Rhythm and Bluegrass (8 page)

Joe Bob’s hideous FrankenBug, I noticed, had made it through unscathed.

I fished my keys out of my purse and popped open the passenger door. I’d stashed a change of clothes in the FrankenBug after ruining my third pair of pants cleaning out the music hall. I slung the duffel over my shoulder, which was starting to strain under the weight of my purse, my laptop and, now, my gym/overnight bag.

Will approached with one of the men who had huddled in the shelter with his wife and kids. The man was wearing a T-shirt that read
MARSHALL TRUCKING SERVICE
, and he was rubbing the back of his head like he was equal parts embarrassed and dismayed.

“Bonnie, this is Dwayne Disher, Ina Jane’s husband,” Will told me.

Dwayne gave me a little nod. “Ma’am.”

“Near as we can tell, your trailer got knocked over by the light poles, and then the truck sort of used the poles as a ramp as it rolled and parked on top of it.”

“The emergency brake has been on the fritz. Between that and the wind?” Dwayne made a crashing noise, like a little boy playing with accident-prone toy trucks. He grimaced. “I’m real sorry about that, Miss Bonnie.”

I had to clear my throat a few times before I managed a “Not your fault.”

“My boss’ll come out here and help get the truck off of you, but it could take a while,” he said. “And then the boys and I will try to pry open your trailer and get your stuff out.”

“How long could ‘a while’ be?” I asked.

“Few days,” he said, shrugging. “But until my boss comes by and the insurance guy can get a look at this, I’d appreciate it if you left it alone.” A snigger bubbled up from his chest. “’Cause they’re never gonna believe this unless they see it.” He managed to get his twitching lips back under control and gave me a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

I nodded, my head feeling like a puppet’s on a string, as if someone else was running the controls because I sure didn’t know what to do at this point. “Okay, thanks, Dwayne,” I said, my voice weirdly distant.

“Is your boss gonna be pissed at you about this, Dwayne?” Will asked with some concern.

Dwayne made a dismissive grunt. “Hell no. He’s been wantin’ to replace this truck for a while. Insurance will cover it. He might give me a bonus.”

My eyebrows shot up at the sight of Dwayne’s pleased grin. He cleared his throat. “I’m just gonna go check on Ina Jane and the kids.”

With that, Dwayne disappeared into his trailer, which was upright and
not
parked under a small mountain of scrap metal.

“Dwayne’s good at finding the bright side,” Will said, giving my arm a squeeze.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I whispered, not wanting Dwayne or my neighbors to see me having a small meltdown. “I don’t even have a toothbrush!”

“It’s gonna be okay,” he promised. “We’ll figure out a way to get your stuff after Dwayne’s boss moves the truck.”

“But that could be days. Where am I supposed to stay in the meantime?”

He frowned. “I would tell ya to stay in one of the motels in town, but I’m not sure . . . Well, they’re not the safest places. I guess you’re just going to have to go home,” he said brightly. I stomped on his foot. He made an “oof” sound. “Too soon?”

“Yes,” I grumbled.

“But you’re snapped out of your little pity party, so . . .” I stomped on his other foot. “Would you stop doing that?”

“I can still work at the music hall—” A sudden, sickening realization hit me. “Oh my gosh, what if the music hall is damaged?”

“Yes,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

This time he managed to dodge my foot when I lashed out at his shins. “Will, I need to get over there and see.”

“In your pajamas?”

“I left some of the research materials from the library there. I need to know if I have to go make a large apology to Miss Earlene. Really, I just need to make sure it’s okay. And what else am I going to do?” I gestured toward my overturned home and gave Will my very best Disney-princess eyes, which Kelsey insisted were both all-powerful and evil.

“All right,” he sighed, grimacing as he checked the clotted cut on my head. “Get in my truck. I’m not letting you go over there alone. Lord knows what you’d get up to.”

