Page 34 of Refuge for Flora

“What do you mean, after what happened?”

“Oh. He ain’t tol’ you?”

“Told me what?”

“Nope. That’s his story to tell. Ain’t mine. He’ll tell you eventually. I know that young man. He ain’t gonna hide nothin’. He just needs time, that’s all. So don’t go pressin’ him for information. It was a kinda private thing, and I don’t blame him.”

What the hell was she talking about? After what happened?What happened?Flora wanted to scream, but it was clear Mrs.Murphy wasn’t going to tell her anything.

The afternoon and evening wore on, and after they’d watched a couple of TV shows, Mrs.Murphy announced that it was her bedtime. She didn’t seem tohavea bedtime, as far as Flora could tell. She slept on and off all day long, so what did it matter what time it was? As soon as she was in her room with the door closed, Flora cleaned up everything in the kitchen, turned off the light, and headed to her little bedroom.

It took her thirty minutes to take all the tags off everything she’d bought, but she was really excited. Some of the tops were very cute, and she’d gotten them at such good prices that she was really proud of herself. Even though the shorts were just cargo-type things and not very flattering, they’d be cool and comfortable for the hot weather that was on its way just any day. She looked at the swimsuit and smiled. What would Barrett think when he saw her in it?

She took most of the things into the laundry room and started the washer, then headed for the bathroom. Once she was finished there, she pulled on an old tee shirt and sat down on the bed with a magazine. It made her snicker a little to think about those magazines Barrett had in his truck. Wonder if he looked at them every night, or just occasionally? Did he like that kind of woman, big boobs, and a round butt, and a tiny little waist? One caked in makeup? Hell, all men liked to look at them, but none of them wanted to be married to a woman like that. They didn’t want to have to spend all their time and energy defending their territory. She’d learned that in high school.

It would’ve been nice if she’d thought to find some reading material while she was at the store, but that hadn’t even crossed her mind. The shelves in the bedroom were full of books, but most of them were things that a teenage girl would like. She did, however, find a book of short erotica that Mrs.Murphy certainly didn’t know was there or she would’ve pitched it. Flora took it back to the bed and started thumbing through it. The stories were pretty weird. There was one in which the woman liked to be kept in a big wooden box and pissed on. What the hell was that about? Another was about a woman who didn’t want to have sex unless she had a doll under her shirt to pretend she was pregnant and then give birth after the sex was over. That was creepy. Almost to the back of the book was a story about a woman who was in love with her boyfriend and his best friend. It was all about their sexual escapades as a threesome, and just as she was getting to the part where they were performing theirmenage a troispublicly in a club to make money, her phone buzzed. Few people even had her number, and when she checked it, her face burned with shame even though there was no way he could know what she’d been doing. “Hello?”

“Hey! Hope you don’t mind that I called you.”

“Uh, no! That’s fine. It’s nice to have somebody to talk to.”I just wish I hadn’t been reading a dirty book before you called, she wanted to say, but that wasn’t something she had any intention of divulging. “What are you doing? I thought you were at work.”

That deep voice of his chuckled through the phone. “I am. Apparently you don’t really understand what I do.”

“I guess not.”

“Well, right now, I’m sitting in my truck in total darkness, parked in a gravel drive that leads to a cornfield, and I’m watching for anybody in this field who’s spotlighting deer.”

She knew all about spotlighting deer. “Folks still doing that?”

“Oh, hell yeah.”

“They doing it on foot?”

“Not usually, but this farmer says there’s been somebody out on his property with a four-wheeler. We think they’re shooting deer, then dragging them back to their truck with the four-wheeler. We just can’t figure out where they’re parking because there are like three hundred places they could be. So I’m just sitting here, watching.”

“How long will you sit there and watch?”

“For another hour or two. What have you been up to?”

“Took all the tags off my new clothes and started washing them. And now I’m sitting in bed, reading.”

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, just a fashion magazine.”Well, I’m a lusty liar, right?she chided herself.

“Mrs.Murphy okay?”

“Yeah. She’s been asleep for like two hours. She doesn’t really have a bedtime because she just sleeps on and off all the time.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. We’ll all be sitting there, talking and laughing, and then we’ll hear a sound and look to find my dad sitting in his recliner, sound asleep, head tipped back and snoring to beat the band. I swear, I told my mom she should have him checked for narcolepsy, but she does the same damn thing part of the time.”

Flora sighed. “So that’s what I’ve got to look forward to.”

“Yeah. I guess we all do.” The phone got quiet. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to say what came next. “I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed this afternoon. I really like spending time with you.”

“Oh, that’s sweet. Thank you.”

“No, it’s not me being sweet. I really do like you, Flora.”

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