Pretty Reckless (Entangled Ignite)

by Jodi Linton

  He leaned down over me, brushed some hair out of my eyes, and said, “You rest. I’ll be outside taking care of things. Is there a special place you want Hank to rest?”

  “Under the pecan tree out front.”

  He kissed my head and stepped back outside.

  I waited until I heard the screen door latch to pull the holey quilt over my head. I was on the brink of tears, and this case was cutting too close to home for comfort. It was possible that someone I knew well had killed Hank and maybe wanted me dead. I closed my eyes and was fighting back the tears when a firm hand gently cupped my thigh.

  “Sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” Gunner’s voice ran calm and smooth. I inched the blanket down my nose and stared into his sad, concerned eyes. “What can I do?” he asked.

  I shook my head. We’d bought Hank together. It had been our first step at making this old farmhouse our home.

  Apparently realizing the path of my thoughts, Gunner whipped off his hat and tossed it on the coffee table behind us. He grabbed my hands and squeezed, pulling them to his lips.

  “I always loved that dumb dog. He could be a pain in the ass, but I did love him,” I said.

  Gunner grinned and reached out to me. “He never held it against you. I’m pretty sure he knew how sorry he could be at times. But I’m sure he never doubted that you loved him.”

  I choked back a tear. “What the hell’s going on, Gunner?”

  He kissed my knuckles and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. But soon, everything will be back to normal.”

  He released my hands, straightened up, dusted off his hat, and slipped it on his head. The screen door crashed open, putting an end to our sentimental moment.

  “Laney,” Nathan said, sticking the shovel against the porch wall before coming inside. “How about you come and stay with me for a while.”

  Gunner took a few steps back, nodding at Nathan in agreement, and added, “Probably a good idea, Laney.” He grabbed my hand and hauled me to my feet. I looked him in the eyes, not sure what I thought I’d see—or wanted to—but the only thing I saw was the pain of a wounded man.

  Nathan quickly pulled me away and snaked a proprietary arm around my waist, tugging me to his side. “Why don’t you go pack your bags?” Nathan said, “I’ll finish up down here.”

  It suddenly dawned on me that he wasn’t supposed to be home until this weekend and today was only Wednesday. A part of me regarded him with suspicion. “I thought your flight didn’t leave Houston until this weekend,” I said.

  His jaw tightened visibly, and he viewed me blankly, then finally smiled at me, unlocking the tension in his jaw. “After our last phone call, I decided it was best to come on home.” He glanced out the window toward the front yard. “Looks like it was a good thing I did.”

  I studied him, still uncertain, feeling as though there was something not quite right about his response. Still, five minutes later, I’d waded through a dozen shoeboxes and kicked aside a few hangers to find my duffel bag smashed beneath a pile of dirty clothes. Ordinarily, running like a scalded dog was against my nature, but ordinary had flown out the window along with my sanity a couple of hours ago. I stuffed my bag with the necessities, a change of underwear and my toothbrush, snatched my pistol off the dresser, and stopped when I saw the date on the calendar. It’d completely slipped my mind that tomorrow was Thursday, the day of my dress fitting with my mother. Even given everything that had happened, a rain check was out of the question. My mother wouldn’t let me out of this one. I was starting to have doubts about this wedding, but I couldn’t tell her, or anyone, about that.

  I zipped up the bag, tossed my brown leather jacket over the satchel, and closed the bedroom door behind me.

  When I limped downstairs, Nathan was sitting on the couch, his head back and his eyes closed. I heard the sound of the swing swaying outside, and I dropped my bag behind the couch and went out. Gunner lounged in the swing, his long legs crossed at the ankles as he stared out across the lawn. He cocked his head back at me.

  “You promise me you’re okay, Laney?” he asked. “I’ve never liked seeing you upset.”

  I took a seat next to him and answered, “Nathan will take good care of me.”

  “That’s my biggest fear.” He uncrossed his legs, stood up, and pulled his hat back down over his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye out for Boomer.” Gaze locked on my face, he smiled and winked, then turned and stepped off the porch.

  “Still wanting to take me to Harper’s Ridge tomorrow?” I called after him.

