by Jenny Penn
* * * *
“This had better be good,” GD snapped into his phone as he stepped out into the bright daylight.
Ambling across the yard toward the shade of the cedar tree, GD glared back at the bungalow door, irritated that Kitty Anne hadn’t come rushing after him to pledge her trust and vow to wear his collar. Of course, that would be too easy, and the woman was determined to make his life as difficult as possible. Otherwise, it would just be too boring.
“Hey, man.” Alex sounded just as tense and annoyed as GD felt. He could guess why.
“Is this about Gwen?”
“Why do you ask that?” Alex shot back, making his own educated assumption. “Unless, of course, you were the jackass who broke into her place and smashed all of her mother’s antique china.”
“Actually, that was Kitty Anne’s fault.” GD wasn’t going down for that one. So he threw Kitty Anne under the bus, mostly because he knew it wouldn’t hit her.
“You took your girlfriend on a B&E?” Alex sounded torn between outrage and amusement.
“It’s not like I invited her,” GD retorted, a little insulted that Alex even considered such a thing. “Do you really want all the details?”
“No.” Alex sighed. “But somebody’s got to pay for the china.”
“Gwen has the cash, and trust me, that ain’t her mom’s china.” GD glanced up as a big, gold sedan came rolling slowly down the drive. It was Lynn Anne. She was back early.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex asked, drawing GD’s attention back to their conversation.
“Man, that woman is blackmailing just about half the fucking county. You should see her accounts… Actually, you should see the pictures.”
“Like I care,” Alex sighed. “Just tell me this isn’t about the club.”
“Nope.” GD paused to offer Kitty Anne’s mom a smile as she pulled to a stop right before him, but the woman stuck her nose in the air and ignored him. She was good at that. “But I got to warn you, she’s about to make somebody a daddy.”
“Why the hell are you telling me that?” Alex demanded to know.
“No reason,” GD answered too quickly, smirking as Lynn Anne stepped out of her car and shook out her skirt. Without a word to him, she shut her car door and headed to the cabin.
“I didn’t sleep with that woman. I’m not no damn daddy,” Alex snapped. “But you did break her dishes, and they will be replaced, right?”
“Whatever.”
GD watched Lynn Anne disappear into the small bungalow and started counting the seconds. He only made it to five before her scream cut the quiet afternoon air.
“It’s not whatever,” Alex huffed. “If you’re thinking it, the odds are so will Heather. God knows she’s sensitive on the issue.”
“Oh, really?”
That wasn’t shocking. Neither were the hollers echoing out of the cabin. Nick was yelling at somebody to stop and GD could imagine it was Lynn Anne, given the things she was yelling at him.
“Yeah, so do me a favor and don’t mention this to her,” Alex pleaded.
“You want me to lie to Heather?”
“Yes!”
“Fine.” GD wasn’t all that interested in upsetting Heather, especially given he did think Alex was innocent.
Nick wasn’t. He was a naughty, naughty boy, and he was being punished. GD broke into a grin as Nick came stumbling barefoot and in a rush out of the cabin. He had his jeans on and halfway closed, but he appeared to be having a hard time pulling he zipper all the way up. That might have had something to do with Lynn Anne chasing after him with a broom.
“Just let me know what kind of plates Gwen wants,” GD murmured before clicking his phone closed on Alex’s response without waiting to hear it.
He didn’t care, not about the dishes, not about the blackmail, not about anything but the show being played out before him. Nick tore across the yard with Lynn Anne right on his heels, and Kitty Anne, looking like a complete mess, following behind them. That was worth a picture.
So, GD lifted his phone and took one.
* * * *
“You come back out here, you pervert!” By the time Kitty Anne caught up with her mother, Lynn Anne was pounding on the shed that Nick had locked himself into. Kitty Anne didn’t blame him for hiding. She wished she could. “You’re going to marry my daughter, and you’re going to marry her now!”
“Mom!” Kitty Anne snapped, glancing all around and glad to see the fields below were empty.