Driving through town, I could see only minor damage—tree limbs down, street lights out. I guessed it was true what people said about trailer parks attracting bad weather, which was kind of cranky of Mother Nature, if you asked me. We arrived at McBride’s, and I was pleased to see that not only was the building whole, but the security lights were on. I breathed a sigh of relief and hopped out of the truck cab.

“Where are you going?” Will demanded, glaring at the building as if he expected an army of armed possums to burst out at any moment.

“I’m going to check the locks. You want to come with me?”

“No,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Just make it quick.”

As I approached the windows, I could see my workstation inside the food counter area, intact and ready for my return. I jiggled all of the door handles to make sure the Quonset hut was secure and I glanced back at Will. Poor Will, who resented a building so much that he hated to get within ten feet of it.

But at the moment, I was too exhausted to explore his myriad issues. I just wanted to find some flat surface somewhere and fall asleep. I slumped back toward the truck, where Will was waiting. I climbed in easily enough, but for some reason, the act of stretching my seat belt across my torso and clicking the metal tab into the buckle was beyond my gross motor skills.

Will gave a frustrated huff and slid across the bench seat, gently taking the seat belt tab from me with one hand and clutching my fingers with the other. He glanced up at my face,
tsk
ing under his breath as he checked the cut on my head again. The metal tab slipped out of his hand as he brushed my hair out of my eyes. All I could do was stare up at his mouth, those soft, pursed lips that he’d pressed against my hair when I was cowering in a dark storm shelter.

And suddenly, those lips were moving closer, pressing against mine and shocking my breath from my body in a muffled “oomph.” My hands flailed out, clutching at his jacket. I pulled him with me as I fell back against the truck door. He grunted as he lost his balance, climbing to his knees on the seat and wrapping my leg around his hip. His tongue slipped into my mouth and I threaded my fingers through his hair.

His hands were everywhere, bending my legs to cradle his hips, cupping my butt to hold me close as he rocked those hips into mine. I didn’t wear a bra to bed, so when Will reached under the thin, damp cotton of my shirt, his cool hands cupped tingling bare flesh. Will was definitely a guy who knew his way around tingling bare flesh.

My breathing became frantic as we struggled out of our damp jackets. Before I could even think about what a bad, irresponsible, stupid idea having post-tornado sex in a truck could be, my hands reached for Will’s belt buckle and tugged. He grinned at me, balancing on his knees to help me manage it. He cupped my face in his hands, accidentally brushing my injured temple with his fingers. I winced, hissing in pain.

The noise seemed to startle Will, making him draw away from me, back across to his side of the truck. He looked so silly, his expression dazed and his pants half-zipped, but I couldn’t find it in me to laugh. He took a deep, steadying breath, hitching up his jeans and starting the truck. “Let’s get home and get you to bed.”

I was afraid to ask him what he meant by that. Had the Red Cross set up some sort of shelter nearby? Maybe he would take me to one of those no-tell motels that secured every other corner in town. I just needed a minute to collect my thoughts, then I would ask him, I told myself. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass window and closed my eyes. Just a minute to think, that was all I needed.

8

In Which I Indulge in Cupcake Therapy

Sunlight, burning red through my eyelids.

I blinked, rolling to my side on the thick, comfy mattress. It was weird that I seemed to be catching a sunbeam right to the face. Usually the trailer didn’t get much early-morning sun.

Wait, the trailer had blown over the night before. And my mattress was nowhere near this comfy. So where the hell was I?

I bolted up in bed, wincing at the sudden strain on my sore back muscles. Huddling in a fetal position in an enclosed space is clearly more strenuous than it seems. I was alone, which was a relief. But I still had no idea who had lent me their bed for the night. Rubbing my eyes, I scanned the room, trying to figure out where Will had dumped me.

