Drew suspected both women were right. “I don’t think either one of those is a bad thing.”
Lola turned and sniffed, leaning closer to sniff again. “What’s that smell?”
Uh-oh. He lifted his shirt front and sniffed. Yep, it was pig. “It’s Rosie.”
She straightened and then shook her head. “I’m too tired to make sense of that.” Lola resumed her slow march toward the door.
In no time, she’d be gone.
He couldn’t resist asking, “What do you think my secret talent is?” He didn’t expect her to know but he’d been taught never to leave a question unanswered.
“Loyalty.” She didn’t hesitate. “You’re loyal to a fault.” She’d reached the outer door and leaned against the wall, waiting for him to unlock it.
Their eyes met.
She was close enough to touch. Close enough to draw into his arms and kiss. He’d bet she tasted like chocolate, coconut frosting, and hope because, no matter how low she got, Lola didn’t seem to give up.
She’d called him loyal but his thoughts had him feeling disloyal to Wendy.
“Loyal?” he choked out, unable to look her in the eye anymore. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“I suppose. It’s hard for me to say. You aren’t loyal to me.”
He said nothing. But he was afraid she was wrong.
* * *
If not for Edith rushing forward, Lola might not have noticed the Widows Club waiting for her when she was released from the slammer a second time.
Her pulse was pounding, and her knees weren’t steady. She could swear Drew had been staring at her legs when she was in the jail cell. And then he’d moved in close at the outer cell door, almost as if he was moving in for a kiss.
Which only proved she was delusional. Or lonely.
Or both.
Lola refused to be demoralized. Most women in town probably indulged in a fantasy or two about their handsome sheriff. Most single women might experience a moment or two of loneliness. No need to consult a therapist or call a hotline or FaceTime with your best friend.
“You poor thing.” Edith opened her arms to give Lola a hug and then thought better of it when she saw the state of Lola’s ruined dress. She picked a piece of frosting from Lola’s hair and tsk-tsked. “Your best friend.” Her gaze slanted toward Mims. “It’s always the bestie.”
Lola grimaced.
“It isn’t always the best friend,” Mims grumbled, tugging down her neon-yellow sweatshirt, which had a perfect pink cupcake on the front. She was frowning and swinging her purse as if warming up to swing it at someone’s head.
Someone who’d ruined the bake sale fund-raiser?
Lola kept her distance.
“It’s not always a friend,” Bitsy said with a faraway look in her eye.
“Sometimes it’s the town floozy.” Clarice leaned on her cane, gray braids hanging down on either side.
Lola didn’t know who the town floozy was, but it wasn’t Avery. She was picky about whom she dated. “I’m sorry about ruining your cupcake recipe,” Lola said to Bitsy, staring at the older woman’s mouth to see whether her teeth were finally clean.
Her lips were sealed.
Darn. “And I apologize for causing a scene. I didn’t mean for it to get so…so…”
“Physical? Dangerous? Deadly?” Gary returned Lola’s purse. His chin jutted, as if he was unhappy Lola had been released without charges being filed.
“Gary,” Drew warned from too close behind Lola.
Lola resisted the urge to turn around, resisted the craving to log Drew’s expression and give it context, like Interested or Just being kind.
“These things happen sometimes.” Bitsy smiled.
And there it was. The chocolate-covered tooth.
Lola gasped. Now was her time to make amends. “Bitsy—”
“We probably should have known.” Clarice cut Lola off. “If it happened to anyone, it would happen to you.”
“Clarice,” Bitsy said. For whatever reason, she always stuck up for Lola. She deserved a save in return.
“Bitsy!” Lola practically shouted before anyone else interrupted. “You have…something in your teeth.” She didn’t say cupcake. After all, it could have been fudge.
Bitsy delicately covered her lips with her fingers.
“Let me see.” Edith moved into Bitsy’s grill, acting as a mirror and rubbing her own tooth. “Golly, yes. This one. I can’t believe none of us saw that.”
