by Becki Willis
To his credit, he snapped his arm down to his side and his demeanor immediately changed. “I’m sorry, Maddy,” he said with all sincerity. “I know your husband has only been gone for a few months. I meant no disrespect.”
“This has nothing to do with me being newly widowed. I ran into Shannon today,” Madison announced abruptly, watching how he reacted to the news. She expected chagrin, or at least surprise. His handsome face displayed neither. With a slight frown, she kept pushing, “Did you know my daughter is spending the night with your daughter?”
“Really? I’ve got the night shift, so I haven’t talked to her today.” Maddy was confused by the look of satisfaction that touched his face as he nodded with approval. “But that’s good. I’m glad our girls like each other. And Bethani seems like a great kid.” A smile slipped into his words. He leaned closer, bumping his arm gently against hers. “Just like her mother.”
Madison jerked away. “Brash deCordova, how dare you!”
The lighting was dim, but she saw his brows draw together in confusion. “I don’t understand. You said this wasn’t about me rushing you.”
“This isn’t about my marital status, it’s about yours!” she chastised him.
“Mine?”
“I can’t believe you. I knew you were a ‘player’ in high school.” She used her hands for air quotes. “But I would have hoped you had outgrown it, especially with your new position as Chief of Police. I would think you had developed some sense of propriety.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Maddy?” he demanded, sounding as much irritated as he did confused.
“I am talking about your wife. How dare you sit here and try to kiss me, when my own daughter is at your house right this very minute, being entertained by your wife and daughter!”
“Who said I was trying to kiss you?” he snapped, stung by her very verbal rejection.
Madison knew it had been a while, but surely she hadn’t misread the signs… touching her back, leaning toward her, getting that look in his eyes…
She shook away her own doubts and insecurities, focusing on her indignation. “Don’t you have any shame?”
“What I don’t have is a wife,” he told her bluntly. “I don’t know what kind of man you think I am, Maddy, but I am not a married one.”
“But… But what about Shannon? And Megan?”
“Shannon is my ex-wife. We’ve been divorced since Megan was four.”
“But...But…” She knew she was sputtering, but it was too much information to process. “But Megan said she knew all about me. She was talking about some circle… Shannon had a ring… and she said she got her man!”
“She did. Shannon and Matthew Aikman have been married for about eight years. They have a five-year-old son together.”
“Shannon and… and Matthew?”
“Yeah, Shannon and Matthew. They’re a great couple. They’re perfect for one another.”
“But he was one of your best friends.”
“And he still is. I wouldn’t want any other man helping to raise my daughter.”
Still stunned, Madison murmured, “I-I don’t know what to say.”
“You could start with ‘I’m sorry’.” His face showed no sign on humor. He sounded genuinely offended as he muttered, “I can’t believe you thought I would kiss you if I was a married man.”
“I- I am sorry, Brash. Truly, I am. I just… you’re living here again… and when I saw Shannon and your daughter, I just- I just assumed you were still married.”
“We agreed to raise our daughter here, even if we weren’t doing it as a married couple. I wanted to be near Megan, so I moved back the first chance I got. Now that we’re not married, Shannon and I are really good friends and talk regularly.”
“I guess that’s how she knew about my wreck,” Madison murmured.
“This is The Sisters. Everyone knows about your wreck.”
Feeling like an idiot, Madison merely shook her head as she contemplated her own stupidity. Silence settled heavily between them.
“Well, I guess I’d better go,” Brash said gruffly, starting to get up.
Madison put a hand on his arm to still him. “Don’t go, Brash,” she said softly. “I really am sorry.”
“So am I.” He stood and looked back down at her. “You don’t think very highly of me, do you, Madison?” His voice sounded sad in the darkness.
“I don’t think too highly of myself right now, either,” she confessed. After all, she had wanted him to kiss her, even believing he was married.
“For what it’s worth, I have changed, Madison. I’m not the arrogant jerk I was in high school.”
