Blame It on the Cowboy (19 page)

“I said I was in trouble, not stupid. I'm on the pill, and we always used a condom.”

“Yeah, I wasn't sure Greg had, though.” Or maybe the clown nose had acted as a condom. If so, Logan really didn't want to know the details.

“Wow,” she mumbled, and she repeated it a lot of times. “Okay, I'm not pregnant. Have no plans to become pregnant. Have no plans to repeat my mistake by being with Greg again.” Another pause. “Is Reese pregnant?”

“No.” And he wondered how many more times he was going to have to answer that question. “And I should have said right from the start that I don't want to talk about Reese.”

Helene stayed quiet for way too long. “We have to talk about her. Because she's the reason I'm here.” Tears sprang to her eyes again. “When I found out you were involved with her, I had Reese investigated. I know, it was wrong, but I needed to know that I hadn't sent you into the arms of the wrong woman.”

Since Logan had also had Reese investigated, he decided it was a good time to stay quiet and listen to the rest of what Helene had to say.

“You know about Reese's past, of course,” Helene went on. “I'm sure she's told you.”

He settled for a nod. She'd told him some of it. Logan figured there was more, and then there was that juvie record he'd managed to get unsealed. Hell, he hoped Helene hadn't managed to get into that because Logan didn't know why Reese had a criminal record.

Helene nodded, too, and he had to hand it to her. She didn't seem disappointed that Reese had come clean. Or at least semiclean. A bitter woman would have probably taken some pleasure in springing the news of her shady past on him. But either there was no pleasure or else Helene was doing a good job concealing it.

“Anyway, I found out about Chucky Dayton.” She looked up at Logan. “You know about him, too?”

“Yes.” And Logan got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You're the reason he came to town.” He cursed. “Did you contact Reese's mother, too?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I mean, I told Chucky where Reese was, but I haven't seen or spoken to her mother. Is she in Spring Hill?”

Logan decided to go with a question of his own. “What does all of this have to do with the trouble you're in?”

“Everything,” Helene said on a rise of breath. “Chucky's blackmailing me. He says if I don't pay him twenty thousand dollars, then he'll tell Reese and you that I'm responsible for him finding her. I considered just paying it, but I figured he'd keep coming back for more.”

“He would.”

Logan suddenly had a flurry of emotions about all of this. Helene had likely started a domino effect what with first telling Chucky and then Chucky had probably told Vickie. Or maybe Helene had been the one to tell Vickie, too. Either way, the domino tiles were already falling, and they were falling on Reese.

“Chucky tried to get rough with Reese,” Logan said. “He pushed her against a building, and if I hadn't been there, he could have hurt her.”

“Oh, God.” More tears.

Logan hadn't told her that to make her cry but only so that she'd understand what a truly stupid thing she'd done. And the only reason Helene had done it was to send Reese running.

It had almost worked.

Heck, it still might work.

“If you stay with her,” Helene said, her voice shaky, “you also invite these people into your life. Is that what you want?”

That didn't help with the flurry of emotions, but part of his frustration was that he didn't know the answer. He wanted Reese. For now. He wanted to continue to have sex with her, preferably not in his truck. But Logan couldn't see beyond that.

“It took me eight years to decide to propose to you,” he finally answered. “I've known Reese a little less than four months. I don't have to make any decisions about what I do or don't do right this very second.”

At the rate he was going, he might never make a decision. Or Reese might make it for him and cut out again.

“Of course,” Helene agreed. She stood, looked around again. “You really are moving on with your life.” She didn't sound happy about that. Or maybe her reaction was for the decor. His sofa was the same color of vomit.

“You'll move on with yours, too.”

“Yes, but not with Greg. I know you wouldn't have asked, but despite the spectacle he put on tonight, there's no chance I'll ever be with him.” She paused again. “In therapy I learned what happened with him was just sexual experimentation. Nothing more. It happens sometimes when a woman has my kind of upbringing where people expect her to be, well, perfect.”

It sounded as if she wanted him to jump in there with an “I understand.” But Logan didn't jump. Instead, he made the mistake of rubbing his forehead.

“Headache?” she immediately asked.

“I'll take something after you leave.” Which was a not so subtle way of telling her this conversation was over.

But Helene didn't budge. She did nod, though. “So, when Chucky contacts me again, I'll just tell him that I confessed to Reese and you, and the two of you are okay with what happened.”

“FYI, we're not okay with it. In fact, Reese has a right to be really pissed off at you. But now that we know what you've done, it's taken away Chucky's bargaining power. You don't have to pay hush money.”

