2 On the Nickel (5 page)

I wrung my hands. God, I’d done
it now. I’d made Mama cry. She never cried.

Well, almost never. She’d cried
when Daddy died. I remembered feeling helpless then, too.

Her depth of feeling shook me. While I thought she’d have a reaction to the news, I hadn’t expected this outpouring of
grief for a woman she despised. But she wasn’t faking this. I’d never seen her
so distraught, so vulnerable.

My heart ached for her.
Sympathetic tears brimmed in my eyes. I had to do something. I rose, grabbed
several tissues, and put them in her hand. I patted her cushioned shoulder,
wishing I could do more.

Mama smashed the tissues into a
tight wad in her fisted hand stared out the window. Tears ran down her rouged
cheeks and dripped off her quivering chin.

“I’m so sorry.” I blinked back my
tears, wishing I knew what was wrong. Were her tears a guilty sign? I didn’t
believe it. I couldn’t believe such a thing of my mother, could I?

I heaved in a tremulous breath. “It’s
okay, Mama. Everything will be all right. I’m so sorry to have been the bearer
of bad news.”

Mama stirred to blot her face
with the tissues. Her icy gaze chilled me to my core. “Erica Hodges was a
miserable excuse for a human being. I’m glad that bitch is dead.”

My head recoiled as if I’d been
struck. The stark pain in Mama’s voice knocked me off-balance. I hardly knew
what would come out of her mouth next. Britt’s advice to talk some sense into Mama rang in my ears. “Mama, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.” Mama knocked back
the second shot of whiskey and set the shot glass down with a sharp crack. I
looked twice to make sure the glass was intact. “I don’t care for any supper
tonight,” Mama said. “I want to go to bed now.”

I leaned toward her. “Mama, we
need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk about that
vile woman.” Mama banged her fist on the table, scattering my reading material.
“I hope I never hear her name again.”

I glanced at the digital clock on
the microwave. It was barely five o’clock. Way too early for bed. “I made
spaghetti.”

Mama arched a perfectly drawn
eyebrow. “Boring, normal spaghetti?”

“Thick, homemade, stick to your
ribs spaghetti,” I countered, straightening the stack of whelping literature
that was on the table.

“No, thanks, I’m not hungry.”

Mama wobbled as she stood. Could
be nerves. Could be the booze. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t falling on my
watch. I took her elbow and guided her upstairs to her bedroom.

She halted just over the
threshold, blocking my way. “I can take it from here.” With that, Mama closed
her door firmly in my face.

Her secretive attitude irked me, but Mama had her own way of doing things. I cruised down to my room to check on the cleanup.
The feathers were gone for the most part, and my ruined sheets lined the
inflatable kiddy pool we’d set up for the birth event. Two garbage bags bulged
with the remains of my down comforter and pillows.

Charla walked in with a pillow. “Here,
Mom. Take my extra pillow.”

I’d tried to get her to throw out
that rock hard lump last year, but she refused to part with the pillow because
it smelled just right. “Thanks. Where’s the dog?”

Charla tossed the pillow on the
bed, then posed with her hand on her hip. “Lexy took Madonna for a walk. Lexy
doesn’t get it, Mom. I’m oldest. I get first dibs on the dog.”

The girls were acting normal
again. The universe was on track after all. I managed a tight smile. “I hear
you, dear. She’ll get it right someday. Meanwhile, I could use your help
setting the table.”

Charla rolled her eyes. “How
about if I make blue garlic toast to go with the spaghetti?”

Mama had been teaching the girls
to cook. Adventurously, I might add. After the day I’d had, blue garlic toast
sounded like just the thing. “Sure.”

Charla beat me to the kitchen, not that it was a race, but that was her way. I set the table and captured
Lexy when she returned. “Feed the dog and wash up for dinner, Lex.”

We sat down to eat. Charla
noticed the empty place. “Where’s Grammy?”

Unless I missed my guess, Grammy
was sleeping off two straight shots of whiskey. I cleared my throat. “She’s
resting in her room. She doesn’t want dinner.”

