Big, fluffy black towels hung from the rods in front of her. The same exact towels they had at home. The shower had Randy’s favorite bar of soap in the dish. And the toilet paper was double quilted, the brand Randy had insisted she buy even though it was nearly a dollar more than other four-packs. To add insult to injury, the TP was hung under, not over, the dispenser.
That was it. Randy had won. He’d made a mockery of their marriage with his mistress. And Lola had let him override everything about her life, including how she hung her toilet paper.
The first thing Lola was going to do when she got back home was put the toilet tissue on the roll the right way.
Lola stood and rinsed out her mouth. She stared at herself in the mirror over the sink, trying to work up the courage to face the bed again.
Coward that she was, she opened the medicine cabinet instead. It didn’t have anything as incriminating as the other woman’s prescription medication. Toenail clippers, dental floss, toothpaste, mouthwash, and a supply of toothbrushes still in their packages. Randy had always been hell-bent on hygiene.
Or hell-bent on disguising the taste and scent of another woman.
Lola’s stomach threatened to heave once more.
You have to be a big girl. That’s what her mother had told Lola after her dad had left. You have to forget about dreams and stop crying.
Lola didn’t want to be a big girl. She wanted to go home, crawl in bed, and hug something.
And there was a hard truth. She had nothing to hug.
Lola splashed water on her cheeks and turned to face the main room. A bed and a bureau. What purpose did the bureau serve? Maybe there was something in its drawers to give Lola a clue about who her husband’s mistress was. A change of clothes. A receipt from a bar. A photo of the cheating couple.
The front door swung open.
Lola shrieked, bumping into the bathroom doorframe and jarring her shoulder.
But it wasn’t Randy’s mistress. It was Drew, dressed for his day off in blue jeans, boots, and a blue checked shirt. His police radio was clipped to his shirt pocket. Dark whiskers, dark tousled hair, dark eyes that saw too much.
“Couldn’t you knock?” she demanded, swaying like Paul had last night when facing the jail cell.
“Couldn’t you leave the past alone?” he replied with a scowl, standing tall and unshaken. He handed her a check.
Lola tucked his rent into her bra strap.
“Go away.” She only half meant it. His presence calmed her. She marched across the beige linoleum, clutched the handles to the top bureau drawer, and pulled.
Stubby candles. A battery-powered strobe light. A canister of red rose petals made of silk.
“No pictures, no matchbooks, no love letters,” Lola mumbled, swimming her hands through the near-empty drawer with increasing speed.
“Don’t do this.” Drew caught her wrists and pulled her away from the bureau. “I’ll get Gary to come up here and help me move everything out. Don’t put yourself through this.” His words were measured and calm. His dark eyes lined with concern. The sheriff doing his duty, keeping the peace.
But there were still drawers to go through and answers to find, and Lola could feel her mother’s dramatic, foolish, eccentric impulses building inside her like a pressure cooker without a vent. She eased from his hold. “I have to know if what we had was real.”
The next drawer was filled with silky lingerie. Black, white, red, pink. Bustiers, thongs, corsets, baby doll gowns. She held up one racy black number. It was see-through.
“Okay. All right. You get the idea.” Drew snatched the nightwear away and stuffed it in the drawer. “I know what you’re thinking. Just…don’t say it.”
“My lingerie isn’t half as nice as hers,” Lola blurted, pathetically envious.
“I told you not to say what you were thinking.” Drew placed his hands on Lola’s shoulders. They fit, those hands.
Or maybe she was just so lonely that anyone’s touch would have comforted her.
He turned her toward the door. “You need to go home.”
“To what?” Lola dug in her sneakers and resumed her search.
The two bottom drawers were deep. The first one had a variety of costumes for both men and women. Fireman, black cat, nurse, schoolgirl, Santa.
Oh, Santa.
Lola shook out a crumpled bit of blue polyester. It was a jumpsuit with a halter top, and it loosely resembled a cop uniform. Whoever Randy’s mistress had been, she had an overactive imagination. Lola lifted the uniform to Drew’s shoulders. “You might be able to squeeze into this. Polyester is very stretchy.”
