Addicted to Love (3 page)

Up close, he saw tear tracks had run a gully through the makeup on her cheeks and mascara had pooled underneath her eyes. She looked like a quarrelsome raccoon caught in a coyote trap, all piss and vinegar, but visibly hurting.

He had the strangest, and most uncharacteristic, urge to pull her into his arms, hold her to his chest, kiss the top of her head the way he did his six-year-old niece, Maisy, and tell her everything was going to be all right.

Mentally, he stomped the impulse. He didn’t need any damsel-in-distress hassle.

The expression in her eyes told him anger had propelled her up here, but now, her rage spent, she was afraid to come back down. That fear he understood loud and clear.

Calmly, he held out a hand to her. “Rachael, it’s time to go.”

“I thought I’d feel better,” she said in a despondent little voice as she stared at his outstretched hand. “I don’t feel better. I was supposed to feel better. That was the plan. Why don’t I feel better?”

“Destruction rarely makes you feel good.” His missing leg gave a twinge. “Come on, give me your hand and let’s get back on the ground.”

“You look familiar. Are you married?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but she didn’t give him a chance before launching into a fast-paced monologue. “I hope you’re married, because if you’re not married, you need to get someone else to help me down from here.”

“Huh?” Had the sun baked her brain or had getting stood up at the altar made her crazy?

“If you’re not married, then this is a cute meet. I’m a sucker for meeting cute.”

“Huh?” he said again.

“My first fiancé?” she chattered, her glossolalia revealing her emotional distress. “I met Robert in a hot-air balloon. He was the pilot. I wanted a romantic adventure. The balloon hung up in a pecan tree and the fire department had to rescue us. It was terribly cute.”

“Sounds like it,” he said, simply to appease her. Mentally, he was planning their trip off the billboard.

“And Trace? I met him when he came to the kindergarten class where I taught. On career day. He was tossing a football around as he gave his speech. He lost control of it and accidentally beaned me in the head. He literally knocked me off my feet. He caught me just before I hit the ground and there I was, trapped in his big strong arms, staring up into his big blue eyes. I just melted. So you see I succumb to the cute meet. I’ve got to break the cycle and these romantic notions I have about love and marriage and dating and men. But I can’t do it if I go around meeting cute. There’s no way I can let you rescue me if you’re not married.”

The woman, Brody decided, was officially bonkers.

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I’m divorced.”

She grimaced. “Oh, no.”

“But this isn’t a cute meet.”

She glanced over at the fiberglass billboard lips, then peered down at her paint-spotted wedding dress and finally drilled him with almond-shaped green eyes, the only exotic thing about her.

The rest of her was round and smooth and welcoming, from her cherubic cheeks to her petite curves to the full bow of her supple pink mouth. She was as soft-focus as a Monet. Just looking at her made him think of springtime and flowers and fuzzy baby chicks.

Except for those disconcerting bedroom eyes. They called up unwanted X-rated images in his mind.

“I dunno,” she said, “this seems dangerously cute to me.”

“It can’t be a cute meet,” he explained, struggling to follow her disjointed train of thought, “because we’ve already met.”

She tilted her head. “We have?”

“Yep.”

“I thought you looked familiar.”

“So no cute meet. Now give me your hand.”

Reluctantly, she placed her hand in his. “Where did we meet?”

“Right here in Valentine.” He spoke with a soothing voice. Her hand was warm and damp with perspiration. He drew her toward him.

She didn’t resist. She was tired and emotionally exhausted.

“That’s it,” he coaxed.

“You do look familiar.”

“Watch your head,” he said as he led her underneath the billboard, toward the ladder.

She paused at the ladder and stared at the ground. “It’s a long way down.”

Tell me about it.

“I’m here, I’ll go first. I’ll be there to catch you if you lose your balance.”

“Will you keep your hand on my waist? To steady me?”

“Sure,” he promised recklessly, placing chivalry over common sense.

He started down the ladder ahead of her, found secure footing, wrapped his left hand around the rung, and reached up to hold on to her waist with his right hand as she started down.

Touching her brought an unexpected knot of emotion to his chest. Half desire, half tenderness, he didn’t know what to call it, but he knew one thing. The feeling was damned dangerous.

