She's Gotta Be Mine (37 page)

“Choose,” he said softly, the sound filling the small shed.

“I...” Her bare feet numbed.

“Can’t.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly.” Moving in the darkness, he pushed past her, his silhouette filling the open shed door.

She followed, stumbled over the edge, hand outstretched, but long strides had taken him beyond her. Running, with a prayer that there really wasn’t any dog poop out here, she caught up with him at the edge of the porch.

“Nick.”

He turned, still in shadow under cover of the overhang. “You can’t make this town like or accept me. And you can’t save both your husband and me.”

Epiphany ran its fingers across her scalp, shuddered in her stomach. She wanted Cottonmouth to love her, to accept her, to make her one of its own. But to do it, she had to play by their rules. She couldn’t just be herself. She’d been feeding herself lies for the last week, seeking a belonging that couldn’t be hers. The need was like a sickness inside her; she hadn’t quite realized how powerful until this moment.

Bobbie rolled her lips between her teeth, bit down hard until they stung. “I don’t have to choose, Nick. I can help you both.” She touched his arm. “I won’t sacrifice you for him.”

He glanced at her clutching fingers. “You won’t mean to.”

“I
won’t
sacrifice you.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

She took his words to mean acquiescence, crisis averted. But a sliver of fear still throbbed in her. “Let’s go back to bed. We’ll work this out. I won’t call the sheriff.” She sounded just like she had with Warren for fifteen years. Placating, soothing. It was a pattern she knew well.

Nick looked beyond her to the yawn of the shed door. “I need to get a lock tomorrow. Until I figure out what to do with it.”

It. The shovel. The incriminating evidence. Bobbie shivered. “Shouldn’t we at least shut the door?”

“What the hell does it matter now?”

That was sort of like closing the barn door after the cow had already gotten out. Or the shovel had gotten in. He turned and went in the house. He didn’t stop her from following, but he didn’t take her hand either.

In his room, Nick shed his jeans. The mattress sagged with his weight, and he pulled the sheet to his waist. At the edge of his bed, she thought about her dirty feet. In the end, all she did was shrug out of his paint-splattered shirt and climb in beside him. They lay on separate sides, not touching.

She hadn’t felt this alone since...well, since the last time she’d asked Warren to make love to her. He’d pleaded a migraine. She’d never asked again. That was five years ago. Another life.

It didn’t bear thinking about now. She had to come up with a really good plan about where to go from here.

Okay. Cottonmouth didn’t like her questions. They didn’t like her choice of lover. Well, she was good at hide-and-seek. She’d been playing it with Warren almost since the beginning of their marriage. Give them what they want, keep them happy, keep a smile on your face.

Maybe it hadn’t worked completely, not in the end, but it had worked for fifteen years.

The mavens of Cottonmouth wanted her for the sheriff. Well, that’s exactly what she’d give them. Date the sheriff, find out everything he knew. And save Warren and Nick in the process.

She just hoped
Brax
didn’t think sleeping with him would be part of the plan.

* * * * *

“You’re going to do what?”

It was two a.m. Nick had been lying awake, listening for a siren. The bastard who left the damn shovel in his shed would have to call
Brax
, anonymously, of course. Could
Brax
get a warrant based on an anonymous tip?

“I’m going to go out with
Brax
,” Bobbie said. “On a date.”

Christ. He’d wanted her to choose him over her husband. He’d known it wasn’t fair, but he’d wanted it badly. As if it were a declaration, not of love, but ...something.

He’d also known she wouldn’t be able to do it. She’d had a marriage with her little weasel, a fifteen-year relationship. She’d only had a week with him. She couldn’t abandon the old. It wasn’t in her nature. If he were honest, that loyalty was one of the things he cherished about her. Not
cherished
, that wasn’t the right word.
Admired
. That was better.

Brax
wasn’t one of her choices.

“What the hell are you going to accomplish by dating
Brax
?” His gut twisted.

“Just for the information value. Since I can’t get it asking questions around town, I’ll question him.”

The woman wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. Date
Brax
because that’s what people wanted, stop asking questions of everyone on the street corners. She’d let them think she was falling in line, but in the end, she wouldn’t fool anyone. And he’d just bet she’d still sneak into his bed at night.

Damn if he’d let her.

“That’s idiotic.” He managed not to call
her
an idiot or reveal the fact that he’d rather smash his fist into
Brax’s
face than let her date the man. “He’s not going to tell you anything. Unless it’s misinformation.”

“But misinformation
is
information. You just have to decipher it.” Excitement bubbled in her voice. Never down for the full count, she was an eternal optimist. Or she was mentally challenged.

Nick was just a bug on her windshield.

He stacked his hands beneath his head. “Sounds good to me. Whatever you want to do.”

The pillow rustled as she turned her head to look at him, but she didn’t say anything.

All right. She’d date
Brax
, and Nick would make inquiries of his own. Cookie Beaumont wouldn’t have driven around with a shovel in her trunk and walked into his backyard wearing her high heels, the only kind of shoe she owned as far as he knew. His mind burned with one question. Who was Cookie’s accomplice?