Lola wanted to disappear. There was no way that had been fudge.
Mims stood near the door, frowning Lola’s way. Lola wouldn’t be surprised if her invitation to join the Widows Club was rescinded. But she was surprised to realize she’d be disappointed if it was.
Despite everything, Lola was still golden in Edith’s eyes, perhaps because the older woman was an outcast among the widows as well. She returned to Lola’s side. “What are you going to do about Avery?”
“Nothing,” Drew said at the same time as Mims.
“How are you going to make her pay?” Edith added, ignoring the pair.
“She’s not,” Drew and Mims said as a unit.
“I’m not,” Lola agreed. She felt defeated, as unsteady on her feet as Randy and Candy would be when she pulled their plugs.
“Ladies.” Drew took Lola by the arm and led her to the door, smelling of Rosie, whatever that meant. “Lola wants to walk home. She needs time to herself.”
“Walk home?” Edith hurried around them to the door. “Nonsense. She’s one of us. We’ll drive her.”
“I’ve got a plastic drop cloth in the back of my van.” Despite Clarice’s dig about the inevitability of Lola wreaking havoc, she hurried forward, thunking her walking stick on the floor with authority. “She can sit on it as long as she sits still.”
Lola didn’t want to be crowded into the back seat of a minivan. She wanted space and the freedom outside a jail cell. But mostly, she wanted to have friends she trusted and somebody to love.
Frosting smooshed inside her pumps.
And yes, she wanted to be clean.
“I can walk,” Lola said, not wanting to be a bother.
“You shouldn’t be alone just yet,” Mims said in a much gentler voice than Lola had expected given the events of the evening.
Edith put her small hands on Lola’s back and guided her out the door. “That’s our cue to leave.”
Lola climbed into the middle seat of Clarice’s van, sitting on the thin plastic drop cloth. She brushed her black pumps free of white frosting and palmed a quarter from the floor, planning to hand it to Clarice when she got out, assuming it was hers.
Clarice took off with a squeal of tires and an illegal U-turn. Off-road, she may have been an environmentalist and a lover of her fellow man. But on the road, the old woman was a menace.
“About this thing with Avery.” Mims patted Lola’s thigh. “You are not a victim.”
Lola hadn’t been thinking she was, but if the necklace fit…
“Someone told me you used to do hair and makeup on Broadway.” Edith ignored Mims. “What shows did you work on?”
“The most well-known show I did was Chicago.” Those days seemed a lifetime ago. “But one of my favorite jobs was working for a magic show off Broadway.” Far, far off Broadway. Between shows, Magic Merle had taught Lola the basics of sleight of hand, escape, and distraction. She snapped her fingers in front of Edith and magically produced the quarter she’d picked up.
Edith squealed. “What else can you do? I love it when magicians saw people in half.” She leaned forward to eye Mims’s midsection and then leaned back to eye Lola’s. “Do you know how to do that?”
“Blast.” Mims tugged at her ear, saving Lola from answering. “I’ve lost an earring.”
For one stomach-dropping moment, Lola imagined Mims had lost the ruby earring on her dresser. Mims and Randy? A ridiculous thought.
“What does your earring look like?” Lola peered at the flo
or mats.
“It’s a clip-on with a purple doodad.” Mims shook out her sweatshirt but all that flew free was cupcake dust. “Darn. You can hardly find clip-ons in stores nowadays. We clip-on wearers are a dying breed.”
A clip-on earring.
Avery had pierced ears. Avery wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a clip-on earring like the one in Randy’s keepsake box. The ruby earring couldn’t have been Avery’s. But the necklace was and had been lost when she was in high school, which meant…
Clarice took the corner onto Skyview Drive with too much speed.
Lola’s stomach plunged and was left at the corner as the truth pressed in on her.
Avery might not have slept with Randy recently.
And Randy had more than one lover.
Clip-on earrings.
At least one of Randy’s lovers might have been an older woman.