Another nod, and she finally started for the door. She stopped, though, did another of those annoying looks around before her attention came back to him. “There's no chance of you forgiving me?”

He really did need those pain meds. “Good night, Helene.”

Logan maneuvered her out the door and closed it. In the same motion, he reached for his phone and headed to the medicine cabinet. The migraine was chasing him, but if he could drug up in time, he might be able to fight it off. First, though, he needed to talk to Reese. She was no doubt playing some worst-case scenarios about this chat he'd had with Helene.

She didn't answer on the first ring. Or even the second. By the time it got to the fourth ring, Logan was playing out some worst-case scenarios of his own until she finally answered.

“Are you okay?” Reese asked, taking the question right out of Logan's mouth.

“Yes. How about you?”

Judging from the fact that she mumbled some profanity, Logan knew the answer to that. “Look, this would be a good time for you to stay put and not get involved.”

“What do you mean?” And Logan really did want to know the answer. Something pretty big had to be going on for Reese not to ask about why Helene had wanted to talk to him.

Reese mumbled more profanity. “Please don't come down here. I'm at the Spring Hill Police Department. I've been arrested.”

* * *

R
EESE
UNDERSTOOD
WHY
people called Deputy Davy Devine by the nonaffectionate nickname of Deputy Dweeb. She couldn't figure out how anyone could look so twitchy and yet move so slow at the same time.

People in comas were more active than this guy.

The Nederland sisters were in the cell next to Reese and had said pretty much the same thing. Before they all passed out, that is. Now they were snoring and clearly didn't care about a hasty release. In fact, they seemed so at home in the jail cell that it made Reese wonder how often they had been here.

Unlike Reese. She definitely wasn't comfortable behind bars, though it wasn't her first rodeo, either. But it was her first one in a cocktail dress and without panties.

“If I find some firecrackers, I'm going to shove them up that deputy's ass,” Jimena mumbled. She was sitting on the floor outside the jail cell where Reese was locked up. “That might get him moving.”

Reese doubted it. It had taken him over an hour to read Reese her rights and start the paperwork for the charges against her. Heaven knew how long it'd take for Reese to post bail, though Jimena was there with the cash to get her out.

Of course, Logan was on the way now, too.

Reese had hoped to have all of this resolved by the time he called her but no such luck. At this rate she might not have it resolved before she reached the age of mandatory retirement.

And she could blame her mother for this.

Yet something else on the list of crappy things her mother had done to her and continued to do to her.

Vickie had run from the Nederland sisters, all right. She'd run straight to the jail and had told Deputy Davy that Reese had ordered the girls to attack her. It hadn't helped that the sisters had come into the police station at that exact moment and started punching Vickie. It also hadn't helped that the sisters had verified—in their drunken state, of course—that they were doing this for Reese.

Apparently, the Nederlands failed to remember that Jimena was the one who'd set all of this in motion, but Reese wasn't about to rat out her friend.

Sadly, being in jail wasn't the worst of what she was feeling right now. It was Logan. He would no doubt come down here, get mixed up in all this craziness that was her life, and he'd do that even though he had almost certainly been put through the wringer with whatever Helene had told him.

Of course, the wringer might be better than some of the other things Reese had figured could happen. It was possible that Helene and Logan were back together.

“I went to see him tonight,” Jimena said.

Reese lifted her head. “Logan?”

“I know you didn't want me to do that, but I had to warn him not to shit on you.”

Great. It was just yet another cog turning in this wheel of a nightmarish night. Reese forced herself to remember that there had been some good parts. Well, one good part, anyway. Sex in the truck. Even though it wouldn't sound like a good part to most people, the sex had been with Logan so that made it a shining spot in an otherwise awful day.

“Logan offered me a job,” Jimena added. “A temporary one,” she clarified. “He wants me to be his receptionist and take care of the cat.”

It was as if Jimena were speaking a foreign language, and that's why Reese just stared at her.

“He didn't say he was offering the job because of you,” Jimena went on. “I got the feeling he really needed some help.”

“You've never been a receptionist,” Reese pointed out.

Jimena shrugged. “I've never bailed you out of jail, but I'm managing that just fine.”

Uh, no, she wasn't, and Reese was about to point out why working for Logan would be a really bad idea.

But maybe it wasn't.

After all, Vickie had threatened to call Logan's business associates and try to hurt his reputation. When Reese had told Deputy Davy that, he'd said it was too vague of a threat to have Vickie arrested, that it was a she said/she said kind of thing.

