Always On My Mind
Page 6
She was snapping her final picture of a blue-and-brown glazed cruet at the potter’s booth when Grayson and Booger came running up again. Their faces were flushed, and Grayson was carrying a backpack.
“Where did you get that?” She eyed the bag. Had someone abandoned it? If they had, that meant anything could be inside.
“It’s mine,” Booger spoke up. “I let him borrow it.”
Relief washed through her. No frantic 9-1-1 needed to ask Teague to call out the bomb squad. “What are you two up to?”
“Nothing,” they said in unison.
“We were playing ball,” Booger said, and Grayson nudged him.
“And we were collecting pine cones too.” Grayson hefted the backpack more securely onto his shoulder. “We’re gonna make something.”
Darned if this little competition wasn’t putting everyone in an artsy mood. Maybe Grayson had her eye for creativity.
The boys ran off, and Jenny chatted with people as they wandered through the exhibits. She hadn’t realized how much she missed adult conversation and interaction outside of work. But with all this socializing, it was becoming clear something was missing from her life.
She loved being Grayson’s mother, but Teague was right, that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a life of her own.
When the boys came back from their most recent adventure, Jenny checked her phone for the time. Holy smokes, it was almost four o’clock. She and Grayson had been there for hours.
She smoothed back a lock of Grayson’s sweaty hair and smiled. They’d both had fun today. “You ready to hit the road?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He rubbed his stomach. “I’m starving, and Sera said she was making cookies this afternoon.”
Not having the heart to tell him those cookies might or might not actually be baked with good old sugar, she grabbed her bag from her booth to head out.
When she turned, Teague was strolling toward her. And oh, in his sheriff’s uniform, he looked good enough to eat up with a spoon and lick the bowl afterward. He’d taken off his black cowboy hat and tucked it under his arm. With a smile for the people around him, he ran his hand over his dark hair, obviously trying to primp a little. Hat hair had never looked so good on a man. His khaki pants and shirt molded to his body, hinting at all those muscles she’d felt pressed against her last night.
Jenny shivered at the memory.
“Hey, you,” he said, stopping well within her personal space, making her hormones sit up straight, fluff their hair and cross their legs seductively.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, her voice in Kathleen Turner range. “We were just leaving.”
Teague and Grayson fist bumped, and she shook her head. Give them another day and they’d be slapping each other’s butts.
“Thought I’d stop in and see how you were faring on the votes,” Teague said.
“She’s got a ton.” Grayson pointed to the huge vase that held a few more Christmas ornaments than it had when they’d arrived.
“Looking good, Cady.” Teague waggled his eyebrows at her, proving he was admiring the fitted, scoop-neck sweater she was wearing rather than the state of her exhibit’s popularity. “How about I escort you two home?”
“Last I heard, it was Sera’s night to cook,” Jenny told him.
He winced but covered it with a quick smile. “I happen to love chicken-fried tofu.”
Jenny coughed to cover the two-syllable word she said back.
“Or maybe we could stop for pizza,” he said.
As she, Teague and Grayson headed for the front door, Colton Ellerbee was standing at the edge of his booth, his gaze darting here and yon. His ears were so red they looked like overcooked lobsters, and his beret was tilted precariously over one ear. When he spotted Jenny, he pointed at her, his arm fully extended. “I saw you around my booth earlier.”
Jenny stopped and Grayson bumped into the back of her. “I’m Jenny Northcutt, one of the other entrants. And I was taking official pictures for the event as requested by Angelina.”
“So you say.” His tone was accusatory and his volume so loud that everyone nearby turned toward them.
“Because it’s true.”
“Then where is he?”
Lord, she’d met some mentally unbalanced people in her line of work, but this guy was a piece of seven-layer fruit cake. Grayson hovered behind her. Bless his heart, the crazy sculptor was freaking him out. She put a protective hand on Grayson’s shoulder and faced off with Colton. She knew she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help it. “Who is he?”
