Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance)

by Juliet Rosetti

  “Sort of.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. People are always setting me on fire.”

  “I was shit-faced. I know it’s not a good excuse, but it’s all I got.” She flung down the leaf blower and stuck out her hand. “I’m Fran Schnabble, in case you didn’t read my name in the newspaper.”

  “Mazie Maguire.” I took her hand and shook it. “You’ve probably read my name in the papers, too.”

  “Oh, you’re that lady who—”

  “Murdered my husband,” I said, helpfully. “Except I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, I guess I’m notorious now, too. The police tracked me down Saturday night. Tossed my drunken ass in a squad car, hauled me to the Brookwood PD, and booked me. It was the most humiliating thing I ever experienced. At least my kids were at my ex’s so they didn’t have to witness their mommy being dragged off to the pokey.”

  Sober, Fran was cute. Probably in her early forties, with chipmunk cheeks, wavy sand-colored hair, and protuberant brown eyes that made her look perpetually alarmed. She wore a quilted green jacket with frayed cuffs, a moth-eaten plaid scarf, and small rectangular glasses smeared with fingerprints. “I sat in a dirty, stinking cell for five hours,” she said. “You have no idea how awful jail is.”

  She looked at me and flushed. “Well, yeah, I guess you do know. My mother had to come down to the station and bail me out. My face was all over TV and the newspapers. They were calling me the deranged arsonist. All I did was start a bonfire without a permit, for cripe’s sake! But now they’re charging me with criminal damage to property, arson, malicious mischief, and every other damn thing they can think of.”

  Fran gestured around the lawn. “I’ll probably have to move away and change my name. Only I’ll never find a buyer for the house, because it’s falling apart. I’m trying to whip the lawn into shape, but this stinking leaf blower is good for shit. Plus it’s supposed to snow, and I have to get the patio furniture covered.”

  “Want some help?” It was an impulsive offer, because I was aware of the shrinking window of opportunity for getting into Rhonda’s house, but I found myself fascinated by Fran’s soap-opera life. By comparison, my own problems were shoestring potatoes.

  “Help, as in psychiatric help?” Fran gave a brittle laugh “Hell, yes. But since I can’t afford it, I’ll settle for someone willing to wipe off bird shit.”

  Fran handed me a wet rag and I began swiping gunk off the patio furniture. There was a glass-topped table with a faded sunbrella, four wrought-iron chairs, and a chaise lounge, everything old and beat up. Fran disappeared into the garage for a minute and came out lugging a roll of vinyl tarp cloth.

  “Jerry—my husband—always took care of the lawn stuff, but I kicked his sorry butt out when I found out he was doing the horizontal mambo with the slut next door. Know what really fries my gourd? As soon as Rhonda had my dumb schlub of a hubby in her power, she tossed him to the curb. Said he was too old for her. Rhonda likes ’em when they’re barely old enough to shave.”

  Fran ripped off a long sheet of vinyl tarp. “So now we’re going through a divorce that’s going to leave both of us penniless, I’m losing my house, I’m fighting for custody of my kids—and it’s all because of that evil, bloodsucking witch over there.”

  Don’t delay; burn a witch today: directives from the Fran Schnabble book of justice.

  Standing across from each other, we flapped the tarp over the chaise lounge as though making a bed. The chaise was plastic rattan over a steel framework, the cushions a faded floral. I held the edges in place while Fran wound stretchy cord around the legs.

  “You know the only thing that helps, Mazie?”

  “Your kids?”

  “Nah. Booze. Thank God for Svedka.”

  “Vodka?”

  “Damn right. Only nine bucks a bottle at Costco. So Svedka and me get a little too friendly Saturday night. The kids are over at Jerry’s, I’m stuck alone in this dump while Rhonda’s throwing a party, and I start thinking how much fun it would be to—”

  “Mo-om!”

  A boy of about eight appeared at Rhonda’s back door. “Caleb’s hitting me with the potato masher!”

  Muttering a swear word, Fran dropped the tarp and hurried into her house.