“It’s because you cooked, isn’t
it?” Charla asked.

I wasn’t so calm that flip
remarks about my cooking would just run off my back. “My homemade spaghetti sauce isn’t boring. Skipping dinner was her choice.”

A car door slammed. Madonna woofed. What now? I wondered as I answered the crisp rap at the back door.

My reluctance turned into a broad
smile as I recognized my visitor. Six feet of athletic perfection with
lady-killer brown eyes, strawberry-blond hair, and a smile that could charm the
pants off any woman. I sighed dreamily. Here was my reward for all the strangeness
of today. “Rafe!”

I stepped outside to greet him,
pulling the door shut behind me. Rafe Golden swept me into a wondrous kiss that
had me wishing we were alone and that the night was young.

“Hey, Red. You taste very
Italian,” Rafe murmured against my lips. “My favorite.”

With sincere regret, I broke off
the kiss. “Come on in and have some spaghetti.”

He frowned as if he suddenly remembered another engagement. “You left your car at the club today. Is anything wrong?”

“Well—” I stopped as soon as I started.
How much could I tell him without sounding like a crazy woman? Madonna
scratched at the door and whimpered piteously. “It’s a long story. Why don’t we
eat first?”

“Lead on.” Rafe squared his
shoulders.

Was he bracing for the odd food
that normally graced our table? Or did my whacky family have him worried?
Madonna quivered all over when I opened the door. She nearly licked the skin
off my hand. “It’s okay, Madonna. I’m not leaving you.”

Rafe and the girls exchanged
stilted greetings as I fixed Rafe a plate. I kept hoping the girls would warm
up to Rafe, but they barely tolerated him. To Rafe’s credit, he didn’t blanch
at blue garlic toast or my girls’ frosty welcome.

“Madonna’s traumatized from you
yelling at her earlier,” Charla said when I rejoined them at the table.

“Is not.” Lexy twirled sauce-free
noodles around her fork. “She’s got separation anxiety. That’s what the
whelping literature says about bitches. They attach to one person and become out of sorts if that person isn’t available.”

“Mama, Lexy said the b-word,”
Charla said.

“‘Bitch’ isn’t a bad word.”
Lexy’s pert nose went up in the air. “Breeders use the term to indicate female
dogs.”

I wasn’t crazy about my
thirteen-year-old daughter getting in the habit of using the word “bitch.” Bad
enough that Mama used it to describe Erica. “As an accountant, I’m a fan of
both precision and accuracy. But I agree with Charla. Let’s avoid using that
term.”

Rafe’s plate was empty. “Would
you like some more?” I asked.

He nodded wearily. “Sure. I
didn’t eat all day.”

“Whyever not?” Charla asked,
forgetting for a moment she’d been ignoring him. “Are you on a diet?”

“I don’t eat breakfast, and the
shop was slammed at lunchtime,” Rafe said.

“You had that charitable tournament this afternoon, didn’t you?” I spooned out another generous helping of spaghetti.

“It was a zoo,” Rafe said between
mouthfuls. “In addition to getting the carts out, we had to do the pairings at
the last minute. The organizer was a no-show.”

“Who left you hanging like that?”
I asked. With the blue crusts from my garlic toast, I sopped up the last bit of
red sauce from my plate.

Rafe paused with another forkful
of spaghetti in midair. “Bud Flook. I thought for sure he wouldn’t miss this
event. He’s been planning this tournament for six months.”

How odd. Bud was an avid golfer,
a contemporary of my father’s. We’d golfed with Bud many times over the years. I couldn’t imagine Bud missing a golf tournament for any reason.

Rafe lounged back in his chair
after emptying his plate for the second time. He shot me a pointed glance. “What
happened today?”

I glanced over to see girls were
hanging on our every word. “Didn’t you hear already?”

“Nothing like getting it straight
from the horse’s mouth.” He flushed. “Not that you’re a horse, I didn’t mean that. I meant that you were there so I can get an eyewitness accounting.”