“I’m scared,” she whimpered.

“You’re doing great.” He guided her down until her sweet little rump was directly in his face. Any other time he would have enjoyed this position, but not under these circumstances.

“I’m going down another couple of steps,” he explained. “I’m going to have to let go of you for a minute, so hold on tight.”

The long train of her wedding veil floated in the air between them, a gauzy pain in the ass. In order to see where he was going, he had to keep batting it back. He took up his position several rungs below her and called to her to come down. As he’d promised, he put a hand at her waist to guide her.

They went on like that, painstaking step by painstaking step, until they were past the gap, off the billboard, and onto the collapsible aluminum ladder. In that regard, coming down was much easier than going up.

“You’re certain I already know you?” she asked. “Because seriously, this has all the makings of a meet cute.”

“You know me.”

“How?”

“I’m from Valentine, just like you. Moved away, came back,” he said.

Only four feet off the ground now. His legs felt flimsy as spindly garden sprouts.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasped and whipped her head around quickly.

Too quickly.

Somehow, in the breeze and the movement, the infernal wedding veil wrapped around his prosthetic leg. He tried to kick it off but the material clung stubbornly.

“I know who you are,” she said and then right there on the ladder, she turned around to glare at him. “You’re Brody Carlton.”

He didn’t have a chance to answer. The ladder swayed and the veil snatched his leg out from under him.

He lost his balance.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on the ground, and Rachael Henderson, his one-time next-door-neighbor-turned-jilted-psycho-bride, was on top of him. They were both breathing hard and trembling.

Her eyes locked on his.

His eyes locked on her lips.

Brody should have been thinking about his leg. He was surprised he wasn’t thinking about his leg. What he was thinking about was the fact that he was being straddled by a woman in a wedding dress and it was the closest he’d come to having sex in over two years.

“You! You’re the one.”

“The one?” he asked.

“You’re the root cause of all my problems,” she exclaimed, fire in her eyes, at the same time Brody found himself thinking,
Where have you been all my life?

But that was not what he said.

What he said was, “Rachael Renee Henderson, you have the right to remain silent . . . ”

Chapter Two

K
elvin Wentworth was so steamed he couldn’t enjoy his crullers. He tossed the half-eaten pastry to Marianne and dusted his sticky fingers against this thigh. The bullmastiff snarfed it up with a smack of her lips, and then eyed him to see if more was forthcoming. When she realized it wasn’t, she settled back down on her plush pillow.

“Dammit, Marianne,” he complained. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. You should see what that foolish Henderson girl did to our billboard.”

The dog made a huffing noise and covered her nose with her paws.

“I know!” Kelvin pushed himself up out of his chair and paced the generous length of the study that had been his daddy’s and his granddaddy’s and his great-granddaddy’s before that.

Three generations of Wentworths had been born and raised in this house. All their portraits and photographs of their accomplishments hung on the wall. There was Great-Granddaddy, Kelvin Wentworth I, covered in crude oil and grinning like an opossum as his first well came in. Next was a snapshot of Granddaddy Kelvin Wentworth II breaking ground on Wentworth Novelties. Beside that was a picture of Kelvin’s daddy, Kelvin Wentworth III, shaking hands with LBJ at the dedication of his man-made, heart-shaped Lake Valentine.

A wall of fame. An illustrious heritage.

“Maybe I should’ve gotten married,” he mused. “Had kids.”

Marianne didn’t offer an opinion.

“I had plenty of chances. I just never expected to get this old, this quick. I always thought I’d have time. Sow some wild oats before I settled down. Then again, how could I get married when I had a town to run? Valentine depended on me. Needed me. Especially after Daddy died.”

He stopped pacing in front of his own photograph in the lineup. In the picture he was being hoisted up on the shoulders of his teammates, all the while tightly clutching the Texas State High School Championship football trophy. Back then he’d had a full head of hair, a lean body, and a thousand-watt smile. “Where’d the years go?”

Marianne sighed.

“This Amusement Corp deal is the only legacy I have to leave behind,” he said. “Other than the championship win. It’s gotta go through. The Amusement Corp representatives can’t show up in town on Wednesday and see that billboard in the shape it’s in.”

