C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel (15 page)

***

The first sign things might not go as C expected was the absence of Jemma’s SUV from the Lake Country parking lot. The second was the presence of an ornery old man in her outer office.

“Don’t know where they’ve taken off to.” He ruffled the pages of the Dallas newspaper’s financial section and folded them into a semblance of a book. The sofa was littered with the rest of the morning edition. “Damn irresponsible way to run a business. JT’d be spinning in his grave.”

C narrowed his eyes at the fellow. His overalls were clean and his work shirt grease-stained. His baseball cap lay on the side table next to a to-go cup of coffee. “I thought Jemma’s father was still alive.” But a sudden death could explain this particular set of circumstances.

“He is.” He scanned the article. “But if he were dead, he’d be spinning.”

“Where’s Carolyn?” C indicated her empty desk.

“Damned if I know. Door was unlocked. She’s probably next door at the donut shop getting a cinnamon roll. Just what she needs.” He humphed and thumped all the papers to the floor. He folded his arms across his chest. “You that man’s brother, aren’t you?”

“If that man’s T.” C shifted his weight and crossed his arms similarly. “And you are?” Although they’d never been introduced, he knew.
“Norm. Norm Hudson.” He continued to look C up and down. “Didn’t hardly recognize you in normal clothes.”

Just as he thought, the infamous Norm Hudson. He looked down at his own jeans and knit shirt, then over to Norm. “Are those your normal clothes?”

“’Cept on Sundays if I go to church. Then I wear a jacket with my overalls.” He moved his tongue around in his mouth. “Don’t go often. Got no need.”

“Not afraid of the hereafter?”

“Got to get through the here first. I’ll just let the women worry about the hereafter. Never shot a man, never took what wasn’t mine, never fooled around on my wife. Quit drinking too much when I was pup. Never took a drug wasn’t prescribed. I can face my Maker and not be ashamed.” He rested his hands on his knees. “Can you say the same?”

The question made C uncomfortable. He hadn’t darkened the doors of a church in over twenty years, not since his grandmother last made the two of them go. Even his wedding had been by a Justice of the Peace in Las Vegas. So why should he worry about a question an unrepentant old man asked him? They were probably two of a kind.

“I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done.”

Norm’s eyes widened. “Whoa, son. Maybe we’re reading different tabloids.”

“Maybe we just have different standards.”

“No doubt about that.” Norm stood and walked to within a foot of C. He looked the younger man up and down and C felt himself redden under the scrutiny.

“What are you looking for?”

Norm was circling him. “Seein’ if you got a tail and hooves. I hear devil stories about you.”

“For someone unafraid to face God and who’s content to let the women worry about his soul, I’m surprised you believe in the devil.” Norm started on a second round. “And quit that!”

The old man chuckled and came to stand in front of him. “Well, you seem to be human. Thought I’d check you out for Jemma. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Been sniffin’ around her?” He waved C off as he returned to the sofa and took up residence on the end cushion by his coffee. He took a sip. His eyes held laughter.

“I’m here to look at some property.”

“Yeah, Jemma.” He was amused at his own wit. “That gal’s not gonna’ be any man’s property.”
“Land.” C snapped off the words. “I’m here to look at land. Not that it’s any of your concern.”

“Gonna’ settle down? Raise a family?” He stretched his legs out and let his heels slide on the newspapers. “Jealous of your brother and Lyla?”

“Damn old man,” C muttered under his breath.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me. But my hearing’s still good.” He straightened up. “Why don’t you just come over here and sit a spell, boy? Maybe ol’ Norm could clue you in on a few important parts of Jemma’s life.” He cocked his head at C. “That is, if you’re interested.” He raised his eyebrows. “And I think you are, no matter what you say.”

It was an offer too good to pass up. “Okay, old man. I’ll make a truce with you.” He settled on the other end of the sofa.

“Don’t believe in truces, boy. This here’s gonna be a bargain with the devil.”

***

“It was eerie, Jemma. I tell you, if you’d’ve given me a multiple choice on the thing I least expected to see in the office
ever
, that would have been it.” Carolyn took a step back from Jemma’s desk. Her tale told, she waited for her boss’s reaction.