“Are you telling me you don’t know?” His voice took on the timbre of a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
“Hang on there, Colton.” Teague transitioned into peacekeeper mode, stepping between her and Mr. Crazy Beret. “What’s going on here?”
“Ten pieces! If I don’t have ten sculptures, I’ll be disqualified. The rules say so!” He darted back into his booth, sweeping aside the drapes and bending to peer behind them.
Angelina scurried up, her heels clicking like a tiny dog’s toenails on hardwood. “Colton, what’s wrong?”
He swung around to glare at Jenny. “It’s that northerner’s fault. She did it. Her vase is half full of ornaments, and mine’s barely a quarter full. Thinks she can win by stealing and leaving me with only nine sculptures.”
“I promise I didn’t touch a thing in your booth.”
“We’ll find whatever it is,” Angelina soothed, patting Colton on the shoulder and shooting Jenny a glare.
“But,” Teague said, “it would be a heck of a lot easier to find it if we knew what was missing.”
Colton swooped an arm toward his nativity scene. “Can’t you tell? It’s obvious. Someone has taken the sweet baby Jesus!”
In his frenzy, Colton grabbed the arm of a man walking by. “Have you found Jesus?”
The man jerked his arm back, grabbed his wife’s hand and hotfooted it out the front doors.
Even so, it took a moment for Colton’s words to sink into Jenny’s brain. Then she looked past him into the makeshift manger. Sure enough. The most critical part of the nativity scene was MIA.
Chapter 7
When Teague arrived at Summer Haven to pick up Jenny and Grayson, he could hear voices from inside. Always a commotion around this place. He had to knock four times before the front door swung open to reveal Jenny standing there, makeup smudged and her long, dark hair in a tangle.
“Uh…” he said, “did you forget I was coming by to take you and Grayson to the tree lighting tonight?”
Her hand immediately went to her cocked hip. “You can’t be serious.”
“Well, the tree lighting is pretty serious business here in Summer Shoals.”
“You were there this afternoon when Mr. Crazy Beret railed on me about being a Jesus thief, right?”
He chuckled. That summed up Colton perfectly. “The sculpture will show up.”
“Aren’t cops supposed to worry when important things go missing?” Damn, she was cute when she frowned at him like that. “Angelina is obviously sympathetic to Colton, and besides, the rules do say each artist has to have ten pieces. She’s well within her rights to cancel the competition.”
“Colton could just go home and dig in his trash can.” He edged his way into the house and dropped a kiss on her mouth. She tasted of tea and whiskey, two of his favorite flavors. She shoved him away, but he just grinned down at her. “Jenny, it’s a hunk of coffee cans, fishing line and other crap from someone’s garage.”
“No matter the circumstances, you can’t call Jesus a hunk of crap. That’s not right.”
Teague rubbed his forehead. No other woman had ever made him want to simultaneously grab her up in a big old hug and beat his head with a two-by-four. “I told Grayson we’d go. I don’t want to let him down. ”
“It was all he could talk about this morning,” Jenny said. “But he hasn’t mentioned it since we got back from the art show.”
“Where is he?”
He’d seen Grayson hide behind Jenny when Colton accused her of Jesus-napping. Here Teague was trying to convince them how warm, friendly and fuzzy Summer Shoals was. Colton’s fit this afternoon didn’t exactly paint the place in pinks and yellows.
“You mind if I go up and talk with him?”
“Be my guest.” She pushed her hair from her face and sighed. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Mom, Maggie and Sera have been helping me outline a search strategy for the sculpture.”
God help them all. “Don’t do anything until we talk about it.”
“I will find Jesus,” she insisted, settling into a hipshot posture and crossing her arms under her chest.
And when she stood like that, her scooped-neck sweater showed off every womanly curve. He wanted to run his tongue along that tempting valley of cleavage so bad, he could taste the sweetness and warmth of her skin.
