Divorced, Desperate and Dangerous

by Christie Craig

  “I said I should say it, I wasn’t saying it.”

  “Oh.” So maybe Casey was as difficult as Granny.

  “Tell me the only reason you did this today was because you want a free meal and I’ll fix you anything you want. Blueberry pancakes and even some whipped cream. Then I’ll say thank you.”

  “Actually, I was hoping for a job.”

  “Hells bells! That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” Casey leaned back in the booth and crossed her arms over her chest. “My blueberry pancakes are really good, you should take ‘em while they’re still on the table.”

  Reese didn’t blink. “I need a job. Not pancakes.”

  Casey shook her head and frowned. “Sorry. It’s nothing personal, but I only hire locals.”

  Think fast. Think fast. “Uh, well, it appears you don’t have enough locals to get you through the morning rush.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because a couple of my gals took up modeling and another two got some job acting in a movie that’s being filmed close by. But they are all good girls, and they’ll realize what their calling really is, and they’ll come back begging for their jobs. They always do.”

  “Great,” Reese said, “But until then, hire me. I’m only looking for temporary work. A couple of months.”

  Casey let out a deep sigh. “I don’t even like serving out-of-towners, I can’t hire one.”

  “I did a good job, didn’t I?” Reese gave her the look her granny called ‘puppy dog eyes.’

  “Now, don’t you go looking at me like that!” Casey said. “If you’re hard-up for money, I can give you a few bucks for your work today.”

  “I’m not completely an out-of-towner.”

  “You’re not?” Casey leaned forward as if to study Reese’s face.

  “My family and I came here practically every summer.” One summer, well, make that three weeks, but that didn’t sound as impressive. But to Reese, it meant the world. Those were some of her last memories of her parents. A week later, they’d been killed in a car crash.

  “Now you’re lying to me, Child.”

  Damn it, Granny always said Reese couldn’t lie worth a flying flip. “Okay, one summer.”

  Casey’s eyes tightened. “Try again.”

  “Three weeks—but it was a really good three weeks and we ate here almost every day. I remember it like it was yesterday. The pictures are the same and the swordfish still has his broken nose. And it was called Casey’s Honkytonk Diner back then, so I’m sure you were here, too.”

  The diner’s owner continued to study her. “So, why are you here now?”

  “I’m a teacher and wanted to do something different for the summer.” That was partly true.

  “What part of Texas are you from?”

  She hadn’t said anything about Texas, but she guessed her twangy accent gave her away. “Glencoe, right outside Houston.”

  “You’re here for the treasure, aren’t you?” Casey asked, with an accusing tone. “Damn treasure hunters, nothin’ but trouble, that’s what you are.”

  “Treasure? What treasure?”

  “All you out-of-towners are the same. You flood in here hoping to find it every year.”

  Reese vaguely recalled the town’s legend of a pirate burying some treasure. It also included something about werewolves, but Reese wasn’t looking for those either. “I’m not here for the treasure.”

  “Then what are you here for? And don’t make up no shit. I’m just like a human lie detector.”

  Reese swallowed and spoke with honesty. “Peace. I’m here to find some peace.”

  Casey leaned back in the booth again. “Some guy break your heart?”

  More than one. Reese nodded. “Two years ago, my fiancé, my one and only soul mate, died the day before our wedding.”

  “And?” Casey asked as her eyes went to the front of the diner, where an older gentleman walked in. Reese noted the woman’s gaze lingered on the customer.

  “I didn’t say ‘and,’” Reese said when Casey refocused on her.

  “I heard an ‘and,’” Casey insisted and leaned forward. “Lookie here, young lady, the good Lord blessed me with three things: cooking, reading people, and a nice pair of tits that’ve only lost some of their bounce.”

  Reese didn’t let her eyes lower to the woman’s boobs. It just wasn’t polite. Neither was bragging about your girls to a stranger! Reese took a second to ask herself if she really wanted to work for this bat-shit crazy lady.

