Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series) (9 page)

“Who’s that man who drove you home yesterday?” he asked, not looking up from the notepad.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I was just passing by your house yesterday. I heard about you losing your job and thought maybe you’d want to talk. But by all appearances, I got there too late.”  

He looked away, and I detected a hint of jealousy behind his eyes.

Jealousy that he had no right having, given the fact that we’d broken up months earlier. And that we’d barely dated to begin with.  

“Is that what this is about?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “This is about you going over the speed limit. I’m just making small talk.”

I scoffed.

“Sure you are.”

He waited for me to say more. Waiting on an explanation that I didn’t need to give, and that I wasn’t going to give.

I glanced at his notepad.

“You going to give me that ticket? Or are you just going to hover there?”

He looked at me angrily and scribbled in his notepad some.

“I’ll let you off with a warning,” he said, flipping the leather cover back over.

I knew he wasn’t talking about my speeding.

“You can’t keep acting like this, Raymond,” I said. “It’s not good for anyone.”

I sighed.

“I was honest with you from the start,” I said. “I told you it wasn’t gonna work out. We’re just not meant for each other.”

“There you are again with that mystical bull crap,” he said, that old familiar anger in his voice. “You think me pulling you over is a crock? What you’re saying there about us not being meant for each other… that’s the biggest crock of them all.”

“It’s the truth Raymond.”

“No. The truth is that you’ve never let him go. And you never even gave us a chance. How could you when you still talk to that bastard?”

I shook my head, turning the ignition and starting the truck.  

“Think whatever you like,” I said. “Just don’t stop me like this again.”

I pulled away before he could start shouting at me.

Chapter 21

I’d visited just about every small business in Broken Hearts Junction, but struck out everywhere I went.

Beth Lynn’s mystery man was nowhere to be found.

There were a few guys who matched the description of a short, stocky man with black hair and thick glasses. One of them was a bank teller at the Bank of the High Desert, and another one was an insurance salesman. But neither one of them was
the one
.

I could sense it in my gut.

No. Beth Lynn’s mystery man was still out there, somewhere.

After walking through Ray’s Grocery, where I killed two birds with one stone by scanning the face of every male employee and customer while picking myself up a nice, juicy steak for dinner, I came back to the truck and pulled out my old, worn black matchmaking book from underneath the car seat.

The book, which I hadn’t touched in months, was like a roadmap of the past decade of my life. In it, I had written notes and drawn faces and places that had pertinence to the matches I was trying to make.

Hank watched me while I jotted down a few notes in it by the light of the parking lot street lamps. 

It was important to keep track of where I’d been so I’d know where else I needed to cover. Otherwise, it was easy to go around in circles, not finding anything or anyone.

Just then, my phone rang.

My heart jumped, the way it always did.

And then I was let down, like I always was.

I thought about not answering, but knew she wouldn’t stop calling until I picked up.

I sighed, and held the phone up to my ear.

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“There you are, Loretta,” she said, her voice high pitched and full of enthusiasm.

Shortly after, there was a crash of pots and pans in the background.

“Damn, Page. You’ve got butterfingers tonight,” I heard Morg say in the background.

My mom ignored her husband of two years, and I heard the faucet turn on.

“I was beginning to get worried about you, hon,” she said. “I haven’t heard from you in days.”

“I know,” I said. “Sorry. I’ve just been busy.”

I knew eventually that I’d have to tell her that I’d lost my job, but I was hoping to push that moment off until I absolutely had to. I didn’t need her getting hysterical and then offering that I move in with her and Morg, which is what happened when Jacob left. And which was the last thing I needed to hear right now.

“Too busy to chew the fat with your poor old, decrepit mother?” she asked, laying on the guilt like it was peanut butter on a PB & J.

“That’s an exaggeration if I ever heard one.”

“It’s becoming more and more the truth these days,” she said. “Which you’d know if you ever actually came and visited us.”

I sighed.

It wasn’t like we were at each other’s throats all the time, but like many a mother, mine was often bugging me about things, and then making me feel guilty when I couldn’t or wouldn’t live up to her standards.

Plus, there was the whole religious thing when it came to her. My mother attended the first Presbyterian Church every Sunday, made fried chicken for church picnics, looked after the kids at the church on Wednesday afternoons, and helped out at the soup kitchen on Fridays.

She’d raised me that way, too. But clearly, religion never stuck.

Because I was the type who got fake IDs and snuck into bars at 16, ran away with a boy at 17, and got in the middle of bar fights and drank shameful amounts of whiskey on Sundays in her mid-thirties.

Oh yeah. And had visions that in a matter of speaking, allowed me to see the future.  

Visions that my mother had always said were just the product of an overactive imagination. Even when she saw for herself, firsthand, that they were true.

Morg didn’t just appear in her life by accident.

But despite her disbelief in my abilities, and despite her continuous head-shaking at my life, my mom and I got along surprisingly well. Maybe that thing they say about opposites is true.

“Molly, Gary and the boys are coming over Wednesday night for dinner,” she said, more pots and pans clanging in the background. “We’d love it if you could come over too. It’d be just like old times, the whole family being together again.”

I bit my lip to keep from groaning.

I knew it sounded bad. But I’d already gotten a black eye and lost my job this week.

Seeing my sister Molly would have just added insult to injury.

Molly was older, and she could be a real piece of work, all right. She had all of my mom’s qualities regarding religion and properness, but with a dash of maliciousness added in that really turned her into something special.

We didn’t get along in the least.

She’d married a local real estate developer and had done everything by the book. They had two kids, and she stayed at home and took care of them. Like our mom, she went to church every Sunday, volunteered at the school, and cheered from the sidelines at her boys’ soccer games.

