With a small jolt, Sadie realized that what she’d done wasn’t all that different. Spencer had been her bad apple, and while he had never hit her, she’d allowed him to bring her life—part of it, at least—to a halt.
Until she’d come back to Garth, she’d hadn’t even missed that part of her life. Now, she felt a little sad and empty.
Some things couldn’t be fixed with a swift kick or a bullet.
The sheriff would call this “highly irregular.” The ABI agent, Evans, would probably call it “illegal.”
Of course, Truman hadn’t gone looking for Hearn’s widow, and that made all the difference. He and Evelyn Hearn just happened to be waiting in line at the grocery store, him with his coffee and frozen dinners, her with her diet soda and cookies.
She’d looked back and up at him and he’d nodded. He’d offered his sympathies and she’d teared up. It was neighborly kindness, not investigative skills, that found Truman and a sniffling Evelyn Hearn sitting together at a small table in Thigpen’s Pit, sipping coffee and talking about her late husband.
“He wasn’t a good husband,” Mrs. Hearn said between sniffles. “Oh, he provided a nice home and I always had all the jewelry and clothes I wanted, and the kids got a good college education, but…” she shook her head, and graying hair danced around her drawn face. “He wasn’t a good husband,” she said again, more softly this time.
“I understand,” Truman said.
“Do you?” The older woman looked him squarely in the eye. “A man like you, I bet you have no idea what it’s like to dearly and completely love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
“Now, why would you think that?”
She fluttered a dismissive hand. “You’re a man. Men don’t suffer in the same way women do, when it comes to matters of the heart.”
“I believe you’re mistaken.” His own heart had taken a bit of a beating, and had taken a while to recover. But apparently it had recovered. He was having all sorts of unexpected thoughts about Sadie these days.
Finally, Evelyn Hearn sighed. “Are you going to find the man who did this to my Aidan?”
He wasn’t a part of the investigative team, but that detail didn’t matter to Evelyn Hearn at the moment. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good. Aidan was a liar and a cheat, a bad husband and an indifferent father. But he was all I had and I want whoever took him from me to pay.”
“I understand the funeral is going to take place Monday.”
“Yes. I would have liked to have it sooner, but…” her eyes watered up again. “They insisted that an autopsy was necessary, and they’ve sent Aidan’s body to Montgomery. That’s just not right, is it? I hate the thought of his body being poked and prodded and…” She shuddered. “I can’t think about what they’re doing to him down there. But the investigator from the ABI, he promised me that Aidan would be released by this weekend, Sunday at the latest, and we can have a proper burial on Monday.”
In his mind, Truman struck Evelyn Hearn from his own list of suspects. She was devastated. Angry, yes. Betrayed, without a doubt. But she’d loved her husband.
“Tell me about him,” Truman prodded gently. He didn’t know if he’d learn anything of interest about Garth’s murder victim, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Jason would be here at eight. Sadie spent a little extra time making herself pretty for the date. Since she’d slept in her little black dress on Tuesday night and hadn’t yet carried it to the cleaners, she wasn’t wearing it again. Besides, she had been overdressed for her dinner with Truman. Since Bob’s Steak and Fixin’s was the nicest place in town, she imagined that’s where Jason would take her.
So tonight she wore crisp black slacks, low-cut leather boots with a neat and unobtrusive holster for her pistol, and a lightweight cream sweater that molded to her curves. Even though the outfit was more casual than what she’d worn for her dinner with Truman, it was still very nice and more than a little sexy. If they happened to run into Truman while they were out, she wouldn’t want him to think that she’d put any less effort into this date than she had for theirs. Not that Tuesday’s dinner had been a date.
There it was again—the girlie-girl in her rising to the surface. Yeah, she had to get out of Garth. The sooner the better.
Porter Manly was on the desk again tonight, and Lillian had gone to bed early. This whole business with Hearn had poor Lillian exhausted. Kathy was settled into Room 102, and Jennifer had left almost two hours ago. She never said where she was going. Just “out.”
