She Drives Me Crazy

by Leslie Kelly

  “’Evening,” Johnny said with a nod as they approached the front door. Emma was leaning into his side, his arm supporting her around her waist as comfortable and easy as could be. Only a cardiologist would have been able to tell his heart was beating hard enough to bust out of his chest. He told himself it was merely the thought of having to deal with Emma and Daneen together. But somewhere, deep inside his gut, he knew it was more likely because of the way Emma felt pressed against his side.

  Just about perfect.

  “Mrs. Dillon,” he said, easily recognizing the dour-faced woman standing beside Daneen.

  Cora Dillon had once worked as a lunch lady at the Joyful Primary School and now did cleaning work wherever she could get it. He half expected her to rap his knuckles with a wooden spoon, the way she would way back in second grade when he’d try to sneak an extra piece of fruit from the lunch line. “Reduced price lunch for poor folks means one apple, Mr. Walker,” she’d say, loud enough for every kid in the cafeteria to hear. “And no cookie!”

  That pretty much summed up his childhood. One apple and no cookie. Some steely-eyed adult like Mrs. Dillon always seemed to be around to make sure no trashy Walker kid tried to snitch anything more than his charitable due.

  He half wished the old woman would get charged with jaywalking, or lifting a piece of candy out of the Brach’s sampler display at the grocery store without paying for it.

  There was one case he’d sure as hell prosecute.

  Mrs. Dillon gave what for her probably passed as a friendly smile. “Mr. Walker,” she said in greeting.

  Johnny kept his hands well out of spoon range, just in case, even though he knew she couldn’t very well rap the knuckles of the county prosecutor. Particularly not when one of her own rowdy grandsons was a recent beneficiary of Johnny’s goodwill toward the high-spirited youth of Joyful.

  “Nice to see you, ma’am,” he replied, every bit as evenly.

  Then the woman turned her attention on Emma Jean, studying her like someone might study a particularly difficult crossword puzzle or riddle.

  “This is Emma Jean Frasier. I’m sure you knew her grandmother,” he explained.

  “It’s just Emma,” his companion murmured under her breath.

  Her words were lost under Daneen’s surprised gasp, which Cora Dillon echoed. Daneen’s reaction he could have predicted. Mrs. Dillon, though, was probably annoyed at being caught not knowing the name, marital status and credit history of a new arrival to Joyful. Maybe Cora was losing her touch—she wasn’t often caught unaware when it came to gossip-worthy newcomers.

  “Hello, Daneen,” Emma said when neither of the other women made any effort to speak. Johnny had to wonder how she hid her tension beneath that smooth, cultured voice. Her whole body was tight enough to snap in half.

  Little wonder. Daneen had, after all, stolen Emma’s man away once upon a time.

  “Emma Jean,” Daneen whispered, sounding the tiniest bit unsure of herself. Very unusual for this particular woman, who hardly ever let anyone see her weaknesses.

  A variety of expressions crossed Daneen’s face, ranging from dismay, to dislike, and perhaps even a bit of embarrassment. With reason, of course, as they all well knew.

  But Daneen quickly did her thing, tossing her head and ignoring whatever guilt she might still be feeling about what had happened back in high school. “Well, I had no idea you were coming back to Joyful.” Daneen’s tone sounded forced as she straightened her shoulders in a failed attempt at indifference.

  “Never can tell where one of us bad pennies is going to turn up,” Emma said with a too-bright laugh. “How…nice…it is to see you, too.”

  That sounded about as sincere as a televangelist asking for forgiveness for screwing over his flock, but Johnny figured Emma Jean had a right to be spiteful. Daneen had done her dirty, all right. In front of the whole town, to boot.

  “Johnny, wherever did you find her?” Daneen asked. “I didn’t even know you two were…acquainted.”

  He frowned slightly at the blatant lie. There was no way Daneen hadn’t heard about prom night, even though she hadn’t been there to witness it firsthand. She’d run off, leaving Joyful in a tizzy that same day. Still, she’d come back soon enough afterward to hear the story. It had been whispered over and over, just like all the other scandalous tidbits of local folklore.