He had one way to figure it out. Tomorrow, after he bought the lock for the shed, he’d go straight to the horse’s mouth.

Cookie would love being compared to a horse.

* * * * *

Bobbie tackled the sheriff late the next morning when he stopped by The Cooked Goose, which was practically empty between rushes. Perfect. “How’s the investigation?”

“What investigation?”

Bobbie jutted her left hip and put her hand on it, holding the coffee pot aloft in the other.
Brax’s
cup dangled in mid-air, waiting for a refill. “
Jimbo’s
murder investigation.”

The sheriff looked from the pot to the hand on her hip. “The case is unofficially closed.”

“Closed? It can’t be closed. I told you Warren isn’t capable of it.”

“Are you going to fill this thing?” He waggled his mug.

She huffed and poured. Holding out wouldn’t do much good. “We need to talk.”

“The sheriff’s order is up,” Mavis’s voice rang out sharply.

“Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.”

“The only thought I had was about my food,” he called after her, then added, “Among a couple of other things.”

She stopped, looked over her shoulder. The sheriff’s thoughts were obviously on her butt, if the direction of his gaze meant anything. Which wasn’t a bad thing for her little plan, the one Nick had given her the go-ahead for. Sort of. As if she needed his go-ahead.

“You’ve scared my customers away with your damn questions,” Mavis grumbled as Bobbie put down the coffee, slung a plate heavy with the works on her arm and grabbed the sheriff’s toast.

“It’s brunch, Mavis. No one comes in for brunch. And I didn’t ask a single question all morning.”

Mavis muttered wordlessly and went back to emptying the twenties out of the cash register.

Bobbie slid
Brax’s
breakfast in front of him, then sat opposite, on the edge of the bench seat so she could jump when Mavis noticed she was on her butt again. “Now, where were we?”

“The same place we were yesterday and the day before that, with the case closed and your husband in jail.” He peppered the steak and eggs heavily.

“You said ‘unofficially closed.’”

He glanced up at her, multitasking by cutting his steak at the same time. “Semantics. Mavis is going to fire you if you keep hanging around back here.”

“Mavis can’t fire me, she needs me. Kelly just told her she’s pregnant.”

The sheriff shook his head, a smile crooking the edges of his mouth.

“Has anyone ever told you how pretty your eyes are? A really nice shade of blue.” She cupped her chin in her hands while she buttered him up.

“I’m a cop. Flattery doesn’t work on me.”

“I wasn’t flattering you.” She put a mortified hand to her chest. “It’s the truth.”

His eyes riveted to her hand against her breasts. “What is it you want to know?”

“Well, since you asked.” She twirled the salt shaker between her palms. “Actually, it isn’t what
I
want to know, it’s what I think
you
should know.”

He took a healthy bite of steak. Bobbie’s mouth watered. She’d foresworn breakfast in order to get down to The Cooked Goose, just in case the sheriff came in early.

With his mouth full, all he could do was listen. “You know, I think this is all because of the
minimall
.”

He raised a brow, his jaw still working. Maybe the steak was kind of tough.

“That
minimall
is ruining the town, and a lot of people were angry about it. Angry with
Jimbo
. Did you know that?”

He cut another piece. “Bobbie, I’ve lived here all my life. I know all about the
minimall
and the hard times.”

“Well, do you know about—”

“I know about Beau hating his brother, and Mavis kicking Beau out.”

“But—”

“And I know a few things you don’t.”

She had him. She leaned forward avidly. “Like what?”

His knife and fork stilled. “How much are you willing to pay?”

She gasped. “You mean money?”

“No.”

Whatever was the sheriff implying? Certainly not
that
. Time to take control of the interrogation, oops, conversation again. “You know, on all those cop shows, they always look at the spouse first.”

“And you know, the little busybody always gets killed because she’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Was that a warning? “Come on, Sheriff, I’m just trying to help you before you get egg on your face.”

He looked down at his plate. “I haven’t started my eggs.”

She rolled her eyes.

Mavis’s soft-soled shoes sounded like cannonballs pounding down the aisle. “You need a keeper, Bobbie Jones. Leave the sheriff alone to eat in peace.”

Brax
eyed her. “Maybe she already has a keeper, Mavis.”

“I most certainly do not.” Nick wasn’t her keeper. He was just her lover. She squashed a niggling backwash of guilt for letting the sheriff ogle her breasts and butt.

Brax
wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Well, if you don’t already have one, maybe I should apply for the position.” The word definitely sounded sexual when he said it with that blue flame in his eyes. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”

Mavis made a little
hmmm
in her throat.

Brax
had asked Bobbie out. It was what she’d wanted. Especially since the sheriff was so far proving to be a fountain of information. She threw down the proverbial gauntlet. “How about tonight?”

He broke one of his eggs, the yolk streaming out only to be stopped by his crust of toast. “I’m busy tonight.”