Jemma leaned back in her chair. “So where are they now?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged. “But they did leave together.” The story was so good she started over on it. “I come in from the donut shop and there they are. Norm on one end of the couch and Eddie C on the other. And they’re talking like they’re having a real conversation. What could those two ever have to discuss, I wonder?”

“It boggles the mind.” But Jemma had a real good idea. “And then they left?”

“Sort of. Norm starts moaning and groaning about having to protect the place since I hadn’t locked the door. Well, if the ol’ so-and-so had driven up instead of walking over from DamSite, I’d have heard that noisy old truck!”

“Why was he here in the first place?”

“Brought those pictures he promised of the back whatever in the spring. All blooming and pretty, like no one has ever seen anything like that.”

“And C? Why was he here?”

“Like he’s going to tell me?” She pointed to herself. “I thought he was engaged and long gone out of here.” She leaned over the desk conspiratorially. “Little news item on TV this morning that his engagement was short-lived and over. You heard about that?”

“Not officially.” Jemma certainly wasn’t going to reveal her Thursday morning conversation with Sam. This Tuesday morning was proving to be deluxe enough without more complications. “So Norm leaves. C leaves. I get in from the bank and post office and here we are.”

“Just so.” She started back toward her desk, stopped in the doorway. “Oh, Mandy called from school. Wants you to call and talk to the counselor.” She pursed her lips. “Now what could that be about?”
Jemma’s heart lurched. With Doree and James Thomas freshly out of town that morning to a banker’s conference, surely Mandy hadn’t skipped school and taken her just-turned-sixteen self down to the driver’s license bureau that morning instead of waiting until after school? That license had been all she could talk about as the family celebrated her birthday the day before.

“She didn’t say what about?”

Carolyn shook her head. “Nope. Just try to do it before noon.”

She disappeared into her office, closing the door behind her. Jemma looked up the high school number and hastily punched it in. She was put right through.

“Jemma, Mandy didn’t scare you, did she?” Margaret Stone had been the counselor when Jemma was in school, and if her advice now wasn’t any better than it had been twenty years ago, Jemma feared for the future.

“Well, James Thomas and Doree leave town and I get a call from school…” The pencil Jemma held snapped in two.

“Well, when Mandy said they were still going to be gone this Friday night, I asked her to call you. We’re five chaperones shy for the homecoming dance.”

Jemma controlled her breathing and realized that what constituted an emergency in Mandy’s world would barely rate a blip on her own radar of events.

Margaret continued. “The principal says haul in some more parents to chaperone the dance or it doesn’t happen.” She paused and her voice became chirpy. “We’ve just had the best response this morning to this call.”

“I bet.”

“So can we count on you?”
“I’m rather inexperienced with this sort of thing.”

“No problem. Just remember what all we did when you were in school. Stand around, look mean, separate them before they conceive the next generation on the dance floor. From right after the game to midnight. So I can write your name down?”

Jemma contemplated her last few weekend nights. Chaperoning the high school homecoming dance looked exciting by comparison. “Sure. I’ll be there with bells on.”

“Oh, don’t do that. That’s the principal’s trick.”

Chapter Fourteen

J
emma knelt on the office carpet by her desk and dealt the stack of photos like a deck of cards. The views of Norm’s property concentrated on the beauty of the spring, although the last three showed the house, which never seemed to change no matter the season.

She heard the front door open and close, heard Carolyn acknowledge the new arrival with a soft-spoken response. Jemma thought nothing of it until a pair of sandals housing very masculine feet showed up at the edge of her tableau.

“Afternoon, Jemma.”

She raised her eyes to C’s face. He was leaning over, hands on knees, studying the pictures upside-down one by one. His mouth quirked up and he raised one eyebrow.

“Surprised to see me?”

“I hardly know how to answer that.”

“Then I gather you were warned of my eminent arrival.” He squatted down so that they were nose to nose over the photos.

“A little bird told me you were in the neighborhood.” She leaned back on her heels and crossed her arms. “Something I can help you with?”