“If you're at Logan's office, you can let me know if Vickie succeeds in turning people against him,” Reese suggested.

Jimena stared at her. Though she was staring at Reese through bars, it wasn't hard to see that her friend was suspicious of that. “Why, so you can leave if it happens?” She huffed and didn't wait for Reese to verify it. “One day you're going to learn that you can't fix shit your mother keeps shitting on. She'll just follow you and shit up the next place, too.”

That was a lot of shit to deal with at once, and Reese wished she could disagree, but she couldn't. But if she stayed after such a shit-fallout, then her mere presence would be enough to continue to fuel the gossip.

Reese heard the voices out in the squad room. Two she recognized as Deputy Davy and Logan. She didn't recognize the other man, but several seconds later, the trio appeared. She'd seen the third man in the café—Police Chief Luke Mercer—and he was sporting a scowl that was almost as bad as Logan's.

Almost.

Logan was aiming his scowl at the deputy.

“You're an idiot,” Logan said to the deputy, and while Reese had heard him use his badass voice, she'd never heard it this lethal.

“Yeah, he is,” the chief agreed. Since it looked as if he'd dressed in a hurry—he had a pajama top hanging out from underneath his shirt—it was likely he'd gotten out of bed to come and handle this.

The chief unlocked the cell door, and Logan immediately went to Reese and pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right? Sorry, bad question,” he added when she just gave him a flat stare.

“Something needs to be done about Vickie,” Jimena insisted.

Reese was about to say there wasn't much that could be done, but Logan nodded. “Chief Mercer is arresting your mother for attempted extortion.”

Reese gave him a blank stare for a different reason. Because she didn't have a clue what he was talking about. “It'll be her word against mine,” she reminded him.

“No, it won't be,” Logan assured her. “We're getting some help with that.”

“Help?” Jimena and Reese asked in unison. “Who's willing to help me?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” Logan took hold of her and got Reese moving toward the exit.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“D
ID
A
CAT
eat your homework?” Jimena asked.

Reese was in such deep thought that she heard Jimena's question, but it took a moment for what her friend was saying to sink in. She'd been distracted most of the night before and now the morning since Logan had managed to get her sprung from jail.

“I'm just thinking about what happened,” Reese mumbled. Though that was probably as clear as a gypsy's crystal ball.

Logan had been right about Reese not believing who was helping them.

Chucky.

The man who'd been a thorn in Reese's side for years had now apparently decided to grow a pair. Reese only hoped it wasn't a pair that included some kind of backstabbing or scam. She wasn't exactly holding her breath, but it appeared that someone had convinced Chucky to come forward and spell out Vickie's intentions of extorting money from Reese and/or Logan.

And that someone was yet another surprise for Reese.

Helene.

Chucky and Helene seemed an unholy alliance, but from what Reese had learned from Logan, Chucky had tried to blackmail Helene, and Helene and Logan had turned the tables on him. In exchange for Helene not filing charges against him, Chucky would testify against Vickie.

Reese still wasn't exactly clear about how Chucky had found out about her mother's plans, but she suspected that they had had their own unholy alliance before Chucky and Helene decided to do the right thing and go the holy route.

Still, the good news was Reese hadn't had to spend the night in jail, the charges against her had been dropped and Helene wasn't pregnant. The bad news was that her mother was nowhere to be found, and that meant the police chief couldn't arrest her.

“Did the cat shit on your homework?” Jimena asked.

Obviously that was a reminder that Reese's head was still in the clouds. “I left my backpack and panties in Logan's truck.” Reese hadn't actually planned to say that, but it was yet something else that had been clouding her mind.

“And you're worried about…what? That he'll keep them? Look inside the backpack? Wear the panties?”

Since Jimena had never actually looked in the backpack, the second question was the only one that was legitimate. Though Reese was worried that one of Logan's brothers or a business associate might see the torn panties. Still, that wasn't her main worry, and Jimena knew it.

It was Logan.

He could tell her a thousand times that he could weather out whatever storms this bad press and her mother might cause, but Reese wasn't so sure. That meant she should be distancing herself from him, or at least thinking about distancing herself, anyway.

But she wasn't.

Here she was waiting for Cassie and Claire to show up to look at the building where Jimena was staying. A building that Cassie was thinking of buying for her new counseling practice. Reese still wasn't sure why the two wanted her in on this look-around, but Cassie had then said they could use the opportunity to go over the final details for the upcoming engagement party.

Instant guilt.

Because Reese hadn't done nearly enough for the party. Worse, less than twelve hours ago, she'd nearly skipped town without so much as a heads-up phone call to Cassie. That did make Reese feel as if the cat had pooped not just on her homework but on her, as well.

