by Ann Yost
“I’m talking about the way you keep slinging me around. Like I was a sack of potatoes. I have perfectly good legs.”
“They’re good,” he admitted. “But they’re too short.”
She gaped at him.
He thrust his long fingers through his damp hair. “It wasn’t a criticism. I don’t find you unattractive.” Obviously.
“That was just circumstances,” she assured him. “Anybody’d be turned on in the middle of a live porn show.”
He gazed at her small, straight nose. He wondered how many soldiers there were in the small brigade of freckles. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was an animation in her manner and her eyes.
“I see you’ve got it all worked out.”
A look of relief appeared on her face. She didn’t want involvement any more than he did.
Thank God.
“Do you think they knew we were there?”
He recalled hearing Prendergast’s groans while Jessie’s sweet butt ground into his groin. His zipper tightened. Again.
“No,” he said, shortly. “What were you doing there, anyway? Snooping?”
She hesitated as if she didn’t want to tell him.
“C’mon, Elf. What’s going on under that mop of curls?”
She looked undecided as if trying to weigh the consequences of the truth.
“Mabel Ruth, Millicent, and Maude told me about the murder.”
His lips thinned. “Imagined murder.”
For some reason his response didn’t seem to irritate her.
“Let’s call it ‘alleged.’ I figured last night was my chance to take a look around the church.”
“Find anything?”
Her soft lips twisted into a half smile. “You know exactly what I found.”
His jaw loosened. “Yeah. And I know what you learned, too.”
Her face flushed. The color created an attractive pink background for the freckles, then her eyes widened.
“I discovered the secret. The secret that killed Blanche.”
“What?”
“You know. The reverend. He’s having an extra marital affair with someone named Lois.”
“Lois Epps. The mortician’s wife. For the record, I don’t think Blanche was killed, but if she was, it wasn’t over a moral indiscretion. Blanche didn’t care about anybody else’s morals.” Except for his. He looked at her great-niece and felt a stab of guilt.
Oblivious to his moral dilemma, Jessie’s head cocked to one side like an inquisitive bird. Her whiskey-colored eyes glowed.
“So what’re you saying? What did I learn?” I? Had she forgotten he’d been there, too?
“Think, Jessie. Prendergast said he almost shot Lois. That meant he was packing a gun.”
She looked at him a long minute, and then her expressive lips curved into a half smile. “Or maybe he really was just happy to see her.”
****
Two hours later Luke crushed his sixth can of beer and dropped his head against the high back of Blanche’s Victorian sofa. He stared into the blackened fireplace. He’d had a choice of Mountain Top, the local brew or something called Pappy’s Wine. Christ.
Mystic Hollow was still in the Stone Age.
He glanced at the rosewood rocker on the opposite side of the hearth. He could so easily picture Blanche sitting there, working away at the blankets and booties she’d send to children’s hospitals all over the world. She never quit. Even when arthritis made the work move at a snail’s pace. Even though she knew her efforts had next to no impact on the problems in the world.
Blanche had been a sucker for a lost cause.
That’s why she’d taken on Luke.
That’s why she hadn’t given up despite the gossip, despite the delinquent behavior, despite the heartache he’d handed her.
His gaze moved to the photo on the knickknack shelf.
He hadn’t deserved the medal. The incident happened outside of Baghdad in the Triangle of Death. A sniper got three of the five guys in the Jeep. Luke managed to pull a wounded buddy to safety and hid them both until another vehicle picked them up. He was no hero. He was lucky. The sniper had poor aim.
Blanche insisted on displaying the award because, she said, it paid tribute not to his heroism but to his conscience.
A sense of loss twisted through him. He’d let her down so often. His teenage arrests, his refusal to come home from college, his minimal phone calls, his enlistment without consulting her, and most of all, his marriage. She’d stuck by him through it all.
The very least he could do was keep his hands off her great-niece.