Properly chastised by his rebuke, Madison made no comment as he walked toward the steps. She frowned at her own folly, rubbing the stubborn ache that lodged itself in her forehead.
“You should go in, Madison,” he advised, turning back toward her. The easy camaraderie between them had vanished, right along with the old nickname he used to call her. His voice was stiff and formal now. “After that phone call, you shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Without being told again, Madison gathered her things. The pleasure had gone out of the evening anyway.
Like a true gentleman, he waited until she was inside. “Thank you for stopping by with the news,” she said.
“The news?”
“Of the truck.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” They both knew it had been a lame excuse to come see her. “Lock the door.”
“I will. Goodnight, Brash.”
“Goodnight, Madison.”
She started to push the door shut, but stopped to say, “Brash? I really am sorry.”
He nodded. “’Night, Maddy.”
She closed the door with a smile. At least he had called her Maddy this time.
Madison went back to reading until Blake got home.
“Mom! What happened to your hair?” the teen asked the moment he stepped through the door.
She ran her hand over the short fringe along her neck. “I got it cut.”
“It looks hot!” Blake grinned his approval. “Next thing I know, you’ll be dating.”
In spite of herself, thoughts of Brash floated through her mind. For her son’s benefit, she laughed aloud and brushed the statement aside. “I don’t see that happening any time in the next decade. There aren’t a lot of single men running around the streets of Juliet. Or Naomi.”
“There’s more than you’d think. The assistant baseball coach is single. And so is my History teacher. Even Chief deCordova is single.”
Now you tell me!
Blake dropped his ball bag in the chair and headed for the kitchen. As always, the teen was hungry. He emerged a few moments later, munching on an apple and holding a banana in his hand for reserve. “I could probably hook you up with Mr. Perez. He’s pretty cool for an old dude.”
“Carter Perez?”
“You know him?”
“That ‘old guy’ is two years older than me. And my cousin, by the way.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Blake Andrew Reynolds, you watch your mouth!”
“Sorry. But you’re kidding, right?”
“No. He’s like my third cousin or something. His grandfather was Granny Bert’s oldest brother.” She noticed the crest-fallen expression on her son’s face. “What’s wrong, babe?”
“I- uh- I’ve kind of been flirting with his daughter, Teryl. I had no idea she was kin to me.”
“Well, she’d be like your fifth or sixth cousin. In a city it would never come up, but in Juliet, it might cause some gossip.”
“I thought they always say hillbillies are inbred?”
Madison scrunched her nose at his comment. “Around here, everybody knows everybody else’s entire family. You aren’t simply Blake Reynolds. You’re Blake Reynolds, Bertha Hamilton Cessna’s great-grandson. And Teryl Perez is Clyde Hamilton’s great-granddaughter. No matter how many ‘greats’ you throw in, people only hear
the Hamilton connection.”
“So that means I’m kin to the old dude that has the store?”
“Uncle Jubal Hamilton is Granny Bert’s youngest brother.”
“His grandson is on my baseball team. Which means his sister would be kin to me, too,” Blake reasoned.
“That’s the way it generally works,” his mother said wryly.
“So their cousin Sara is kin to me, too.”
“Uncle Jubal and Aunt Lerlene’s granddaughter by their middle son,” Madison confirmed.
“Tabitha Cessna?”
“Your . . . third cousin. Further complicated because her grandmother married Clyde Hamilton’s son, so you’re actually kin on both sides.”
“You’re killing me, Mom!” the teenager complained. “There’s only so many girls in high school, you know. You just took out half my class.”
“You’re too young to be worrying about girls anyway. Concentrate on your baseball. And your studies.”
“Yeah, but there’s some big Valentine’s Day Dance coming up, and all the kids are talking about it. I was thinking I’d ask Teryl, but I guess that idea is out the window,” he said glumly.
“Sorry, kiddo. I can’t help it if you come from a prolific family.”