  The prom night interlude between rebel Johnny Walker and golden girl Emma Jean Frasier was probably repeated almost as often as the tale of how Joyful had gotten its name. Frankly, Johnny had always found the name story a lot more interesting. Reportedly two hundred or so years ago, one of the town’s founders had stopped at the tiny two-road crossing and pronounced, “This place is about as joyful as a fi’ty cent whore with a toothache.” And Joyful had been christened.

  How could a couple of teenagers caught bare-ass naked at the gazebo by most of the members of the senior class of Joyful High compare with that?

  Unfortunately, he appeared to be the only person in Joyful who believed it couldn’t.

  “Emma and I ran into each other at the grocery store,” he finally said. “She needed some help. I’m going to drop her off at her grandmother’s place, but we need the key.”

  Cora, who they’d nearly forgotten about, reached into her pocket and dug out a small key ring. “Here you go,” she murmured, still staring with avid interest at Emma. “I cleaned it up for you this morning. I was dropping the key back off to Mr. Boyd.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Dillon,” Emma said, sounding as refined and genteel as her late grandmother, who’d been every inch a lady. Had Emma sounded as dignified when asking him to make love to her? He couldn’t really remember.

  Liar. He remembered everything about that night. And no, she hadn’t sounded proper and refined at all. She’d sounded sweet and hungry. Enticing, alluring and innocent. A lot more innocent than he’d ever expected, to his utter shock.

  Which made it difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe the rumors that she’d been off making dirty movies since she’d left here ten years ago. He hadn’t had time to wrap his mind around the whole gossipy rumor, but his first instinct was to suspect the Joyful grapevine had this particular story totally screwed up, particularly given the way she’d joked about porn movies during their drive.

  “I haven’t been inside the house in a very long time and I do appreciate your efforts,” Emma continued.

  Mrs. Dillon looked as if she didn’t know whether to take Emma’s words as a compliment or not, so she just grunted and turned toward the door. “I’ll wait for Mr. Boyd inside,” she told Daneen, who still appeared too shocked to protest. Then Cora entered the building, leaving the three of them alone.

  “So, why are you back, Emma Jean?” Daneen asked. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”

  Emma, apparently not as easily cowed, or, at least, as polite, as she’d been in high school, raised a brow. “Funny. Seems to me you were the one who skipped out of town first, Daneen. Speaking of which, how is Nick?”

  Nick. Nick Walker. His younger brother, and once upon a time the object of affection of a number of teenage girls in the township of Joyful, Georgia. He’d have to include Emma Jean Frasier and Daneen Brady in that list.

  Daneen Brady—now Walker. His former sister-in-law.

  “Emma, maybe we should leave now,” Johnny said, trying to turn her back toward the car. The last thing he wanted was to get Daneen started on the subject of his brother.

  Too late.

  “Probably burning in hell, for all I care,” Daneen said, her voice hard, as it always was when Nick’s name came up. “Wherever he is, he’s certainly not here, so if Nick’s the reason you came back to Joyful, you might just as well turn around and go back up north.” Her tone turned sugary sweet, though her green eyes remained cool and assessing. “Gracious, it’s been ten years, Emma Jean. Haven’t you gotten over Nick yet?”

  Yep. Daneen was sharpening up her claws. When she got around to
remembering the rumors of what had happened between him and Emma Jean on prom night, they’d become even more cutting. Though there had never been any romantic involvement between him and his ex-sister-in-law—and never would be—she did seem to think her family status gave her the right to tell him how to run his life. The only reason he gave her a tiny bit of leeway on that was because she was, truly, family. Once a Walker, always a Walker, no matter how much Daneen hated to claim the name.

  “Let’s go, Emma.”

  Emma wouldn’t be moved. Instead, smiling as she tapped the tips of her perfectly manicured pink nails on her collarbone, she stared at Daneen. “Oh, you sweet thing, to be worried about me,” she said, lacing her voice with a sugary hint of Southern cordiality. “But, no, Nick was only a boy. A sweet, innocent teenage crush. Obviously our relationship wasn’t anything like yours—since you were the one he had to run away with and marry so your daddy wouldn’t kill him and all.”