“It was an accident! I swear.” My
hands waved in the air. “No one would have even known we were there if Jonette
hadn’t pushed me. We didn’t mean to fall into the crime scene.”

Three sets of eyes latched on to me. Rafe’s mild amusement vanished. Too late, I realized he’d been asking me about my lousy golf
score. He’d probably been insulted that my score was so high when he’d given me so many free lessons.

“What crime scene?” Lexy stared
at me with doglike fixation.

I swallowed thickly. I might as
well tell them the truth. God knows what they would hear at school tomorrow. “There
was an accident in the church parking lot. The police roped off the entrance to
Trinity Episcopal, so Jonette and I scooted around back to see what had
happened. It wasn’t our fault. In fact, it was downright embarrassing.”

“What have you done, Mama?”
Charla put down her fork.

I started laughing in spite of my
red face. I couldn’t help myself. If anyone was going to be embarrassed by my
behavior, it should be me, not my kids. “Jonette and I were forcibly removed
from an off-limits area in handcuffs. And my black underwear showed through my
ripped shorts. I couldn’t hold my shorts together because of the handcuffs. Then
little Eddie Wagner, I used to babysit him before he grew up to be a cop,
paraded us through the assembled crowd with cuffs on.”

Charla groaned and clapped a hand
to her cheek. “How could you do this to me?”

“You went to jail?” Lexy asked.

I shook my head. “No jail. Only a
few minutes of handcuff time on Main Street.”

Rafe’s narrowed gaze didn’t offer
much hope that he approved of my clandestine activity. Not that I thought he
would approve, but still. How could he blame me for what happened? “It was an accident,”
I reiterated. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“I am never leaving this house
again,” Charla said, her wavy red hair forming a thick curtain over her woeful
brown eyes.

Chapter 4

We rode with the top down. Honeysuckle-scented wind whipped
my shoulder-length hair around my face. The cooler air of twilight had me burrowing deeper into the sumptuous leather seats. Usually a ride in Rafe’s luxurious
convertible had me purring with delight. But each rotation of the tires added
to my unease.

Rafe drove his high-performance car
with single-minded precision. Trouble was, that’s all he was doing. His eyes
stayed on the road, his hands on his side of the wood-grained console. He
hadn’t touched me once.

He had every right to be mad at me. I had behaved like someone half my age. But he’d known I wasn’t suave and sophisticated from
the start. I hadn’t misled him. I stared straight ahead at the headlight beams,
but I was too conscious of the man beside me. What was he thinking? Why didn’t
he say something?

His brooding silence got to me. “I shot a sixty-two today,” I blurted out. “I lost strokes around the green. Those bunkers
were brutal, and me with no sand wedge. The greens kept getting faster and
faster. I couldn’t read a putt to save my life. Good thing I know an excellent
golf teacher.”

Rafe shot me a stern look. “Don’t
think you can distract me with flowery golf talk. How did you end up in
handcuffs?”

I squirmed in my seat. His crazy meter would peg off-scale if I told him I’d been acting on a feeling. Accountants like me went on hard facts, and that was how I operated, for the most part. “I’m not a criminal. I
was curious. I acted on that curiosity and got caught. That’s the whole story.”

Rafe stopped behind my Volvo
sedan in the empty golf course parking lot. “Curious people do not have nine
lives. You can’t claim ignorance. You purposefully put yourself in harm’s way.
Why were you anywhere near a crime scene?”

I shivered at the frosty
disapproval in his voice. Had my impulsive actions opened his eyes to the real me? “Believe me, I have had my fill of crime scenes. At the risk of repeating myself, today’s
incident was an accident.”

Rafe released his seat belt and
leaned against the interior of his door. Though I could reach over and
physically touch him, the emotional gap between us yawned like a fathomless
bunker.

Was he breaking up with me? I waited in agony.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,
Red.” His deep voice rumbled through me.

Was that catch in his voice
concern, pity, or control? My Sampson pride sparked. “I can take care of
myself.”

“Touchy little thing, aren’t you?”