“I’m sure we’ll get to that discussion.” He looked back down at the pictures, his eyelashes masking the cold depths of his eyes. Still Jemma couldn’t make herself stop watching him. She gave a little start when he finally spoke up. “What are the pictures of Norm’s for?”

“The local cable TV station runs a real estate pro—how did you know they were of Norm’s? We never got out there.”

“And that was your fault, you know. Me—I’d have gone.” He smiled and his eyes softened just the least little bit.

Jemma felt a part of herself go weak.
Damn, no! This isn’t going to happen! It isn’t! It simply isn’t!

“Historically interesting as that is, you didn’t answer the question.”

He shrugged, raised his palms heavenward. “Norm’s putting me up. Said he had lots of room and would enjoy the company.” He paused slightly. “You look stunned. Was it something I said?”

Jemma measured her words. “You’re staying at Norm’s?”

“Back bedroom, the one that looks toward the barn. If you can call that pile of wood a barn.”

She nodded. She knew it. She used to take naps on the bed in that room when she was little and would tire of the women’s conversation. Now C was sleeping in her old bed. She hoped he liked an iron bed-frame and squeaky springs.

She snapped her head up with another thought. “Where’s Norm now?”

“Well, I didn’t drown him in one of those ponds if that’s what you’re asking.” His lips curled into a rueful smile. “I think he was going to harass the boys over at DamSite. Astonish them with the news of his new boarder. Would that make sense?”

“Yeah.” She dropped her gaze to the photos. “Why
did
he
ask you to stay there?”

He gave a little laugh. “I met him in your outer office this morning and we just hit it off. Is that so strange?”

“You have no idea.”

“So which is the more surprising? That he would ask or that I would accept?”

“That he would ask. You probably don’t much care where you spend the night.”

“Oh, but you’re wrong there. I’m picky where I sleep.”

“Couldn’t tell it by the tabloids all these years.”

“But I’m cleaning my act up, remember?”

“All I know is, you said if you got engaged you’d stay gone.” Jemma settled her hands on her knees and licked her lips. “And you did, but you haven’t.”

“We just decided to call it off. Mutual decision.”

“Yeah, I heard that on CNN at lunch when I went home. They said it was mutual.”

He shook his head. “Nah, Jemma, I can’t lie. Well, I could, I have, but I won’t. Not to you. Abs ditched me.”

Jemma drew her lips into a straight line and took a deep breath to calm her beating heart. The man who’d sworn that if he ever returned he would court her, was looking at her with very serious intent. Was she next on his menu? She didn’t trust him, didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Why couldn’t he just catch on?

“Okay, this is the awful truth.” He balanced his elbows on his knees, dangled his hands loosely and used them to emphasize his points. “We had one week of happily-ever-after with Abs as the center of a god-awful lot of media attention and me with an American Express charge big enough to float a third world navy. Then up she pops Saturday morning and tells me I’ll never make her happy ’cause she’ll not be in my shadow barefoot and pregnant or somesuch nonsense as that.” Jemma raised her eyebrows but he continued unabated. “Carts her ass out my front door wearing my ring and heads off to the BMW dealership. Three hours later I’m getting a call from my own personal jewelry shyster telling me my ring is once again available for sale should I need it.” He paused. “What’s so funny?”

“What isn’t? She keeps your ring and trades it in on a new car? Then the idea that that woman would ever be pregnant, much less barefoot, is enough to keep me smiling for a while!” She lowered her eyes and tried to straighten out her expression, still a smile clung to her lips when she looked back at him.

“She really kept it and sold it?”

He lifted his chin. “Abby has always been a survivor.”

“Expensive lesson, no?”

“You don’t have to find it so amusing.”

“Who all knows this?”

“Looking for leverage?” He concentrated on the photos before looking at her once again. “I can’t imagine there’s anyone who’s even remotely interested in this that
doesn’t
know it!”

“Poor Eddie C.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He settled himself on his knees like she was, then reached an arm out on either side of her, grasping the desk edge and effectively pinning her between the desk, his arms, and his body.

Although he was two feet away, Jemma could feel his heat. The kidding tone was gone and Eddie C was getting down to business. He had meant what he told her.