Divorced, Desperate and Dead (Divorced and Desperate Book 5) (2 page)

“You’ve been divorced over two years,” Kelly said, sounding more and more like their mom. “It’s time you start dating.”

“I date.”

“No.” Kelly looked to see where her daughter was. When she was sure the girl wasn’t in earshot, she said, “You have sex. That’s not dating.”

He frowned. “I thought that counted.” All of a sudden, he felt something tug at his jean leg. He looked down, expecting to see his sister’s toy poodle, Bucko, who for some ungodly reason, thought his leg was a pissing post. But no, this thing was . . . was . . .

“What the hell is that?” he asked, as the thing stood on its back legs.

“That’s Pooch, my new foster dog,” Kelly said and studied the animal trying to climb up his leg. “Wow, he must like you.”

After his sister’s second miscarriage, she’d started fostering dogs, and she tried to push each and every one on him. She knew damn well he wasn’t going to take in a dog, but it was her way of guilting him into making a donation to the Canine Foster program. It worked each and every time, too.

“That’s a dog?” he asked. He’d figured his donations had amounted to the cost of feeding each of the dogs for six months. He was going to get off cheap this time. It couldn’t have a stomach any bigger than a tablespoon.

“Yes it’s a dog. Don’t make fun of him. He has a Napoleon complex.”

“He?” Cary asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe his complex has to do with the pink ribbons.”

“Dogs are color blind. And he was like that when I got him. His name is Pooch,” his sister offered and studied the animal. “This is odd. He doesn’t like
anybody
.”

The thing kept trying to climb up his leg, so Cary reached down, and with one hand scooped it up and held it a foot from his face.

“Be careful,” Kelly said.

“Of what?” he asked. “I’ve seen mosquitoes that scared me more.” The animal had black eyes. He brought the thing closer and a pink tongue came out and lapped him on his nose.

“Oh, my God. He really does like you,” Kelly said. “You should adopt him.”

“No.” He studied the animal closer. “You sure it’s a dog?”

It growled, almost as if insulted by Cary’s comment.

“Yes. And he might be small but he has the attitude of a pit bull. He bit Bucko.”

“Bucko probably pissed on him.”

 “Are you going to let him get away with this?” Beth jumped in. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s using Pooch to change the subject.”

“What subject?” He pretended to be innocent and set the creature down.

Kelly groaned. “You’re right,” she said to Beth, and then glared at him. “Don’t you want someone real? Someone you can actually have a conversation with? Someone you could share more than a few bodily fluids with?”

“I have conversations,” he said, but damn it if he hadn’t thought that same thing three nights ago when Paula, the flight attendant, jumped out of bed five minutes after she’d been screaming out his name, and took off because she had a plane to catch.

“I mean more than heavy panting.”

Cary grinned, ignoring that his sisters’ comments resonated a little too much. “I kind of like heavy panting.” And he did, but . . .

The animal started yanking at his jeans again.

“You won’t even have a relationship with an animal,” Beth said. “Why are we wasting our breath?”

“Because we love him,” Kelly said, glaring up at him from her lounge chair. “Because underneath all of that playboy attitude is a decent guy who deserves to be happy—with a dog. Not all women are like Korine. You have to give love another shot.”

Cary frowned. “No, I don’t. And I’m . . . fine.” He was going to say ‘happy,’ but it wouldn’t slip off his tongue.

Then, because he refused to have this conversation with his two sisters—especially when it involved his ex-wife—he grabbed his phone and looked at the time. It was almost five. “I have to go. See ya.” He turned to leave and almost tripped over the pint-sized dog at his feet. He picked him up and passed him to Beth. “Hold this before I accidentally step on him and make it into a smear on the patio.”

“Oh, hell,” Kelly seethed and snagged her daughter’s water gun.

Cary took off, but right before he made the door, he felt the spray of water on his back. He stopped and turned. “I’ll get you for that.” The spray got him right in the face this time. As he stopped to wipe the water from his face, he saw Bucko at his feet lifting a leg.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

Five minutes later, he drove windows-down, to dry his shirt and pissed-on jeans, toward Mason Road and the abandoned warehouse. He’d met Tommy Fincher, a snitch, here before, but for some reason today, Cary got a bad feeling. He slowed down and looked left to right. If the guy wasn’t exaggerating, he had info on who’d killed Marc Jones, a sixteen-year-old kid, who, after resisting joining the local gang, had taken a bullet in the head.