“I’ll wear my own pants, thank you.” Drew put his hands on hers and gently but firmly pushed them back into her space.
Lola’s hands lowered, and she looked at Drew, really looked at him. If she’d seen him on the streets of New York, she wouldn’t have looked twice. He didn’t have a smile that charmed or a wardrobe that said he had great taste. He’d never barge through a crowd as if he owned Wall Street or cut in front of her at the corner Starbucks because he was late for a meeting.
He could have made a snarky remark about the lingerie (or hers). He could have lost his temper when she’d teased him about wearing the cop costume. There was a reason he was the sheriff. He was steady and reliable, the opposite of her husband.
Nothing had been said during her scrutiny of his face. Lola hurried to fill the void. “Who broke your nose?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze dropped to her left hand. “What did you do with your wedding ring?”
Add observant to his list of attributes. Randy never would have noticed if Lola had done her hair differently, much less if she’d been wearing his ring.
“Lola.” Drew’s voice had grown soft. His gaze on her face softer still. “Let this go. Nothing good can come of it.”
Deep down inside, tucked away where she kept her fondest memories of Nana, something agreed. Letting it go was the smart, logical thing to do.
But nearer to the surface, Randy’s betrayal festered, like a mosquito bite that refused to stop itching. The only way Lola could see to heal was the stinging balm of the truth. She reached for the last drawer.
“Holy shades of gray,” Lola muttered, peering inside. “Are those lederhosen?”
Drew bent for a closer look, apparently as curious as she was.
Lola shuddered. “I feel so—”
“Sheltered?”
“No.”
“Repressed?”
“No!” Lola hunched over the open drawer, back to wishing Drew would leave. “I liked you better as the stiff and starched sheriff.”
“I’m sorry.” Drew squared his shoulders and frowned at Lola as if he were considering making an arrest. “I interrupted you. You were saying you feel so…”
Had she hurt his feelings? Now she felt guilty.
“Lacking.” Lola sighed. “I feel lacking. I couldn’t wear a fake cop uniform or lederhosen without dying of laughter.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, and his shoulders downshifted. “You wouldn’t hold up long in an interrogation.”
He’s teasing me.
Be still my heart.
Said heart fluttered in her chest.
“Sheriff, it’s a good thing I haven’t committed a crime.” Lola forced her gaze back to the drawer, forced herself to focus on what was inside instead of who stood next to her. And then she saw it. “Well, hello.” There was a small cedar box beneath all that leather. Trying not to touch anything else, Lola retrieved the box and stared at it, suddenly too numb to move. “My grandmother used to store her love letters in a box like this.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Drew stood close to her shoulder. He smelled of coffee and cotton. Clean, the way Randy used to smell. Familiar. Comforting.
Lola hesitated. “What if there are pictures in here? Matchbooks from restaurants? Tender notes that say how much he…” Loved her.
“What if it’s empty?” Dre
w sounded as if he didn’t believe Randy was capable of such sentimentality.
The Randy she’d fallen in love with had been. Lola set the keepsake box on the bureau and lifted the lid.
There were no notes or photographs, just five small items. A dangly ruby earring. A turquoise pendant on a silver chain. A silver beaded bracelet interspersed with tiny copper bells. A near-empty vial of Joy, which was a very expensive perfume. And a blue velvet box stamped with a gold insignia: Yonkers Jewelry.
Lola’s stomach lurched. “This is my grandmother’s pearl ring. I thought I’d lost it after the move to Sunshine.”
Nana…
“Your grandfather was a prince.” Nana had taken off the pearl ring and slipped it on nine-year-old Lola’s finger. It was a simple ring with a fleur-de-lis to either side of the pearl. “He claimed I was different than other women and therefore I needed a different kind of wedding ring. Someday, this will be yours. Someday, you’ll wear it and know that love came before you and love is ahead of you.”