Chapter Sixteen
The light was on in the apartment over the farmhouse garage on Saturday night.
Drew saw it from his kitchen window. He’d finished a shift thirty minutes ago and sent his mother, who’d been babysitting, home. Becky was asleep upstairs.
He’d just swallowed a shot of whiskey to take the edge off, because earlier Gigi had called 911—not because she’d seen a rabid rodent in her backyard but to report chest pains. An ambulance had taken her to the hospital in Greeley for tests. Drew still wore his uniform and duty belt. He should tuck himself into the corner of the couch and close his eyes. He should catch up on the sporting news on television. He should think about topics of conversation for his date tomorrow with Wendy. What he shouldn’t have done was look out the window toward the garage apartment.
He could swear that light hadn’t been on when he’d pulled in ten minutes ago.
That light…
Drew had two guesses as to who was up there—Avery, because she was presumably Randy’s lover and had a key, or Lola.
His money was on Lola.
It was dark outside. Sultry music drifted from the garage apartment. Drew climbed the stairs slowly. He shouldn’t be out here at all but he’d always been too curious for his own good. When had curiosity not bitten him in the ass?
Drew opened the door at the top of the stairs. The room was dark, lit only by a candle on the bureau. But the occupant wasn’t Avery or Lola.
A blonde wore a cop uniform. The cop uniform from the bottom bureau drawer. It wasn’t like any uniform he’d ever seen. Gray halter top, blue pants, black high heels, and a duty belt, complete with handcuffs and a small nightstick. Back to him, the blonde danced slowly, moving pale limbs with languid grace.
He didn’t recognize her, and that bothered him. He knew everyone in town. It was his duty to.
He still wore his uniform. He should tell her to freeze and demand to know what she was doing here. The last thing he needed was a stranger hanging around the property.
The blonde began a slow set of steps with an intricate pattern that had her doing a gradual turn. By increments, her face came into view. A straight nose. A delicate chin.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God.” The blond siren was Lola.
There was a bottle of red wine on the bureau and a half-empty glass next to it. Drew almost reached for it.
With a wife like that, why would Randy cheat?
Lola had frozen at his outburst. Their gazes collided, locked. And then, instead of blushing, instead of covering herself up and kicking him out, instead of laughing as she’d predicted when they’d discovered the costumes, Lola picked up her footwork where she’d left off. Only this time, she danced toward him.
There’s no way this is Lola.
But it was. Those blue eyes. Those lips that were moving, lip-syncing.
He had it coming.
And those feet. He recognized the slow pattern from the other night in jail.
Drew couldn’t move. He felt like Blow-Up Drew, left wherever Lola propped him, patiently awaiting her return.
Lola danced closer. Her arms wove in a pattern as mesmerizing as her feet. She had a pair of handcuffs dangling from the fingers of one hand.
Step away.
Those arms undulated near his chest.
Move.
He couldn’t. He was that blow-up doll. Her blow-up doll.
He waited obediently.
Her lips swam closer, brushed the corner of his mouth. He could feel her smile.
She’s enjoying this.
Drew’s blood pounded in his veins.
He claimed her arms, drawing them around his neck.
He claimed her shoulders and held her immobile so he could look at her—at blond hair, at blue eyes, at red lips—searching for the Lola he knew and could resist. He didn’t find her.
He claimed the wig, tossing it aside.
And then he claimed her mouth.
* * *
Lola had missed kissing.
She’d missed the warmth of a strong body filling her arms, the tug of a man who wanted her.
Her eyes drifted closed, and her hands slid from his neck, down his solid chest, around his waist, and toward his back and…
Lola jerked back an inch. She’d been in a lovely wine-induced haze, dancing to the soundtrack from Chicago, imagining she was dancing for Randy in a way she’d never been brave enough to when he was alive. And then Randy was there in the shadow of the door, wearing his tool belt.
Except it wasn’t Randy in the doorway. It was Drew!