  The question hadn’t made a lap around her mind when the warm, homey smell of bacon filled her nose and she saw a family of four sit in the booth where she and her parents had sat all those years ago. The answer shot back. She wanted this job. Wanted to be here. Besides, Casey kind of reminded Reese of Granny. She got along just fine with bat-shit crazy.

  Casey’s gray eyes never wavered as she repeated, “And . . . ?”

  “And . . . after two years, I met another guy who made me question the ‘only one’ soul mate theory. He made me laugh. He made me want to love again. Then I learned he’d been lying to me all along. And for some crazy reason, my broken heart led me back here.” To remember a time before I had my very first heartbreak—losing my parents.

  Yup, there were things Reese wasn’t about to own up to. Things Casey didn’t need to know. Like her parents’ accident—Reese didn’t need pity— and her being a witness to a murder, and her brother being in jail for inadvertently working for said murderer.

  Reese held her breath, hoping the truth she’d offered passed Casey’s lie detector test. Then she pushed the past where it needed to go, in her mental compost heap. Letting out a bit of air, she didn’t look away from Casey’s intense scrutiny.

  “I hate broken heart stories,” the woman said, and her gaze appeared lured back to the man in the booth. “Unfortunately, out-of-towners don’t get my customers. And my customers don’t get out-of-towners.”

  The woman had no more glanced back at her, when in the corner of Reese’s eye, she saw the older man lower his paper and give Casey a once-over.

  Remembering her objective, Reese focused back on the diner’s owner. “I get your customers. I know what they want. Food. Service. A good time. Hot coffee. I . . . I make people smile, and your clientele will have a good time. They’ll enjoy your cooking even more. You’ll have happy customers.”

  “You can make people smile?” the woman asked and frowned.

  “Yup. I’m just likable. It’s the Texas charm.” That might be some Lone Star bullshit, but her desperation called for it.

  “You seem awful sure of yourself,” Casey said.

  “I am. Give me a job and I’ll prove it.”

  “No, you prove it then I’ll give you a job.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest and her gaze shifted again back to the gentleman behind the paper. Her expression softened and saddened. Then she refocused on Reese and continued, “But if you fail to prove yourself, you’ll eat my blueberry pancakes, take a little compensation for your work, and be on your way. Fair?”

  “Fair enough. How do I prove it?” Casey asked.

  “Take your Texas charm over there and make Frank smile.”

  “Who?”

  “Frank. The man in booth one, reading the paper. He lost his wife a year ago. He comes in here every day wearing that same sad face. The only thing he says is ‘give me the special.’”

  Casey heard the challenge in the older woman’s voice, but she heard something else, too. The woman cared about Frank—and not just because he was a local.

  “You make that grumpy, grief-stricken man smile, and you’ve got a job.”

  A challenge. Reese looked back at the long lost puppy face Frank wore. Not just a challenge, but a tough one. But she’d faced worse in the last two months. She’d faced watching a man get shot. She’d faced watching her brother get arrested. She’d faced Trey Freedman . . . or she should say, Turner Calder, and all his lies. Surely, she could make one sourpuss of an old man smile.

&
nbsp; Chapter Two

  Turner pulled up in the drive on Oxford Street and tried to call Reese again. It went to voicemail. He gritted his teeth and hung up without leaving a message this time. His mind kept flashing to one of the last images he had of her. All five foot three of sweet fury, . . . looking at him with a boatload of hurt in her big, blue eyes and spouting off something about popsicles and hell.

  Obviously, Reese wasn’t taking his calls. He’d gone to her apartment and she hadn’t been there. And neither was her purple Volkswagen bug.

  That left him one option. Not one he liked, either. But he’d come here.

  He got out of his car and moved to the porch of the small, white wood framed home and knocked. No one answered. Then he heard a car. He looked over his shoulder.

  He studied the pink Cadillac rolling down the street. The only part of Abigail Cannon he could spot was a puff of gray hair over the wheel.

