“And you believed him? You have got to be the most gullible piece of shit ever born.”
Beasley glanced up at me, and I saw the defeat on his face, the same look he always used to get when Branson lit into him.
“Jed. Let’s go.”
He turned to look at me, and there was something feral in his eyes. “Go wait for me in the car.”
“No. We’re walkin’ away from here together.”
“Go wait for me in the car.”
I marched closer and pointed my finger at him. “Let’s get one thing perfectly straight: No one tells me what to do. Not anymore. We are walking away right now.”
He was so pissed a vein on his forehead began to throb.
Beasley tried to reach over and lunge for me, but I kicked my heel into his face with enough force to send him flying onto his back. He stared up at me with a look of surprise—which quickly transformed into anger—but I put my foot on his throat with enough weight on it to cut off part of his airway.
“You even think of knocking me over, and I’ll crush your windpipe before I hit the ground,” I said in a calculated voice.
He lowered his hands.
“You know I’ve killed someone else in a very similar way,” I said, watching the anger and terror on his face. “Don’t think I won’t do it again.”
He blinked.
“Jed was wrong. You’re not stupid. You know I wanted no part of any of it. What you are is deluded. Not that you believe I begged to live like that, but that you believe your sorry excuse for a brother cares one iota about you. But that’s on you, Beasley. You can believe whatever you want. But now you’ve put my life and safety in danger, and I don’t like it one bit.” I pressed a little harder. “When I lift my foot, I’m going to need more information about how to find Branson. And if you don’t give it to me, I’ll find creative ways to get it out of you.”
I stepped back as Beasley rolled to the side and began to cough.
“Now, Beasley,” I said, knowing full well that he couldn’t answer, but I was high on the rush of power from dealing with someone who had hurt me, even if he’d helped me in the end.
“Overland Park,” he said in a hoarse voice. “But I don’t have an address, and I don’t know who he works for.”
I glanced up at Jed. “Is that enough?”
He stared at me in pride and disbelief. “It will do.”
I nodded. “Then we’re almost done.” I walked over and kicked Beasley between his parted legs. “That’s for looking up my dress a few moments ago. Pervert.” Then I turned and stomped toward the driveway.
Jed followed me. We were silent until we got into the car and he pulled away.
“God,” I said. “That felt good.” Then I turned to face him. “Don’t you ever suggest I can’t handle something again.”
A sly grin twisted his mouth. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I’m done being that cowardly girl.”
“You were never cowardly, Neely Kate.”
“I was. I could have—”
“You can second-guess every decision and every action you made from here to kingdom come, and it won’t change a blessed thing. You are a strong, capable woman, Neely Kate Rivers, and God help any man or woman who tells you different. But I’m here as your backup, just in case you need someone cheering you on.”
I smiled at him.
“Now where to?”
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
His eyes lit up. “You worked up an appetite.”
I shrugged, my mind whirling. “We still have a few hours before we can go to the club to see Carla, so now’s as good a time as any. But I need to buy a shovel before we meet Carla.”
“Time to face the azaleas?” he asked.
“Yeah, but not until after we talk to her. We’ll need to wait until really late so no one sees us.”
He nodded.
We stopped at a diner and ate, our conversation steering clear of what was going on in Ardmore.
“Can you get away from the landscaping office for a week?” Jed asked. “Can Rose spare you?”
I pushed out a breath. “She’ll say that she can, but I’m not sure. Her sister’s coming home next week, and I know she’ll be dealin’ with that along with everything else.”
“Maybe she can get that new vet to help her.”
My eyes widened.
“Skeeter knows she’s been on two dates with him over the last two weeks.”
“He’s spyin’ on her?”
“Makin’ sure she’s safe.”
“And spyin’ on her.”
He was silent for a moment. “Skeeter’s complicated. He has strong feelings for her, but he doesn’t know how to handle them.”
“Kind of like he doesn’t know how to handle you.”
He hesitated. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“He’s wastin’ his time with Rose,” I said. “I think she likes the dangerous side of him, but she’d never have a boyfriend who’s on the other side of the law.”
“And what about you?”
I gave him a saucy grin. “Skeeter never did anything for me.”
He grinned back, but something was missing in his eyes. “Good to hear I’m not playin’ second fiddle with you.”
“Is that how you feel?” I asked.
He didn’t answer; instead, he asked, “What about being with a man on the other side of the law?”
“I’m not gonna lie. I would prefer to be with a man who’s not, but I guess it depends on what he’s up to.” I looked into his eyes. “What do you think you want to do when you go back?”
“I’m not sure I can go back.”
“What? Why?”
“Skeeter will ask me to come back, and if I tell him no, he’ll see my rejection as a challenge. But more importantly, my leaving will make him look weak, and he can’t afford to look weak now.”
I started to panic. “You’re not goin’ home?”
He reached over and cupped my face. “I don’t know what I’m doin’ yet. I know you need to stay in Henryetta. I won’t make you choose, Neely Kate. I would never make you choose.”
