Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) (23 page)

Jack rolled the die, which landed on “I like.” We all piled our cards and he read them. “I like mullets” won for true and for funniest.

Jack said, “I refuse to give a token to that one for truth.”

“Whoa, cousin, is your Apache name Cheating Bull now?” Mickey said, straight-faced. “In high school he won a special award from the cheerleaders. ‘The tight end with the tight ass and the nice hair.’”

This caused an uproar. Snowflake opened one eye, but closed it again quickly.

“It’s nice to know my attorney has two advantages to use in my favor every time he enters the courtroom,” Paul said.

Jack smiled and touched of the ends of his hair. Mickey leaned around Paul and patted Jack on the bottom, and we all just laughed harder.

Tamara set two fresh bottles of wine in front of us. “Now that everyone is drunk, we’re breaking out the cheap shit.”

I chose the Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. As I took a slow swallow, Jack’s eyes again sought me out. When I pulled mine away, I stumbled across Collin’s gaze.

He didn’t pretend he wasn’t looking. “You hanging in there, beautiful?”

A silence fell over the group. I lifted my glass in in the air. “Recovery by grape.” As I set the glass down, I saw Tamara glare at Collin.

“Here, here,” Paul said, and lifted his glass toward me.

I smiled, grateful to him.

“Your turn, Standing Hair,” Mickey said.

I looked up and saw he was speaking to me. “Huh?”

Everyone laughed so hard they spewed wine. Jack pretended to pat his bangs. Snowflake stood up and turned around once before lying down again, but not without shooting us a disapproving glance first.

Oh. Standing Hair. I reached up to mine. My bangs felt all right to me. A little stiff, possibly, and fluffy, but standing? “Hardly,” I said.

I rolled the die and got “I don’t think.” Five heads bent to their cards followed by five cards hitting the table in front of me. I picked them up and starting reading them aloud. When I got to, “I don’t think those pictures on the Internet were of me,” I felt heat in my face.

Collin rubbed his hand across his mouth, leaving a straight face behind. “Sure they were. I’d know that sweet ass anywhere.”

The laughter from four people hurt my ears, and I pretended to laugh with them, but I couldn’t. I was too conscious of the fact that Tamara wasn’t laughing. I liked her, and Collin was going to make her hate me when I hadn’t done a thing.

We voted, and Laura got her sixth token and won. Game over, thank goodness. I started to say I was headed up to bed, but Laura beat me to it.

She waved an almost empty wine glass in the air. “Girl time. Boys go smoke cigars and drink boy stuff.”

“Yay!” Tamara shouted. She plunked another bottle of wine in front of us. My bleary eyes couldn’t read the label. It was white, and I was drinking white, so I topped mine off.

Jack rose. “Let’s take a walk, gentlemen.”

Paul, Collin, and Mickey got up, grumbling but good-natured.

As he stood, Mickey asked, “Hey, Standing Hair, did you ever find that little girl you were looking for?”

Heavy silence fell. Everyone turned toward me.

I swallowed. “Not yet. Her mother was murdered in jail, so now the girl’s an orphan. I will find her though, if only Jack Ass will let me look for her.”

Howls around the table. “Jack
Ass?
” Mickey asked.

I sniffed. “I always assumed that was what Jack was short for.”

More peals of laughter. I locked eyes with Jack, and his surprised me. They weren’t angry, they were something like proud. Of me? He was laughing as hard as everyone else.

Mickey nodded. “It was supposed to be a family secret. Seriously, though, about that little girl, you’ll find her, I believe it. Last week, I felt it. That you’re the one.”

Paul said, “So, do you have any leads?”

I looked over at him. I couldn’t read his eyes, but I thought he looked amused.
Don’t write me off as a piece of fluff,
I thought. Others have before, and they learned better.

“I do,” I said.

“Oh?” Mickey raised his eyebrows.

The room around me seemed to shrink, wood-framed windows and backsplashes of rectangular slate moved toward me, butcher block island and Shaker-style cabinets loomed closer, and the waves of gold, rusty brown, blue-gray, and tan in the granite crashed forward. Everything blurred at the edges.

“Ask me when I’ve recovered from this hangover,” I said.

Laura brandished her wine glass. “But we’ve only just started.”

I shook my head and held up four fingers. “This is day three for me.” I looked at my hand and pulled a finger down, amidst snorts and more raucous laughs.

