetheart, when you don’t smell like Charlie the Tuna.”

      Anna started toward the stairs, smiling. Her mother had invested everything she could in opening her own commercial and residential cleaning business. It was a huge risk, but it had always been her mother’s dream. Anna wanted to see it come true, and would do anything to see that it did—from insisting her mother borrow the money Anna had been saving toward a down payment on a house to dressing up like a cross between a bag lady and a Las Vegas chorus girl, donning a rhinestone crown, grabbing a feather-duster scepter and pirouetting across a dusty sound-stage, singing the praises of the Clean Queens.

      She was at the stairs when she heard the front door chimes, announcing a newcomer. Another customer, she hoped.

      “Well, hello, sailor,” she heard Ronnie say. “Can I help you?”

      She was at the first step when she heard a voice say, “Is Anna here?”

      She stopped, a wash of heat drowning her. Everything stopped. Time reversed. Dimensions narrowed. There was nothing but that voice. A voice from her dreams.

      “Who-o-o-m-m-m shall I say is calling?” Ronnie would be eyeing the man, giving him a good onceover.

      “Kent?