Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (29 page)

“But back to my point about the article, Cat. I don’t want to be a bad influence on the young people of Eternity Springs.”

Cat had already decided not to run the story if Sarah didn’t want it printed. She had no desire to dampen her new friend’s enjoyment of her wedding festivities. However, that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to tease her a little bit first. “You should have thought of that before you ordered your first margarita.”

Sarah wasn’t one to give up easily. “It may have been a bar fight, but it wasn’t a drunken bar fight. At least,
we
weren’t drunk. That has to count for something. The story is not truly newsworthy. I’m certainly not the first bride-to-be to be carted home from her bachelorette party in a squad car.”

“This isn’t exactly a squad car,” Ali pointed out. “It’s a sheriff’s van.”

“A paddy wagon,” Celeste contributed.

Nic sat up a little straighter and adjusted the corset. “You asked for adventure and you got it. I do wish they had let us keep those jumpsuits, however. I look good in orange.”

“Not as good as you look in that outfit,” Zach chimed in from the driver’s seat of the sheriff’s van, where next to him lounged the cause of the contretemps, the black-as-midnight whippet. After Zach confessed that the vet had told him that an overcrowded pound meant a dim future for the animal, the women had refused to leave him behind.

Nic beamed at the compliment. “Thanks, Zach.”

Sarah groaned and buried her face in her hands. “The only saving grace is that Lori wasn’t part of this
mis
adventure. I’d feel terrible if I got my daughter arrested. I swear, I’m going to file police brutality charges against you, Zach. You had no right to send that picture to her and to the guys. Or, for that matter, to deny us our phone call.”

Zach called over his shoulder. “You had your phone call. You spoke to Lori.”

“Only after Cam refused to speak to me.”

“It’s not my fault that your significant others were having too much fun to talk to you.”

“Too much fun? Lori told me they were sitting around a fire pit drinking port and smoking cigars when she called. They call that fun?”

“Not as much fun as getting arrested for brawling, I’m sure,” Nic said, studying the bruise on her fist.

Sarah folded her arms. “What I find inexcusable is that our attorney wouldn’t even talk to us.” She fired a glare at Ali. “How could Mac possibly justify that?”

Ali shrugged. “It’s what he always told our kids. ‘If you ever get arrested, don’t call me.’ ”

“Well, that just stinks.”

“No, our kids needed to know we wouldn’t automatically bail them out of trouble.”

“Oh, come on, Sarah,” Nic said. “You’re not fooling anyone. You enjoyed every minute of it. Admit it.”

Sarah maintained her scowl for another half minute before allowing the smile to spread across her face. “It was a blast. I admit I never dreamed the evening would end the way it did, but what other choice did we have, really?”

“None,” Cat replied.

“Absolutely none,” Nic agreed.

Celeste nodded. “There are some instances, some causes, for which a woman simply must make a stand.”

Ali shifted in her seat, yanking on the hem of her skirt. “I have to agree with Nic. I understand that ladies-sized prisoner jumpsuits aren’t plentiful in that little town, but I wish you’d scored some for our trip home, Sheriff Turner. We could have shipped them back.”

Zach’s gaze flicked up to the rearview mirror. “What? And deny myself the scenery? Being a small-town sheriff should have some perks, don’t you think?”

“You know what you need, don’t you, Zachary?” Celeste asked. “You need to find a nice girl and settle down.”

“Hey, I tried. Right, Nic? Right, Sarah? Right, Ali? Even you turned me down, Celeste.”

“Oh, you scoundrel,” the older woman scoffed.

Zach was on a roll, so he continued, “So, Cat, what’s the deal with you and Davenport? Are you two exclusive?”

Nic began to whistle “I Shot the Sheriff” as Sarah said, “Oh, yeah, I can see Jack putting up with that.”

Ali laughed. “Seriously, Zach. Would you stop in the next town and let us buy some shorts and T-shirts? This skirt is so tight I think my circulation is being cut off. Don’t you think parking your van in front of the local Baptist church so that we were the stars of a public perp walk was punishment enough?”