Cassie had also invited Jimena because Jimena was already renting a room on the second floor of the building and had a key. Since the owner lived in San Antonio, it would save him a trip to Spring Hill in case Cassie vetoed the place after one look.

Something she just might do.

The midcentury building was definitely nothing special. Gray peeling walls, a warped parquet floor and a trio of short halls off the reception area that led to a number of rooms. There was a metal sign in the corner for watch repair. Too bad that wasn't still there. For years, Reese had promised herself that she would have her grandfather's watch fixed, but with all the moving around, she'd never managed it.

In addition to the repair sign, there were boxes of old books, several industrial hair dryers, a saddle, a masseuse table and plastic riding horses. At least Reese thought they were horses. With the paint peeling off their eyes and faces, they looked like animal zombies.

“Did they used to make porn films here?” Jimena asked.

Reese wasn't sure how Jimena got that from the assortment of things surrounding them, but she supposed it was possible. No, wait. It wasn't. If there'd been a porn industry here, even if it had been sixty years ago, it would have still been gossiped about.

Jimena went to the glass front of the building and looked out, but then she immediately ducked back. Not just away from the window, but she scrambled behind the zombie horses.

“Elrond,” she whispered.

Reese had a look for herself and thought maybe from Jimena's reaction that there was more to her friend's breakup than she'd mentioned. Like that maybe Elrond was an ax murderer and was charging toward the building to chop her into pieces. But no ax.

However, Elrond wasn't alone. He was with Helene.

Judging from their body language, they were arguing. At least, Helene was arguing and Elrond was listening. Neither was happy, and Helene stormed off, not even sparing him a glance.

“I'll bet that's because he stole her porcelain titty,” Jimena said, still whispering as if they were right beside Elrond and not across the street from him. She pulled Reese back into the shadows with her. “Maybe they'll kiss or something.”

Reese had to shake her head. “Why would I want to see Logan's ex kiss a guy who stole her breast?”

“Because then you'd know she's as phony as those tits and that she's still screwing around.”

Reese doubted that. Helene was on her best behavior because she wanted Logan back, and no tumble with a boob-stealing clown was worth that. Helene had almost certainly learned her lesson along with sowing all the wild oats she'd ever sow.

As Helene was storming away, Reese finally saw the car pull up in front of the building. Cassie got out from the driver's side, Claire, the passenger's side, and both women immediately stopped, each catching onto the car.

And their stomachs.

Both looked as if they'd been doing some barfing with the possibility of more to come. Morning sickness.

“Sorry we're late,” Cassie said, coming in ahead of Claire. Then she stopped, snickered. “And I guess that's in more ways than one.”

“Yes, I told Cassie,” Claire fessed up. “I'd wanted to keep it a secret until after the engagement party, but it's hard to keep extreme nausea that only happens in the morning a secret.”

“You're both pregnant?” Jimena asked, and even though she hardly knew the women she hurried to them for a celebratory hug. It turned into a group hug because Jimena caught onto Reese and pulled her into the mix.

“And are we celebrating your, uh, morning sickness, too?” Claire asked Reese.

Reese shook her head. “Just a rumor.”

Claire shrugged as if disappointed by that. “Oh, well. Maybe one day.”

It almost sounded like some kind of acknowledgment that one day Reese would be part of this family to exchange such news. But the chances of that happening were akin to gelato freezing in hell.

Or Logan wearing her panties.

“So, I heard about your jail adventure,” Claire went on. “I was arrested earlier this year for a fight at the pub.”

Claire looked as sweet as that gelato Reese had just been thinking about, and somehow the arrest gossip hadn't made it to her ears. So, maybe Jimena had been right about the porn thing, too. Maybe gossip in the town was selective.

“And I was committed to the loony bin,” Cassie volunteered.

Reese had heard mention of that but only in whispered tones the way a person would mention yeast infections. In other words, something unpleasant but not serious.

But Reese knew where they were going with this. They were trying to make her feel better about what'd happened. Of course, the difference was neither Cassie nor Claire had a real police record. They were still suitable mates for the McCord men.

Reese wasn't.

“Thanks for being here to let us in,” Cassie told Jimena, and she started to look around. “I haven't been in this place in ages.” Judging from the sound Cassie made, she was seeing something Reese hadn't.

“Over the years, it's been a bookstore, a beauty salon, a jeweler's and a day care,” Claire remarked.

That explained the zombie horses.