“I hear the Hamilton and Cessna families own like half of Juliet.”
“Well, sort of,” Madison admitted. “Miss Juliet, the town’s namesake, didn’t have any children of her own, so she sort of adopted Rose Hamilton’s children. Rose was her cook at the big house.”
“You mean that big old house on the corner, the one they say is haunted?”
“It’s not haunted, just empty. And it actually belongs to Granny Bert now.”
Blake looked around the craftsman style home. Though well maintained and large for its kind, the house was tiny compared to Miss Juliet’s. “So why does she live here?”
“She says this is her home. She raised her four boys here and she and Grandpa were happy here.”
“So why did that Juliet chic leave her house to Granny Bert?”
“Miss Juliet more or less named Granny Bert heiress of the town when she died.”
“Granny Bert, an heiress?” Blake hooted.
“I know, it seems strange. The crazy thing is, Miss Juliet was all straight-laced and very prim and proper. Granny Bert is anything but. It always struck me odd that she left her legacy to someone so different than she was.”
“Maybe she knew if the town was going to survive, it needed new leadership.”
Madison beamed at her son’s intuitive observation. “That’s pretty insightful, Blake.”
The fifteen-year-old tossed the apple core into the trashcan and started peeling the banana. His mind was already back on the dance. “What about Chasity McCauley? Is she kin to me?”
“Even closer than Teryl. Her mother Hallie is my first cousin.”
“Oh, well, she’s kind of stuck-up anyway. What about Addison Bishop, Harley Irwin or Danni Jo Combs?”
“I think you’re good.”
“Finally!” He threw up his arms in triumph. “Someone whose grandma isn’t my grandma’s fourth cousin!”
“It’s not quite that bad,” his mother chided with a frown.
“So one more thing, Mom. If I go to all the trouble of finding a girl who actually isn’t related to me and I ask her to the dance, will we even still be here then? Or will we already be back in Dallas?”
Madison was slow in answering. She ran a nervous hand through her hair, momentarily sidetracked by the much shorter ends. “How do you feel about living here, Blake?” she asked instead.
“It’s alright,” the teen shrugged. “Back home, I’d never have a shot at playing varsity. Coach says I’ll even get to start some games. The classes are about the same, maybe even a little tougher here. Aside from this new problem of being related to half the girls in town, I guess it’s not so bad.”
“I know I uprooted us and brought us here to live, promising we’d go back to Dallas as soon as possible. But the thing is, that might be a while,” she admitted nervously. Better to break the news to Blake first, then his sister. “How would you feel about that?”
“Most of the kids here are pretty cool. And Granny Bert says she can get me a job this summer, so I can start saving up for my car.”
“Then you’d be okay with staying here for at least a year or so, you think?” Heavens knew it would take that long, probably longer, to save enough money to even visit Dallas, much less move back there.
“I’ll probably have a better chance of getting a baseball scholarship through a small school, anyway. Coach says I have real potential. And on the plus side, I just realize I must be kin to Principal Hamilton, too, which is always a handy little thing to mention when I get a tardy slip.”
“Blake, not another one! Why are you always late to class?”
“It wasn’t me, I swear. Granny Bert took us to school the other morning and we had to stop to talk to some lady walking her dogs. She had like four of those big poodles. She and Granny Bert got in a long discussion about how they neither one can sleep at night. The poodle lady said the chickens had kept her up, squawking all hours of the night.”
“You must be talking about Glitter Thompson. Big, puffy pinkish-blond hair and lots of makeup?”
“That’s her.”
Madison puckered her lips. “But there aren’t any chicken houses around her.”
“That’s what she said. But she said her neighbors must have gotten a few, because they carried on half the night and the rest of the neighbors were yelling, making a huge racket.”
The Thompson lived at the edge of town near an abandoned farmhouse. It occurred to Madison that the empty yard out back would be the perfect place to hold an illegal cockfight.
