Oklahoma Moonshine (The McIntyre Men #1)

by Maggie Shayne

  She blinked because her eyes were burning, and kept her head down, so her hair was a curtain between them. Then she leaned back again and stared at the empty wall they faced. “We really need a TV.”

  “A couple of ‘em,” he said.

  “And beds,” she added. “That clan of yours didn’t bring any beds. But dang, they brought everything but.” She looked around the living room. There were boxes everywhere. Dishes, pots and pans, cutlery. There were stacks of bedding, sheets, blankets and comforters and throws. Vidalia had brought enough curtains to cover the windows in a skyscraper. There were two reclining chairs, a rocker, a small round dining table with four wooden chairs, and a stack of towels and washcloths that didn’t look as if they’d ever been used. “It’s gonna take us a week to unpack it all.”

  “At least.” He looked her way. “You want to take the first shower?”

  She grinned at him. “Thought you’d never ask. Selene stocked the bathroom, too. Fancy-stuff. I hope she didn’t spend a fortune.”

  “No, she makes it.”

  “She makes...what? Shampoo?”

  He nodded. “And conditioner and soaps, and herbal teas and ointments and all sorts of brews and potions.”

  She lifted her brows. “She some kind of a witch?”

  “She calls it Wiccan, but yeah.”

  That made Kiley smile even harder. “You believe in that stuff?”

  He thought on it for a minute. “Never have. But I’ll tell you one thing, those soaps and things of hers are amazing.”

  “And you don’t think that might be cause she sprinkles a little magic into them?”

  He shrugged. “Now that you mention it, she did say a beautiful stranger was coming into my life.”

  Her smile died and she blinked fast and looked away, pressing a hand to her cheek. It felt hot, like she was blushing. Then she got up, grabbed the big box of towels and other bathroom supplies, and ran upstairs, carrying them with her.

  * * *

  Rob watched her go, then sighed and shook his head. She was something, his new business partner. Conniving, manipulative, and with the moral values of the coyotes she’d mentioned might have raised her, as far as he could tell. He didn’t like dishonest people. But he liked Kiley. There was something about her, some kind of innocence underneath the surface.

  He’d watched her, watching Vidalia and her daughters all evening long. She studied them the way he figured a novice painter would study Da Vinci. With a mixture of admiration and longing.

  He supposed it was a good thing he liked her. He was kind of stuck with her.

  No. No he wasn’t. He had the family fortune to fall back on. If he wanted her out, he could buy her out. But he didn’t think he’d have the heart to do it, so he hoped it never came to that.

  This place meant everything to her. He’d known it the minute he’d seen her sitting out there on that boulder, staring at the river like a lost soul staring at the Pearly Gates.

  “Robbeeee!”

  Her shout startled him right out of his chair, and he ran upstairs, thinking she must be facing down a cougar or something, and burst through the bathroom door. She stood there in nothing but one of those brand new towels. At least he thought that’s what she was clutching around her. He couldn’t tell for sure because his eyeballs couldn’t see anything except the parts of her that were uncovered. Tanned legs, shapely as hell. Toned arms and softly rounded shoulders. There was something delicate about her neck, the place where the collarbones framed the dip in between them. He could see her pulse beating there, soft and rapid, and he closed his eyes in order to re-enable his ability to speak. Belatedly, he said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Shhh! Listen!” She held up a hand.

  Rob listened, and tried opening his eyes while his head was tipped downward, but wound up mesmerized by her little toes. And then he heard it. Scritch, scritch, scritch. He looked up. The sound was coming from above them, and he sighed in relief. “That’s just something in the attic. A squirrel or a chipmunk. You want me to go chase it off?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind too much. I have a phobia about rodents.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then I’ll go scare him off. But I get the sofa tonight.”

  “That sofa’s big enough for both of us and a guest. But I was gonna take that big brown recliner anyway. Thing’s like sitting on a teddy bear.”

  “Take your shower,” he told her. “Relax, I’ll deal with the big, scary squirrel.”

  “My hero.” She batted her eyes at him and it made his brain go numb.

  Shaking his head to try to reboot his mental functions, he left the bathroom, and she pushed the door closed behind him. But just before it closed all the way, he said, “I wonder where the attic access is?”

  “In the closet off the corner bedroom,” she said. Then she closed the door. Rob continued down the hall, into the corner bedroom, and crossed to the closet. He went to open the door, but it didn’t budge. The wood had swollen a bit. It would shrink back down now that the place was heated, just needed to get the dampness out of the wood, he figured. He yanked harder, then harder still, and the door finally gave. He stumbled onto his ass on the floor when it did, and sat there for a second, blinking and looking up at the square panel in the closet ceiling, and the chain hanging down from it.

  He got up and pulled the chain. The trap door came down, and it had a folded-up ladder attached. There was just enough room in the closet to unfold it to the floor. Using his phone as a flashlight, Rob climbed up, brushing cobwebs away from his face as he went in.

  The attic bore a layer of dust that made everything in it look ghostly. There were a few boxes, a couple of trunks, a tall oval shape he thought was probably a freestanding mirror, and might be an antique. He walked carefully, watching for weak spots, and finding none. The place was really solid. He clapped his hands. “Gonna have to move along, now, squirrel. This place is spoken for. No more freeloading.”

