The queen bees of Sunbonnet, Wyoming, were all abuzz.
Savannah Stephens was back, in the flesh this time.
How long had it been since the last time they'd pulled
Savannah, dressed only in satin bra and lace panties, out of
their mailboxes? She'd been quite the regular fixture on the
cover of that mail-order catalog for quite a while. Of
course, everyone knew all about how those pictures got
touched up. But they had to admit, Savannah had the basic
equipment. And it was all natural. She was born and raised
right there in Sunbonnet. She was all-natural. That dewy-
eyed smile had been just the right counterpoint for the
flawless body of a woman who didn't have to think twice
about walking around in broad daylight wearing nothing but
pretty under-wear.
Then suddenly she'd vanished. Air-brushed clean away, as
though somebody had thrown a coat over her and dragged her
back into the house. Had it been three years ago, maybe
five?
The drones had noticed right away when it happened, but they
hadn't said much. Once Savannah was gone, the men had gotten
their catalog back. If anybody was to order anything, it was
probably going to be a man. He'd send for something black
and lacy for his own lady, something she would put on for
him, just so he could take it off. The next morning she
would tuck it away in a drawer, and he'd never see it again.
Then it was back to the mailbox again. Sure, the men missed
seeing Savannah, but there was still plenty of diversion on
the cover of Lady Elizabeth's Dreamwear Catalog.
Still, the women pondered aloud on occasion. What ever
became of SavannahStephens?
Some had heard she'd found greener pastures, but there were
all sorts of tales about the nature of green. A movie mogul
with a pocketful of green had her stashed in a cottage
beside the green sea. Or she'd starved herself like they all
did to stay slim, taken to eating nothing but lettuce and
drinking green tea, and she'd just wasted away. Some said
she'd made so much green herself, she'd been able to retire
and get fat. Heck, she always was pretty sassy.
The ebb and flow of such comments depended on the weather
and what else was in the news, but they never sloshed
through the door of the Sunbonnet Mercantile, owned and
operated by Billie Larsen, the only relative Savannah had
left in Sunbonnet. Or anywhere else, as far as anyone knew.
The old general store was a gallery of pictures of Savannah
dressed in pretty suits and glamorous evening clothes. The
catalogs were stashed underneath the counter. Billie was
proud of those, too, but she didn't tack them on the wall.
Whenever anyone asked, Billie said that her niece was taking
some time off from her modeling career. The response hadn't
changed in five years. Conventional wisdom calculated that
it had probably been five years since Billie had heard from
her once famous niece, and the conventionally wise were not
surprised to hear she'd finally come home with her tail
tucked between her legs. It just proved that New York City
was no place for a nice girl from Wyoming. It was bitch eat
bitch in places like New York and L.A., or so the females of
Sunbonnet had heard. And so they were fond of saying.
The males of Sunbonnet still weren't saying much. They
couldn't imagine pastures any greener than the pages of Lady
Elizabeth's Dreamwear Catalog. The thought of that tail and
those legs coming home to Sunbormet seemed too damn good to
be true. They'd have to see to believe, and so far, the
sightings had been few.
But she was surely back.
Even if every person Clay Keogh tipped his hat to hadn't
mentioned it hard on the heels of saying how quickly the
weather had changed this week, he would have known she was
close by. Suddenly the clean, dry Wyoming air carried her
scent again.
He'd parked his pickup in the shade of the loafing shed
behind the Sunbonnet Mercantile, which was the oldest
building in town. He was careful not to glance at the
upstairs windows as he unloaded the tools of his trade. He
had as good a buzz on as any bee, and he hadn't even had a
drink in weeks. His face flamed in the shade of his cap as
he took a quick inventory of the handles in his toolbox. He
could have sworn he had Tabasco sauce coursing through his
veins, a notion that made him chuckle. Dearly did he love
anything spicy, but cayenne in his blood? Not likely.
Wyoming dirt made him red-blooded, pure and plain.
Was she upstairs in her aunt Billie's spare room, fixing a
face that never needed any fixing? Or was she downstairs,
helping out behind the counter, the way she used to when
they were kids? He hadn't noticed any cowboys lining up to
buy a pack of gum they might never open or a postage stamp
for a letter they'd surely never write. If he hurried, maybe
he could be first.
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