  He’d faced murderers high on crack who scared him less than this seventy-year-old woman. A black belt in some kind of karate, she could crack a block with her hand. He knew because she’d shoved her phone in his face and made sure he watched her YouTube video. And she’d told him if she ever laid eyes on him again, she’d use the same move on his balls.

  A better cop would have arrested her for threatening an officer, but fear and the knowledge he might deserve her contempt, had him walking away while he still could. Not, however, without a hand over his crotch.

  He stood frozen on the porch while she sat in her idling car for several long minutes, giving him what his mom would call the ‘stink eye.’ Finally, she cut off the engine.

  It was damn near embarrassing to be afraid of an old lady who could hardly see over the wheel of her Cadillac. But embarrassing or not, when her car door swung open, his boys—tucked in his Levis—wanted to hide, and shriveled up to the size of walnuts.

  “Ma’am,” he said as she climbed out of the car.

  “Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, you lowlife piece of weasel dung. The world would be a better place if your mama had just eaten ya when you popped out.” Like a little Rambo dressed in her karate outfit with a black belt clenched around her waist, she stormed up the porch.

  He took a step back and fought the urge to cover his crotch. But, damn it to hell and back, if right then he didn’t realize that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. At first, when Reese learned he was an undercover agent, all she did was look at him with hurt. The next time, however, when he’d asked her to let him explain, she’d rather colorfully told him to go to hell.

  The old woman stopped, stared, then pointed her index finger at him. “Ricky’s lawyer told me what you did, talked the DA into charging my grandson for a lesser crime. And if it wasn’t for you hurting my precious Reese, I might have been grateful. She already had her heart chewed up and spit out once. Damn idiot goes and dies of a brain hemorrhage the day before her wedding. Who does shit like that?” She shook her head. “Reese didn’t need the likes of you hurting her again.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” He raked a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. I have to talk to her. She’s not home and—”

  “I already told your guys, she’s on a road trip. She was in Hung, Georgia last night, and I don’t know how long she’s planning on staying there, but you’ll just have to wait and talk to her when she gets back. She’s not gonna miss the trial, she wants to see that lowlife scumbag behind bars, too.”

  Out of town. Relief washed over him and then he reheard her words. I already told your guys. “What guys? Who was asking about Reese?”

  “The two who showed up this morning.”

  “Cops?” he asked, his chest feeling heavy.

  “You think I’d tell just anyone where she was?”

  “Were they in uniform?” he asked.

  Her brow creased in worry. “Well, no, but they had a badge.”

  Turner’s gut knotted. Fake shields were a dime a dozen. Or was Cox lying to him? Had he had someone check up on Reese?

  His phone rang. He yanked it out, praying it was her.

  Not Reese. But Luke Hunter, his PI friend, ex-FBI—the person he’d asked to connect him with Ricky’s warden. A bad feeling knotted in his gut.

  “I gotta take this,” he told Reese’s grandmother. “Yeah,” he answered his phone and turned to the side.

  “Hey,” Luke said and his tone in that one word had the knot in Turner’s gut doubling in size. “You were a little late.”

  “Friggin’ hell!” Turner seethed. “How bad is it?”

  • • •

  “It can’t be that bad,” Reese said as she refilled Frank’s cup, feeling Casey’s brown eyes watching her every move. Did the woman want her to succeed or fail? Reese had a feeling even Casey wasn’t too sure.

  “Excuse me?” Frank glanced up from his morning paper.

  “You look . . . unhappy.”

  His gray brow tightened. “I’m fine.”

  “More cream?” she asked and offered him her Texas-sized smile.

  He looked back at his paper, without smiling. “I’m fine,” he repeated and picked up his coffee and took a slow sip.

  Think! Think! Think! “You must be fine.”

  His eyes shifted back up and a crease wrinkled his brow.

  “She’s all worried about you and that could only mean one thing. That she thinks you’re fine.”

  “Who’s worried?” he asked.

  “Casey. She’s got the hots for ya’.”