  He made a little more racket, but didn’t really think he was scaring any critters overly much. He noticed a dusty guitar case beside a box with what looked like books in it, and moved a little closer, crouched low and blew the dust off the top of them. Stacks of tween-targeted paperbacks with bright covers. He thumbed through them a little bit, smiling and imagining Kiley as a happy, wild child. He wondered if Maya would like to keep the books for her little girl to read someday.

  Something scrambled across the floor behind him, and he turned, shining his phone’s light at it. The squirrel froze, twitched his tail a couple of times, and then scurried up a wall, out through a missing pane of glass in the window. Easy fix.

  He went over to check it out. Just an ordinary window that faced the front lawn and driveway. On the floor nearby, though, was a stunning stained glass version, the same size. A few pieces of its colored glass were missing, one of which he knew had been broken by a little girl’s errant BB. He pocketed the phone and picked up the window, which was heavier than he’d imagined. It was truly beautiful. And it hit him out of the blue that he could get it repaired and surprise Kiley.

  He forgot about the squirrel and the books, and carried his heavy find very carefully back down the folding stairway, which was not easy. Once he got it into the living room, he wrapped it up in one of the donated blankets and carried it out to his truck. He knew a glass repair place in Tucker Lake.

  He caught himself thinking of the big reveal, and how thrilled she would be. He pictured her practically bouncing with joy when she saw the window in place for the first time, and caught himself smiling so hard it hurt.

  No, he told himself. No, no, no. Don’t even start. She’s not the girl for you, Robert McIntyre. Not even close. She’s confused by the notion of honesty. She poisoned a guy to get this place, don’t forget.

  When he came back inside, she was curled up in the brown recliner, wrapped in a blanket, and sipping a cup of hot cocoa. He could smell the chocolate, and the sandalwood
scent of one of Selene’s herbal shampoos. Kiley had draped a towel between the chair and her head, in deference to her wet hair.

  “I made you a cup of cocoa, too,” she said. “It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  She poisoned a guy to get this place, don’t forget, his brain repeated. Unnecessarily. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten.

  He looked at the mug on the counter, then at her. She blinked her big blue eyes at him.

  She didn’t really poison the guy. She just made him puke for a little while. It’s not like she killed him or anything.

  He picked up the mug, and she smiled with her full lips and said, “Did you scare away the big bad squirrel?”

  “Not only did I scare him away, I found his point of entry and devised a plan to repair it.” He tried to think of a reason she might want to make him sick, like that poor slob at the auction, but he couldn’t come up with a single one. So he decided to trust her.

  As a matter of fact, it felt so good to just decide to trust her that he thought he was going to make it his practice. Just decide to trust her, and give her some time to learn to trust him back, so they could work this place together and make both their dreams come true.

  She smiled at him, watching as he sipped his cocoa.

  * * *

  Selene and Edie were having breakfast at the Big Falls Diner, at a table right beside the giant “Big Falls’ Big Future” thermometer—the red was almost a third of the way to the top—when a very large, sandy-haired stranger came in. He swept the interior of the place, the way you do when you’re looking for someone. Selene guessed he didn’t find them, because he turned his attention to Rosie, who’d hustled behind the counter to wait on him. “Welcome to Big Falls,” she said, knowing, just as any local would, that he wasn’t from here. “Can I help you?”

  He turned his phone her way and said, “I’m looking for this woman. Have you seen her?”

  Rosie, whose hair matched her name and always would, thanks to Miss. Clairol, had been running the diner for as long as Selene could remember. Everyone in Big Falls loved Rosie, and Rosie pretty much loved everyone in Big Falls. But she didn’t seem too enamored of the stranger just yet.

  “I’m Rosie, and I run this place. You are...?”

  He seemed to be fighting a giant case of impatience and not winning. “I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, but it’s important that I find her and I’m short on time. Do you know her or not?”

  “Funny how folks always preface rudeness by saying they don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “You didn’t even look at the picture.” His voice was taking on a little too much anger, and Selene was on her feet before Edie was. You didn’t come to Big Falls and give one of its favorite residents a hard time.

  Still Edie managed to get ahead of her before she got to the front counter. They flanked the stranger. “Is there a problem?” Edie asked, her voice soft and charming.

  Selene couldn’t have cared less about diplomacy. “Yeah, like maybe you have amnesia and forgot what manners are?”

  He turned all the way around, putting his back to the counter. “I haven’t forgot anything. I’m looking for this girl.” He held up the phone. Behind him, Rosie put on her glasses and came around front to look for herself. All three women looked at the photo, then they looked at each other, and then they looked at the man.

  They all spoke at once. “Never saw her before.”

  “No idea.”

  “Not a clue.”

  He made a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh, turned, and stomped toward the door.

  “Hey, wait,” Selene called, pulling out her cell phone.

  He looked back and she snapped a pic, smiled and said, “Have a great day, now.”

  Completely perplexed, he left.

