Homesick Creek Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bunny.”
    “Okay.” Bunny nodded and slung her purse over her shoulder. When she got to the door, she said, “The kid says he’s waxed it for you.”
    “What?”
    “The bike. He said to tell you he put a coat of wax on it for you and got it all polished up. I told him you’d stop by after work.”
    He nodded at the window.
    “See you at home,” Bunny said.
    “Yeah.”
    She left the showroom without looking back, even though she could feel Hack turn around, finally, and watch her go. She knew he’d keep watching until she drove completely away, and then he’d go talk to the saleswoman. Bunny didn’t know what he’d say after that, what she’d say back, how they’d feel, what they’d decide to do. All she knew was she had to buy a can of wax, go over to that kid’s house, and make his dirt bike shine until it was perfect.

chapter two
    Hack Neary stood in the showroom window, watching the rain lash the string of plastic flags around the car lot and wondering what in hell difference honorable behavior made. No one believed him anyway, even when he was telling the truth, as he often did. People heard what they chose to hear, even when it upset them. If Bunny thought he was playing around, then he was as good as playing around, and it didn’t matter what he had to say. Plus now he was catching grief over the dirt bike when she hadn’t even heard the details. The kid had made him such a great deal that he could turn around and sell it in a minute for a profit. It had been a business decision. He didn’t even ride that much anymore. It beat hell out of his knees, which were trashed anyway from jumping out of helicopters in Vietnam. He’d be forty in another month,
forty
. Jesus.
    Last May, when Bunny had turned forty, Hack had bought her a used baby grand, a beautiful black glossy thing polished to a near-perfect shine. Not that any of them played the piano, but it was damn classy-looking and expensive as hell, something you’d have to be earning good money to buy, something you’d have to be successful to own. Dooley Burden still razzed him about it at coffee sometimes.
Hey, Liberace, you still got that piano?
Ha, ha, ha
. Bunny posed some of her stuffed rabbits inside the open top—a preacher, a doctor, Little Red Riding Hood. A couple of years ago she’d begun selling them, putting makeup on them and dressing them in costumes: farmers and wizards, doctors and clowns. She sold them at Passionetta’s Fudge and Candy for spending money, so she and Anita could go up to Portland sometimes, have a girls’ day out to shop or, once, to go to a Chippendale’s show. For Hack’s birthday last year she’d made him a rabbit dressed in fishnets, garters, spike heels, and a boned merry widow. He’d found it sitting on the bathroom shelf next to his toothbrush first thing in the morning, holding a little sign saying OOH-LA-LA—HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Not that she really spoke French.
    It was Hack who’d started her on collecting rabbits in the first place—what, thirteen years ago? Jesus, no, fourteen—back when she’d still had the body of a centerfold and the desire to use it. That was also before he paid for three years of orthodontia to correct the overbite he’d secretly loved because it gave her a wistful look. He missed that. Now she had a perfect bite and teeth that were prettier than she was. She should have just left herself alone. As far as rabbits went, she’d probably bought about a million since then, until he couldn’t turn around without seeing some of the damn things. There were rabbit lamps, rabbit light switches, rabbit salt and pepper shakers, rabbit clocks, towels, oven mitts, toilet paper holders. She’d even bought him a pair of pajamas with rabbits on them. He liked to sleep naked, but she’d said she was tired of him poking her all the time with his nighttime erection. What kind of woman gave a man hell about something he did involuntarily in his sleep? He bet even men in comas got