Marianne barked.

“You’re right. I’m probably overreacting about the billboard. I can get it cleaned up in time. But it’s not just the billboard. It’s that damned Giada Vito and the back-to-nature concepts she’s kicking up. What the hell is wrong with the woman? She has no idea what’s best for this town. She’s a foreigner for crissake.”

But Kelvin knew what was best. His family had founded Valentine.

He walked over to the pool table in the center of the room that held a mock-up of his vision for Valentine’s future. His plans had been a decade in the making and were finally coming to fruition.

Squatting down to eye level, he admired the replica of a theme park the likes of which had never before been conceived. Valentine Land. The ultimate destination for fun-loving honeymooners. He flicked a switch on the plywood foundation and everything sprang to life.

The
Gone With the Wind
roller coaster started up the incline. The
My Fair Lady
Tilt-a-Whirl twirled. The
Pride and Prejudice
waterslide gurgled. Strobe lights flashed in the
It Happened One Night
Tunnel of Love while the
Camelot
Carousel went round and round.

And along with the theme park would come the Wentworth Airport, Wentworth Resort Hotels, and Wentworth Restaurants.

Excitement coursed through Kelvin’s veins. Great-Grand-daddy had found oil and built this house. Granddaddy had constructed Wentworth Novelties and groomed it into the world’s largest supplier of Valentine’s Day novelties outside of China. Daddy had created Valentine Lake and started the annual Fish-A-Thon tournament to supply the local food bank.

And now it was his turn.

Kelvin was going down in history as the man who brought true prosperity to Valentine. He had Walt Disney dreams, and with Amusement Corp’s backing, he could make it happen.

The telephone rang.

Irritated at being interrupted, Kelvin straightened and went for the phone. The caller ID told him it was the sheriff. “What you want, Carlton?” he grunted.

“Are you really serious about pressing charges against Rachael Henderson?”

“Hell, yes, I am.” He had to nip her insurrection in the bud. He couldn’t have anti-romance sentiment floating round while trying to sell the town on Valentine Land.

“Couldn’t she just agree to clean it up and let it go at that? There’s no reason to take this to court.”

“My sign was vandalized, Sheriff. Do your job.”

“Judge Pruitt is out of town until tomorrow. If you insist on pressing charges, Rachael is going to have to spend the night in jail.”

“Boo hoo. Tough luck. She should have thought about that before she went and painted up my billboard.”

“You’re being a hard-ass for no reason.”

“She defaced a local landmark.”

“It’s not like it’s the first time someone’s taken a potshot at the sign.”

“She’s a negative influence. I’d think you’d be more concerned about her disrespect for our hometown.”

“Okay, Mayor, you have every legal right to press charges, but I want to go on record here. I think you’re being a jackass.”

“Thanks for your opinion. Now why don’t you take it and a buck fifty and head on over to Higgy’s Diner and buy yourself a cup of coffee. I’ll drop by to file an official complaint right after church.”

B
RODY SLAMMED THE
phone down on his desk and muttered an oath under his breath.

His only full-time deputy Zeke Frisco’s wife had given birth last night to their first child. The baby was five weeks early, putting Brody at a disadvantage. His two part-time deputies had taken their summer vacations together in order to be off when Zeke went on paternity leave. The dispatcher, Jamie Johnston, was a single mom who worked nine to three Monday through Friday so she could take her kids to school and pick them up afterward without having to hire a babysitter.

Damn Kelvin and his insistence on pressing charges. If the Wentworths hadn’t owned the land where the sign was erected, he would have told the mayor he could stuff it.

As it was, he’d had no choice but to arrest Rachael.

Hands down, the hardest part of his job was putting up with the mayor. There wasn’t much crime in Valentine. Occasionally one of the regulars at Leroy’s Bar on the outskirts of town would kick up a fuss and Brody would have to lock him in the drunk tank overnight. Or he’d have to haul someone in on a warrant for child support violations or unpaid traffic tickets. Once in a rare while there would be a few petty thefts or shoplifting incidents or he’d catch some high school kid selling weed from the trunk of his car. But most of the time things were pretty peaceful in his hometown and that’s the way he liked it. He’d had enough excitement in Iraq to last a lifetime.