Cary could still hear the kid’s mother sobbing when he’d knocked on her door with the news last week. She’d already lost Marc’s brother to a gang. And now, if she was right in her suspicions, and he thought she was, Marc had been killed because he refused to get involved. How unfair was that?

While he couldn’t do anything to help Marc, or take away his mother’s grief, he could find the idiot who’d killed him to give the family a little peace.

Cary suspected it was gang related, but couldn’t prove they had been involved—not yet. But damn if he’d stop trying.

The hair on the back of Cary’s neck prickled. He slowed his car down, debating if he should call anyone for backup, like his partner, Danny, at Glencoe Police.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Tommy, the snitch, but he had a big problem with a lot of the guy’s friends.

He turned down another row of warehouses and spotted a couple of teens skateboarding. They shouldn’t be here. Too many bad people hung out here. And on the way out, he’d tell them to take their boards elsewhere.

The next row, he saw Tommy’s old Honda parked at the side of building fifty-six. He stopped thinking about danger to himself and thought of Marc’s mother. The woman deserved peace of mind.

He stopped his SUV and looked around. Only when he didn’t see anyone did he get out of his car. The big metal door to the building stood ajar. He unhooked his holster, so he’d have fast access to his gun. He’d started for the door when he noticed a spray of red on the passenger side window of Tommy’s car.

“Shit,” he seethed, knowing what it was before he glanced down to the see Tommy, a fifty-year-old full-time alcoholic and part-time drug addict, slumped over the wheel of his car, part of his head missing.

Cary’s gut knotted. He drew his gun, and reached for his phone to call it in. Before he got the words out, he heard the roar of an engine. He looked up and saw the black pickup coming right at him. The vehicle had no front license plate, and the driver wore a black ski mask.

Cary dove over Tommy’s car. The pickup missed him, but the bullet didn’t.

• • •

“No.” Chloe Sanders said without looking at her friend, Sheri Thompson, who power-walked beside her. The view of the quaint storefronts of Old Town Hoke’s Bluff, Texas—one of which belonged to her—lining the streets usually made her regular Sunday morning, five-mile exercising regiment enjoyable. But not with Sheri beside her, trying to interfere in her life.

Chloe didn’t need interference. She could make a mess of her life all by herself. She’d proven that when she’d let Jerry slip an engagement ring on her finger. Oh, it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea at the time, but a year later, a week before the wedding and . . .

“Look, Dan’s good-looking and a nice guy. A cop. Detective Dan Henderson. Even his name’s hot. He might even be willing to help you out with a couple of those parking tickets.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Sheri asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

Chloe looked up at the flashing sign attached to the street corner light pole as it started counting down the seconds. Ten, nine, eight . . .

Time was ticking. She picked up the pace, swinging her elbows and feeling her blood zing.

“It’s not him, it’s me,” Chloe said, attempting to make the street before the “Do not walk” message appeared.

Sheri moved in step beside her. “You must be confused. That’s a break-up line. I’m trying to fix you up.”

Sometimes Chloe was certain Sheri had gone into the wrong career. The job of graphic designer/PR specialist didn’t require bullheadedness, and if her friend excelled at anything, it was being headstrong. “And I’m telling you no.”

“It’s been a year.”

Blast it! The sign flashed red a foot before she reached it. Time was ticking. A year, and sometimes it seemed like yesterday. Heck, she still had two wedding gifts to mail back—not that it was her fault. Her mother’s old neighbor and Jerry’s great aunt hadn’t answered her email request for the return addresses.

“I know exactly how long it’s been,” Chloe said, frowning at the “Do Not Walk” sign. Had Sheri, Amber, her assistant manager, and her mom held some kind of intervention and forgotten to invite her? Why was everyone suddenly worried about Chloe’s non-dating status? Trying to keep up her heart rate—though this conversation was getting it up all on its own—she commenced to walking in place.

Sheri did the same, her feet tapping against the sidewalk. “I know you’re still hurting but—”

Hurting?
Chloe stopped moving and stared at her best friend, who she loved more than books—and she really loved her books—but at times the girl could drive her bat-shit crazy. “What I am is pissed. And I’m getting this close to being super pissed at everyone else who thinks I need a man in my life. I’m happy.”