At eight on the nose, a car pulled into the parking lot. Sadie waited in the lobby, not exactly anxious to see Jason again but curious to discover if anything about him kindled the same intense feelings Truman roused. Maybe her reaction to Truman was just hormones running out of control. A little wacky chemistry, since thirty was coming and she hadn’t settled down into the domestic life most women were supposed to crave on some primal level. Yea, that was it. Hormones. If she remembered correctly, Jason Davenport had managed to stir her teenage hormones very nicely.
The vehicle that parked near the door had seen better days, and it was quite small. The compact car sported one fender that was a different color than the rest of the vehicle. It looked very much like a clown car.
Just as with a proper clown car, the man who climbed out of the driver’s side was a big guy, and his clothes were a size too small. Pants too tight, buttons of the shirt strained to the limit, it was almost painful to watch him move in those tight clothes. The hair that hung to his shoulders didn’t hide the fact that his hairline was receding. He carried a crumpled paper bag.
Oh God, were those sideburns? They were huge. Elvis-style.
The big guy with the sideburns opened the door and stepped into the lobby, but instead of walking to the desk he turned to her and smiled.
And Sadie’s heart leapt into her throat. “Jason…. Hi.”
“Zowee, Sadie.” He looked her up and down without an ounce of finesse. “You look hot.”
“Thanks.” The word came out much too small.
“Really hot,” he said again, with emphasis.
This time Sadie’s thanks were lost in her throat.
“I brought you something.” He handed over the bag. “As you know, I’m somewhat of a local artist.”
“That’s what I hear.” She grasped the paper bag tightly.
“Go on,” he said, nodding to the crumpled brown bag and gesturing with one chunky hand. “Open it.”
Sadie turned her attention to the bag. No wonder Truman had smiled when he’d learned that she was going out with Jason tonight! No wonder he wasn’t worried about her date with the local artist. The high-school heartthrob had turned into a joke, with the extra weight around the middle and the outrageous sideburns and the clown car.
She reached into the bag and pulled out his artwork, and added wooden fish to the running list of the absurd. She supposed it was wood sculpture. The fish—a large-mouth bass if she wasn’t mistaken—was painted turquoise and bright yellow and pink. It was hideous.
“Wow,” she muttered, unable to come up with anything else.
“I sell these pieces at the Festival for thirty-nine bucks, but for you…I’ll only charge an even fifteen.” He grinned widely.
He expected her to pay for this? Money? She tried to return the fish. “I don’t have the right change with me.”
He held up his hands, palms front. “No, no. I won’t make you give it back now that you’ve seen it. You can owe me.”
“Gee.” Her heart sank to her stomach. “Thanks.”
Jason Davenport had been beautiful in high school, a talented football player with a great smile and a bucketful of charm. Now that she thought about it, she remembered that he had never been known for his brains.
With the fish tucked in the crook of her arm, in the hopes that at sometime during the evening she could manage to return it without being hopelessly cruel, Sadie followed Jason to his jalopy. She wasn’t a demanding woman,
not at all. She wasn’t a snob. But the idea of being seen with Jason in this car was downright humiliating.
Sadie held her head high as she moved aside a barbecue wrapper from the passenger seat, before sitting. She’d done this to herself, and there was no backing out now. She’d made her bed and…
No, she wasn’t even going to think about bed. She and Jason would catch up on what had been happening to them in the past ten years or so, they’d have a nice dinner and some light conversation, and if he tried anything…
Well, she was armed.
Truman had suspected the Shamrock was the kind of place Jason Davenport would take a date. Located on the edge of town, it was cheap, loud and crude. He’d been right. Just after eight-fifteen, Jason and Sadie arrived.
It probably took a lot these days to shake or surprise Sadie Harlow. She wasn’t visibly horrified or disappointed by the roadhouse where the crasser element in the county hung out on the weekend.