“Blake Reynolds, I will say it again. You, my son, are a genius!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I still think we are insane,” Genesis said as she pulled away from the curb.
“Granny Bert would want to know why I was borrowing her car, two minutes after she pulled in the drive. And if I know her, she drove home from Bryan without getting gas.”
“You know she likes to buy local whenever she can.”
“But I can’t very well go on a stake-out and run out of gas, now can I?”
“Tell me again why I agreed to drive you out to the old Muehler place?”
“Besides the fact that you’re my best friend and you still owe me for that time I drove you all the way to Fort Hood to see that Bobby guy before he shipped out, only to find three other girls there, doing the same thing?”
“Besides that.”
“I’m trying to earn the money Lucy Ngyen paid me so I can keep it with a clear conscience. If I can prove there was someone else with enough probable cause to want Ronny Gleason dead, they might just drop the charges against Don Ngyen. They are circumstantial, at best.”
“So where do we come in? And why are we dressed all in black?” A flourishing hand movement indicated her own stylish black velour sweat suit.
“So no one will see us in the dark.” Madison looked into the mirror and stuffed a few loose strands of hair beneath the black toboggan she wore. She was already wearing the hat when Genesis arrived, so her friend had not seen the new hairstyle yet. “I brought you a toboggan, too, to cover your blond hair.”
“Are we doing anything illegal?” Genny asked suspiciously.
Madison appreciated the fact that Genny was automatically agreeing to help, even before hearing the details. No wonder the other woman was her best friend in the entire world.
“Of course not! We’re simply going for a late night walk.”
“In the dark. In the cold night air. Down a dark lonesome road.” Genesis recapped the situation in a speculative tone. “Granny Bert might have believed your story, but only because she had one too many margaritas and had to let Miss Sybille drive home. Madison Josephine Reynolds, what are you up to?”
Her easy-going friend
only called her by her full name when she was angry or suspicious. Biting her lip with worry, Madison finally confessed all. “I think I may know where they’re holding the illegal cockfights. Glitter Thompson told Granny Bert the noise from all the roosters and neighbors was keeping her awake at night, but she doesn’t have many neighbors, and the few she has don’t keep chickens. I think they’re using the old Muehler place that backs up to the Thompson’s.”
“They?”
“I don’t know, that’s what we need to find out. I need to find out who else has a cow —my word, now she has me saying it!— a beef with Ronny Gleason.”
“Fine, so call Brash. There’s no reason for us to go out there.”
“I want to be sure, before I call in a tip. If I call through Crime-Stoppers, I’ll earn a cash reward if it leads to an arrest.”
“You sound like those commercials,” Genesis complained. “So what are we going to do, drive up and shine a spotlight out there?”
“Of course not! That’s what the dark clothes are for. We’ll have to park out of sight, walk up to the farmhouse, and slip around back.”
“Madison, this sounds like something we used to do in high school. This does not sound like something two grown women do.”
Madison found herself giggling. “I know, right?”
“How much wine did you drink tonight? This doesn’t sound at all like you. May I remind you that for the past twenty years, you’ve lived in the city, in a refined neighborhood with fancy houses and fancy neighbors? I bet you never spied on them in the dark like this.”
“None of them were having illegal rooster fights in their backyards.”
“I’m trying to establish myself as a reputable business owner, you know. What if we get caught?”
“We won’t be attending the fight. No one will even know we’re there.” As they passed the Thompson house, Madison began looking for a place to park the car. “We can’t just park out in the open. We need to find some trees or something to disguise it.”
“You know what concerns me the most?” Genesis continued as if Madison had not spoken. “None of this sounds like you. To be honest, this sounds much more like something I would think up. You are always the reasonable, responsible one. You were on the PTA, for Heaven’s sake, and all those committees in Dallas. What has happened to you? I think you’ve inhaled too much ammonia at the chicken houses. Yes, that must be it.”