He stared at the empty bay window. His last good memory of Crystal had been the night they’d trimmed the tree. He pictured her, ethereal as always in her signature white, the scent of Chanel Number Five drifting in the air, her long, slim fingers attaching the lights to the blue spruce. He hadn’t known there was a problem. It was his fault. He’d let her beauty get in the way of communication.
He propped his feet on the oval coffee table and slouched so he was nearly horizontal while he sucked down one beer and then another. He balanced a third on his washboard stomach and tried to ignore the questions that slammed into him with the repeating precision of machine gun fire.
Would she come back to Mystic Hollow for Christmas?
Would he see her?
Did he want to?
He’d told Zach it was over but, hell, he’d lived in denial so long he didn’t even know.
The footsteps overhead pulled him out of the painful memories. She made a lot of noise for an elf. When the clumping finally stopped, he envisioned her climbing into the big four-poster bed wearing some sort of honeymoon negligee. She was shorter than Crystal but rounder. Not fat. Curved. The filmy nightie would cling to her plump breasts. Desire jolted through him like a sudden lightning strike, and his instant erection toppled the nearly empty beer can.
He cursed. Time to do something about this mess.
He grunted as he stretched to pull his cell phone out of his pants pocket and hit a button.
“Reeves.”
“What’re you doin’, sitting on the phone?”
“You sound shit-faced.”
Luke grunted. “Wanna take a drive?”
Zach paused. “Yeah,” he said, finally. “Okay.”
****
Zach’s forearms rested on the bar. Smoke drifted skyward from a lit but unsmoked cigarette in his right hand. It was late now, most of the patrons gone. The bartender was sitting at a table, chatting with a couple of regulars. For all intents and purposes, Luke and Zach were alone.
In spite of the buzz in his ears and the throbbing in his temples, in spite of his own unsettled evening, Luke was aware of the tension in his friend. Luke was a big believer in not prying into another guy’s business but the pain emanating from the ex-marine was tangible. It was time to find out what was going on.
“I’ve known you and Francie since high school,” Luke said, finally. “I’ve never seen you like this. And Francine’s lost weight.” He kept his voice low and gentle. “Maybe it’ll help to talk.”
Zach stared at the ashtray between his muscular forearms.
“She’s in the hospital.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“Francine. She’s all right. Or she will be by morning.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I stopped at her house after we dropped off the tables. Thought she might be locked out.” He glanced at Luke as if he knew what the other man was thinking. “There’s precedent. She locked herself out the night of Bobby Ray’s funeral.”
“So you broke into her house. Twice. That doesn’t explain how she got hurt.”
“Her bedroom’s in the back of the house. I detached the screen then boosted her over the sill. Both times. Tonight I shoved too hard. She was wearing that long skirt for the gypsy thing. It tangled around her legs and she lost her balance, hit her head on the wooden floor.”
“Je
sus. Was she unconscious?”
The long, lean fingers holding the cigarette trembled.
“Yeah. Doc says it’s a slight concussion. She’ll be okay.”
Luke wasn’t sure who Zach was trying to convince. He knew the mishap was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Something happened that first night. After the wake for Bobby Ray.”
Zach was quiet a long time. Finally, he straightened on the barstool. The normally clear blue eyes were flecked with ice.
“I was suicidal,” he said, emotionlessly. “Bobby Ray—he was my responsibility. I’d let him die.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Zach held up a protesting hand. “I let him die, Tanner, and I was glad he was dead.”
The words nearly shocked Luke sober. Zach Reeves was the most honorable guy he knew. What the hell was he saying?
“He’d been with her. Francine.” The words were spoken in a deep, husky voice. “All the time I was overseas. They were in love. Gonna get married.”
“You believed him?”
The response was automatic. Luke knew about betrayal, but he’d have bet his last dime on Francine and Zach.
“He showed me proof. Letters and stuff.”
“What’d Francine say?”
