She's Gotta Be Mine (22 page)

“But don’t wait too long or I’ll give you a run for your money with Ms. Bobbie Jones.”

The threat struck Nick as entirely empty.

And dammit, he didn’t care if she was laughing way too much with
Brax
. He looked to Harry to break the mood, since Kent had a one-track mind. Old Harry seemed to be sinking down into his beer. Nick nudged him under the table. “Don’t go getting sloppy on us, you haven’t even finished your first one.”

“Sorry, just thinking.”

“She’ll come round. She always does.” Nick felt a little sorry for Harry. He wasn’t hen-pecked, just married with three kids.

“It’s not just Sarah. It’s the store. I don’t know how we’re going to make the rent the first of the month. And if things don’t pick up soon...” He let the thought trail off.

Shit. Poor Harry. “Ask
Jimbo
to cut you a little slack.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, right, Magnanimous
Jimbo
.” He cut himself off, looking around as if someone might have overheard the sarcasm laced with anger. “Been there, done that. The last two months. Next step is borrowing money from Sarah’s parents.”

Kent punched
Harry’s
arm. “That’s really why she’s cut off your rations, isn’t it?”

“Her dad can be a...”

“A peckerwood.” Kent had just the right word for the occasion.

“Yeah. But that store’s been in my family for sixty years.” Harry didn’t want to be the one who failed at it. Nor, Nick knew, did he want to ask his father, happily settled into Florida retirement, to bail him out. “It’s that damn
minimall
. We were doing fine till they opened that department store Who pays thirty-five bucks for a nice white shirt when you can buy it down there for ten? Even if it does fall apart after the first wash.”

Jimbo
and his damn
minimall
. It wasn’t just Harry and his clothing store. If you didn’t have a liquor license like the Rowdy Tavern or sell greasy home-style food like Mavis’s Cooked Goose or make the best damn milkshakes for fifty miles like Johnson’s, you didn’t stand a chance in Cottonmouth.
Jimbo
owned them all, and the
minimall
sucked them dry.

Still, what Harry didn’t seem to get was that no one was buying white shirts anymore, unless it was a T-shirt. “Maybe you need to reevaluate what you’re stocking, Harry.”

“You don’t understand. I’m over-inventoried. I can’t change the stock until I sell what I’ve got so that I can have enough money to pay off the old. I’m maxed out with my suppliers as it is.” In his misery, Harry guzzled half his beer. “I fucked up royally, I know that, but
Jimbo
didn’t have to turn the screws.”

“God, you’re making me want to cry here, Harry. Next beer’s on me. And will you get a look at that?” Kent pointed none too covertly across the dining room, changing the subject abruptly, to
Harry’s
relief and Nick’s chagrin.

Brax
was pulling back Bobbie’s chair, like an ever-loving goddamn gentleman. As she rose, damn near half her naked thighs were visible in that leather mini-skirt. And four inches of bare midriff. Nick salivated as if she were a juicy bit of steak. She tucked her tiny matching blue purse under her arm and headed off to the ladies’ room with a sashay that jumbled Nick’s insides.

And
Brax
had not been looking anywhere close to eye level as he watched her. Christ, the bastard really did want her.

Nick sure as hell didn’t want him to get there first. He didn’t want
Brax
to get there at all. Not that he’d admit it to Kent, but yeah, he had one hell of a jealous streak regarding Bobbie Jones.

Chapter Nine

“You still haven’t told me why you’re so interested in Cookie Beaumont.”

Could it be because
Bobbie’d
been dumped by her husband even though Cookie wasn’t getting a divorce? Sure, Cookie said she was afraid of
Jimbo
. Bobbie didn’t believe a word out of that woman’s mouth. “I’m not interested in her.”

“And you haven’t been grilling me about her for the last hour?” Sheriff Braxton was no dummy.

“Of course not.
You
started talking about her.”

Brax’s
mouth quirked, and he shook his head. “Right. Forgot about that. I guess you didn’t ask me out to dinner just so you could ask me the A-to-Z on Cookie?”

“Absolutely not.” She’d asked him because seeing Cookie’s talons in
Brax’s
arm had driven Bobbie insane for a moment.

He really was a good-looking specimen, a very nice table decoration. He had a sense of humor, too. She couldn’t remember everything he’d said, but she did remember laughing a lot during dinner. The steak had been as delicious as he’d claimed.

The man had been a fountain of information. Cookie had arrived in Cottonmouth some fifteen years ago—what had she been doing in the ensuing five after she’d left Warren? She’d latched on to
Jimbo
right away, the rich, older man, and married him in less than a year. Then, with sufficient time, she’d severed
Jimbo’s
relationship with Beau.

Unbelievable as it was, Beau, of Beau’s Garage, was
Jimbo’s
brother, which meant that Cookie was the woman who’d ruined Mavis’s marriage and broken her heart. And, Bobbie was sure, she’d lied to her husband about what had happened with Beau in the first place. What was it Beau had said about Cookie, that she’d stab you in the back and you wouldn’t even know she’d been holding a knife? Bobbie believed it with all her heart and animosity.

“Let’s talk about
Jimbo
. Do you think he beats his wife?” She lowered her voice despite the noise being at the totally rowdy level the tavern’s name advertised. She’d sat next to him instead of across so she didn’t have to yell.

