“And you haven’t been grilling me about her for the last hour?” Sheriff Braxton was no dummy.
“Of course not. You started talking about her.”
Brax’s mouth quirked, and he shook his head. “Right. Forgot about that. I guess you didn’t ask me out to dinner just so you could ask me the A-to-Z on Cookie?”
“Absolutely not.” She’d asked him because seeing Cookie’s talons in Brax’s arm had driven Bobbie insane for a moment.
He really was a good-looking specimen, a very nice table decoration. He had a sense of humor, too. She couldn’t remember everything he’d said, but she did remember laughing a lot during dinner. The steak had been as delicious as he’d claimed.
The man had been a fountain of information. Cookie had arrived in Cottonmouth some fifteen years ago—what had she been doing in the ensuing five after she’d left Warren? She’d latched on to Jimbo right away, the rich, older man, and married him in less than a year. Then, with sufficient time, she’d severed Jimbo’s relationship with Beau.
Unbelievable as it was, Beau, of Beau’s Garage, was Jimbo’s brother, which meant that Cookie was the woman who’d ruined Mavis’s marriage and broken her heart. And, Bobbie was sure, she’d lied to her husband about what had happened with Beau in the first place. What was it Beau had said about Cookie, that she’d stab you in the back and you wouldn’t even know she’d been holding a knife? Bobbie believed it with all her heart and animosity.
“Let’s talk about Jimbo. Do you think he beats his wife?” She lowered her voice despite the noise being at the totally rowdy level the tavern’s name advertised. She’d sat next to him instead of across so she didn’t have to yell.
Brax almost choked on his last bite of barely-beyond-raw steak. “Jimbo, a wife beater?” He shook his head. “He’s a pussycat. Why?”
Why indeed? Why seemed to be Sheriff Braxton’s favorite word. Why do you want to know? Why do you think that? Why is that important? By the end of the evening he was going to want those whys answered. Maybe she ought to start throwing him off track right now. “I want to make sure he hasn’t got any hidden vices I should know about before I steal him away from his wife.” She leaned forward, lowered her voice once more. “See, I’ve got the secret hots for Jimbo.”
He laughed until his eyes watered and heads had turned in his direction. His face turned a dangerous shade.
“Are you all right?”
He gulped at his water, then his beer. “I’m fine. I have never met anyone like you. Why’d your husband leave you?”
Why, why, why. Her neck chilled as if he’d dumped his mug of beer down the back of it. Her fingers numbed. The question was such a surprise that the truth almost overwhelmed her.
Because Warren had never loved her in the first place. He’d never stopped loving Cookie. Cookie, no matter how many lies Bobbie had told herself for fifteen years, had been a specter in their marriage bed since the day they first inhabited it. Cookie was the reason nothing had worked between them. She was probably the reason Warren had never wanted children with Bobbie. Cookie was the reason everything had gone wrong in her life.
“I’m sorry,” Brax said. “That wasn’t fair.”
She sipped her chardonnay, then gave him a bright smile she knew was minutes too late. “Not a problem.”
“Let’s be honest here. I like you. I think you’re an attractive woman. But you’ve got some weird agenda going. I won’t rest until I figure it out.”
She studiously scooped up the last of her mashed potatoes, avoiding his eyes. “You’re the sheriff. You must see hidden agendas everywhere.”
“No, I don’t.”
She waited for him to go on. He didn’t. That seemed to make her talk to avoid the silence. Good interrogation tactic he had there, but she had questions, too. “Why’d you tell me so much about the Beaumonts?”
“I didn’t tell you anything you couldn’t find out by asking anyone in town.”
Figures. “I guess I was supposed to just naturally tell you what you wanted to know in return.”
He nodded. “Didn’t work, though. You’re more of a clam when it counts than I thought.”
All the diversionary tactics suddenly exhausted her. The last week had exhausted her. And in that moment of weakness, another truth slipped in through the chink in her armor. All she really had to do was go home. To San Francisco. End the game. Give up “Bobbie” and the misery would stop.