Laura sat down at the head of the table. “Okay, enough of this serious stuff. Y’all go away.” She waved her hand at the guys.

Snowflake followed them, trotting with head and tail up. Someone had her second wind, and believed she was a boy.

“So, Emily,” Laura said. “Tell me more about you. Jack said you work for him?”

“I’m his paralegal in Amarillo.”

“How long have you guys been dating?”

I shook my head vigorously, which was a mistake. The closed-in room listed a little. “Oh no, we’re not together. I just started working for him a week or two ago. I’m here for a client event tomorrow. At Paul’s house.”

Tamara and Laura looked at each other, and Laura’s eyebrow height told me she didn’t believe me while the set of Tamara’s lips suggested I’d answered wrong. Was the boy-girl grouping designed for Laura and Tamara to interrogate me?

“I swear. In fact, I pissed him off so bad earlier this week I thought he was going to fire me. The only reason he didn’t is because he felt sorry for me about what happened, you know, my, um, miscarriage.”

Both women made sympathetic big-eyed faces and tsking noises. Laura reached across the table and put both her hands on mine. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“Thank you.” I needed a new subject. I blurted, “So, Laura, a jockey? What do you ride?”

“Quarter horses.”

“Did you ride Jarhead?”

She grinned. “I sure did. He’s my favorite.”

This interested Tamara, and the conversation took off between her and Laura. I watched the two of them for a little while. They both had on silver and turquoise earrings, and it made me wish I’d worn mine. They would have looked great with my dress. I picked up a pencil from the center of the table and started doodling on a napkin.

Tamara snatched the napkin. “What are you drawing here, Standing Hair?”

My face burned. “Um, I don’t really know. “

She held it up in front of her. “You like the bad boys?”

“What?”

“You’re doodling the gang sign for the East Side Lobos.”

I pointed at the ΣSL I’d drawn. “You know that symbol?”

“Sure, I grew up in Las Cruces, and they were big there.”

“I’ve seen it around here, too,” Laura said.

Tamara cocked her head at me. “How do you know them?”

“The man who took the little girl I’m looking for has a tattoo like this.”

Tamara patted the inside of her left upper arm with her right hand. “Here?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d be willing to bet he’s a Lobo.”

“You’re the first people who’ve recognized it,” I said. “Can I ask you a few more questions?”

“Sure.”

I stood up, unsteady on my feet. I held up my index finger and tried to speak clearly. “One minute. Let me grab the file.”

***

Five minutes later, after I’d finished visiting the potty in my room, I pawed through my laptop bag in the dark, feeling for the Redrope file that my fingers knew by heart. When I found it, I ripped it out, letting the bag fall to the floor at the foot of the bed. I spun around, quick like a cutting horse, in a hurry to get the file back to my new best source of information, Tamara, but I bumped into something very solid in the doorway. Big hands wrapped around my shoulders.

“Whoa there, Em, where’re you off to in such a hurry?”

Collin, too close, blasting booze in my face. The lights in the hallway weren’t on, so I couldn’t see him well, but I’d know him anywhere. He wasn’t all that tall, five foot nine or so, but he made up for it in muscle mass, which I couldn’t miss, as close as he was to me. I wanted to run, but he’d been a friend for years, and I couldn’t duck him. It was rude. I brandished my file.

“Taking this file downstairs to show Tamara,” I said.

“Well, I was taking this upstairs,” he said, slurring his words, thumping his chest, and tilting his head back. The downstairs light was just bright enough to illuminate that wide Collin grin. His eyes were half-mast. “I was looking for you.”

“Me? Why?”

“I can’t quit thinking about how you went and got yourself unhitched. You’ve known I’ve been in love with you since I met you, haven’t you?”

I closed my eyes, mortified. “No, I mean, I kind of thought maybe, but not for sure, and not—”

He wrapped his hand around the back of my head and pulled my forehead against his. I pulled back, to no avail. “You knew. And here you are, and I’m engaged, and . . .” His words dwindled off and his lips landed on mine. I stumbled backwards. My mind was screaming,
No!
but my lips were trapped by his.

Before I could twist away from him, I heard a shriek from the stairway.

“
Pendejo
!” Tamara stood on the top stair, Paul one below her, but towering over her. She snarled, but Paul grinned.

Collin released me and jumped back. I fell on my bottom against the doorframe in the entrance to my room. As I did, I saw Jack from my peripheral vision at the opposite end of the hall. I turned. His lips were set in a hard line. I wanted to run to him.