  Gunner stopped with a hand latched around the driver’s door to the Yukon. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t pass up a chance to be alone with you.”

  “Hmmf,” I grunted as his deep laugh echoed through the silent night air. He tipped the brim of his hat back at me and climbed behind the wheel. The headlights washed across the porch as he backed away and disappeared down my gravel drive.

  “Are you ready? I called your mother to let her know you’d be staying at my place,” Nathan said, leaning up against the screen holding both my bags.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  The kitchen light turned on. Boomer pulled back the curtain and waved goodbye.

  …

  Nathan parked his truck out in front of Bovine Health Services and killed the engine. He looked at me, pulling my hands into his. “How does a shower sound?” he asked.

  “Pretty damn good.”

  Smiling, he let go of my hand and swung open his door.

  He lived directly behind the veterinarian clinic in a two-story townhouse. A cobblestone pathway connected both buttercream-colored buildings. Potato vines hung from pine arboretums along the sidewalk, boxwoods were scattered along the paved drive, and to the left of the house was a rose garden. Last spring, he’d planted the garden, filling the dead space with yellow roses in a feeble attempt at trying to get me to move in. Though I appreciated the gesture, I still claimed the old farmhouse as home. Inside, the place had been furnished with Ikea black leather couches, glass end tables, and modern art work that failed miserably at hiding the dismal, beige walls.

  “I’ll grab a bottle of Merlot,” he said, shutting the front door.

  “Sounds good.”

  I scooted upstairs, took a quick shower, and brushed my teeth. When I returned, Nathan was on the couch, ESPN was on, and a Ranger’s game blared through the tiny living room. Two glasses of wine sat on the coffee table in front of him. He tipped his head back at me and patted the cushion next to him. I picked up a glass of wine, slid into his side, and leaned my head on his shoulder. He dropped an arm across my shoulders, pulled me close, and kissed my cheek.

  “Laney, you know I love you,” Nathan said.

  “And I love you.”

  He pushed a few strands of wet hair out my eyes and tipped my face up to meet his. “What do you say we move up the wedding to two Saturdays from now?”

  Immediately, my throat went dry. I blinked then swallowed, hard, and looked up into his green eyes. “I think that’s doable,” I strangled out and snuggled into his side.

  …

  I awoke to find Nathan’s side of the bed empty. A Post-It note had been stuck to the pillow. He’d already left for work, and coffee was brewed downstairs. Maybe cohabitating wouldn’t be so bad.

  And maybe I’d spoken too soon. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to rub the sleep from my eyes when my mother’s shrill voice sounded from outside on the porch.

  “Laney, are you up?” She pounded away at the door.

  I almost fell out of bed. The sound of a dentist’s drill coming toward my mouth was more comforting. Less stiff than I’d been yesterday morning, I floundered around the bedroom, finally finding a pair of shorts by the door, and scurried downstairs. She slammed a hand into the door again.

  “Laney?” she squawked.

  “Hold your horses, mom,” I shouted back and wrenched the front door open.

  If my mother had been any closer to the door, her ear would�
�ve been Super Glued to the peephole. She was straddling the doormat, tapping her high heel, and puffing away on a cigarette. “Took you long enough,” she huffed and stepped forward, crushing a clump of dead gnats beneath her beige pump. “Hope you don’t think you’re skipping this dress fitting on the account of that dumb dog dying last night.”

  I stared at her, wondering why she couldn’t have called off the dress fitting after talking with Nathan the other night and why she hadn’t just wanted to console me. It irked me that she’d known not only about Hank, but where to find me and hadn’t bothered to say anything. I wanted to say something sharp and cutting about her lack of sensitivity, but knew it would do no good. Sympathy was a foreign language as far as she was concerned, and she didn’t speak it.

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” I said and stepped aside to let her and her cigarette in.

  My mother sniffed, took one final drag of her cigarette, and pried it from her wrinkly lips. She snuffed it out with an acrylic nail and flicked it into one of Nathan’s potted ferns he kept inside by the window. “Don’t patronize me, Laney Briggs.”