Tears blurred my eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” he said, but he didn’t look convinced. “I’m not leaving you. Maybe we can figure it out while we’re feeding chipmunks in Colorado, although our relationship might be short-lived if one of us gets bitten and dies from rabies.”
I laughed away the tears. “We’re not gonna get rabies.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “Do they set up little cages so they can catch them and give them rabies shots?”
“I don’t know, but my cousins would know how to catch them.”
He had a mischievous look about him. “And eat them.” When he saw my shocked expression, he added, “Your cousins have a reputation.”
“You’re terrible!”
He shrugged. “But it’s true.”
He wasn’t wrong.
We stayed at the restaurant for over an hour, and I reveled in this time with Jed, filling up on his goodness, because I knew I’d need everything within me to get through the rest of the night.
Chapter 21
We pulled into Slick Willy’s parking lot at ten. There were several more cars tonight, but nowhere near as many as there’d be on the weekend. I couldn’t help thinking it would be better to wait until tomorrow night, when we could get lost in the Friday night crowd, but who was I kidding? Jed drew attention from the guys due to his size and attention from the women for both his size and good looks. Besides, the years hadn’t changed me nearly as much as they’d changed Stella. I looked pretty much the same, only I had a little more weight on me and probably looked less dead in the eyes. We’d draw attention no matter when we showed up. Besides, the sooner I did this, the sooner I could leave my past where it belonged and, hopefully, move on with my life.
Jed seemed nervous, and I couldn’t say I bla
med him after my behavior the night before.
“Jed . . . about my freak-out last night.” Lordy, that seemed at least a week ago. “I know I already said it, but I’m sorry.”
He snagged my hand. “Don’t apologize. You’re working through a mountain of shit. My job is to be here every step of the way and support you.”
I turned to stare into his face. Several days ago, I would have taken his statement to mean he was following Skeeter’s orders. Now I knew he was doing it because he cared about me, although I still didn’t understand why. But he’d been helping me for months, and I was finally starting to understand how deep this went for him.
He started to let go and open his car door, but I tugged him back.
“Wait.” I scrambled to figure out how to bring this up. “When I asked Skeeter to help me look for Ronnie a few months ago, you told me you were there for me. You said you wanted to help me for me, not because of Rose. Was that when you first started having feelings for me?”
He gave me a hesitant look. “No.”
“When?”
He grimaced, clearly uncomfortable. I knew I should let it drop, but now that I’d had the nerve to bring it up, I wanted an answer.
“Honestly,” he said, “it snuck up on me, but it probably started last winter, when Rose arranged to meet Mick Gentry without Skeeter. You insisted on coming as backup. I figured you’d be a waste of time—and worse, a liability—but you more than proved yourself.”
“Really? I had no idea,” I said in surprise. “You only seemed annoyed.”
“I was annoyed, but more at myself than you. You didn’t know, and I wanted to keep it that way. You were still married. But when you showed up to Skeeter’s office a few months ago, asking him to help you search for the fool, I couldn’t stand seeing you so upset. So I overstepped my bounds.” A sly grin spread across his face. “But I’m not sorry I did. I was sure that was why you called me a couple of nights later.”
I hung my head in embarrassment. Rose had gone to Houston to donate her bone marrow for her sister’s transplant. I was pissed at the world and lonely without her, so I’d gone to a bar outside of town with the sole purpose of hooking up with a man. Finding someone was easy, but I changed my mind pretty much as soon as we got to his apartment. Things went south right quick, and I locked myself in the bathroom and called Jed.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he said. “The guy from the bar . . . why didn’t you just beat the crap out of him?” He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed beating the shit out of him myself, but you’ve proven multiple times that you can take down a man . . .” His voice trailed off.
“So why didn’t I?” I finished.
“No judgment, Neely Kate. I need to make that perfectly clear.”
I nodded. It was a fair question. “When I came back home to my granny five years ago, I was a hot mess. I huddled in my room for days, crying off and on and refusing to leave the house. But then a week later, my cousin Witt busted in and told me Rivers kids didn’t mope and he and my cousin Alan Jackson were going to teach me how to shoot a gun. They gave me my grandfather’s six-shooter, and it turned out I was pretty good at it.” I looked up at Jed and saw his grin.
“I’ll say.” He’d seen me shoot targets a couple of weeks ago after Skeeter told him to take Rose for target practice.
“Now, I hadn’t said a word about what had happened to me, but somehow Witt seemed to know what I needed. He never asked questions, and I never offered answers, but after I learned to shoot better than him and Alan Jackson, he suggested I learn some self-defense moves next.”
“So Merv has Witt to thank for his busted nose.”
I lifted my shoulder into a shrug and grinned. “Rivers kids are scrappy. After I ended up breaking a few of their bones, they ended the self-defense lessons.”
“So what happened with that guy from the bar this spring?”