The icy eyes narrowed. “What the hell could she say. I saw proof.”
“She didn’t admit an affair with Bobby, right? It was all circumstantial.”
Zach’s jaw tightened. Anger replaced the pain radiating from him.
“She was in love with him in high school. He dumped her for Crystal.”
Crystal Wetherington Tanner. Ruining lives for more than ten years.
“Francie got over him years ago. Besides, she’d never have cheated on you. If she wanted Bobby Ray, she’d have told you. Don’t you know the woman at all?”
“Bobby made her his beneficiary.”
Luke shrugged. “Looks like she’s gonna need it. She’s alone in the world. All she has is you and your family.”
Zach didn’t say a word, but his rugged features hardened into Mount Rushmore.
Luke couldn’t believe the conversation. Was this really happening? Zach and Francie broken up by Bobby Ray? Maybe he was asleep in the soft, creaky bed at Blanche’s house. Maybe this was a nightmare. He gripped the can of beer more tightly. It felt cold, moist, real.
A tense silence hung in the air like the last drifts of smoke from Zach’s cigarette. The ash had burned nearly to his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice. There was still something unexplained in the story. Luke struggled to figure out what it was.
“The other night, the first night you broke in to Francie’s house, something happened, right?”
Zach’s face twisted, briefly. “She wouldn’t let me leave. I’d already told her it was over, but she knew the kind of shape I was in.”
Luke’s heart squeezed. Francie must have been in despair over the death of her childhood friend and the defection of her longtime love, but she’d protected Zach from himself. It was like her. “So I’m guessing the inevitable happened.”
Zach was staring back at the ashtray. “Three times.” He tried to take a drag on the cigarette that was ash. “I haven’t been alone with her since.”
“Until tonight.”
He nodded. “And I put her in the hospital.”
Booze had fogged his brain, but Luke knew there was something else. He struggled to think back through the conversation. There was an element missing. What? And then he knew.
“You didn’t tell Francie why. You just told her it was over. After ten damned years, you broke up with no explanation.”
Zach shrugged his big shoulders. “I didn’t need to hear any lies.”
“Was it lies you were afraid of? Or the truth?”
Luke thought his friend would get angry but his voice was low, controlled.
“I saw proof. Case closed.”
“You’re making a mistake, Z. Talk to her. Give her a chance to explain.”
Zach straightened on the chair. He glanced around the roadhouse. Luke saw him make eye contact with a woman at a nearby table.
“I’m goin’ back to my unit,” he said, with finality. “But first I’m goin’ upstairs with that redhead.”
Chapter Six
Luke awoke in a rose-colored haze. It took him a minute to realize the glow was caused by the sun’s penetration of a red curtain. He patted the blanket-covered butt next to him, hoisted himself to his feet, and scouted the room for his clothes. His teeth felt mossy. Shoulda packed a toothbrush with his condoms. He sucked in a breath. He had used condoms, hadn’t he? He could barely remember last night.
He got on his hands and knees. The foil wrapper had blown into a dust bunny. The thing looked lonely down here. Pathetic. He was pathetic. He had a willing woman, a bed, a whole night, and he’d only used one condom. He got to his feet and checked his wallet.
Hell. He’d only had one condom.
Since his divorce he’d used sex to scratch an infrequent itch. He hadn’t wanted anybody in particular. ’Til now.
He shouldered into his shirt, dragged on his jeans, whispered something to the still-sleeping woman—Tracy? Stacy?—and clattered down the creaky wooden steps. He figured Zach would be gone, and he was right. Luke reviewed his options for getting down off the mountain. He could run. He could hitchhike. He could call Z for a ride. He did none of those things. Instead, he dug his cell out of his pocket and punched in Blanche’s number. Jessie Maynard would come get him.
His sixth sense told him the elf was a born rescuer.
