At Her Beck and Call. Dawn Atkins

the tab for dinner and they stepped out into the warm summer night. Streetlights lit the sidewalk and the full moon glowed silver overhead, surrounded by distant stars in a black, black sky.

      Under the cooking smells from the restaurant, Autumn picked up the welcome scent of desert dust and creosote. To her it was the smell of home.

      She was full of good food and just a little buzzed from the Tecates, so that when Mike turned to her, ready to end the evening, she said, “So what do folks do for fun around here?”

      “You mean besides watch the grass grow and peer at the neighbors through binoculars?” His tone held self-mockery with an edge of cynicism. He wasn’t entirely thrilled with small town life either, she guessed.

      “Besides that,” she said.

      “Okay, let’s see.” He stared off into the sky, silhouetted against the blackness. “For music, there’s a mariachi group that plays weekends. A local boy has a jazz trio that plays at Louie’s Italian Place on Thursday nights.”

      “So there’s a music scene. What else?”

      “The Brew and Cue for pool at the far end of town. There’s bowling, like Celia mentioned. Wicked Skeeball tourneys at the Green Dragon Pizzeria. High school sports. Tours of the historic district, including the Copper Strike Mine. Our prickly pear candy factory, Cactus Confections, has some regional fame.”

      He shrugged. “Not much, huh? You’ll find what you want in Tucson, Autumn.”

      “And what is it you think I want?” She spoke lightly, but sexual energy underlined her words. Maybe she should have stopped at one beer.

      “Nightclubs, concerts, plays, movies.” He shrugged.

      “You go to Tucson for those things?”

      “When I have time, sure.”

      “But not often, I can tell. You’re all about work, I bet.”

      “You got me. I play basketball with my brother once in a while. Watch sports, rent movies. Now and then, though, I go out to the resort outside town—Desert Paradise—and hit golf balls. The grass is dead—the place is closed—so I kick up some dust, but there’s nothing like it for getting rid of frustration.”

      “You have a lot of that? Frustration?” The tease hung in the warm air between them.

      “My share.” He winked. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown—even a little crown.” She liked that he didn’t take himself seriously. She wished she were that easy on herself.

      “To tell you the truth, I’d love to find a buyer for the resort. It would be a shot in the arm for our economy. We’ve had inquiries, but no real offers. It’s a beautiful property. Well laid out. Lots of potential.”

      “Sounds nice.”

      Silence fell. She should go home, get some sleep before her first day of work, but something hovered in the air between them, energy and possibility, and she wanted to pursue it, as crazy and wrong as that might be.

      “Take me out there,” she heard herself say.

      “You want to go to the resort?”

      “Sure. Show me all that economic potential.”

      “It’s dark.” But he was smiling.

      “There’s a moon. Come on.”

      He paused, studied her, then nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

      His startled delight overcame her doubts. This might be a bad idea, but at the moment, it seemed worth the risk.

      4

      AUTUMN CLIMBED INTO Mike’s sleek and sexy Saab 9-2X wagon—weren’t these cars designed by jet engineers?—and they drove with the windows down, the sunroof open, allowing the warm breeze to blow through and the stars to spin by overhead.

      “I’ve never been here at night,” Mike said, turning at the sign marking the entrance to the Desert Paradise Golf Resort. He parked in the gravel lot and opened her door for her. She climbed out and looked around. The moon was bright enough to let her see the main building, the casitas, the courts, the empty pool.

      A gravel path lined by mile-high date palms led to the golf course. It was quiet except for the crunch of their feet in the gravel and the distant swish of cars on the highway. Soon they reached the clubhouse parking lot. Before them lay the low rolling hills of the course. Here and there were stands of eucalyptus and mesquite trees, along with landscaped areas.

      A puff of warm air lifted her hair and she smelled the iron and earth of the pond, which, because it was part of the area’s irrigation system, still held water, Mike had explained. It was a smear of shiny darkness ahead of them. Without rain, the grass was short and dry.

      “It’s peaceful out here,” she said, tilting her head up at the moon, very conscious of Mike’s closeness, the way he tracked her every move. It was almost embarrassing how alive she felt standing here with him.

      “Puts things in perspective,” he said, looking at her.

      And made the attraction more vivid, she realized, dragging her eyes from his face. “I love summer nights in the desert. There’s still heat, but it’s gentler, like the desert is saying, You put up with my broiler all day, so take a breather, relax, enjoy the beauty, the silence, the serenity.”

      “Very poetic.”

      “Not really. I just love the desert, I guess.” She paused. “So hitting balls gets rid of frustration, huh? Maybe we should send Jasmine and Mark out here.”

      “I’m afraid they’re too far gone.”

      “Love at first sight, according to Jasmine.”

      “Do you believe in that?”

      “Not really. Though an attraction can be intense.” Like the one between them at the moment.

      “Yeah, it can.” His voice was so low and heated that her stomach dropped to her knees.

      “So, what does one do about that?” She was grateful the moon wasn’t bright enough to reveal the hot blush on her cheeks. She wasn’t one for turning red, but right now she felt like a stoplight.

      “Hope it burns out before anyone gets hurt,” he said.

      “Is that the voice of experience?”

      “You mean have I ever had my heart broken?” He smiled wryly. “I’ve avoided that mistake. How about yourself?”

      “I’ve managed.” She’d had a couple of close calls. The first guy—Anton—seemed to like that she was a stripper and she’d let her guard down. When his parents planned a trip out to see him, she’d redecorated her living room, bought good china, planned a gourmet meal, even though she was a shitty cook.

      Meanwhile, he stopped calling. Returned after his parents left with some lame excuse and she knew she was his girl on the side, his secret vice. She’d been hurt, insulted, pissed, told him to go screw himself. Mostly, she was furious at herself for going blind, for being weak.

      She’d been a mess in the aftermath, barely recognizable as the kick-ass woman she worked so hard every day to be.

      The second guy was a skirt-chaser, who reformed for her until she caught him with a day-shift dancer. He’d begged for forgiveness, complaining about all the temptations at the club. What flipped her out was how much she’d built her life around him, nested in, building a house of matchsticks, ready to explode with a bit of friction on a hard surface.

      Since then, she’d kept it simple with guys who wanted only a hot connection, no morning-after calls and no regrets. And since starting school, she’d had no interest in even that and sex had been on the back burner.

      She didn’t want to talk about any of her history with Mike, so she shifted the focus to him. “I