Except that without Warren, San Francisco was just another place to live. Cottonmouth was beginning to seem more like home, despite Cookie’s presence.
And she’d die reverting back to her Roberta self. Roberta had been well on the way to doing that even before Warren left. She’d just never known it.
“I used to go to high school with Cookie,” she lied, not sure whether she was covering for Warren or herself. “As you can see, she didn’t recognize me.”
He tipped his head, his blue eyes blank. “I suppose it was a shock to see her here in Cottonmouth.”
“Yes, it was.” How many lies was he going to believe?
Brax leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers. “What’d she do to you in high school, steal your boyfriend?”
She grimaced at how close he’d come to the truth. “How did you guess?”
His index fingers came up, tapped together. “The comment about stealing her husband.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”
A smart man, he knew right when to change the subject. Before she started blubbering. “Want dessert?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m full.”
“Then I’ve got one more question.”
She hoped she could come up with one more lie. “Shoot.”
“How well do you know Nick?”
“Nick?” Her stomach jumped into her throat, and her face heated.
“Nick Angel? Lives across the street from you?”
“Oh.” Oh my God. “Oh, not well. Why?”
“Because he’s been staring at you for the past hour, and he looks like he could shoot me right between the eyes.”
* * * * *
She’d argued out in the parking lot with Brax for five minutes about why she didn’t want him to follow her home to make sure she was safe. His infernal why again.
The thing that did it was her declaration, “Because I’m not going home.”
He stopped asking why. Something hard and implacable passed over his face. And then she saw what he saw, Nick standing on the wooden front porch of the tavern. Watching.
Brax hightailed it to his SUV and would have burned rubber if the parking lot hadn’t been dirt. She wondered if he would have kissed her if Nick hadn’t been there. She wondered if she would have let him follow her home.
“You know,” she whispered, “you’re a mixed-up fruitcake.” Never had truer words been spoken.
She was also a coward. Brax could have been a fountain of information about Nick and Mary Alice Turner. Bobbie had plain chickened out of asking the sheriff. She kept telling herself Nick’s past was nothing like Warren’s with Cookie. Besides, she wasn’t looking for a lasting relationship with Nick, and what he felt about his high school sweetheart didn’t matter a whit.
So why had she been afraid of Brax’s answer?
She unlocked her car door, climbed in, and gave the tavern one last look. Nick was gone.
Figures. She started the engine, punched the accelerator and fishtailed across the lot. She stopped at the access to let a car pass, a BMW just like Warren’s.
My God, it was Warren, hunched over the wheel like an old man. Or someone with way too much on his mind. He was headed out of town. In the opposite direction of the house he’d rented in Cottonmouth. Didn’t Cookie live out that way somewhere?
The decision was split-second. She didn’t give herself a chance to think about it. Following smacked of obsession. She didn’t want to be obsessive. Then again, she’d already followed him to Cottonmouth. What could be more obsess
ive?
She stayed several car lengths behind him, almost a block, though she didn’t think he would have noticed her anyway. He’d had that faraway look on his face. He could very well have an accident in that state of mind. See, she was only looking out for him, trailing to make sure he was safe. Yeah, right.
Five miles, ten. Wasn’t Lake Beaumonde out here somewhere? Manmade, the county stocked it with fish during the season. Just as she’d thought, he turned to the left, his headlights flashing across tree trunks, then dipping down as he hit a rut.
By the time she turned, his taillights had disappeared around a bend in the small dirt lane. Through the trees, moonlight glistened on water. She took the same bend, and once again his lights disappeared around the next. Getting closer to the water, she didn’t dare follow in case she found herself right up his tailpipe. After the next turn, the road forked. He’d gone right, she went left, pulling to the side a hundred yards later, shutting off her engine and lights, and climbed from the VW.
What was he doing here? She already knew the answer. The rumble of another engine, out by the road, carried in the quiet night. Bobbie scampered off into the trees, heading to the lake at a right angle, in the direction she assumed she’d find Warren.