  I seized the opportunity to make my escape, scuttling across the lawn toward the Cromwell house, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw that it was still dark and the driveway was empty. Hoisting the garage door up just far enough to wriggle through the opening at the bottom, I crawled inside, groping my way in the dark past snowblowers, riding mowers, motorcycles, and other pricey toys. No wonder Rhonda couldn’t fit her car in here!

  One stubbed toe later, I found the door that led into the house. Holding my breath, I turned the knob. The door opened; no alarm sounded. I let out my breath and moved cautiously into the kitchen, not wanting to turn on the lights. I waited until my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, then crept into the living room, the front hallway, and the foyer. I opened the coat closet.

  Rhonda’s perfume whooshed out at me in a choking cloud, evoking her presence so powerfully I expected it to bark out “Maguire, in my office!” Hastily, I shuffled through Rhonda’s jam-packed coats, guessing what they were by their texture. Camel’s hair, Persian lamb, mink, something that felt like bat skin … where was my coat? Finally, I found it, incubating a clutch of boots on the closet floor. Brushing off the dust bunnies, I pulled it on, reveling in its wooly warmth. My hard-earned waiter money was still in the pocket, nearly a hundred dollars. No Alpo for me tonight—I could splurge on peanut butter!

  I was just backing out of the closet, planning to let myself out through the side door rather than wade through the garage junk again, when I heard a sound that froze my blood. A key was turning in the front door!

  I stood rooted to the spot. Should I dive back into the closet? No—Rhonda would see me when she hung her coat. No place to hide—the foyer was a wide-open space with views of the whole first floor. A woman who hated my guts was about to walk in, discover that I’d broken into her house, and take enormous pleasure in turning me over to the police.

  I was going to go back to jail.

  Chapter Eight

  Whoever said spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them is crazy. Why should a creature with eight hairy legs, four pairs of eyes, a sack of venom, and fangs be afraid of you?

  —Maguire’s Maxims

  I hurled myself into the living room and dived beneath a library table a split second before Rhonda strode into the room. She was laughing, a coquettish gurgle that set my teeth on edge. “It’ll just take me a minute to change, and then we can go,” she said to the person with her. She snapped on the lights.

  “Don’t bother changing, you’re fine,” rumbled a male voice.

  Ben Labeck’s voice!

  I crammed myself farther beneath the table, a beautiful, old mahogany piece, its legs carved with twining fruits and vines, but I was hardly in the mood to appreciate its artistic merits. As a hiding place, the table stank. If anyone sat down on the sofa opposite the table, I was going to be the elephant in the room.

  “I want to look really nice for you, hot stuff. Come on up to my room. We can talk while I change, okay? I’ll even let you zip me.”

  Come in to my parlor, said the spider to the fly…

  As if on cue, a spider the size of a baseball descended from the top of the table and dangled on a thread in front of my eyes. Emitting a piercing mental scream, I squeezed myself as far against the wall as a human backbone could scrunch.

  Labeck cleared his throat. “We should get going.”

  “Aww, is him all embarrassed?” Rhonda used a pouty little-girl voice that made me want to ralph up my lunch.

  I could see the bottom halves of their bodies. Labeck was wearing jeans and his ugly lace-up leather shoes that repelled snow, rain, and mud, and in a pinch could deliver a swift, disabling kick. Rhonda was facing him, still
wearing her suede Band-Aid of a skirt and the dominatrix boots.

  “I just love your nose, Ben,” Rhonda cooed. “It’s all bashed in like the ones in those Greek statues.”

  “It got in the way of a hockey puck.”

  “Ooh, hockey! I love athletes. They have such stamina. Come on, sit down, don’t be in such a hurry.”

  She practically wrestled him onto the sofa. I was in trouble here. All Rhonda had to do was look up and she’d spot me. Fortunately, she was too wrapped up in Labeck at the moment to notice anything. She was all over him, like dog slobber. She stuck her tongue in his ear. Oh, retch!

  Finally they broke apart. “Why don’t we have drinks?” Rhonda asked. “What would you like?”

  There was a panicky tone in Labeck’s voice. “The idea was we go out. I’m taking you to dinner, remember?”