Jenny’s words were firing like buckshot. “If you think I’ll let that Colton What’s-his-name accuse me of stealing, then you don’t know jack. Besides, he has to stay in the show so I can beat his pants off.”
She’d lost him at if you think. “What about pants?” he asked.
Jenny snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Up here, lover boy.”
“Huh?”
“Men’s evolutionary hopes aside, women’s eyeballs have not, in fact, descended to their boobs.”
“More’s the pity.”
She laughed, a low, genuine chuckle. “Doesn’t matter how old guys get, does it? All you think about is the next time you’re going to see a woman naked.”
Yeah, now he wanted to bash his head against the stair rail leading to the second floor. Because the image of Jenny in all her long-legged glory, naked and smiling at him, exploded in his brain.
“You’re picturing me naked now, aren’t you?”
He groaned. “God, yes.”
“Men are so easy to distract.”
Damn, she was as good as her momma. “I’m serious, Jenny.” He took her hand and kissed her palm. “Don’t let those women talk you into going off halfcocked and doing something stupid. They think of themselves as senior super-sleuths, but—”
“We’re just making a plan.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, “and that so often keeps those three out of trouble.”
Jenny patted him on the shoulder, which only revved up his idling hormones. It was hell feeling like a horny teenager again.
“Why don’t you go on up to see Grayson?” she said.
He checked his watch. “The lighting starts at seven. You really don’t want to miss it.”
“We’ll see.” She sauntered off down the hallway toward the kitchen, her hips swinging from side to side. That walk. It could make a man drop to his knees and beg. Beg for scraps of her attention. For anything. For everything.
Teague pulled his attention away from her first class backside and climbed the stairs. He tapped on Grayson’s door. From the other side came the sound of hurried scuffling, as if something was being dragged across the floor. That was the sound of bad news.
Then again, Grayson wasn’t exactly old enough for girly magazines and beer bongs.
“Yes, ma’am?” Grayson called from inside.
“No ma’ams out here. Just me.”
The door swung open. A sweaty, frantic-eyed Grayson grabbed Teague’s hand and pulled him inside. Kid was stronger than he looked. “Shut it behind you,” Grayson stage-whispered.
“What’s up?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
Unfortunately, he’d kept some for way too long. But he was planning to change that with Grayson’s mom. If they couldn’t talk about the past, they’d never be able to build a future. “Yeah, you can trust me.”
Grayson crumpled to the hardwood floor and rested his forehead on his knees. “You ever screw up something awful when you were a kid?”
“Does breaking three pieces of my momma’s favorite china with a slingshot and a marble count?” Come to think of it, the girly pattern in this room kind of reminded him of that china.
Grayson’s head lifted, and a tiny smile curved his lips. “Messing around inside the house?”
“Using Great-grandma’s tea set for target practice. Not one of my best moves.”
The kid’s eyes went wide. “And she let you live?”
Teague couldn’t help but laugh. “I think my dad talked her into sparing me.”
“Mom and Dad barely talk anymore.” Grayson dropped his head back to his knees. Rolled it left and right, which had to hurt as bony as his knees were. “He’s not gonna help me out of this,” he mumbled.
Crap. As much as Teague fantasized about Grayson being his kid, about winning Jenny back so they could make the family he knew they were always meant to have, talking to Grayson about his real dad was like tiptoeing through land mines. One wrong step and the whole thing would blow sky high.
Teague cleared his throat. “What about me?”
“Huh?”
“You think I could help smooth things over between you and your mom?”
One eye peeked out from under Grayson’s arm. “You’d do that? You don’t even know what I did.”
“Guys gotta stick together.”
“My friend Luke back at school always says bros before hos.”
“Whatever the problem is, I figure I can help you fix it.” But Teague needed to tell Jenny whatever fancy-ass school she had Grayson enrolled in wasn’t keeping her kid away from the riffraff.
“You haven’t seen this,” the kid said miserably. “I broke something important.”