  Johnny lowered his head so his ex-sister-in-law wouldn’t see his grin. Not too many women could pull off that perfect blend of sweetness and cutting sarcasm. Emma’s grandmother had had it down to an art form. Emma had apparently learned one or two things during her time in the South.

  He had no idea where she could have learned anything about the adult film business.

  As steam almost began rolling out of Daneen’s ears, Emma gave a little smile and leaned heavier against Johnny’s side. “I am really hurting now. You will help me back to the car, won’t you? I’ll speak to Mr. Boyd tomorrow.” She gave him a wide-eyed, limpid look which, he supposed, probably appeared helpless and intimate to Daneen, as Emma had likely intended.

  For an instant, he was tempted to let her fall on her ass again, leaving her lying on the ground outside Boyd Realty. She deserved it. Damned if he was going to let Emma Jean Frasier use him to salve her ego or bolster her pride one more time. Been there, done that. Pick another sucker, lady. Once in a lifetime was enough for anyone.

  But there was something else in those golden-brown eyes of hers, something beyond flirtation or teasing. Her lashes flickered as she blinked rapidly, appearing on the verge of tears.

  She seemed tired and hurting. In pain, both emotionally and physically. His heart twisted in his chest at the sleepless circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin accentuated by a light dusting of freckles.

  “Please, Johnny?” she whispered, this time not sounding cajoling but instead nearly desperate.

  He sighed. Just like old times. The town had always known him as a rebel, but those closest to him had always realized he was a soft touch, always stupid and sappy enough to step in and take care of people who needed help. Which she did.

  Besides which, to his eternal consternation, he never could resist Emma Jean Frasier when she said please.

  EMMA DIDN’T MEAN to use Johnny out of spite by asking him to help her to the truck. In fact, when she saw his hesitation, she regretted having to rely on him at all. But she did. She needed to get away and he was the only one who could help her do it.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Daneen asked, sounding falsely solicitous. “Shouldn’t she come inside and sit for a while?”

  Before Emma could nix that idea, Johnny hurried to thank Daneen and refuse her offer. He went on to briefly tell the other woman what had happened at the store.

  Emma barely listened, wondering why she’d let Daneen get to her. Heavens, she was no longer the new kid in school being baited by the most popular girl, like she’d been during her senior year at Joyful High.

  God, it seemed another lifetime. Who cared what had happened back then? Teenage dramas had nothing on Emma’s adult life. High school certainly hadn’t prepared her for men like her former boss, Wes Sharpton. Or for women like her former best friend in accounting, Lydia Bailey.

  She idly wondered if Wes and Lydia were enjoying their South American honeymoon. And if the last remnants of the money they’d embezzled from the firm—which had put dozens of people out of work and landed them in the middle of an SEC investigation—was all spent yet.

  Their money couldn’t have disappeared any faster than Emma’s life savings. Since her last few paychecks had bounced, and her mutual fund investments with the firm had become worthless, her balances had hit zero dollars and zero cents before she and the rest of the staff even knew what had happened.

  Her checking account had gone even lower. The resounding boing of the checks she’d bounced all over Manhattan still rang in her ears at night. It was almost as loud as she imagined the metallic clang of the cell doors would have been if she hadn’t immediately covered those checks through the sale of her furniture and jewelry back in the city.

  She’d never imagined when she finally settled into brokering and finance—thinking she’d finally found her niche after she’d sampled so many other interesting creative outlets—that she’d end up losing all her money because of her job!

  She’d have been better off sticking to archeology. Or art—the show she’d helped fund for an erotic artist a few years ago sure had been fun, though it’d shocked Grandma Emmajean when she’d sent her one of the brochures.

  Grandma Emmajean. Her savior. Because coming to Joyful hadn’t been a mere pleasure trip to lick her wounds and wait out the controversy. It’d been a downright necessity, if she wanted a roof over her head…without having to go to her parents for help. It still might come to that. But it hadn’t yet, thank heaven.

