Falling for the Enemy (7 page)

“Sweet baby Jesus in the manger.” Melody practically crossed herself. “I hate when that happens. No, wait…I love when that happens.”

“Yeah, but I know it’s stupid of me to let it keep happening. I didn’t know who he was that first night, so I can blame my weak moment on hormones. I don’t have the same excuse for what happened this morning. There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t be jumping the man. I don’t know why my good sense disappears as soon as he touches me.”

Ellie cleared her throat. “There’s a medical term for the phenomenon. It’s called ‘screwing your brains out’.”

Ginny sat back in the booth and blew a stray hair off her face. “Well, I need the cure, or I’m going to look like a hypocrite, telling everyone in town we don’t need the Buchanans while I’ve secretly got one stashed in my bed. Worse, I’ll look like a manipulative bitch, trying to get the inside track on Tom’s campaign by cozying up to his son.”

“Sorry. Despite medical advances, there’s no tried-and-true cure.”

“That’s not very helpful. I can’t afford to let this…whatever it is…between Shaun and me happen again.”

“You think he’ll say something?” Melody asked.

“Shaun? No.” She stared out the window at the gray clouds rolling in from the East. They were in for a soaking later. “I can’t even pretend to know his deal, but I know he won’t say a word. He’s very…self-contained, and he’s not looking to discredit me. His father and his brother, though? I can’t say the same about them.”

“But, if he’s going to keep your secret”—Ellie turned her hands so her palms faced up, and looked around—“where’s the risk?”

“You’ve been away so long you’ve forgotten how small towns work, but nobody knows better than a former gossip queen how impossible it is to keep a secret in Bluelick.”

Her table-mates met the observation with silence. So that was that. She knew what she said was true, but had harbored a small hope the girls would point out some error in her logic.

LouAnn cleared her throat. “Want me to have Junior swing by the salon this afternoon and take care of your wall?”

“Thanks, but there’s no need. Apparently, in addition to knowing how to keep a secret, Shaun knows how to paint. When I got to the salon this morning the graffiti was gone.”

“Aww. That was sweet of him.”

Yeah, so sweet she’d almost teared up right there on the sidewalk. Not good. She didn’t blush, and she didn’t get misty-eyed over a sweet gesture. And yet, thanks to Shaun, she’d done both.

The diner door opened and Tom walked in with Ed Pinkerton, the manager of the hardware store. They headed toward a booth in the back, but Tom caught sight of her as they passed and detoured to their table.

“My esteemed opponent,” he said loud enough to turn the rest of the heads in the diner their way.

“Hey Tom,” she replied.

“I heard about your trouble last night at the hair parlor.”

“Word travels fast.”

“I keep my ear to the ground, especially when someone accuses my boy of wrongdoing.”

She should have known that detail from last night would make it back to Tom at warp speed.
Especially since it only had one generation to travel
. The sharp-edged thought cut through her mind. Shaun had raced to her rescue last night—no argument—but why wouldn’t his loyalties ultimately line up with his family? Then again, Crocker was just as likely the source. Or even Trent. Everybody knew Tom was in tight with the sheriff’s department. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d given him a heads-up about Justin.

No matter how the news got to Tom, the cold, hard, and very bitter reality was she had to watch what she said. She shoved her sense of betrayal aside, because Tom was in her face now, and she needed to deal with him, not try to figure out who’d stuck the knife in her back. This wasn’t exactly how she envisioned entering into her first public debate, but Tom put the Justin issue out there, and she wasn’t about to back down.

“Maybe you should get your ear off the ground and keep your eye on your kid instead?”

A few people behind her snickered.

Tom straightened to his full height, aligned his tie, and she became painfully aware he was standing over her like a principal with a disobedient schoolgirl.

“You’re new to politics, Ginny, so I’ll give you some advice. Free. There’s a legal term for defaming a person with a false statement. It’s called slander, and it will land you on the wrong end of a very expensive court judgment.”

Was he filing a lawsuit? Her heart rattled in her chest and her palms grew damp at the thought of hiring a lawyer and spending thousands of dollars defending herself over one hastily spoken accusation, but letting him smell her fear would be the same as conceding defeat, so she raised her chin and returned his stare. “Thanks for the advice Tom. I’ve always been a little fuzzy on when something is libel and when it’s slander, but I know one thing for certain.”