Brax
almost choked on his last bite of barely-beyond-raw steak. “
Jimbo
, a wife beater?” He shook his head. “He’s a pussycat. Why?”

Why indeed?
Why
seemed to be Sheriff Braxton’s favorite word.
Why do you want to know? Why do you think that? Why is that important?
By the end of the evening he was going to want those
whys
answered. Maybe she ought to start throwing him off track right now. “I want to make sure he hasn’t got any hidden vices I should know about before I steal him away from his wife.” She leaned forward, lowered her voice once more. “See, I’ve got the secret
hots
for
Jimbo
.”

He laughed until his eyes watered and heads had turned in his direction. His face turned a dangerous shade.

“Are you all right?”

He gulped at his water, then his beer. “I’m fine. I have never met anyone like you. Why’d your husband leave you?”

Why, why, why. Her neck chilled as if he’d dumped his mug of beer down the back of it. Her fingers numbed. The question was such a surprise that the truth almost overwhelmed her.

Because Warren had never loved her in the first place. He’d never stopped loving Cookie. Cookie, no matter how many lies Bobbie had told herself for fifteen years, had been a specter in their marriage bed since the day they first inhabited it. Cookie was the reason nothing had worked between them. She was probably the reason Warren had never wanted children with Bobbie. Cookie was the reason everything had gone wrong in her life.

“I’m sorry,”
Brax
said. “That wasn’t fair.”

She sipped her chardonnay, then gave him a bright smile she knew was minutes too late. “Not a problem.”

“Let’s be honest here. I like you. I think you’re an attractive woman. But you’ve got some weird agenda going. I won’t rest until I figure it out.”

She studiously scooped up the last of her mashed potatoes, avoiding his eyes. “You’re the sheriff. You must see hidden agendas everywhere.”

“No, I don’t.”

She waited for him to go on. He didn’t. That seemed to make her talk to avoid the silence. Good interrogation tactic he had there, but she had questions, too. “Why’d you tell me so much about the
Beaumonts
?”

“I didn’t tell you anything you couldn’t find out by asking anyone in town.”

Figures. “I guess I was supposed to just naturally tell you what you wanted to know in return.”

He nodded. “Didn’t work, though. You’re more of a clam when it counts than I thought.”

All the diversionary tactics suddenly exhausted her. The last week had exhausted her. And in that moment of weakness, another truth slipped in through the chink in her armor. All she really had to do was go home. To San Francisco. End the game. Give up “Bobbie” and the misery would stop.

Except that without Warren, San Francisco was just another place to live. Cottonmouth was beginning to seem more like home, despite Cookie’s presence.

And she’d die reverting back to her Roberta self. Roberta had been well on the way to doing that even before Warren left. She’d just never known it.

“I used to go to high school with Cookie,” she lied, not sure whether she was covering for Warren or herself. “As you can see, she didn’t recognize me.”

He tipped his head, his blue eyes blank. “I suppose it was a shock to see her here in Cottonmouth.”

“Yes, it was.” How many lies was he going to believe?

Brax
leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers. “What’d she do to you in high school, steal your boyfriend?”

She grimaced at how close he’d come to the truth. “How did you guess?”

His index fingers came up, tapped together. “The comment about stealing her husband.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

A smart man, he knew right when to change the subject. Before she started blubbering. “Want dessert?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m full.”

“Then I’ve got one more question.”

She hoped she could come up with one more lie. “Shoot.”

“How well do you know Nick?”

“Nick?” Her stomach jumped into her throat, and her face heated.

“Nick Angel? Lives across the street from you?”

“Oh.” Oh my God. “Oh, not well. Why?”

“Because he’s been staring at you for the past hour, and he looks like he could shoot me right between the eyes.”

* * * * *

She’d argued out in the parking lot with
Brax
for five minutes about why she didn’t want him to follow her home to make sure she was safe. His infernal
why
again.

The thing that did it was her declaration, “Because I’m not going home.”

He stopped asking why. Something hard and implacable passed over his face. And then she saw what he saw, Nick standing on the wooden front porch of the tavern. Watching.

Brax
hightailed it to his SUV and would have burned rubber if the parking lot hadn’t been dirt. She wondered if he would have kissed her if Nick hadn’t been there. She wondered if she would have let him follow her home.

“You know,” she whispered, “you’re a mixed-up fruitcake.” Never had truer words been spoken.

She was also a coward.
Brax
could have been a fountain of information about Nick and Mary Alice Turner. Bobbie had plain chickened out of asking the sheriff. She kept telling herself Nick’s past was nothing like Warren’s with Cookie. Besides, she wasn’t looking for a lasting relationship with Nick, and what he felt about his high school sweetheart didn’t matter a whit.

So why had she been afraid of
Brax’s
answer?

She unlocked her car door, climbed in, and gave the tavern one last look. Nick was gone.

Figures. She started the engine, punched the accelerator and fishtailed across the lot. She stopped at the access to let a car pass, a BMW just like Warren’s.

My God, it
was
Warren, hunched over the wheel like an old man. Or someone with way too much on his mind. He was headed out of town. In the opposite direction of the house he’d rented in Cottonmouth. Didn’t Cookie live out that way somewhere?