Standing in Randy’s love shack, Lola knew that having her grandmother’s ring returned to her would make everything all right—the hurt, the betrayal, the uncertainty. She cradled the velvet box near her heart and opened it slowly.
Her stomach lurched again.
“Huh. No ring.” Drew took inventory of the cedar box’s contents, moving each remaining item around with one finger.
What had Randy done with Nana’s ring?
Lola swallowed back the sickening feeling that she’d never see the pearl ring again, realizing she’d found what she’d come for. Clues. “None of those other things are mine.” She nodded toward the cedar box and raised her gaze to Drew’s. “Do you know what that means?”
“I’m a cop. I draw conclusions from evidence all the time.” He took the ring case from Lola and put it back among the other items, closing the lid decisively. “Obviously, it means your husband loved Halloween a little too much.” His gesture encompassed the bureau. His smile tried to encompass her.
Lola’s breath caught. She blamed her awareness of the man next to her on their proximity to the provocative costumes.
“Or he was a cross-dresser and lost a lot of jewelry.” Drew’s lips twitched up on one side again. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
He’s trying to make this easy on me.
There was no way this could be easy.
Lola shook her head, shaking off the distracting attraction. “What it means is all I have to do is find the woman these things belong to and—”
“I don’t want to burst your bubble—”
“But you’re going to try.” Lola closed the drawers, noting Drew’s disappearing smile and finding comfort in the familiar territory of his disapproving expression. “Go ahead.”
“This is a small town, and people aren’t going to voluntarily claim their missing personal effects from you.” The unflappable sheriff stood before her, stating the situation as he saw it, pointing out risks and predicting downfalls. “People aren’t going to like you poking around trying to identify who Randy knew…personally.”
“I’m not going to stalk women with a gun.” Lola glared at him, this man who smelled so good and always seemed to think the worst of her. “By the way, I need my gun back.”
“You can have Randy’s gun”—Drew’s jaw hardened—“just as soon as you get a permit for it.”
She made a sound of disgust. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m the law.”
“Show some compassion.”
“Show some common sense.” His annoyance sparked between them like static electricity on a cheap polyester cop uniform. “Bonfires. Public confessions. Blow-up dolls. And now a witch hunt.” He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “Take a look at what’s happening to you.”
“What happened,” she said firmly. “Past tense. And I’m just now finding out about it. I need my twenty-four-hour cool-down period.”
He did roll his eyes then. “I give my daughter time-outs when she has meltdowns.”
“I won’t melt down.” She’d done that already. “I just need to find this woman. I just want to know…” She closed her eyes and left the rest of the statement unspoken.
“If he loved you,” he finished for her in an understanding voice that was almost as soothing as Bitsy’s. “And if you were to blame.”
Lola’s eyes flew open. Drew had a compassionate look on his face.
“I get it,” Drew continued, oblivious to the hypnotic quality of his own voice. “Women always think they could’ve done something different in the relationship. Better nightclothes, better cooking, better bedroom moves. I’ve got news for you. When a man strays, it’s least likely to be the woman’s fault.”
“How do you…”
“You forget I have four sisters. I’ve seen it all.” His brown gaze was direct and unflinching. “Bad boyfriends, catty girlfriends, lying husbands—”
“I get the point, Dr. Phil.” Lola cut him off but she couldn’t seem to look away from his face. Full lips. Strong, stubbled chin. Fine lines around his eyes as if he’d spent too much time in the sun. He wasn’t as beautiful as Randy had been, but he was genuine, and that honesty was the un-ignorable howdy-do her libido found irresistible. She forced herself to stare into Drew’s eyes and only into his eyes. “You understand where I’m coming from. You might even be sympathetic that I’ve been hurt. But there’s one thing you don’t know.” And here, she hardened her voice along with her resolve and picked up the cedar box. “I’m going to find this woman and get my answer.”
“Lola,” he warned.
She tore her gaze away and pushed past him.
“Don’t make me arrest you.”