“What’s that?”

“Truth is an absolute defense.”

“You don’t have one shred of proof against Justin.”

“Yet.”

Tom shook his finger at her. “You’ve been warned. The next time you disparage my family, I’ll see you in court.”

Satisfied with the ultimatum, he turned and continued to his table. Silence reigned in the diner for several seconds, and then a low hum of conversation rushed in to fill the void.

Ginny exhaled and turned to LouAnn, Melody and Ellie. They stared back at her like she’d sprouted a second head. “What?”

“You’re good,” Melody said.

Ellie nodded. “My stomach’s in a knot over here, but you stayed calm and sharp and you held your own. Tom walked away sputtering threats like a whiny crybaby.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but what you can’t see is my stomach’s in a knot, too. This little interaction drove two things straight home. First and foremost, I’ve got to watch my big mouth, or it’s going to land me in court.”

“What’s the other?” LouAnn asked.

“I need to stay far away from Shaun Buchanan if I want to win this election.”

Chapter Eight

If you’re so intent on staying out of the local battles, why the hell do you keep putting yourself in the line of fire
?

Shaun’s caustic inner voice berated him as he strode down Main Street toward the salon, lugging the four foot fiberglass step ladder he’d borrowed from the cabin in one arm and carrying his toolbox and a nondescript black shopping bag in the other. Although it was barely five o’clock, storm clouds darkened the sky, throwing downtown into an early dusk. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He quickened his pace, and reached the salon just as a tiny, white-haired lady opened the door from the inside. After leaning the ladder against the wall, he grabbed the handle and held the door for her.

She squinted up at him through thick, frameless glasses, and smiled. “Thank you, sonny. Then she called over her shoulder, “Ginny, dear, I think you have a customer.”

“What did you say, Ms. Van Hendler?” Ginny called from the back of the salon. A second later she appeared around the corner, drying her hands on a towel. She stopped short at the sight of him.

He didn’t miss the way her eyes narrowed, but the older lady continued talking, oblivious to the undercurrent of tension. “Though I must say, his hair looks just fine. I don’t think he needs a trim.” She lowered her voice to a not-very-soft whisper. “Maybe he wants some…what do you call it”—she turned and assessed him—“manscaping?”

Okay, yes, he was a mission-hardened SEAL, but every soldier had his breaking point, and he might have paled at the thought of having his body hair slathered in hot wax and ripped out at the roots.

“Ms. V,” Ginny admonished, and the deceptively sweet-looking woman laughed.

“Just a guess, dear.” She shifted her owl-eyes back to him and grinned. “I don’t know what you young folks are into these days, with all the tattoos and body piercings and what-have-you, but I imagine it takes quite a bit of grooming.”

“Ah. No, I’m good.”

“I’ll bet you are, sonny.” She winked and walked out the door he still held open. He turned and headed in, nearly dropping his tools when he felt a quick but unmistakable squeeze in a personal zone.

He waited until the door clicked shut behind him. “Did she just pinch my ass?”

Ginny’s shrug was non-committal. “You have to watch Ms. V. She’s more plugged in than she lets on.” She leaned against the reception counter and folded her arms, as if to dispel any notion her comment represented solidarity of any sort. The silent message reached him loud and clear.
I’m keeping my distance.
“What are you doing here, Buchanan?”

She used his last name only. Summed him up and damned him in a single word. He aimed to prove her wrong. “You have a problem I can solve.”

Her brows shot up. “I do?”

As an answer, he put his toolbox down on the floor and held out the shopping bag.

She eyed the bag like it might contain a live rattler. “I’ve been solving my own problems for a long time.”

“Okay. I’ll just leave this with you, then.” He pushed the bag into her hands. “Instructions are inside.” Hoping she didn’t call his bluff, he reached for his tools, and bit back a smile when curiosity got the better of her and she peeked in the bag. A ‘v’ formed between her brows, and then she reached into the bag and pulled out a small, round device.

“What’s this?”

“That, sweet Virginia, is a state-of-the-art, motion sensitive, night-vision-enabled HD surveillance cam. I could have gone with something larger and more visible, if your goal was to deter your graffiti artist, but I figured you wanted to catch the bastard, not force him to get creative.”

She stared at him for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words. Then she looked back at the camera resting in the palm of her hand. “It’s so…small.”