  He sat his cup down rather loudly. His light blue eyes widened. Was that a good wide or an ‘oh-shit’ wide?

  “She told you this?” he asked, looking unsure.

  “Not outright, but she’s had you on her radar since you walked in and frankly . . .” Might as well go for it. “I kind of noticed you had her on yours.”

  He frowned. Totally not what she was going for. “When did I have her on my radar?”

  Crappers! Had she been mistaken? “Just now, I saw you eyeballing us.”

  He sat frozen, stared directly in front of him for a beat of silence, then his gaze shot up to her. “How do you know it wasn’t you I had on my radar?”

  “That’s not possible,” Reese said, suddenly feeling confident.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “I have a dirty old geezer alarm that goes off when one’s within a hundred feet of me.” She looked down and motioned to the space separating them now. “And we’re what? Two feet from each other now and it hasn’t even chirped.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Casey also offered me a job if I could get you to smile. She really doesn’t want to hire me, so I figured it must be pretty important for her to see you smile.”

  “So if I smile you get the job?”

  “That’s it,” Reese said. He didn’t look all that joyful, so Reese sweetened the deal. Hey, she was desperate. “I’ll pay you twenty bucks.”

  His expression lightened. “So you were lying about Casey having . . .”

  “The hots for you?” Reese finished for him. “Nope.”

  He pursed his lips and seemed to ponder. About what, she didn’t know. “Twenty bucks, huh?”

  “Yup. It’ll have to be an IOU, I don’t have cash on me, but I’m good for it.”

  He stared in his cup as if the coffee contained the answer. After a long few seconds, he glanced up. “Consider yourself employed . . . and in debt, young lady.” His lips slowly turned up, and it even reached his blue eyes. They were nice eyes, Reese decided, and smiled back.

  But she had a feeling he hadn’t smiled in a while. Truth be known, she hadn’t smiled all that much lately, either. Maybe it was time to fix that. Stop fixating on a certain undercover cop and find a bit of happiness.

  When Frank leaned forward, lifted his cup in a mock toast, and smiled at Casey, Reese did a mental victory dance.

  Still smiling herself, she pranced over to Casey. The woman sat there, wearing a befuddled expressio
n.

  “When do I start?” Reese asked.

  “What did you say to him?” the woman seethed.

  Reese hesitated then decided what the hell? “That you had the hots for him.”

  Casey’s brown eyes grew round. “Bite my ass!” she muttered. “I should’ve never trusted an out-of-towner.”

  “Oh, and I offered to pay him twenty bucks,” Reese added.

  “So he did it for the money?” Casey asked.

  “No, he did it because he’s got the hots for you, too.”

  “He never said any such thing,” Casey fumed.

  Reese leaned in. “He didn’t have to. You see, the good Lord blessed me with three things, too. Teaching, making people smile, and reading people.” With an exception to undercover cops with wide shoulders and sexy smiles. But I’m not thinking about him.

  “Make that four things,” Reese continued. “I can wait tables. Unfortunately, I missed out on the boobs, but what I got, still has bounce.” She glanced down at her full-size B cups and then up. “When do I start work?”

  Casey stood, her frown seemed to spread all the way down to her toes, but Reese somehow knew she wouldn’t go back on her word. “Bounce your tits back in here at four in the morning, young lady.”

  Four? She almost asked, but decided not to chance it. “You won’t be sorry,” Reese said.

  “Like hell I won’t. I already am,” Casey muttered.

  • • •

  Reese walked out onto Main Street, savored the sunshine and the smell of the beach, and headed for her car. For the first time in two months, she almost felt happy.

  Slipping into her bug, she decided to head to her motel, check out, and find a place on Hung Island. With the summer heat making her little car almost intolerable, she started the engine and turned the air on high—waiting for it to get cool. When a breath of chilled air hit her face, she reached back in her pocket to see who was responsible for making her butt vibrate.

  Truth be told, her butt hadn’t seen that much action in . . . well, since over two years. Not true. A little guilty voice whispered in her head.