Samson and Sunset Read Free Page A

showing.
      “Go on,” Susie begged. “Go over and
see if it’s him. Please? As a favor to me?”
      I told her, “Absolutely not.”
      A week after that we were circling
through King’s Drive-Thru, when my car stopped right there in the
center drive. There was a big fancy car behind us and they started
honking. Wearing tight blue jeans, a cute maternity top with 3”
heels and being the feisty gal that I was, I found myself jumping
out of the car and stomping up to this guy’s window.
      “Knock it off,” I said, “can’t you see
I can’t get my car started?”
      “Okay,” he said. “We’ll just get out
and push your car across the street. We’d be glad to give you a
ride home or wherever.”
      I said that would be fine. They pushed
my car out of the way and one guy parked the big fancy car in a
drive-through spot. This car was something—must have had a lot of
expensive work in it. My family detailed cars, so I knew.
      “My name’s Shay Westover. What’s
yours?” asked the guy who’d been driving the big car.
      “That can’t be of any relevance to
you, I’m clearly pregnant. You might want to walk through King’s
with another girl,” I said with a sharp, sassy voice.
      I sort of stepped back so he might
catch a glimpse of Susie, who was trying to catch his eye.
      “Gosh!” he said, grinning, not taking
his eyes off me. “Did you inherit that smart mouth or just develop
it? Because, woman, I want to walk through King’s with you!”
      And he did. Walked right next to
me.
      When he drove us home, he wanted me to
ride in the front with him, but I said,
      “No, no, no, I'm fine in the back.”
They took us to Susie’s house and let us out. Shay was around six
feet tall, with dark, wavy beautiful hair and gorgeous brown eyes.
He took my breath away, but I'd seen the ugly side of handsome
men.
      “I still didn't get your name,” he
called through the open window as we stood outside Susie’s
house.
      “And I still didn’t give it!”
      “Still a smart mouth I see,” he
grinned and drove away.
      Water Rising

      Kelly Quinn Dalton was born December
13, 1963. My parents were completely supportive of Kelly and me. It
was a great Christmas—packages under the tree, toys for the baby
from Santa, what joy.
      Since the time of Kelly’s birth, Dane
Dalton had taken up with his friend Rick Newman’s wife, Patricia,
the mother of the baby Dane had played so sweetly with the night he
told me to count the stars. Rick Newman came over to talk to me
about them often. He was devastated. Rick had a lazy eye, I don’t
know if he was born with it or had injured it, but it wouldn’t
track. He told me he was thinking about getting surgery for it.
      After Kelly’s birth, I filed for a
divorce, and was awarded child support and alimony. What a relief
to be out of the Dalton family.
      ***

    Sometime in early March, when Kelly was three
months old, Susie called me up and asked me to go to a party with
her that Saturday night. I told her I’d go. Parties weren’t really
my thing, but I knew she needed a ride. Besides, it was fun being
able to dress up again in skirts and heels after nine months of
maternity clothes. I didn’t have any baby weight and my hair was
now platinum blond. Natural? Hell no!
      We arrived at the party about quarter
to nine. There were lots of people there. Susie ran into a boy she
liked pretty early on and ended up going for a drive with him,
saying he could just drop her home afterwards. Well, great. There I
was, dressed to the nines (red patent leather heels, a fitted light
blue denim skirt with red piping and a matching top, plus a long
strand of red wooden beads) and no one would talk to me. All the
girls had written me off as the slut from the wrong side of the
tracks because of my fatherless baby. I felt embarrassed to be
sitting alone with all the girls shooting me snide looks when they
passed me—but I made myself do it. I’d gotten