“And you!” Lynn Anne turned on her, all flushed-faced and wild-eyed and shaking a broom at Kitty Anne. “Did we fail to have the sex talk? Because, unless you didn’t know, you aren’t supposed to stick that there!”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Mother,” Kitty Anne muttered, feeling her face go up in flames. “Will you shut up?”
The answer to that question was no. Lynn Anne wasn’t even listening to her but was caught up in the moment and in her own monologue, which Kitty Anne knew for a fact was nothing more than a pious act.
“You can’t let a man stick his willy in whatever nilly he wants,” Lynn Anne spat.
“Maybe I enjoy having his willy in my nilly,” Kitty Anne shot back, pushed too far by her mother’s self-righteousness. She happened to know for a fact that her mother didn’t really object to a little nilly filling. That didn’t stop her, though, from beginning to prod Kitty Anne back toward her trailer with her broom.
“Is that what has been going on here?” Her mom demanded to know as if the answer hadn’t been obvious all along. “You been getting stuck? Well, that’s over, young lady. There will be no more willys and nillys on my watch. You’re moving back into your old room!”
“But, Mother—”
“Move!”
Lynn Anne wasn’t asking. She chased Kitty Anne back into her trailer, sweeping the broom after her and poking Kitty Anne whenever she tried to stop and object. As she was forced across the yard, Kitty Anne could see GD sitting on the lowered tailgate of his truck, watching the show with a big grin.
She knew then that he’d seen this coming. Apparently, GD wasn’t just going to deny her the pleasure of his own body but that of Nick’s as well because there was going to be no more willy-nillying around according to her mother. From that moment forward, Lynn Anne swore she was going to keep both eyes on Kitty Anne.
Kitty Anne had a sick feeling she wasn’t lying.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Monday, June 22nd
Nearly a week later, Kitty Anne sat at her desk, reading over the story before her while her mother knitted in the far corner. Just as she’d suspected, Lynn Anne had been dead serious about keeping both eyes on her. She was like Kitty Anne’s shadow, following her every second of the day.
The only time she was really alone was when she went to the bathroom. She and Nick had tried to use that one little loophole to their advantage, but that had been the day they’d learned Lynn Anne wasn’t going to give her more than five minutes to do anything alone, including showering. It had been an illuminating lesson that had ended with Lynn Anne chasing Nick across the yard once again, though this time she was outfitted with a three-foot-long shock stick that GD had given her.
That had made his position quite clear. There would be no sex for her, not with anybody, not until she put his collar on. Just to taunt the crap out of him, she had put his collar on and worn it to dinner, worn it to breakfast, worn it to her tutoring session, worn it whenever she knew he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Kitty Anne could tell it was driving him mad. She could also sense that the lack of sex was beginning to drive Nick a little nuts, and he was the sane one in the group. Her mother needed to go, but that problem wasn’t the one that had Kitty Anne worrying right then.
Right then, Kitty Anne had a bigger problem on her hands. It sat staring at her with wide eyes. Taking a deep breath and masking her reaction to the revelation in Kevin’s story, she offered him a slight smile.
“Your wor
k has a certain flow to it that is very touching, which is enhanced by the very details of the story but”—Kitty Anne paused, allowing Kevin to get out a groan as he flopped back in his seat— “I’m still seeing some of the same grammatical errors. So we’re going to go over them today, and you’re going to write me a third part to this story.”
“A third part?” Kevin frowned, looking confused by the very idea. “There is no third part.”
“Because you haven’t written it yet,” Kitty Anne pointed out, knowing his objection had deeper roots than simple reluctance. That was too bad. She wasn’t like Nick and GD. Kitty Anne wasn’t going to sit back and let a family remain fragmented.
“I want to know what happens after the sister finds out about her brothers.”
“But what if she never finds out?” Kevin countered, perking up in his seat. “What if the story ended there?”
“What if it didn’t?” Kitty Anne insisted. “I want to know what happens.”
“What if I don’t know?” He sounded seriously confused, as if he really hadn’t considered the matter.