“Professional grade. If something triggers the motion detector, the digital camera will record and send the video to your phone. A friend of mine is kind of an expert on this type of thing, and he helped me pick it out. He also assured me it’s easy to set up. I’m sure someone so adept at solving her own problems will have no difficulty, but”—he tapped his toolbox—“I’ve got my tools and some time, if you want me to handle the install.”

She dropped the camera into the bag and handed it to him. His heart lightened when she rested her hand on his chest. “Sorry I acted like a bitch. I can’t believe you thought to do this, and I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d install the dang thing for me. Thank you.”

He resisted the urge to move into her touch, because it was an unconscious gesture of gratitude, not a come-on. Plus, if he decided to push his luck, the installation might be delayed for hours. “You’re welcome. I’m going to get the camera positioned before it starts raining.”

“I can help. Hand you tools, or—?”

“No.” He pushed the door open and paused there to admire her, all slim legs and glowing skin in cuffed, white shorts and a slouchy, pink, shoulder-revealing top. Whenever she moved, the wide V-neck offered a peek at her subtle cleavage, snug in some lace-trimmed white thing she wore beneath. She raised an arm to run her fingers through her hair, and the sleeve went sliding. He had a sudden desire to lick her from the point of her shoulder to the tips of her toes, with plenty of detours along the way.

Thunder boomed aggressively in the silence, breaking into the moment they were having. She blinked, and he got the distinct impression he hadn’t been the only one contemplating detours, especially when her cheeks turned almost as pink as her shirt. “Okay, then. I’m going to…um…finish cleaning up.” She spun and bee-lined to the back of the salon.

He gave himself another moment to admire her flustered retreat, not to mention her tight little ass in the white shorts, and then stepped out on the sidewalk and got to work. Installing the camera didn’t take long. He mounted it to the base of the carriage-style fixture that hung over the door, so the wrought-iron and frosted glass obscured the lens from any eagle-eyed onlookers. A flip of a switch, the camera’s green “active” light came on, and down he went.

Back inside he followed the instructions to download the monitoring app to his phone, and then hers, while she sat beside him, uncharacteristically quiet. Over the occasional rumble of thunder, he could practically hear her warring with herself about whether to ask the questions on the tip of her tongue, and figured it was only a matter of time before curiosity won out. Three…two…

“Where’d you learn how to do this?”

“It’s amazing what you pick up during six years with the SEALs.”

“So, surveillance was your area of expertise?”

“No.” He hit the new icon on his phone and pulled up the view from the camera outside. He showed it to her. “I’m going to program the scan area a little tighter to the wall, because you don’t want an alert every time someone walks past your shop.”

“Sounds reasonable,” she replied, but he could tell by her cautious tone she hadn’t missed the fact that he’d dodged her inquiry. He zoomed in and adjusted the setting, feeling her eyes on him the entire time.

For some inexplicable reason, he found himself circling back to her question. “I have a friend in Cincinnati who also used to be with the SEALs. He’s the technical guy. I went to see him today, explained what I needed, and he hooked me up with the cameras.”

“Ah. Well, I really appreciate you doing this. Can I reimburse you for the equipment? I have no idea how much stuff like this runs, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. He owed me a favor.”

She hesitated. He looked up from the phone screen and held her gaze, so she could see he meant what he said, but ended up lost in her clear green eyes. Finally her eyelids dropped down and her mouth tipped up at one corner. “All right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I also noticed someone painted over the graffiti, and I really appreciate it.”

“Somebody has a lot of flexibility in his schedule right now.”

“Did you…?” She trailed off and he sensed the war going on in her head again.

“Did I what?”

“Did you talk to your father about last night, by any chance?”

The question surprised him. He wasn’t sure why she asked, but he didn’t need a map to know he was walking into a minefield. Still, in he went, because that’s where she wanted to go.

“No. I drove to the house last night to talk to him, or Justin, or both, but Brandi was the only one home. I asked her to tell Tom to call me, but that’s about as effective as asking a housecat to relay a message. I was in Cincinnati all day today, so I’ve been out-of-pocket.”

“Oh.” Her single-word response didn’t give away much, but she rolled her shoulders and tipped her head to one side.

“Why do you ask?”

She tipped her head to the other side, working out some invisible kink, and he imagined his hand there, at the base of her neck, slowly massaging the stiffness from her muscles. Then she sighed and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. What goes on between you and your father is none of my business, and I don’t intend to make what goes on between me and him any of your business.”