“I thought I’d built this perfect life with Ronnie, the one I’d always wanted—a husband, a house, babies . . . only, being married to Ronnie wasn’t what I wanted after all and I was just plain stuck. He was a good man—or at least I used to think so—and I’d pretty much roped him into the whole thing, so it wasn’t like I could say, ‘Oops, I changed my mind.’ Besides, by then I knew I was pregnant. And then I lost the babies. And Ronnie took off, not that I necessarily wanted him to stay, but it was just another rejection. My body rejected my babies, and then Ronnie ran off after he found out my body had been full of STDs . . . even though the doctor assured him that they’d all been cured. After they’d destroyed me. But the clincher was Joe. When I found out he was my half brother and then he left town first chance he got without one word . . . it was all too much. I felt like that girl again, that stupid girl who’d fallen for Branson’s lies, hook, line, and sinker.” I hung my head in shame. “I felt so rejected, so worthless, I just needed a man to think I was pretty.”
“I wish I’d realized that,” Jed said quietly. “I would have made more of an effort.”
I shook my head. “No. The thought of you being interested in me scared the bejiggers out of me. I wasn’t ready. But I wasn’t ready to hook up with some random stranger either. Once he got me back to his apartment, everything with Branson came rushing back, and I suddenly lost every bit of self-confidence I’d gained over the past five years. I became that scared, stupid girl again, not the strong, kick-ass woman I’d worked hard to become.”
I looked into his eyes. “I was scared and humiliated, so I called the person I thought would help me without judgment. You’d made your offer a couple of days before, and I knew you’d gotten Rose out of some tough situations. Calling you was the right thing to do, but I was still embarrassed.” I paused. “And then you insisted on sleeping on my sofa to make sure I was okay.” I squeezed his hand. “You have no idea how much that meant to me. When I woke up, I was so angry. I was angry at myself for getting into that situation and not fighting back. I was pissed at that guy for thinking he had a right to sex just because he’d bought me a few drinks. And I was mad at you for being so perfect because I knew you deserved someone less broken and used-up than me.”
“Neely Kate.”
“So I lashed out at you. Again and again. Even as I was doin’ it, I knew it wasn’t the right thing. It made me feel worse. Not only had I reverted back to that stupid girl, but I’d been ugly to the one man who was willin’ to help me for no ulterior motive.” I looked up at him. “I’m sorry for that too.”
He shook his head, giving me a sad smile. “Have you ever thought that the reason we might work together is because we’re both screwed up?”
I laughed. “You like me because I’m a mess?”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t put it that way . . . but we just seem to fit, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “We do.”
He turned to study the outside of the strip club for nearly half a minute before he asked, “Do you think Branson was the man who showed up at Zelda’s looking for you?”
“No. Zelda has seen Branson plenty of times. She would remember him.”
“So we know some mysterious man is looking for you, and we know that Stella and Branson have been working together to turn Beasley against you. The question is why. Do you know?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I will after I talk to Carla.”
“But it’s a fair assumption that you could be in danger. Agreed?”
I hesitated.
“Let me rephrase that,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. “I know you’re in danger. I’m making sure you’re on the same page.”
“I guess.”
“And while we both know you can handle yourself and take on any asshole who comes at you, we also both know I’ve had far more experience dealing with situations like this. Also agreed?”
“I guess,” I reluctantly conceded.
His mouth tipped into a hint of a grin, a fleeting expression that quic
kly faded. “Then I’m asking you to let me take the lead on this tonight. You can be in charge of talking to Carla or whoever you want, but let me be in charge of making sure you’re safe.” He squeezed my hand. “Please.”
He was right. He was more experienced with this kind of thing, but he’d proven he knew when to hang back. Before stepping in with Beasley, he’d let me question him—even though he must have been itching something fierce to take control. “Okay.”
Relief filled his eyes. “Thank you.”
I took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”
We got out and walked across the parking lot, Jed’s possessive arm around my lower back. He paid the cover charge this time and headed straight toward an empty table in the back corner. Again, I caught some attention, but Jed held on tight, making sure every pair of eyes that landed on me knew they’d face his wrath if they dared to hit on me.
He held out a chair for me, and while he was being his gentlemanly self, I also knew he was placing me exactly where he wanted me—in the deepest shadows while he was more in the light.
There was a dancer on the stage and two girls working the crowd, but I didn’t recognize any of them.
Jed rested his forearm on the sticky table and turned his attention to the stage, but I knew he wasn’t watching the dancer swing around the pole. He had chosen this table purposefully—it gave him a perfect vantage point to assess the room around us. He could see a threat as soon as it walked in the door. He could see anyone who approached us. He could see who was on stage, who was behind the bar, and every hostess working the room.
I took note of this for my own future reference. My own surveillance skills needed some brushing up.
A few minutes later, one of the hostesses walked over to our table, wearing nothing but pasties and a G-string along with four-inch stilettos. She stopped in front of our table and popped her hip out to the side. “Hi, I’m Destiny, and I’m your hostess for the evening. What can I do for you two? Drinks? A private room?” She gave Jed a sultry look. “I can do girl on girl if that’s your thing.”
My face burned, but the shadows hid my embarrassment. I couldn’t help but remember what it felt like to work here, to say tawdry things to complete strangers. Was Jed imagining me in this hostess’s place?
Trailer Trash (Neely Kate Mystery Book 1) Page 17