  “Well?” Johnny asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you ready to go, Emma?”

  “Absolutely. It was so nice to see you,” she told Daneen over her shoulder as Johnny helped her down the sidewalk. She leaned against him, almost not even noticing the steadiness of his hand on her arm, the steely strength of his chest against her side and the warm, musky scent of his cologne.

  Well, that was a bald-faced lie. She could no more fail to notice those things than a person could pretend not to notice the color of the sky or the metallic way the air tasted right before a wicked thunderstorm. Some things were so elemental they simply couldn’t be ignored. Like him.

  Emma suddenly wondered if she’d made a big mistake. Maybe bickering with Daneen would have been a better way to spend her evening. Because after only an hour back in his company, she began to wonder if she would have the strength of will to resist those crazy old feelings she’d always had for Johnny Walker.

  Somehow, she feared she wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CORA HADN’T HESITATED a moment once she’d gotten inside the waiting room of Boyd Realty. She’d turned right around, made herself a nice peeky-hole between two slats of the miniblinds—which were shamefully dusty, no surprise there—and watched what was going on outside.

  The trio continued their chit-chatty conversation for a few minutes. It didn’t take an expert in body language, however, to know there was no friendliness between the two younger women. They were like two cats in a box, trying to stay away from one another until it was safe to swipe, drawing first blood.

  She smirked. Daneen Walker was way too uppity, to Cora’s mind, and always had been. It hadn’t helped that her daddy, Sheriff Brady, had spoiled the girl to bits when her mother had passed on fifteen years ago. Lately, she’d been darn near impossible with her claims. She’d been hinting that since Johnny was single, and she was kin, she was gonna serve as his first lady when he got elected mayor after Jimbo Boyd retired.

  “Maybe cows’ll fly down Market Street one of these days, too,” she whispered sourly. Because that’d be just about the day any of those white trash Walkers got elected mayor of Joyful.

  Prosecuting attorney was bad enough. But since there weren’t lawyers lining up for the low-paying job, she supposed he was the best they could do. She knew it darn near killed Sheriff Brady to have to work with the brother of his ex-son-in-law. Especially with Johnny’s reputation for going easy on the criminal element.

  Cora gulped down a bit of guilt. As much as she hated to admit it, Johnny h
ad done a good turn by her grandson, Matthew. The sheriff probably would have seen the boy sent up to juvie hall for tipping over one of the Port-o-lets at the county fair last fall. It might not have been such a fuss and bother if Deputy Willis hadn’t been inside the doggone thing at the time. Johnny Walker had worked things out with the public defender, so the boy had done some community service, but no time in jail.

  Anyway, it wasn’t like the portable piss-pot had been damaged. Much. And the township should have paid little Matty and his buddies for the spectacle. Deputy Fred had put on quite an entertaining—if a bit smelly—screaming performance once he’d been rescued. It had been a darn sight more exciting than the sideshows, like the two-headed chicken—obviously a rubber toy with an extra beak super-glued to its butt. Or the hootchie-cootchie girls wagging their saggy fannies all over the midway.

  “Mealy-mouthed Fred Willis probably liked getting the attention, anyway,” she muttered, remembering how quiet and whiny he’d been as a child.

  Outside, she saw Daneen’s body was stiff with indignation. The snooty Frasier girl with the tattered reputation had a confident look on her face as she and Johnny turned away. Looked like the blond chippie had won this round. Cora had no love for city girls who sold dirty pictures, but it did a body good to see Daneen Walker set back on her round heels once in a while.

  Sensing the scene out front was almost over, Cora let go of the blinds. She took a moment to examine the office, even peeking into the small bathroom. When she saw a telltale red wrapper floating in the toilet, she smirked.

  Just as she’d suspected…Jimbo Boyd was sticking more than For Sale signs into some of the cheap real estate in Joyful. She sure didn’t suppose Daneen had been filling up rubbers and using them for water balloons.

  Filing the information away into the back of her brain for future use, she stepped over to the closed door of Jimbo’s office. She heard his voice, but no one else’s, and assumed he was on the phone, arguing with someone.