  The spider lunged at me. Stifling a gasp of horror, I shrank away from it. No, wait—it wasn’t actually attacking me; it was swinging itself onto one of the table legs. Then it pendulummed to the other leg. It was building a web! I was going to be trapped here, inside the lair of Shelob!

  Rhonda spoke in a husky, midnight-at-the-cocktail-lounge voice. “I want you to know that I am not a lady, Ben. I don’t expect to be wooed. I know what I want and I go after it, no holds barred. Nothing is off limits, nothing.”

  Don’t be subtle, Rhonda! Why don’t you just snap his jockstrap!

  If I hadn’t been so terrified that I was about to be cocooned into spider food, I would have laughed. Poor Labeck. Two powerful forces were fighting each other here: his hormones were flashing on free, no-strings sex, while his brain was telling him that there was no free, no-strings anything with women.

  Men are always complaining that women are too picky. That’s because women have standards. In the back of our minds, we’re always evaluating a man’s potential as a mate. Could he support a family? Could he support me through twenty-four hours of excruciating back labor? Would I want to have a kid who inherited those jug ears of his?

  With guys, though, the standards are more like: Is she breathing? And even a no on that is not necessarily a deal breaker.

  By craning my neck, taking care to stay out of spider-lunging range, I could see what was happening on the couch. Rhonda took Ben’s face in her hands and kissed him. The kiss went on for a long, long time. He put his hands on her waist. She put her hands everywhere. I squeezed my eyes shut. I took deep breaths. I put my head between my knees. I locked my hands together and knotted my ankles together, because if I didn’t, I was going to spring up out of my hiding place, spider or no spider, and haul Rhonda off him the way you tweezed ticks off a dog.

  Not that I was jealous. I didn’t have any right to be jealous. Labeck was a free man after all. He could kiss anyone he wanted. We’d been broken up for six weeks now. We’d broken up practically before we were even together.

  I’d moved in with Ben Labeck the day I’d been released from prison. We’d spent most of our first weekend together in bed, and then it was Monday morning and Labeck had to go back to work. I spent my days job hunting, scouring the Internet for job openings, registering with employment agencies, and checking the want ads. Nothing turned up until I answered the CRS ad.

  Fate is a prankster. Fate gives with one hand and takes with the other.

  Because on the same day that Rhonda Cromwell offered me a job, the opportunity of a lifetime opened up for Labeck. NBC offered him a temporary assignment with a crew filming a controversial oil-fracking operation in Montana. They wanted him to start immediately, because the cameraman who’d originally been scheduled had gotten sick.

  “That’s wonderful,” I told Ben when he came home, practically vibrating with excitement, picking me up and whirling me around. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “You’re coming, too. I’ve arranged everything. It’ll be at least a month.”

  I stepped out of his arms. “I can’t. I just got hired at CRS. I’m supposed to start a mystery-shopping job tomorrow.”

  “You’re turning down the chance to go to Montana with me so you can be a mystery shopper? What the hell is that, anyway? It sounds like spying.”

  “It’s not spying!” I was starting to get annoyed. I was happy about Labeck’s new job; why couldn’t he be happy for me? “I’m going to be evaluating businesses. What does it say about my work ethic if I go flying off to Montana ten minutes after I get hired?”

  “We’re not flying, we’re driving.”

  “What’s this we business? I wasn’t consulted.”

  “I thought you’d be thrilled.”

  “Of course I’m thrilled. I’d love to go. But I need this job. It’s not great, but it’s at least the first stepping-stone in my career.”

  “Mazie, you don’t need a career. I can take care of you.”

  “So you bring home the bacon and I fry it up in a pan?”

  Ben Labeck had been raised in a home where his dad, who ran a cabinetmaking business out of a home workshop, made the meals, scrubbed the floors, and chauffeured the kids around, while his mom taught at the local college. So where had the liberated Labecks’ only son acquired the notion that I didn’t need a career because he could take care of me?

  Ben scowled. “It’s not like that.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s like. You’re trying to run my life.”

  “Wanting to take care of you is running your life?”

  “There’s a line between caring for someone and controlling them, and you keep stepping over that line.”