But it was clear to anyone with two eyes that she didn’t belong here. Sadie was a pearl in a bowl of grits, polished and beautiful. No matter how she tried to look as though she fit in here…she never would. Never.
Sitting at the bar, Truman turned his face away from the door and took a long swig of the beer he’d been nursing. The place was crowded tonight, and if he was careful Sadie would never know he was here. Jason led her to a table in the far corner, stopping along the way to say hello to several friends. Apparently this was a regular stop for Davenport.
It had happened a long time ago, and goodness knows none of them were the same people they had been as teenagers. He’d made mistakes in those days and so had Sadie. So did everyone. At the old age of thirty-three Truman couldn’t even remember how his brain had functioned at sixteen and seventeen; he couldn’t reconstruct in his mind his reasoning for some of the things he’d done. And still, he couldn’t forgive Jason for using Sadie and then dropping her. She deserved better, then and now.
The crowded dance floor spread between the bar and the table where Jason and Sadie sat, and so did a number of patrons who stood and visited rather than dancing or sitting. Sadie would have to look in just the right place at just the right moment in order to see him sitting here. He could keep an eye on her, make sure the evening went smoothly, and she’d never realize he was watching.
He should’ve known better. Sadie and her date for the evening hadn’t been at the Shamrock for ten minutes before he glanced toward the table and found her staring at him. No smile, no nod. Just a stare. Even though the space between them was broken often by enthusiastic dancers passing by, she looked directly at him. And then she returned her attention to her date, and Truman had the distinct feeling that he’d just been dismissed.
Women.
“Dinner” was hot wings and celery sticks and beer. Sadie ate the wings without complaint, polished off all the celery sticks, and sipped on the beer. She could hold her liquor just fine, thank you, but she did not intend to be in the least impaired tonight.
While Jason went on and on about his career as an “artist,” leaning over the table and all but shouting to be heard over the jukebox that blared country-and-western music at a deafening level, Sadie nodded as if she were paying attention and let her mind wander.
Was it a coincidence that Truman was drinking here tonight? Unlikely. He’d come here to gloat, maybe to have himself a laugh at her expense. This had to be amusing for him. He was such a rat for not warning her about Jason, she didn’t think she could ever forgive him.
Of course, she had blatantly used Jason in order to sting Truman’s pride, so that probably wasn’t fair.
She almost hoped there was a ruckus tonight, so she could blow off a little steam. This was definitely the sort of place where ruckuses happened with regularity, so she held on to that hope as Jason rambled on. Some unpleasant man would make an unwelcome pass and she’d knock him flat on his back with a single move. The place was lousy with unpleasant men and a few of them had actually leered at her, so that scenario wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. A bar fight might break out, and instead of squealing to be protected, she’d jump right in and hold her own. Wouldn’t that give them all something to talk about?
While Jason talked about his last exciting trip to a well-respected Birmingham flea market to sell wooden fish painted in garish colors—her description of his “art,” not his—she glanced toward the bar. Truman was still there, sitting all alone and nursing the same damn beer that had been in front of him when she and Jason had arrived. On occasion, one woman or another would sit at the stool beside him and try to strike up a conversation, but those women never lasted long. Sadie wished she was sitting closer so she could read their lips. A single man who looked like Truman sitting at the bar wouldn’t stay single long. Unless he wanted it that way.
Like it or not, she’d give her right arm to be sitting beside Truman instead of sitting here.
Jason leaned over the table, as much as his beer belly would allow.
“But enough about me.” He gave her a smile. In truth, the smile itself hadn’t changed in the past eleven years. It was beautiful and charming and false. She’d almost fallen for that smile and a few sweet words once, and she was too savvy to fall for it now, no matter what the man behind the smile looked like. “How have you been?”
“Great,” she said.
He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. It was all she could do not to jerk that hand away and slap his face. “And is there…anyone special in your life?”