Lola froze like a kid caught playing with her mother’s makeup. Her right hand clenched the trick handcuffs from Randy’s drawer.
Drew stared down at her, not saying a word.
“What are you doing here?” Lola whispered, afraid to back up, because she was wearing next to nothing, just a thin layer of stretchy polyester and her panties.
She should put some distance between them. Instead, her fingers wandered around the back of his belt.
“I’m wondering what I can arrest you for.” His deep voice rumbled with unmistakable longing.
Lola licked her lips. “Last I heard, lip-locking wasn’t a crime.” Her fingers encountered another set of handcuffs. His.
Drew was staring at her mouth, not speaking.
Lola was staring at his mouth, wishing…
Things she had no right to be wishing.
She had to say something. She had to break the spell between them. “Avery doesn’t wear clip-on earrings.”
“What?” Drew seemed dazed.
“Each one of those items in the box came from a different woman. The clip-on earring? It can’t be Avery’s. She has pierced ears.”
His gaze drifted to the ceiling. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No.” She traced the handcuffs at the back of Drew’s belt. She liked them better than Randy’s. “I’m going to go to Shaw’s at midnight. That’s when all the late-night action happens.”
Metal clinked softly.
Lola added quickly, “I’m going to find a woman who wears clip-on earrings and—”
“And do what?” Drew’s dark eyes flashed a warning.
Lola lifted her chin. “I’m going to ask her if she’s lost an earring.” Why did Drew always talk to her as if she were one step away from a violent break in behavior? “I made a decision today. I’m leaving Sunshine just as soon as I talk to all of Randy’s lovers.” It wasn’t as much a decision as a thought. But it felt right. “I need to find a place where I belong, where I can settle down and have a family and a future.”
Drew grabbed Lola’s shoulders and backed her toward the bed. “You aren’t going to Shaw’s tonight.” He pushed her onto the blue bedspread and stared down at her.
For a moment, Lola thought he might cover her body with his and kiss her again. She licked her lips, wondering why he wasn’t. Really, the man overthought everything. Why wasn’t he making a move?
Ah, yes. There’d been a command in his statement somewhere. About Shaw’s. He was waiting for her to confirm she’d obey.
; Obey?
That opened the floodgates of anger and had her scrambling to sit. “You can’t stop me.”
“I can.” Drew reached behind his back and produced a pair of handcuffs. He snapped one on her wrist and then attached the other to the brass headboard. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”
His gaze burned so hot she just knew he was going to kiss her.
Instead, Drew walked away.
“Hey!” Tethered, Lola pulled against the bed frame.
Drew stopped at the door and glanced at her over his shoulder. “If I’ve learned anything about you, Lola, it’s that you need time to cool down. I’ll be back in an hour.”
He was putting her in time-out?
Lola vowed to make him pay.
* * *
Something landed on Drew and nestled in the crook of his legs. Something bigger than a cat.
The TV came on. A familiar cartoon theme song filled the air.
Drew cracked open one eye. Sun glinted through the blinds and picked up the highlights in Becky’s brown hair.
His daughter yawned. “You slept on the couch again, Daddy.”
His back confirmed her detective work. It was kinked worse than an old hose. He extended his legs and arched his back.
“You aren’t a good pillow.” Becky shifted to lean on the opposite arm of the couch.
Speaking of pillows, Drew missed his. He was still in his uniform. His duty belt was on the coffee table. At least he’d locked his weapon in the gun safe after he’d—
“Lola.” He bolted off the couch. He was supposed to have let her go after an hour. And now…he’d kidnapped a woman. If she pressed charges, he’d go to jail and Jane would get Becky, no questions asked.
“What about Ms. Williams?” Becky yawned. “Does she always wear pretty dresses? Is she a hooker?”
“No. No no no no.” Drew tugged on his boots without bothering to lace them. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He raced out the back door and took the stairs to the garage apartment two at a time.
“Lola?” Drew opened the door. And then opened it wider. His gut clenched.
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