Like I said. She did everything by the book.

And that was probably why I offended her so much.

“Uh, Wednesday you said?” I said, scrambling to think of an excuse in time. “Uh that’s not going to work because—”

“Oh, c’mon, Loretta,” my mom said, cutting me off, her BS detector in full detection mode. “I know you don’t get along with your sister, but it’d mean a lot to me if the two of you would just make the effort from time to time.”

“But—”

“No
buts
about it,” she said. “You both are going to be sitting at my table Wednesday night, even if you make your old decrepit mother come over there and get you.”

I let out a defeated sigh.

If I didn’t show up Wednesday, I knew I’d never hear the end of it from her. There would be weeks and weeks of guilt trips to contend with.

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m bringing wine, even if I’m the only one who’s drinking it. That’s my condition.”

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“If you must,” she said. “Oh, and of course, Raymond’s more than welcome to come along too.”

It was my turn to click my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

“Mom, we broke up months ago.”

“I know,” she said. “But just in case you’re still on friendly terms. I always did like Raymond.”

I put my hand up to my head.

“Raymond’s not coming,” I said. “The only guy that’s coming with me is Hank.”

“Well then, I’ll be sure to have a can of dog food in the house,” she said. “Okay, hon. Jeopardy is starting and I don’t want to miss it. See you Wednesday?”

In the background, I heard Morg say “
Who is Elvis Presley!
” at the top of his lungs.

He squealed after a moment, and I could imagine a fist-pumping had ensued as Alex Trebek confirmed his answer.

I wished to God that I was better at thinking of excuses on my feet than I was.

“Yeah,” I said, in an unenthusiastic tone. “See you then.”

Chapter 22

I felt a pit in my stomach as I pulled up into my driveway.

Even though it was dark, I could see by the light of the porch the note that was pinned to the front door.

The kind of note that I’d gotten used to seeing lately.

I let out a long exhale. And then I got out of the car, grabbed the bag of groceries and made my way up the porch, each step heavy and filled with dread.

I unlocked the door, and read the note.

As expected, it was from Lyle, my landlord.

And, as expected, he hadn’t just dropped by just to say hi.

“If I don’t receive payment in one week’s time, then I will have to ask you to leave.”

The knot in my stomach twisted as I read the words.

I was late on the rent, again. All because Dale was late on getting me my monthly paycheck.
Again
.

The thought of what my mother would say if she saw this note crept into my mind.

Loretta, you’re on a path that can only end in destruction unless you find the Lord,
she’d say. The same words I heard when I busted out of Broken Hearts Junction with Jacob at the age of 17, the same words she said when she found out he’d left me.

“God Damn Dale,” I mumbled, for what felt like the millionth time this week.

The least that bastard could do after firing me was to pay me what he owed.

I looked down at Hank, who was looking up at me, wagging his tail and wanting to get inside the house to his bowl of food.

I pulled the note down, folded it and stuffed it in my pocket.

Wishing that I could stuff my money woes away just as easily, and never revisit them again.

Chapter 23

I didn’t want to do it.

In fact, there was nothing I’d rather
not
do then to go to my former place of employment and ask for money.

But the bottom line was that I needed it and Dale owed it to me. And I wasn’t going to wait for him to send it through the mail, if he even sent it at all.

That was just asking to get an eviction notice.

I pulled up into the parking lot the next morning, feeling sick to my stomach.

I took a deep breath, got out of my truck, and walked through the empty lot. It was just before 11. Early, even for the early drinkers.

But Dale’s old Mustang was there, parked right in front.  

I dug my hands deep into my pockets, skulking across the lot, keeping my head down. I opened the heavy wooden door to The Cupid, and stepped inside.

The jukebox was playing. A strange song that I recognized, having heard it once a long, long time ago, but couldn’t immediately place. Old country twang with long, slow pickings and a familiar wailing voice that I’d heard before.

“
There was blood on the saddle
…
Blood all around…
And a great big puddle
...”

The music was skipping, like somebody had crashed into the machine and knocked it out of place.  

Dale hadn’t turned on the bar’s lights yet, and everything was dark, save for the glow tracks circling the jukebox.

He must have been hiding away in his office.

“You here, Dale?” I said.

I waited for a moment, but there was no answer.

My stomach twisted up in even bigger knots.

What if Dale couldn’t pay me right away? What if he’d already gone and blown my paycheck on buying those flat screens to turn this place into a sports bar? Lyle wasn’t going to give me another chance with the rent. If Dale couldn’t pay me, where was I gonna get the money from?  

Was I going to have to move back in with my mother after all?

Was she right? Was I headed down a path of destruction and ruin?

I sighed, put down my coat on the bar, and fumbled around for the light switch on the near wall.

The dim barroom lights brought the place to life.

A moment later, I was screaming my lungs out.

Chapter 24

Tex Ritter.

That was the voice. The one coming from the jukebox, singing about blood and saddles and puddles of the red stuff.

That was the thought running through my head as I stared down at the man’s body on the saloon floor.

He was lying face down, limp and lifeless. A dark pool spreading out across the floor from under him.

The cause of that sat atop his head.

Old Velma, the mounted ox that had overlooked The Stupid Cupid Saloon for as long as anyone could remember, had fallen from her high perch above the bar.

And had landed square on the man’s head.

She looked out with her big black, vacant ox eyes, and I nearly screamed again in horror.  

I backed away, Tex still skipping on the jukebox.

“Oh..” I said. “Oh my Go—”

Just then, I heard footsteps behind me.

Someone had walked into the bar.

Chapter 25

“Will someone pull the plug on that damn jukebox?”