“Hey, baby,” Collin said.

“Don’t ‘hey baby’ me. I saw you sneak up here after her. “She wrestled something off her left hand, then threw it at Collin. Metal hit the wall and I heard what I knew was her ring fall to the carpet. “I hope you’ve got a ride, asshole. And a place to stay.”

She whirled and ran into Paul, who turned sideways to let her by. Collin took off after Tamara without looking back at me crumpled on the floor.

“Tamara, baby! Tamara, it’s not what you think—” His protests echoed through the house.

Paul stood there, sipping from a cocktail glass, watching them go.

I sat where I’d fallen and put my head on my knees. The file lay on the floor beside me. I scooted it to me, protecting it from God knew what, and wrapped my arms around my legs. Jack’s footsteps thudded in the hall as he walked toward me, and I didn’t look up. I could feel the heat from my face on my thighs, even through my skirt. I sucked in a breath and held it until Jack passed.

Except he didn’t. The boots stopped by my feet. He leaned against the wall and slid down the length of it until he was sitting on the ground beside me.

“You and Collin, are you . . . ?”

“No, never. That whole thing was quite . . . disturbing.”

He grunted and I heard a slosh and a swallow. “So, you okay?” he asked. His voice sounded different than before, and not just because he slurred even worse than Collin. It was gentle. No fending me off. No teasing. Just caring. Warm.

I nodded then realized he couldn’t see me in the dark. “Not really.” I lifted my head just enough to wipe my nose, and when I rubbed my sleeve under it my hands brushed against wet cheeks. I hadn’t even known I was crying again. I swallowed, determined not to let Jack know. “What were you guys drinking, anyway? Collin’s wasted and you sound drunker than him. Not that I’m exactly sober.”

“Mescal tequila shots.” His arm went up and I heard the slosh again. “Mickey’s downstairs puking.”

“Nice.”

Jack scooted his butt closer to mine and put his arm around me. I stiffened, nervous, but that was all he did and I relaxed into him.

I heard the slosh again. “Want some?” he asked.

I guffawed, half laugh, half sob. I lifted my head and reached out. My hand met a bottle. I leaned against the wall, arching my back slightly so I could tilt my head. It tasted like drinking a bottle of my face astringent, not that I had ever tried it, but what I imagined it would taste like. I gasped, and some of the tequila sprayed from my mouth. I giggled. My eyes had adjusted to the light and I looked at my boss’s profile. He had nice lips. A perfect nose. I didn’t know many men who had perfect noses.

“Good stuff,” Jack said.

“Yeah.” I tipped the bottle back again, and this time I did better. The liquid burned my throat and warmed my insides.

“Better stop.” Jack reached for the bottle.

“One more.” I tilted it back and managed another big swallow. Warmth settled over me, and I passed it back to Jack.

We sat side by side for a few minutes. From downstairs we heard the front door slam, heavy footsteps, then Collin’s voice called up the stairs. “Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I crash on your couch?”

Jack groaned softly. “All right.”

“Thanks, man.”

I giggled again, and Jack leaned his face toward mine. I drew a quick breath and held it, my heart hammering. Then I burst out with giggles again. “I think I’m drunk.”

“I think I should tuck you in,” Jack said.

He leaned forward and got up onto his knees with an
oomph
, then turned and used the wall to stand all the way up. He held a hand out to me and pulled me up. I fell into him, giggling again.

I whispered, “Tamara is so mad at Collin,” and laughed more. “He tried to kiss me.” I held up a finger and waggled it in the half-dark. “That was not a very smart move.”

Jack gave a rumbly snort. “Not at all.”

Movement caught my eye. The teenage girl I’d met last weekend at Jack’s office appeared in the stairwell beside Paul, who had never left, it seemed. With the light behind them, the girl’s hairdo was even more impressively large than last time.

“Come
on
, Dad.” She grabbed his arm.

“Stella, you’re such a good girl to give your old man a ride home,” Paul said.

She muttered, but loud enough I could hear her. “Like I ever have a choice.”

I watched the back of Paul’s head as he descended the stairs. I shivered and threw both arms around Jack’s neck. Then I laughed again, nestling there until my mirth tapered off. I kept one arm around his neck and removed the other, standing up straight. “Kay, where’s my bed?” I whispered.