The moon dipped behind the clouds, the dark closing in around her. Silence. The car she’d heard must have moved on. Or had stopped somewhere along the dirt road to the lake. What kind of car did Cookie drive? Oh yeah, a Jaguar, low and sporty. With an animal snarl like the growl she’d heard? Maybe. Probably. Damn Warren. He was meeting her. And Bobbie didn’t want to see. So why was she still creeping through the woods?
She might not want to see, but she had to. She had to find out what Cookie was up to. The lake opened up before her, but she kept to the line of trees. A dark shadow close to the edge of the water, Warren leaned against the hood of his car, staring out at the lake. Then his head dropped to his chest. Where was Cookie? She should have reached the spot already, if that sound had been her car.
Bobbie slipped from tree to tree, closing in. An owl hooted in the forest. In the lake, something splashed. She didn’t dare get closer. She stood in the silhouette of a tall tree and rested her hand against its trunk.
Warren hadn’t moved.
A twig crackled behind her.
Then an arm snaked around her waist, yanking her back against a hard body, and a hand clamped over her mouth.
* * * * *
Her ass was warm and soft against him. Nick’s erection was immediate. She twisted in his arms, then bit his palm.
He groaned. Leaning down next to her ear, he whispered, “You don’t want him to hear us, do you?” But part of him wanted the man to know.
Her body relaxed against his like a gentle wave lapping over him. First her torso, then her butt, until she was flush up against his flaming hard-on. Christ, she felt good, smelled good. He stuck his tongue in her ear. She drew in an audible breath.
He wasn’t sorry he’d followed her. Nick caressed the shell of her ear with his tongue. Her hands gripped his wrist where he held her at the waist. He breathed hot against her, her shiver worming beneath his skin.
“Why’d you follow him?” His gut clenched waiting for her answer.
Her asshole husband stared at the barely rippling water. Dammit, here she stood in the dark mooning over a man that had dumped her. She hadn’t let go. Maybe she’d never let go. Nick had correctly surmised that she’d been showing up on his front porch simply to make her husband jealous. Dammit to hell. He was no stand-in.
And he’d damn well prove it to her.
Nick let go of Bobbie to shove both hands up beneath the short shirt she’d worn for Brax. Damn her for that, too, for choosing Brax to be seen in public with, for dressing sexy as all get-out for another man. She could have pulled away then. She didn’t. Nor when he nudged aside the lace cup either. Her nipple had already peaked and when he flicked it, she burrowed her bottom harder against him and teased him with the tiniest of moans. He hushed her once more with his tongue in her ear.
He undid the bra’s front clasp and held the weight of her in both hands. The scent of damp earth against the tang of her fruity shampoo made him dizzy. He squeezed her breasts and rocked against her bottom.
“When was the last time he made you moan like that?” he murmured.
He found both nipples at once and pinched lightly. She turned and bit his neck, stifling her gasp. Then, “Never.”
Christ, he wanted her. Now. Right here, with her husband only yards away. He wanted his stamp on her, his claim. He wanted to beat the crap out of the bloody careless bastard for trampling her. He wanted to show her how hot she was.
He wanted to wipe any desire for her husband or Brax from her mind.
His fingers slid down her abdomen to trace her skirt’s waistband. He dipped inside, far enough to caress the edge of her panties. He’d been there this morning, she’d stopped him. Leather creaked, like a breath of wind, as he inched up her skirt. She reached up, pulled his head down to the hollow between her shoulder and throat. He licked, bit, sucked, and pulled her skirt to her waist. She squirmed against him, nothing between them now but a thin scrap of lace and his jeans. Too much, way too much. He had to touch her.
Stroking beneath the elastic at each leg opening, fine curls brushed his fingers. He insinuated his leg between hers, opening her more fully to his touch. Shuddering as she swallowed, she let her head fall back against his shoulder.
“Did he ever make you this hot?”
“No.”