  Rosie took off her glasses and let them dangle from the excessively blingy chain around her neck. Selene bet her grandniece Cora had got it for her. “You girls gonna call your mamma or am I?” she asked.

  “I’ll put the family on alert, Rosie,” Edie said. “Thank you for not saying anything.”

  “Psssh.”

  “The big guy really seems to have it out for Kiley, doesn’t he?” Selene asked. “His aura is sparking like the fourth of July.”

  “It’s just as well we Big Falls’ folk know enough to mind our own business, and stick together when outsiders come snooping around,” Rosie said. “I’ll see what I can find out about this gent through the grapevine.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I can put Cora on it. That girl can sniff out truth like a bloodhound.”

  Selene smiled. “Doesn’t even matter that the Brand family PIs are out of town. Thanks, Rosie.”

  “You think he’s dangerous, Selene?” Edie asked.

  “He’s pissed off, and he’s a little bit panicky,” she said. “I don’t know about dangerous. I didn’t get dangerous.”

  “But pissed off and panicky seems close enough to me,” Rosie said, giving them each a long, serious look right in the eye. “You girls be careful.”

  * * *

  Rob was flipping eggs when his phone made its text sound. The sound he’d chosen for this particular sender was a series of Morse code beeps. The females of the clan had sworn not to text the whole family at once unless it was an emergency. For example, last week’s discussion of who was bringing what to Vidalia’s Sunday after church meal. That exchange had gone on for forty minutes.

  He tipped up the frying pan to slide his perfect eggs onto a waiting english muffin that was already dripping butter and a slice of seriously sharp cheddar cheese. His mouth watered.

  “That smells so good.” Kiley came into the kitchen, carrying her cup of coffee which, she’d told him ten minutes ago, was all she ever consumed in the morning. Her hair looked like the feathers of a very angry chicken.

  For some reason, his brain registered her appearance as the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He was on a slippery slope where Kiley was concerned. It was the damnedest thing, how he’d vowed that he would never, ever, ever get involved with a dishonest woman again, and yet here he was, being drawn irresistibly to one.

  Something felt hot near his elbow. He jerked it away from the still-blazing burner and remembered what he was doing. Turning off the burner, he set his plate on the little round kitchen table that had probably been in some Brand woman’s house at some point in recent history. Then he sat down and picked up his fork.

  Kiley came right up to him and looked over his shoulder. “Is that cheese melting out the sides?”

  “Yeah. Sharp cheddar. Local, even.”

  A noisy rumbling sound came from her stomach.

  “Excuse me!” she said, pressing a hand to her tummy. “That was rude. Stomach growling like a cougar.”

  He set his fork down. “You said you weren’t hungry.”

  “Well, yeah, before I saw that.”

  He got up smiling, stepped aside and said, “It’s all yours, Kiley.”

  “Oh, no, no that’s not what I was angling for.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’m not gonna eat your breakfast.”

  “I’m already making another one.” The eggs were still on the counter, burner still hot. He turned it back on, set the pan above the flame and cracked two more shells. Then he dropped another muffin into the toaster that somebody had apparently bought brand new just to bring over here last night.

  He owed his family big time. The meddling bunch of sweethearts.

  “Well...if you’re making more anyway,” she said, and she sat down.

  “I am.” His eggs started to sizzle, and he turned to watch as she picked up half a muffin with an egg on top and bit in. Perfectly cooked yellow yolk dripped down her chin. She dragged her forefinger through it and smacked her lips. “Mmm,” she said with her mouth full. “ Mmm!”

  “You’re welcome. And Kiley, when you want little favors like thi
s, all you have to do is ask. We’re partners and we’re roomies. Doing nice things for each other oughtta be our norm.”

  She chewed, washed the bite down with coffee, nodded at him. “So I’m just supposed to walk out here and say, ‘That looks great. Would you make me one?’ instead of politely waiting for you to offer?”

  “Instead of manipulating me into offering. See the difference there?”

  She shook her head. “Just seems like bad manners to me. How about I just state here and now that any time you make this particular breakfast, I’m in.”

  He could not argue with her logic, so he put the eggs away and retrieved the cheese. He was slicing another serving when his text went off again. He’d forgotten all about it.

  “All right, all right, just a sec,” he told the phone. He put the cheese away, buttered the muffin that had popped up, topped it in cheddar, and flipped his eggs. Kiley watched him the whole time, but looked away when he met her eyes. “What’s-a-matter, Kiley? Never see a man cook before?”

  “My dad cooked all the time. He just didn’t seem to enjoy it like you do.”

  His senses went on alert. She’d told him precious little about herself, other than her sister’s recent death, which was too raw a topic to really try to discuss. He tried to act casual, dropped his eggs onto his muffin, turned off the burner, carried his plate to the table and sat down.

  “So your dad did the cooking?” he asked.

  She looked up fast, like she had only just realized what she’d said. “Who’s texting you?”

  “Family.”

  “They the only ones who ever text you?” she asked.

  “No.” He tipped his head a little to the left. “Mostly. That particular text tone, though, that’s theirs.”

  She got the joke, and smiled a real smile. “They can probably get to be a lot. I mean, being that there are so many of them.”