“You’re not happy. I see it in your eyes. You’re twenty-eight, Chloe. You should be dating, having sex, enjoying life.”

“I’m enjoying myself just fine. I have the Sweet Tooth Bakery, my friends, my family, my cat, my writing when I get back to it, and a fine piece of machinery that gives me better orgasms than Jerry ever did.” And the reason she could name them off so quickly was because she’d had this same talk with herself just that morning.

Sheri stopped walking, stared, and proceeded to burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Chloe asked.

“You’ve got a Bob?”

“A Bob?”

“A battery operated boyfriend?”

Chloe made a face. Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have told Sheri everything. “There’s nothing wrong with a Bob,” she spouted in self-defense.

“I agree,” Sheri said, still chuckling. “I just never thought you, Miss I-write-children’s-books-and-bake-cupcakes-for-a-living would get one, and if you did, I never thought you’d tell anyone.”

Chloe made a face. First, she hadn’t been able to write in over a year. Second . . . “I didn’t tell anyone. I told you. And if you repeat it to a soul, I’ll tell everyone you . . .” She paused trying to think of something Sheri didn’t want leaked out. And it wasn’t easy. Sheri, a preacher’s daughter, her dark hair sporting streaks of pink for about three months, was pretty much an open book. Chloe had to mentally go back twelve years before finding one of Sheri’s secrets. “I’ll tell everyone you and Harry Bucklesmith went skinny dipping in the baptism tank.”

“Oh, that’s low,” Sheri said, but laughed. “You already vowed to never tell that.”

“And that shows you how serious I am,” Chloe said. “Bob is my secret.”

The green sign beeped and they crossed the street, picking up their pace.

“I’m serious, too,” Sheri said. “You need to start dating. Bobs aren’t as good as the real thing.”

“Then you haven’t met my Bob,” Chloe said and giggled. They zipped past a mom with a baby in a stroller and a five- or six-year-old girl wearing all pink, holding the woman’s hand.

Chloe couldn’t help but think that not so long ago, she’d wanted that. Marriage. Two kids. A home. But Jerry had killed those dreams.

“What about cuddling? Bobs don’t cuddle. And they suck at pillow talk.”

Chloe couldn’t deny it. She missed cuddling and pillow talk. “I told you I’m fine.” They almost got to another crosswalk. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven . . .

“If you believe that, then you’re lying to yourself. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t written a new book.”

Six. Five. Four . . . “I’m not lying to anyone. And I’m plotting a book right now,” she said, and inwardly recoiled when the words tasted bitter on her lips. She was
trying
to plot. The fact that it wasn’t getting anywhere was another thing. Oh, hell! Maybe she wasn’t fine. But she was better. She’d stopped blaming herself. And started blaming Jerry.

How could she have been about to marry a man she knew so little about? Easy, she’d trusted her heart. The dang thing had let her down. She wouldn’t trust it again.

Three. Two. One . . .

They got to the street one second too late to make the light. Chloe stopped and drew in a deep breath.

“Lucy, wait!” The scream came behind them.

Suddenly, the little girl in pink shot past Chloe, jumped off the curb and ran into the street.

The sound of an engine roared. Chloe’s gaze shot to the black pickup racing forward. The truck’s driver was looking down as if messing with his phone.

“Stop!” she screamed and darted out in the street to catch the little girl.

Chloe caught the child’s hand and looked up. It felt like time slowed to a crawl. She saw the truck barreling toward them. She saw the blond, pale-skinned driver glance up, shocked. She heard the sound of breaks.

But the truck kept coming.

Chloe pushed the little girl out of the way at the same time the truck swerved, fishtailed. Suddenly, the air felt sucked out of her lungs.

Chloe knew she’d been hit, but oddly it didn’t hurt. She felt herself being propelled into the air and everything went black.

Chapter Two

“Mother fucker!” J.D. ground out, barely stopping before he hit a parked car. Burnt rubber flavored his quick intake of air. As if seeing it in slow motion, he watched the woman land face down on the street. Why the hell had she run out? Then he saw the dazed looking little girl standing a few feet from his truck.