“Then I guess you’ll find out when you write it.” Kitty Anne smiled and pressed forward with the conversation, certain that Kevin could waste what remained of their half-hour tutoring session arguing with her.
“And you won’t be making the same mistakes when you write the next installment because you’re going to pay attention now, and if you don’t make any mistakes on this next installment…it can be your last one.”
Kevin didn’t appear appeased by that offering but focused nonetheless on Kitty Anne’s instructions as they went over his story line by line. They’d barely made it to the end before the bell rang and Kevin went flying out the door. Lynn Anne watched him go with a baleful look.
“You got yourself a little arsonist there, Kitty Anne,” her mother warned her, earning an eye roll from her daughter.
“Please, Mother.”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Lynn Anne grumbled. “I’m not the unreasonable one here. You’re the naïve one if you believe that tale about the ‘pretty, black-haired woman.’”
Her mother quoted from the story, proving that she’d been paying more attention than Kitty Anne had assumed. That was unnerving, and a subject best avoided.
“I believe it was a story.” Kitty Anne shoved away from her desk. “And that I’m going to be late for lunch with Rachel if I don’t get a move on it.”
“You mean ‘we,’” her mother corrected her as she gathered up her knitting and rose to her feet along with Kitty Anne.
“It’s just lunch, Mother,” Kitty Anne assured her, but Lynn Anne wasn’t hearing it.
“It’s just you and that pervert at the closest, cheapest motel doing something dirtier than the prostitutes in the neighboring room,” Lynn Anne shot back.
“You watch too much TV,” Kitty Anne complained. “And Nick would never take me to a cheap motel room. We’d do it in the back of his truck.”
“Not until he puts a ring on it,” Lynn Anne declared.
She’d made that her official stance, never seeming to realize that Kitty Anne might not want a shotgun wedding. Nick knew it, too. He had enough sense to realize that proposing to her with her mother’s threat hanging over their heads would be a bad move, but that didn’t mean Kitty Anne didn’t sense that he intended to propose sometime in the near future.
If he didn’t, it would be kind of shocking, given they’d already discussed plans for the house that Nick was building for them. He had an architect drawing up plans, and Lynn Anne knew it. That wasn’t enough, though. Kitty Anne suspected that even a ring wouldn’t be enough for her mother.
Her mother was not going anywhere. Not, at least, until she had a new and better home to move into. Until then, she was stuck to Kitty Anne’s ass, and there was no point in arguing over it.
“Fine, you can come,” Kitty Anne relented with ill grace. “But you can’t sit with us.”
“Still embarrassed to be seen with your mom?” Lynn Anne asked as she followed Kitty Anne out of the shed.
“Always,” Kitty Anne assured her. “You’re embarrassing, woman.”
Lynn Anne smiled at that as if Kitty Anne had complimented her, and in a way, she had. After all, her mother worked on being annoying. Annoying and embarrassing, which was just why she ditched her mom the moment she walked into the Bread Box. The small bakery was no longer full of men but smelled just as delicious. Rachel, as always, was already seated and working on a glass of tea.
“Hey, Kitty Anne!” Rachel greeted with her typical enthusiasm.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Kitty Anne apologized as she reached down to offer Rachel a quick hug before taking the seat opposite of her. “But it has just been a hectic day.”
“I am sure they all are these days with all those boys you have to keep up with,” Rachel teased her with a twinkle in her eyes.
The two friends shared a look and then burst out laughing. That set the tone for the rest of the lunch. They had a good time kibitzing about their respective men. Eventually the conversation turned toward Rachel’s investigation of Seth, and Kitty Anne had no choice but to be honest with her longtime friend. After all, somebody needed to help Kevin prove his innocence. Kitty Anne couldn’t do it alone.
“I just don’t know.” Kitty Anne sighed as she twirled her straw through her tea, coming to the end of her tale. “I mean Seth and Nick know Kevin well enough to know if he’s capable of setting a fire, and obviously they think he is, but…I can’t help but think the reason he’s so sad is that they don’t believe him.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t,” Rachel spoke up, surprising Kitty Anne with that harsh critique, but when she lifted her eyes to meet her friend’s gaze, Kitty Anne saw the truth.