“Well, Mrs. Timberlake, you tell me. As the spouse of a former federal judge, do you think overnight incarceration in hooker clothes is a usual and ordinary sentence for kicking a man with a lethal weapon?”

“Hooker clothes!” Ali exclaimed. “And what lethal weapon, might I ask?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, those are killer heels. Even your husband agreed when I explained the details to him.”

“You got a real charge out of giving our husbands grief, didn’t you?” Nic observed.

“Busted!” the sheriff replied cheerily. “Ali, we’re only twenty minutes from home. I’ll let you borrow one of my department’s orange jumpsuits if you’d like.”

“You are so kind,” she drily responded.

“We’re going to stop by Sage’s house first, though.”

Celeste said, “Oh, good! We’ll get to see that precious baby.”

“How come?” Nic asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, all is well at the Rafferty house. I spoke with her this morning and she asked me to bring you by. She wants to see you all dressed up.”

“I missed her being with us last night,” Nic said.

“Me, too,” Sarah agreed. “But hey, it’s her fault she had unprotected sex nine months before my wedding.”

A short time later, Zach pulled the sheriff’s department van into the Rafferty drive at Hummingbird Lake. As the women prepared to exit the van, Nic mused,
“Think Zach should put us in handcuffs? That would really be a photo op for your article in the paper, Cat.”

“Not going there,” Zach told them. “That would lead to too many intriguing fantasies about my best friends’ wives, and I’m gonna have a hard enough time as it is.”

Colt Rafferty opened the door with the baby in his arms. Upon seeing his visitors, he made a show of bugging his eyes out. “Okay, as of this moment, I shall entertain not one moment of jealousy for having missed playing Pebble Beach with the guys. Ladies, no wonder you ended up in jail last night. I’ll bet you started a riot!”

“Not exactly,” Cat replied. “It was more of a brawl.”

Zach followed the women inside. “Personally, I think ‘riot’ fits the situation just fine.”

Colt ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. “Okay, then. Well, Sage is out back with Snowdrop. Hot Rod, here, just woke up from his nap.”

“Perfect timing, then,” Nic said.

Sarah asked, “Can I hold him?”

Colt frowned down at her high heels. “I dunno. Sure you won’t trip and fall?”

“I’ll take him,” Celeste said, swooping the baby out of his daddy’s arms. “Colt has a point.”

“Oh, all right.” Sarah glanced at the others and said, “Okay, ladies, let’s strut our stuff for Sage.”

They paraded through the house and out the back door, Sarah leading the way. Then she abruptly stopped, and Cat almost ran into her. When she spied the reason her friend had stopped, she muttered, “Wow.”

The men flanked Sage, their stances wide, arms folded over broad chests. “My oh my, would you look at that,” Ali said. “Isn’t that an impressive collection of beefcake? Imagine how they’d look in leather, like that guy wearing the codpiece.”

Behind Cat, Nic choked. In front of her, Sarah moaned.
Celeste advanced like the queen she was dressed as, offering a regal hello to the men as she took a seat beside the new mother, who was obviously trying not to giggle.

Gabe Callahan spoke first. “What in the world were you thinking?”

Nic’s chin came up. “We attended a mystery dinner and rescued a poor, abused animal. Zach has him. He’s our witness.”

“The dog?”

She shrugged as Mac Timberlake said, “Alison, I’m ninety-five percent certain that your skirt is illegal in ninety-seven percent of the state.”

Ali finger-waved at her husband.

Cam Murphy simply said, “Sarah, you may very well be the death of me.”

The bride-to-be turned toward her fiancé and said, “Honey, you’re home! How was the bachelor party?”

“Well, no one in our party got arrested.”

Sarah beamed a smile. “How boring!”

Jack made an obvious effort to drag his gaze up from Cat’s black fishnet hose and past her cleavage. His eyes were twin blue flames, but he kept his voice casual as he asked, “Are you ready to go, Catherine?”

She knew that look. Knew that tone. The man was furious, but he was also turned on. She vaguely wondered if anyone else noticed as her body responded to his unspoken question. Her reply sounded a little breathless to her own ears as she asked, “Where to?”