“You’re welcome to arrest me.” She paused in the doorway and stared back at the sheriff, her chin in the air. “If I break a law.”
Chapter Eight
Lola Williams epitomized spring-thaw madness. She deserved to be on Drew’s Watch-Over list.
She deserves to be watched all night. Those legs…
Drew reminded himself he was sheriff and should think about Lola the way he thought about the Bodine twins. He doubted she’d identify Randy’s mistress but it was even money whether she’d rattle the cages of folks in town. There was a way you went about things in Sunshine, and Lola wasn’t going that way. She was stuck in Watch-Out-World mode, determined to get out in Sunshine and cause trouble.
His phone chimed with a message. It was from Jane.
I’m coming home. For good.
Jane back in town? To stay?
Drew’s knees threatened to buckle. He sat on the bed.
Jane, who’d been arrested outside of Nashville for possession of marijuana.
Jane, who’d been arrested in Nashville for indecent exposure during one of her street concerts.
The same Jane who’d tried desperately to find herself at Sunshine High School, being just as likely to show up to class in Goth gear as in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit. The same girl who’d sat mutinously in the back of algebra class, painting her nails and applying coats of slick lipstick, humming choruses of popular songs and occasionally belting out a lyric in that deep, sultry voice of hers. She’d been a problem in every class except band, where she’d learned to play a variety of instruments, and English, where she’d written all her assignments as poems.
Becky will worship her.
Becky would worship Lola too if given the chance. She was at that age when girls latched on to role models.
But Jane. Jeez.
If Jane came home, Becky might grow up to be a rebel, just like her mother. She’d laugh if he suggested college, and drive off after graduation. Maybe not to Nashville. Maybe to LA or Chicago, or worse—New York City.
Drew bolted out the door. He had to find Becky. He had to hold his baby in his arms and cling to her innocence.
And he had to get married to someone safe and predictable.
A few minutes later, Drew was in the po
lice cruiser, speeding toward town, when the car radio squawked.
“Sheriff, on your way to pick up Becky, could you drive by Lola’s?” Usually, Flo’s husky voice reassured. Not today. Not when she mentioned Lola.
Had Lola found Randy’s lover already? “Is she causing trouble?” With that stubborn attitude and those skin-tight leggings, she was built for disturbing his peace.
“Not exactly,” Flo said. “Ramona Everly is concerned about something in Lola’s window.”
As if he didn’t have enough to worry about with Jane and her sudden desire to be a mommy. Lola had probably put a sign in her window before she’d left this morning: WANTED. INFORMATION ABOUT MY HUSBAND’S MISTRESS.
She’d probably offered a reward!
Drew hit the cruiser’s lights and accelerated. The blood in his veins ran faster than his wheels on the pavement. Lola just couldn’t let things go. If Drew held on to grudges the way she did, he’d be locking up everyone in Sunshine.
But he couldn’t dwell on Lola for long. He had to defend himself against Jane. He couldn’t wait for Monday to call a lawyer. With only two choices in town, he called Rupert Harper while he drove. But his call went to voice mail, and the recording cheerfully explained Rupert was on vacation. A call to Rupert’s brother, Oliver, the only other lawyer in town, revealed he was on vacation as well. The day was going from bad to worse.
When Drew pulled up in front of Lola’s house a few minutes later, he almost couldn’t believe his eyes. He certainly couldn’t tear them away.
There was no sign in her window. What was behind the panes was worse than a sign.
A rap on his car door had him jumping. He needed sleep, maybe less caffeine, and certainly less Lola.
Ramona Everly was dressed in her Sunday best, a beige dress that hung off her thin shoulders and low white heels. “That’s not right, Sheriff.” She pointed a bony finger toward Lola’s small home.
The blow-up doll Lola had carried around last night was locked in an embrace with its female counterpart. They were posed at a forty-five-degree angle, as if he’d dipped her during a dance. The female doll wore a red dress. A strap hung off one shoulder. The Randy doll wore a red flowered Hawaiian shirt.
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