  Doing my best to ignore her, I stepped into my boots, grabbed a set of house keys from the basket on the hall table, and pushed past her, stalking about the hallway.

  “By the way, I need to be back by one,” I said over my shoulder. “Gunner’s swinging by to get me so we can head out to Harper’s Ridge.”

  “Good Lord, Laney,” she exclaimed loud enough to spook the crows off the phone lines. “Nathan’s a damn fool to trust you riding around with Gunner Wilson.”

  I shrugged, used to her low opinion of me. “We’re working.”

  Casting a skeptical glance my way, she scooted behind the wheel of her 1987 gold Oldsmobile. “I’m not stupid, dear,” she said and started up the clunker.

  It choked and spit then sputtered out in the driveway.

  “Goddamn piece of shit!” she screamed and gave the steering wheel a beating that would’ve knocked the tattoo off of Mike Tyson’s face.

  After the steering wheel, and the dashboard, had its smack down, she cranked it one more time, and the engine turned. She gunned the Oldsmobile away from the vet clinic and burned rubber down Center Street.

  …

  I’d been to Shotgun Weddings Inc. once before, and the memory of peel and stick eyelashes and glitz dresses still haunted my dreams. When I was ten, my mother had gotten the insane idea of parading me about the kiddie pageant circuit. At the time, I’d felt like Barbie without the boob job.

  “Here we are,” my mother said.

  She opened her door and slid out one heel at a time. Lifting a hand to shade her eyes, she sashayed up to the door of the dress shop.

  “Birdie, you remember my daughter, Laney,” my mother said and tugged at my arm. “She’s getting married to our Nathan Prescott, Pistol Rock’s veterinarian.”

  Birdie Mincer had owned the taffeta and lace shop before the invention of microwaves and had been the one to fit my dresses for the kiddie pageants. She nodded. “Why yes. Your daughter here is a hard one to forget.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I bet every fella in town is damn near heartbroken over your good fortune.”

  I did my best not to respond to that obvious performance. It was common knowledge that Birdie thrived on the misfortunes of others. She scarfed it down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  “So I hear Gunner Wilson is hanging around town again,” Birdie said coyly. “Wasn’t sure if the rumors were true.” Her thin lips stretched back in a grin when I squirmed.

  My mother’s green eyes narrowed. It was frightening the damage that look could still do even now that I was a twenty-six-year-old sheriff’s deputy who carried a gun. “Gunner Wilson,” she sneered and slapped me on the back. “Gunner Wilson is history now that my daughter is marrying right.”

  I glared at her and said, “Working, mom.” I gestured at myself. “Deputy Sheriff, Texas Ranger, working.”

  “I don’t give a fucking flip how you want to sugarcoat this one, Laney.” She slung her purse strap over a shoulder. “You’re about to walk down the aisle like a respectable woman, so that boy is off limits. Do you understand me?”

  Grinding my teeth, I turned to Birdie. “Can we have the dress to go?”

  Birdie shifted her weight. “I thought the wedding was next month.”

  “We bumped the date up. We’ll be getting married in two weeks,” I said.

  My mother tossed up her arms. “Well, hell! Was anybody going to tell me?”

  Weddings have a tendency to bring out the crazies, and my mother had a VIP card to the club. I suffered through several minutes of abusive harangue about what a shitty daughter I was not to have told her about Nathan’s and my change of plans before Birdie finally spoke up.

  “I should have the dress ready by next Wednesday,” she said, clearly enjoying watching my mother flip out. The episode would be all over town the minute we left the shop.

  “Okay.” I pulled the shop door open. “Mother, you coming?”

  She pivoted around and jammed a cigarette between her lips. “Birdie, I’ll see you at the Junior League brunch.”

  She lit the cigarette and stepped outside.

  …

  The drive back to Nathan’s was more unbearable than a Sunday afternoon spent in front of the television drinking beer and watching NASCAR with my father. I begged my mother for a rain check on lunch, knowing I might shoot her if we didn’t conclude this mother–daughter time soon. She ignored me, chatting away about cake toppers while I slumped down in my seat and stared at the passing road until she suddenly slammed on the brakes.