Sadie slowly drew her hand from Jason’s, as the answer to that question popped into her mind. Damn. Double damn! The last thing she wanted was to get involved in even the smallest way with Truman McCain. But the answer was unmistakable.
“Yeah,” she said honestly. “There is.”
Jason drew away a little and his smile dimmed. He was obviously disappointed. “Oh.” The smile flashed back quickly. “Of course, he’s not here, and a woman gets lonely just like a man does. You look so hot tonight. For old times’ sake…”
“If you finish that sentence I might have to hurt you,” Sadie interrupted in her sternest voice.
Now Jason’s smile was gone for good. His eyes, which had been friendly—and often more than friendly—flashed in a dark and almost threatening way. “If you’re not interested, then why did you agree to have dinner with me?”
Again the truth. “Because I’m a complete idiot, that’s why.”
Jason leaned back in his chair. His eyes narrowed. “I get it. This is payback because I dumped you after the prom. You lead me on, tease me all night, then turn up your nose when I make a perfectly reasonable suggestion. There are lots of girls who’d like to be in your shoes tonight. It’s really not fair of you to waste my time.”
What an ego! “If I wanted payback for my old mistakes, I could find a better way than enduring an endless tirade about flea markets and fluorescent paint.” She could actually think of several, at the moment. None of them legal. “And I never teased you, Davenport.”
He scoffed at that one, and the look he gave her made her think the fight she’d wished for would take place at this very table. “You always were a cold bi…”
“Is something wrong?”
Sadie looked up, and there stood Truman. Tall and solid and unsmiling and absolutely beautiful. Heaven help her, the last thing she wanted or needed was a knight in shining armor, but oh…she had never been so happy to see anyone.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jason said, his voice testy and biting.
Sadie stood and grabbed her purse off the back of the chair. “I could use a ride.” She opened her purse and took out a ten-dollar bill, which was more than enough for her share of what Jason considered dinner. She dropped the bill on the table.
“Your piece is in the car,” Jason said, not protesting in even the smallest way that she was paying for her own food and drink.
For a moment Sadie didn’t know what he was talking about. Her gun was still
snugly seated in her right boot.
“Of course, you haven’t paid for it. I really should charge you full price, but since I already promised…”
“The fish!” Sadie said brightly.
“Yeah,” Jason mumbled.
“Keep it, really. I’m such a cretin where the finer things are concerned. I have no appreciation for art.”
His expression accused her of having no appreciation for other things. Like him.
“Good night.” She walked to the door and Truman stayed directly behind her. When the crowd got thick he placed one steadying hand on the small of her back. She’d spent a long time getting strong enough to be confident without any guidance or steadying hands, but oh…it felt good.
The night was cool, and she stepped into the darkness with a real sense of relief. She saw Truman’s pickup truck parked among the other trucks and cars in the gravel lot, and headed slowly in that direction. Truman didn’t move his hand, and she didn’t shake him off.
It was a real kick in the gut to realize that she still had feelings for Truman McCain. Was it love? Maybe, but probably not. Maybe it was just need wrapped up in fond memories or simple lust, or those hormones she had considered earlier this evening.
If she asked him…one more time…to make love to her, would he laugh at her again? She didn’t think so. Would he refuse her? Unlikely. Just a couple of days ago she had felt the evidence that he wanted her pressing against her hip. Still, she was afraid to make the first move. She was scared of so little in this life. But being rejected by Truman…that fear was at the top of her list.
Sadie reached for the handle on the passenger door, but Truman’s hand quickly covered hers. It was hard yet tender, the hand of a gentle man. She hadn’t known many truly gentle men; she had even decided they didn’t really exist, except in novels and movies and fairy tales.
And Garth, maybe.
Truman moved in close so his body was lightly touching her, his chest to her back, his cheek against her hair. With his free hand he moved her hair away and kissed her neck.
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