“When it was still a day care,” Claire went on, “I used to bring over the lunches from the café. I was a waitress there,” she added to Reese.

Claire was still trying to make her feel part of the group, but Reese felt herself pulling further away.

“Look, what you're doing is nice,” Reese said. “In fact, you're both very nice, but the only reason Logan slept with me at that hotel in San Antonio was because of what happened with Helene. And the only reason I slept with him was because I thought I was dying.”

No surprise whatsoever on their faces. Zilch. And that's the reason Reese looked at Jimena.

Jimena shrugged. “So, I might have mentioned it to them, all right? But for the record, you've been with Logan since then, and it didn't have anything to do with mistaken brain tumors and clown sex.”

No, it hadn't, but that didn't mean it was more than just sex.

“So, you really thought you were going to die?” Cassie asked. She no longer sounded just nice now. She sounded like a therapist.

“I did.” Since Claire and she seemed to be waiting for more, Reese added, “I did a whole bucket-list thing. Ate what I wanted, gave away my money, quit my job.”

“And Logan was on that list?” Claire said.

“A hot cowboy was.” Sheez, Reese suddenly felt like a slut. A hot cowboy—
any
hot cowboy.

“Wow.” Claire again. “So, it was like fate when you met Logan. I mean, what are the odds that you'd be looking for a hot cowboy—which he is—at the exact moment he was nursing a broken heart?”

Cassie nodded. “Logan's not the one-night-stand type.”

Heck, he wasn't the broken-heart type, either, so Reese wasn't going to read much into this. For her own self-preservation, she needed to get her mind on something else.

“Let's look at the rest of the place,” she insisted.

They got moving, but she also heard Jimena whisper to Cassie and Claire. “Reese has a tough time trusting men. Old man-baggage stuff.”

Great. Now they'd moved from bucket lists to man-baggage. With all this revealing going on, she might as well strip down and show them her tattoos.

Cassie made a sound of agreement. “It's hard not to have man-baggage once you're past twenty-one, but all it takes is one good man to help you put that baggage away for good. Did you have to deal with any lingering depression after learning you didn't have a tumor? I mean, did you have survivor's guilt?”

“Yes,” Reese admitted.

Jimena admitted even more. “Reese didn't know the other woman who really did have the tumor, but she was worried she might be a mom or someone who'd be missed.”

Reese was still worried about that.

“That's a natural reaction,” Cassie went on. “But you seem to be handling it well now.”

Reese ignored them and started opening doors. Some contained even more bizarre collections of building memorabilia. White Styrofoam wig heads. Disassembled cribs. The only reason Reese spent even a second glancing at them was so she wouldn't be looking at the other women. Eye contact might just encourage them to keep talking. All she needed to do was finish this tour and then get the heck out of here.

She opened one of the doors and had a serious wow moment.

“It's a kitchen.” Reese went in, her gaze taking in the very high-end appliances.

“That's right,” Cassie said. “About ten years ago, it was a bakery.” She pointed to the sign that was propped up in the corner. Shirley's Sweets. “But it didn't last long. Only a couple of months.”

Claire nodded. “That was the baker from Abilene, but she wasn't very good at business. One day she just up and left.”

“You sure she wasn't murdered?” Reese asked. That got their attention. “I mean, because this isn't the kind of kitchen a baker would just leave behind. There must be twenty grand worth of appliances and equipment in here.”

At the mention of that, all of their shoulders straightened. Because maybe there was a body in the oven. As if to prove that theory wrong—hopefully it was wrong—Reese opened the oven door.

And burst a lung screaming when spiders came scurrying out.

The four of them went scurrying out, too, some faster than others. Claire practically sprinted out of the room.

“Maybe that's why the baker left,” Claire said, shuddering.

Cassie shuddered, too, and Reese was shuddering right along with them. Finally, this was something she had in common with the pair.

But Jimena didn't leave. She squished a few spiders, and as if this were the most mundane part of her morning, she strolled out of the kitchen. “I can clean that out for you if you decide to buy the building,” she offered.

The spiders seemed to be the least of the problems, or maybe they were some kind of omen. Still, Cassie continued to look around as if she hadn't completely gone off the notion of putting her office in here.

“I have an idea,” Cassie finally said. “I could buy the building, and the two of you could rent space from me.”

It took a moment for Reese to realize Cassie was talking to her. “What?”

“You could open a bakery, and Claire could use a couple of these rooms for a photography studio. That'd still leave plenty of room for my office and for the apartments on the second floor,” she added to Jimena. “Which I'd redo, of course. The whole place needs a face-lift.”