“Eagle’s Way.”

Lovely
. Or, so she thought until he doused ice-cold water on her plans by adding, “Your parents have come to visit.”

The last time Jack remembered being this on edge, he’d been scaling a cliff in Afghanistan. This time, though, Cat Blackburn was perched on the tiny rock shelf right beside him.

“Here? They’re really here?” she repeated as he put the SUV he’d driven from the private airstrip outside Gunnison into gear and prepared to leave the Rafferty property. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his tone grim. “Melinda left me a voice mail. I heard a helicopter fly over about forty-five minutes ago.”

“But her message said she and Dad were coming?”

“Yes.”

Cat exhaled a heavy breath. “So, this isn’t an ‘I’ve come to tell you that your father has died’ visit.”

“No.” Jack was sure of that much. Melinda would have warned him if that were the case. She wouldn’t bring George on an “official” visit, either. Still, something was up.

Suddenly, Cat reached out and grabbed his thigh. “You have to take me by my cottage. I need to change.”

“Absolutely.”

“Where do they think we are?”

“I sent a text to both of their phones telling them
we’ve been out of town for wedding-related events for my cousin and that we’d be back around noon.”

She checked the clock on the dashboard. It was quarter to the hour. “Ten to Angel’s Rest. Fifteen from Angel’s Rest to Eagle’s Way. Five minutes to change. We won’t be too late.”

He’d told the Blackburns they’d be there around noon, not an exact time. He had business he intended to take care of with Cat at the cottage, and her parents could wait. Uninvited visitors didn’t get to set the agenda.

At least, not until he took care of his own agenda with his ex-wife.

It didn’t help his mood that she appeared to totally ignore him. It didn’t help his concentration that she drummed her fingers on her thigh, bare but for those amazing hooker hose.

“What on earth do they want?” Cat wondered. “Do you think they came because of the arrest?”

“Yours, or your arsonist?”

“Mine … and he wasn’t
my
arsonist.”

“Whatever. I sincerely doubt your arrest had anything to do with their visit. It wasn’t exactly a high-profile brawl.”

She wrinkled her nose but didn’t argue with him. They lapsed into silence until they approached the bridge over Angel Creek leading into town, at which point Jack cleared his throat and asked, “What character were you supposed to be?”

“Hmm?”

“At the mystery theater. Mac said something about characters and scripts and that’s why you wore costumes.”

Obviously distracted, she said, “Miss Kitty. Nic ordered the costumes.”

Jack blinked and shot her a look. “The madam from
Gunsmoke
?”

“Mmm-hmm. Has Melinda ever visited Eagle’s Way before?”

“No. What does Miss Kitty have to do with steampunk?”

That got her attention, and she frowned at him. “I don’t know. She ordered it because of my name. And I don’t think the show ever came out and said Miss Kitty was a madam. She owned the saloon. Not all saloon girls were whores.”

Jack had never been a fan of westerns, so his knowledge of the genre was limited. He didn’t want to argue with her.

He wanted to peel those stockings off her. “Tug up your skirt a little bit.”

“What?”

“I want to see the garter belt. It has to be a garter belt.”

“For heaven’s sake, Davenport. My mother is waiting at your house!”

He pulled the car to a stop in front of Nightingale Cottage and said words he knew were guaranteed to turn her on. “Let her wait.”

She went still. Jack reached over and slid his hand up her thigh. When his fingers found the tab of the garter, he sucked in a breath past his gritted teeth. “I knew it.”

“Jack …”

“Get inside, Cat.”

The moment the door shut behind them, he pressed her up against the wall. He’d been hungry for her since … well, forever … but it had gone to Level Orange when he got his first look at “Miss Kitty.”

Despite the fact that he’d always considered their sex life to be adventurous, it had never included role-playing
and costumes. Maybe they’d need to change that. When she pulled away from him, backed away from him, crooking her finger while she swished her skirt to flash that blessed black and red garter belt supporting those fishnet hose, he figured that any more adventure would likely kill him.