  “When it rains, it pours,” she grumbled, disgusted. She stuck a hand inside her purse to pull out her third cigarette of the short drive. “Can’t the man get a clue?” Lighting up, she puffed obsessively away, staring hard at Nathan’s house.

  I squinted out the window. Gunner was perched on the porch stoop. He tipped his hat at us and stood up to saunter over and lean on the door, sticking his head through my mother’s window with a wink.

  “Good to see you, Ruth.”

  My mother clenched her teeth. “When do you go back to Houston, Gunner?”

  “Not soon enough, I guess.”

  He opened my door and offered his hand. I scooted past him and waved back at my mother’s sourpuss face. She sucked a long drag, punched the gas on the Oldsmobile, and started edging back out of the driveway.

  “Just remember,” she called, dangling the cigarette from her pursed lips. “Laney’s a married woman.”

  “Not ’til July,” Gunner returned.

  “Try in two weeks,” my mother hollered back and left us in a storm of dust.

  Gunner’s eyes had set on me. He was waiting for an explanation.

  “What?” I dismissed him with a shrug. “Nathan and I decided to move up the date.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m pretty damn serious.”

  He snorted. “You don’t love that douchebag.”

  “Prove it.”

  Gunner moved in and nuzzled my neck without me doing anything to prevent it. When he lifted his head, we locked eyes, and then he kissed me. His mouth was gentle, and the kiss was delicious. My blood pressure spiked, my heart raced, and I swear my arms turned to putty at my side, leaving me breathless. His mouth brushed just below my earlobe. “That’s all the proof I need.”

  “Pig.” I pounded a fist on his smug, self-satisfied chest, wishing I could dose him with another load of rock salt and knowing I was the one who should be shot.

  “Don’t marry him, Laney. He’s all kinds of wrong for you.”

  I gritted my teeth against the truth. I was a liar; my mother knew it, Gunner witnessed it, and my heart denied it. But hell would freeze over before I’d admit it. “Bullshit!”

  I pushed past him, giving his shoulder a hard shove as I stomped toward the Yukon. I jerked open the passenger door and was about to slide in when I looked back at the clinic.
Nathan was standing at the window staring at me. Guilt chewed me up. So this was how Gunner’d felt five years ago. It sucked getting caught in the lie I’d been telling myself since I started dating Nathan. I pulled the door shut and slipped down in the seat, trying to hide out—from Nathan and myself—a little longer.

  Gunner crammed himself behind the wheel and started up the Yukon. “You’re mad.”

  I sighed, not quite able to hate him even as I realized he’d known Nathan was there all along. “You’re a flawed individual.”

  “I’ve never denied it,” he admitted.

  …

  Being trapped inside the car with Gunner after that made me sweat. His deep, gut-twisting brown eyes kept drifting my way. And it didn’t help that we still had a thirty minute drive to Harper’s Ridge ahead of us. I wedged a shoulder into the door and pressed my cheek against the hot window.

  “You look like you’re going to be sick, Laney.” He scooted a hand over the top of my thigh.

  I could have smacked him. Some men lacked any sense.

  Some women, too.

  “I never said you could touch me,” I snapped and flicked his hand away. “You’ve done more than enough as it is.”

  He reached out and tugged at my hair. “I guess I’m just crazy,” he said.

  I looked at him. Gunner was many things—cunning, charming, manipulative…but crazy? No, crazy wasn’t one of them. Truth is, I was the one with a screw loose.

  “Just keep your hands to yourself.”

  He put the offending appendage back on the wheel and hit the gas, chuckling while he gunned it out of town.

  …

  Harper’s Ridge was Pistol Rock’s twin. The town’s main drag shot straight through Main Street. The local watering hole was the only way to waste away the dull days, and the sheriff’s office lacked a competent boss. The only thing that made Harper’s Ridge different from Pistol Rock was that the lucky dogs had scored a Whataburger. Frankly, both towns could’ve been squished together to help the census, but folks were unwilling to give up the forty-year-old football rivalry between us. And the last time some fool had mentioned uniting our two towns, Pistol Rock’s head football coach threatened his life.