What kind of a sexist remark was
that? A warning voice in my head whispered to tread cautiously, but I’d already
used up today’s patience and tomorrow’s too. “What’s your point?”

Rafe absently fingered the
steering wheel. “Your safety. It’s important to me. It tears me up inside to think of something bad happening to you.”

Oh.

I inhaled slowly and got a thick
dose of male and expensive leather. The potent combination fogged my thoughts.
I’d nearly blown it because I thought he was pulling a Charlie on me. Rafe wasn’t Charlie. He didn’t want to control me. He valued my safety.

Honeyed warmth spread through me. “Thanks. I care about your safety, too.”

There. We’d declared an interest
in each other’s safety. Not exactly a declaration of undying love, but close.
Or at least, I hoped it was. My feelings for Rafe ran deep these days.

Those feelings brought joy and
uncertainty, giddiness and despair. Rafe seemed comfortable in this middle place
between dating and commitment, but I wasn’t so sanguine. I wanted more.

Rafe didn’t talk about his
feelings. He talked about golf and cars. He tolerated my family’s lukewarm
reception of him. His hobby was women, and for all intents and purposes, I was his
current hobby. Not exactly the stuff of lasting commitment.

His gaze warmed. “I know how you can reassure me that you’re okay.”

The pheromone level in the car
spiked abruptly. I fingered my shirt collar, allowing the sudden heat of my
body to escape before it gave me away. Don’t get me wrong. Spontaneity has its
place. But the girls knew what time I left.

“Rain check?” I asked.

He stroked the side of my face,
practically igniting my skin. “Come home with me. It’s early yet.”

The sharp edge of desire jabbed
at my sense of duty. “For you, maybe. I’ve got two kids and a pregnant dog
counting the minutes until I return.”

Need and something much more
primitive flashed across his face. “Kiss me goodnight?”

I slid across the leather seat
and into his open arms. I’d never done it in the front seat of a car, but his
sensual kiss had me thinking there had to be a way.

He blazed a trail of fevered
kisses down the column of my neck. Entranced, I strained upward to meet his touch. Rafe’s passion stirred needs buried deep within me, needs I’d thought to never
again have filled after my divorce. I ran my hands through his hair and held
his precious head close. My heart fluttered wildly.

“You’re driving me crazy,” Rafe murmured against my tingling skin. “You know that, don’t you?”

My senses spiked at the vibration
of lips on skin. I wanted this man. Wanted him in my bed. In my life. For
better or worse. In sickness and in health.

I was vaguely aware he’d spoken. “What?”
My voice sounded husky and full of longing.

“I want more of you,” he said. “We
never have enough time together.”

Time.

We needed it.

I didn’t have it.

With that realization, the fizzle
went out of my sizzle. Adrenaline still pounded through my bloodstream, urging me on. Where, I didn’t know.

The steady pressure from the
center console on my hip bone dictated a shift in my position. I eased back
slightly and banged my elbow on the steering wheel. The sharp pain lent clarity
to my jumbled thoughts.

“There are limits to what I can
give, Rafe,” I said with resignation. “I have responsibilities. My family
depends on me.”

His expression hardened.

My voice sounded cold and exact.
I winced inwardly. Why couldn’t I throw caution to the wind? Why couldn’t I
say, yes, let’s take a cruise together and leave Mama and Charlie to deal with
the girls?

The answer to my questions came to me with startling rapidity. I was trapped in my small-town world, hampered by my view of
what everyone might say, but more importantly, afraid to step out on that plank
all alone and take a chance.

Bottom line, I was a coward.

But I had really good excuses.
The best in the world. Saint Cleo would do anything for her family, but she
wouldn’t grab something she very much wanted because of paralyzing fear.

Wait.

That was the old Cleo.

The new Cleo wasn’t afraid of
living. The new Cleo had a plan, a cool sophisticated plan. Have the hottest,
sexiest affair on record. No emotional entanglements, unless that was what he
wanted as well. And there was the rub. The new Cleo was hardwired to be the old
Cleo, the woman who gave love and expected commitment.