“Of course not. What went on between you and Tom?”

That earned him a quick laugh. “I just told you, it’s none of your business.”

“I’m a highly trained combat specialist. I have ways of making you talk.”

“Ha. I’ll bet you do. But your ways are not going to work on me. I made a pact with myself to be more circumspect, especially after last night. I shouldn’t have told Crocker Justin spray-painted my wall when I had no proof.”

He agreed, but simply shrugged rather than second the conclusion. “You think he did it.”

“I
know
he did it, but making an accusation against Justin, under the circumstances, amounts to making an accusation against Tom, and stuff like that could come back and bite me if I can’t prove it. I’m also sorry for putting you in an awkward position last night. Justin’s your brother—”

“You didn’t put me in any kind of position.” He interrupted her to make the point because this was the second “sorry” to come out of her mouth for something she had no reason to feel sorry about. “If I’d been able to identify the guy, I would have done so, regardless of whether it was Justin or Moses or God himself. I don’t know who it was, but if he does an encore, we’re going to nail his ass.” He held up her phone. “You ready to see how?”

She nodded and took it from him.

He walked her through the app. When he finished, he stepped outside and tested the camera, which served as a half-decent test of the night-vision capabilities thanks to the premature darkness from the incoming storm. Everything worked. They both received the alert. She accessed the video on her phone and whistled at the resolution.

“This is light years ahead of the grainy convenience store videos you see on the news every once in a while. Why doesn’t everybody have these?”

His silence brought her head up. She searched his face. “Exactly how big was this favor your friend owed you?”

“Bigger than a convenience store security camera.”

She drew in a deep breath. He watched the sleeve of her pink shirt slide down her arm again. His hand twitched with an impulse to reach out and brush the thin strap of the white top off her shoulder as well.

“I noticed two cameras in your bag of tricks.”

He forced his gaze back to her face, and kept his expression deliberately neutral, because he didn’t want her realizing the calling card her unknown artist had left last night bothered him more than cruder messages might have. It struck him as targeted, and personal, and not necessarily the work of a spoiled teen with a chip on his shoulder and a warped sense of family loyalty. “I thought you might want one for your house. Invite me over and I’ll install it for you.”

Her eyes evaded his while she worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t accept. If my neighbors saw your Jeep in front of my house, tongues would wag. I can’t risk the speculation right now…especially with you…”

He couldn’t risk the chance of her surprising her graffiti artist on her doorstep instead of at the salon. “I’ll park down the street and walk up.” The words tasted only slightly bitter in his mouth. “Nobody will know I’m there.”

Thunder cracked overhead like a warning shot.

…

Rain battered Ginny’s windshield as she steered her Ford Escape down Main Street past the fire station and made a left at the first intersection after the square. In her rearview mirror she watched the headlights behind her make the turn as well. She’d bought the Escape because it was roomy and maneuverable, but now, as she led Shaun to her house, she wondered if she ought to hit the gas and do as the car’s name suggested.

Hello, sane Ginny to crazy Ginny. Come in crazy Ginny. Did you not just swear this guy off at breakfast today?

Yes she had. But then he’d showed up at her salon and seduced her with fancy surveillance equipment. Not to mention the way he handled his tools. He was one of those guys who sank a screw with quick, efficient twists of his wrist. No fuss, no fumbling.

Plus, he hadn’t told Tom what she’d said about Justin.

Which meant her first instinct…well…second instinct, had been right. Somebody at the sheriff’s department fed Tom information. Predictable. He supported the department wholeheartedly, and Crocker was probably one of his cronies. She wasn’t the first citizen to suggest Bluelick might fare better with its own police department, but Tom always argued against it. Sheriff Butler appeared more than willing to return Tom’s loyalty.

A few blocks down Union, the historic brick townhomes separated into Colonials and Victorians with gracefully down-sloping front yards. The road angled up a hill, and the bigger homes transitioned to smaller houses from the 1930s and 1940s dotting the steeper hillside. A tidy, well-tended working class neighborhood rather than a fancy one, but it suited her fine.

She slowed as her broad, white garage came into view, and hit the clicker to raise the door. As she pulled in, she saw the Wrangler drive past. Her hero, once again coming to her rescue.

What are you going to do with this man?