****
The Jeep attacked the mountain road like an ornery bull with an unwanted rider on his back. Jessie ground her teeth together. What in the world was wrong with her? She’d driven this stick shift all the way from Chicago. Now she was stripping gears and sweating like a Sumo wrestler. It had to be the serpentine roads, or the early hour. It couldn’t have anything to do with the hunk of masculinity slumped in the seat next to her, his emerald eyes glittering under half-closed lids.
“Anything wrong?” The morning voice was full of gravel, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. Undoubtedly he had.
Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t see anything in this pea soup. These roads are too narrow and too winding.”
“Enjoy your lower gears a little longer,” he advised. “You’re doing fine.” He yawned.
“How come you’re so calm?”
She glanced at him and watched a lazy, satisfied smile appeared. The Jeep bumped as it hit the shoulder, and the answer smacked her in the face.
Of course he was relaxed. He’d just gotten laid. Her fingers clenched the steering wheel, and the Jeep jerked again. She didn’t know why the revelation should bother her. Luke Tanner’s sex life was none of her business. A growled snore interrupted her thoughts, and she laughed in spite of her irritation. The snore matched the man, all right. Cagey, wild and dangerous. She should be grateful he was keeping his distance.
Jessie blinked against the morning sun. The stress of the ruptured wedding and the second sleepless night in a row were taking its toll. She’d paced the second floor corridor until the early hours, and then she’d lain on the four-poster and stared at the ceiling waiting for him to come home. She shook her head. No more playing nursemaid. She’d come to Mystic Hollow to find peace, but it had become increasingly important to her to answer the questions about Blanche’s death.
Luke’s head flopped against her arm. The movement triggered a tremor that went through her whole body, and she fought with the gearshift again. Nuts. It was time to concentrate on something real, like how to drive her car safely down the mountain.
****
The alarm splintered the silence of the dark room.
“Turn that thing off, Ellie,” Dennis Prendergast growled. “It’s too early to get up.”
“I’ve got a meeting with Edna Smith to finalize arrangements for the Christmas pageant.”
The pageant. Dennis lurched up
to a sitting position. He’d left the closet floor strewn with costumes, some of which were probably stained with semen.
“You’re meeting where?”
“Molly’s Bakery.”
“Oh.” He fought to get his pounding heart under control. It would be all right.
“I’m stopping by to get Letty.”
Letty! Dennis twisted upwards, his heart flapping wildly. He’d forgotten about the old bat. Damn meddling old crone. He had to find a way to shut her up.
Eleanor stepped into the bathroom. A minute later he heard the shower running. His wife lived by a schedule. He knew it would take her precisely twenty-five minutes to get ready to leave the house. That gave him half an hour minus five minutes to find a solution to the Letty problem.
It wasn’t much time, but it would have to be enough.
****
By the time Jessie turned the Jeep off the county road onto Peach Street, the sun was up. She cracked a window and breathed in the fresh, cold air.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Startled, she jerked the stick, and the car stuttered a few yards.
“How do you go from stone dead to fully aroused in a heartbeat?”
Ah Jeez. Nice choice of words. She shut her eyes.
“Look out,” he said, calmly, “we’re heading for a gnome.”
Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped. She missed the figurine by inches but clipped a rooster-shaped mailbox.
“Pull over,” he said.
She should have known he’d be a stickler for honesty. He might be a playboy, but she’d seen the silver medal in the parlor. Still, she protested.
“I barely touched the bird.”
“This isn’t about the mailbox. There’s an ambulance in front of the rectory.”
Jessie’s mouth dropped open as she connected the dots. “Oh no! Eleanor Prendergast found out about the affair. The reverend must have murdered her, too!”
“Guess again, Sherlock. The action’s next door. At Miss Letty’s.”
“Oh. Thank God. It’s probably just indigestion. Francie told me all about her. She said she’s prone to allergies and digestive attacks.”
Luke indicated a black van pulling up behind the ambulance. “Guess that’s why the medical examiner’s here. He must’ve brought her Tums.”