  His mouth hardened. This was our first serious disagreement and neither of us knew how to deal with it. We’d barely sketched out the rudiments of our relationship. Ben Labeck was smart, kind, brave, and daring, but—perhaps because he was used to bossing around three younger sisters—he also possessed a streak of overprotectiveness that bordered on chauvinism. Now I’d insulted him and wounded his pride. He reacted by closing down. I hated when guys did that. It meant they knew that if they continued the argument they were going to lose, so they were cutting their losses to save face. Ben went to the bedroom, hauled out a suitcase, and started packing.

  I wanted to go to Ben and wrap my arms around him, but there was something about the stiff set of his back that warned me away. I just stood there in the doorway, watching, unable to speak, trying hard not to cry.

  He went into the bathroom, swept his toiletries off the shelf into a small leather bag, then turned and faced me.

  “I’m going to leave tonight, drive all night and all day tomorrow. I should be in Montana by Thursday. Have you changed your mind about coming?”

  “Not if you’re going to act like this.” Anger was starting to replace guilt. Somehow Ben had twisted everything around to make me the bad guy.

  “Suit yourself, then.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a new cellphone, still in its bulletproof plastic casing. “You didn’t have a phone yet, so I bought one for you. The service plan is already paid for.” He handed me a credit card. “Use this for groceries, rent, whatever you need while I’m gone.”

  “I don’t need you paying my bills,” I huffed.

  He shrugged, trying to seem cool, even though I knew he was angry.

  We stared at each other, each of us waiting for the other one to give in, but we were both too stupid and too stubborn.

  “I’ll call you,” Labeck finally said. And then he left.

  He didn’t call.

  I turned on my new phone and waited all evening, but he didn’t call. Maybe he was too busy. Maybe he’d lost my number. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to me. I finally broke down and called him, worried that he’d had an accident on the road and was lying in a desolate stretch of the Badlands, swatting away vultures, unable to reach his phone, sending me telepathic cries for help. But every time I dialed, I got a message that said “Your call cannot be completed.”

  Three days after Ben Labeck drove off to Big Sky country, I moved out of his apartment and out of his l
ife.

  For six weeks I’d managed to convince myself that I was over Labeck. I drowned my heartache in hot fudge sundaes, immersed myself in my new job, walked Muffin on days he didn’t want to stir from his doggie bed, and lied to myself about how much better off I was without Mr. Machismo trying to wrap me in a ruffly apron. And I’d been doing great! Well, satisfactory. Okay—clinging to sanity by the tips of my raw, bloody fingers. Then Labeck had walked into Rhonda’s party, told me he wanted to talk, and set my insides into a spin cycle.

  Now, spying on Labeck and Rhonda locked in a passionate embrace, I knew I wasn’t over Labeck at all. If I were over him, would I feel this raging sense of jealousy? Would I feel this overwhelming urge to slap him to his senses, to scream at him to run before this poisonous woman sank her fangs into him?

  They broke apart, Rhonda wearing a triumphant smile and Labeck looking as though he wanted to check whether he was still wearing underwear.

  “Mmm … that was really nice.” Rhonda’s voice was brown sugar, gritty and sweet. She corkscrewed to her feet, turned her back to Labeck, and pulled her skirt down by sliding it back and forth across her butt. Labeck’s eyes followed, as though he was watching a game of ass ping-pong.

  “So let’s go find this great bar of yours, stud,” Rhonda said.

  They left the room, turned out the lights, and went out the front door, leaving me alone in the dark with a homicidal spider.

  Chapter Nine

  Being fired is like falling off a bicycle. You just have to get back on and pedal along until the next pothole bucks you off.

  —Maguire’s Maxims

  I’m not a thong-type person. I’m not even a bikini-type person. I’m the type who in high school had my period three weeks out of every month so I’d be excused from gym-class showers. Was I really thinking of taking a job that involved serving coffee while wearing undies the size of postage stamps?

  I drove downtown slowly, not wanting to be doing what I was doing. It was Tuesday afternoon, I’d spent the morning trolling the Internet for job openings, and I’d come up with zero. But there was still Juju’s offer of employment at Hottie Latte.