Teague winced. Summer Haven wasn’t exactly the kind of house where a young boy could roughhouse. Miss Lillian had a few too many precious vases and other knickknacks sitting around. “Your mom will understand you didn’t mean to break anything. Show me, and let’s see if we can get it put back together.”
Grayson flopped over onto his belly on the floor and slowly pulled a pillowcase out from under the bed. On it was a heap of three-inch screws, a red-and-white bobber, and a variety of other stuff you might find in a landfill.
Great. Teague had just solved the case of the missing sweet baby Jesus. Only problem was, right this minute, Jesus looked a whole lot like Humpty Dumpty.
Teague slipped back downstairs, leaving Grayson to sort through all of Jesus’s parts and put them into piles. He poked his head around the kitchen doorjamb and caught Abby Ruth’s eye. At his signal, she pushed back her chair and said, “Gimme me a second to go pee. I always think better in the bathroom.”
“Mom, really,” Jenny protested.
“Just calling it like I see it.” Abby Ruth hurried into the hall and followed Teague toward the front of the house. “There a reason we’re being so hush-hush?”
“There’s something Jenny doesn’t need to know.”
Abby Ruth stopped short and adopted that hip-cocked pose just like her daughter. But she lowered her voice and said, “Not sure I like the sound of this. Don’t you think secrets have done enough damage between you two?”
“Dammit, Aunt Bibi, I’ve been trying to talk with her. She doesn’t want to listen.” Teague pushed aside that volatile subject with a wave of his arm. “Besides, this isn’t my secret. It’s Grayson’s.”
Abby Ruth patted him on the shoulder. “Doesn’t matter if she wants to hear your story or not. You have to sit her fanny down and muck through all that history. Now what’s this about Grayson?”
“He has the baby Jesus up in his room.”
“Oh, Lord, Jenny will be so relieved. Why didn’t you just say so? She’ll be thrilled.” Abby Ruth cast a glance over her shoulder toward the kitchen.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Trust me. For a woman who didn’t want a thing to do with that art show yesterday, she’s sure singing a different tune now.”
Which made him happier than he had a right to be when
he and Jenny still had secrets between them. “There’s a problem, though.”
Abby Ruth blew out a long breath and shook her head. “Isn’t that always the way?”
“Apparently, Grayson and Booger were playing a little inside game of catch, and…”
Abby Ruth put her hand over her mouth, then snorted a little. “And Jesus wasn’t able to catch a fly ball?”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Teague said. “And quiet. She’ll hear you.”
“How bad is it?”
“The whole thing is in pieces.”
“We’ll put Jesus to rights,” she assured him.
“Do you remember what it looked like?”
“Between Maggie, Sera, Grayson and me, we should be able to put an eighteen-inch sculpture back together again.” Then she shuddered. “I’m just glad Colton didn’t use a headless doll for the Prince of Peace’s body. It’s wrong to be creeped out by Jesus, but that would’ve done it for me.”
“It could take a while to fix him.”
“Then you need to sweet-talk Jenny into that tree lighting.” Abby Ruth tapped her chin in time with the toe-tap of her boot. “But that girl’s a smart one, and she’s hot to get on Jesus’s trail. She won’t go for romancing when she feels threatened.”
“Then we’ll just have to make her believe we’re on a mission to find Jesus.”
Abby Ruth snapped her fingers. “Perfect. We’ll say we’re splitting up. Divide and conquer and all that mess.”
She motioned for him to follow her back into the kitchen.
Jenny, Sera and Maggie were huddled around the farm table with a pad of paper in front of them. Looked like they were brewing up trouble along with Maggie’s special iced tea. Good thing he knew exactly where that poor hunk of junk was.
“So—” he clapped his hands and smiled a let’s-all-work-together smile, “—who’s up for a little mission to track down Jesus?”
Sera hopped up from her chair. “Me!”
Jenny glanced up, her eyes narrow, sharp and a little too knowing. “What changed your mind all the sudden?”
“Can’t a man reconsider?” he asked. “Decide he was shortsighted?”