“But we will.” Kitty Anne smiled.
“Because everybody deserves to have somebody believe in them,” Rachel finished for her with a nod. “So how are we going to find this black-haired beauty?”
Kitty Anne considered it for a moment before the obviousness of the solution hit her. “I know. We’re going to hire ourselves an investigator.”
* * * *
Nick watched Kitty Anne and her mother return from their lunch in town and had to smile. It was a good day. A good day because it was the last one he’d have to put up with that old hag. Everything was now in line. All the paperwork, all the money, all the taxes—everything was settled.
Now he just needed to go rock Lynn Anne’s boat. He knew just how to do that. He sent one of the boys up the hill to the shed still serving as Kitty Anne’s office and little classroom. He had the kid deliver a list of instructions to Lynn Anne that he knew would set her off. Sure enough, not five minutes later, Lynn Anne slammed through his door, waving a piece of paper in the air and demanding answers.
“What is this?” Lynn Anne tossed his letter back on the table. “Extortion?”
“I highly doubt making somebody do chores reaches the egregious nature of extortion,” Nick responded dryly.
“Chores are for young boys who need the exercise,” Lynn Anne retorted haughtily. “I, young man, am an old woman. I’m in no condition to be out there cleaning up after a bunch of heathens.”
Nick didn’t bother to argue over her choice of terms for his boys, having already learned that anything Lynn Anne thought annoyed him was something she would repeat readily. The woman was that kind of evil, and she needed to go.
“Chores are for anybody who is capable, and you, madam, are more than capable,” Nick assured her.
“How dare you?” Lynn Anne drew herself up indignantly as she took a step forward and promptly slipped. She went down hard, but Nick didn’t move. He didn’t even blink when she cried out pathetically.
“Oh, my back!”
“You hurt?” he called out.
“I need an ambulance.”
“Or, maybe, just some of that pot you got stored in your vent back at the trailer,” Nick suggested, biting back a smile as
Lynn Anne’s head instantly popped back over the edge of the desk.
“What did you just say?”
“And it will probably be a while before you can fit back into your leather ensembles.” Nick paused to let the weight of that revelation sink in before he continued smugly on. “So I guess it’s a good thing you got all that cash to tide you over.”
That had Lynn Anne rising slowly back up to her feet as she studied him with an intelligence that was normally hidden behind her outrageous persona. She retired the mask, though, for the moment as she finally responded to Nick’s comments.
“So you know the truth,” Lynn Anne began, her words slow and measured, a far cry from her normally shrill tone. “What are you going to do? Blackmail me?”
“Actually, I was thinking of bribing you,” Nick admitted. “After all, you are going to be my future mother-in-law, and Kitty Anne seems fond of you.”
“Saved by such faint praise.” Lynn Anne smirked, though her gaze remained narrowed on him. “So what is the bribe?”
“First, you have to answer a question for me.” Nick wasn’t going to let go of the upper hand until he had what he wanted. Right then, there was one thing he was dying to know. “You make all that money whoring or dealing?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Lynn Anne snapped, instantly and honestly insulted. “That money’s Kitty Anne’s. I’ve been saving it for years.”
“You’ve been saving Kitty Anne’s money?” That didn’t sound right, but there was no disguising the truth in Lynn Anne’s tone.
“I just didn’t want her to end up like me with nothing in her retirement years.” Lynn Anne shrugged as if it were nothing. “As for the rest of what you found in your illegal search…that’s personal. After all, my daughter is the one who was arrested for prostitution.”
“Those charges were dismissed,” Nick reminded her. He’d paid a very expensive lawyer to assure they’d never even seen the light of a courtroom.
“The damage to her reputation has been done,” Lynn Anne insisted. “And her staying here isn’t helping matters. So, if you expect me to sacrifice my daughter, you better be offering a very nice bribe.”