Her soft admission reached up inside him and filled a spot that ached. “Did he ever try?”
“No.”
The man was a fucking idiot. “Do you want me to touch you?”
“God, please.”
He looked up at her husband, still leaning on the hood of his expensive import, still oblivious. Nick knew he was crazy for touching her now, in this way, but he was past caring about right or wrong.
He slid one finger inside the man’s ex-wife and claimed her for himself.
She was wet. Hot. His. This time she spread her legs, then went up on her toes to grind back against him. He leaned into the tree to bear their combined weight. She bit down on her lip, holding in the cry, as he buried a second finger in her. Out again, along the fold, finding her clitoris. She started to shake as he rubbed, in circles, up and down, soft, then hard. Her hips rotated against his hand, her butt hugged his cock. He wanted to shove it inside her, but first, there was this.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, fingers digging into his thighs, her tremors consumed her whole body. He could think only of making her come, over and over. He moved inside her again, pressed his palm down hard on her clitoris, then slid back out to start all over again, in small tight circles. She mewled like a cat, and he pulled her face to his, covered her lips and devoured her cries. She blew apart in his arms. And he almost came with her from the glory of her response alone.
* * * * *
Headlights split the night, flashing within inches of where they stood. Nick froze. Bobbie gasped, breathing hard with the afterglow of orgasm.
Nick locked his arm around her waist and pulled her further into the shadow of the trees.
Bobbie’s skirt still ringed her waist. Her damp panties chafed. But oh my God, for a moment there, she hadn’t cared about anything but Nick’s touch. She’d forgotten about Warren, about Cookie, about Brax. All she’d wanted was that orgasm, stretching, striving, finally falling into it the way she fell into his kiss, with everything that had been living in a vacuum all this time. Screaming, kicking, crying, wrenching, if only in her mind. Nick wanted her, desired her. Nothing had been more important. Given another minute, she would have had him flat on the ground with his pants around his ankles and his penis buried deep inside her.
His breath beat harshly against her ear, echoing the strain of hers. His erection pulsed in the cleft of her behind.
“Who is that?”
The car pulled to a stop
behind Warren’s. A silhouette rose from the open door. Sickly sweet perfume wafted on the air.
“Christ. Is that Cookie Beaumont?”
She bit her lip before answering. “Yes.”
Nick pulled back from her, physically and metaphorically. “What the fuck is she doing here?”
She scrabbled her skirt down. “Shh. They’ll hear you.”
But even as she said it, she knew they wouldn’t hear anything. Cookie had reached the front of Warren’s car. Their lips didn’t meet, but their bodies did, melding as if they were one. Then Cookie slid to her knees in front of him.
Oh God. Oh God, no. This was too much. She’d throw up, she’d—
She ran. She would have fallen, but Nick grabbed her hand, hauling her up. Minutes later, she collapsed against the passenger door of the orange Charger he’d parked behind her VW. That was the car she’d heard, the low rumble. Cookie’s expensive engine hadn’t even broken her orgasmic stupor.
“Your husband’s fucking Cookie Beaumont?”
“Actually, it looked to me like she was about to give him a blow job.” Right hook, left jab, straight into the guts. Her own. Better she said it than him.
“How long has this been going on?”
She smiled, her lips curling back over her teeth. “Since he left me.”
“Shit.” He turned, ran his hand through his hair. “What does she want?”
“Him. I guess.”
He massaged his neck, staring off toward the lake as if he could still see them. “That bitch. She’s up to her old tricks. You can be damn sure she wants more than just a roll in the hay with your husband.”
“I know that. I’m not stupid.” She stopped, stared at him. “How do you know?”
“How do you think I know? Because I fucked her when I first came back to town.”
All the oxygen flushed out of her brain. “You had an affair with her?”
“It wasn’t an affair. It was fucking. Then she started telling me—” He cut himself off with a clamp of his lips.
She's Gotta Be Mine (A sexy, funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 1) (Cottonmouth Series) Page 15