Until Rafe shared more of his
feelings with me, I had to keep my emotional distance from him. Otherwise, I’d
lose everything. My self-respect, my honor, and my heart.

Why didn’t he say something?

I rushed to fill the void. “You
think I don’t want more time with you? You think I don’t want to run off and
have wild sex with you whenever the need strikes? I do. You’re a fever that
complicates my life.”

Oh, God, my hands were waving in
the air like a crazy person’s. I sat on them.

He stilled. “I’m a fever? Like
the flu?”

Crap. I’d shocked him. Better fix
it quick. “Not literally. I don’t think of you and vomiting in the same breath. Not by a long shot. Look, I don’t want to screw this up. And I am feeling pressured
tonight, like I’m on the clock because my family is waiting. Can we continue
this later?”

He hesitated for an eternity of
seconds. I held my breath in the awful silence, wanting the world from him. Was
it a false hope?

“How about Friday night?” he asked.

I exhaled slowly, allowing hope
to sparkle and twirl and dance. This was Wednesday. I could hold my lust for
him in check for two more days. “Friday works for me.”

His dark eyes gleamed. On Friday he would fill all of the sensual promises his kiss had implied. Of that I had no
doubt.

“I’ll pick you up at six. And
Cleo?”

“Yes?” I collected my purse and
fumbled for the door handle.

“Wear the black lace underwear.”

Heat returned to my cheeks
instantly. I wasn’t that easy. The black panties were supposed to be held in
reserve for special occasions. “We’ll see. Thanks for the ride.”

I fanned myself all the way home. Rafe’s kiss lingered on my mind. He wanted me. For some magical, logic-defying reason, he
wanted me, Cleopatra Jones.

The thought made me long for a whole drawer full of black lingerie. Not practical, especially when I was living
on such a tight budget. I had household items I desperately needed. Like new
sheets because the dog ate mine.

I pulled up in my gravel
driveway, wishing we were on even footing. I pushed Rafe out of my mind, and my
thoughts slid around to Mama’s peculiar behavior. Something more was going on
in her life, something she’d chosen to keep secret from me.

The events of the day returned in
a rush as I locked my car. I ticked them off on my fingers.

One, there had been a vehicular
accident at the church. Two, Erica Hodges was dead. Three, Mama had a history
of run-ins with Erica Hodges. Four, on Monday I listened to Mama and Erica
Hodges exchange insults in public. Five, Mama’s whereabouts today were a
mystery and her over-the-top behavior even more of a mystery.

I don’t know what made me look at her Oldsmobile. Honestly, I don’t know why I looked at all. But I did. And then I
wished I’d gone straight inside the house and minded my own business.

The motion-detector light on the
corner of the house had activated when I pulled into the driveway. The parking
pad was now brightly illuminated.

I touched the jagged safety glass
of Mama’s shattered headlight cover. A suffocating sensation tightened my
throat at the large indentation in her not-so-shiny bumper. The hood of her car
mounded in the middle, pushed back from the leading edge. This car had hit something.

Or someone.

Dread charged through my veins,
taking my breath away. Fear clawed at my heart, dragging me down to a place
where I didn’t want to go. Dazed and bewildered, I staggered over to my Volvo
for support. The hood warmed my cold fingers.

This was very, very bad.

Unthinkable.

The pieces of the puzzle resolved
in my head. With each connected piece, the picture became clearer. Mama and
Erica. Rivals and combatants. Mama alive. Erica dead. Mama’s car damaged. Erica
dead.

Even to a rank amateur like me, the evidence pointed to a devastating conclusion. I shook my head in disbelief. This was
Mama I was talking about. She was stubborn, opinionated, and bossy, and those
were her finer qualities.

Stars twinkled in the night sky
overhead. Crickets chirped in the darkness. A light went on in my next-door neighbor’s
kitchen. A diesel pickup truck rumbled past on Main Street. And I stood beside
my mother’s damaged car in my driveway.

Ordinary things. Trivial things

But my life wasn’t ordinary or
trivial any longer.

A cold-blooded killer lived under
my roof.