I glanced around the room and saw sturdy, clean furniture and plain white walls. The only decoration was a familiar-looking couple posing for an eight-by-ten with a towheaded, bucktoothed little boy. A pennant for Mud Creek High hung over the oak dresser, where I could see a wallet, keys, and a Mud Creek Volunteer Fire Department cap.

I wasn’t wearing pants, I realized as my bare legs rubbed against the soft sheets. Why wasn’t I wearing pants? I was wearing underwear, thank goodness, but the T-shirt I had on wasn’t mine. I glanced down at the emblem on the breast and saw that it was another article from the volunteer fire department. The name over the emblem read
MCBRIDE
.

Holy bad decisions, Batman.

Had I slept with Will? I remembered my raw exhaustion the night before and the unexpected, and disturbingly welcome, make-out session. I could very easily see myself falling into Will’s bed after being kissed like that. Part of my brain was dismayed at the idea that I may have had sex with someone I needed to work with on a semi-daily basis. The other part of my brain was even more dismayed that I could have slept with him and not remembered it. I at least wanted some memories to regret. I slipped out of the bed quietly, changing into the dry clothes in my gym bag. I cringed at my reflection in the tidy little bathroom. While Will had obviously cleaned and bandaged the laceration on my scalp, my hair looked like I’d combed it with an eggbeater. There were dark shadows under my eyes and a bruise on my temple.

For some strange reason (I blamed the head wound), I stashed the T-shirt marked
MCBRIDE
in my bag. As I crept into the sunny living room, I could make out the outline of Will’s body underneath an old maroon-and-white log-cabin-pattern quilt stretched across the couch. Surely if we’d actually had sex, Will would have stayed in the bed. I didn’t snore
that
loudly.

He’d given up his bed and slept on the couch. I smiled down at him fondly, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair and bring the blanket up to his chin.

The nice thing to do, to say thank you, would be to fix him breakfast. But I had things I had to do today. I had to find another place to live. I had to get clothes and basic necessities. I had to figure out how the hell I was going to continue living here in Mud Creek as a scarlet woman.

And frankly, I didn’t want to deal with whatever awkward morning-after conversation was involved when someone who passive-aggressively flirts with you does you a huge favor. And has clearly undressed you at some point. I definitely didn’t want to talk about
that
.

I picked up my bags from the table beside the front door, holding my keys so they wouldn’t jangle. Once I’d cleared Will’s front door, I called Fred, using the towing service card he’d left me. My chubby chum was more than happy to drive me back to the trailer park and gave me permission to drive his loaner long-distance, since I would need to cover some serious mileage to sort out this problem. I stared at my overturned trailer, forlorn and battered under its trucker’s burden, before pulling the FrankenBug onto the highway toward sanity, toward dry clothing, toward Frankfort.

Kelsey Wade’s apartment building was one of those old-school brick monstrosities in which you did not contemplate the level of lead in the paint for your own mental well-being.

Kelsey was my closest friend at the KCT office, which was pretty funny, considering she was one of the most cynical people I knew. I was the warm milk to her whiskey, the Galinda to her Elphaba. I was the glass-half-full to her “I accidentally smashed the effing glass.”

Kelsey was an odd duck. At the office, she was organized, competent, and super prepared. There were times when she seemed ready to conquer the administrative world with a quirk of her pinky. And then her mother would call, or her “boyfriend,” Darrell, would make one of his idiotic observations, and she’d retreat into herself.

Life as the child of a former Miss Lexington who never got over herself was rough. Kelsey never quite lived up to her mom’s standards, and had only recently figured out that trying was pointless. Kelsey was built like one of those old-fashioned Vargas pinup girls—lush curves, long limbs, and a teeny-tiny waist. Despite the fact that she had assets most women, including myself, would pay good money for, her mom had her convinced she had a “weight problem.”

This self-image paradox, combined with Kelsey’s mother pressuring her to marry any man who would take her in “her condition,” was why Kelsey’s apartment was currently home to her underemployed, overjerkfaced “boyfriend,” Darrell. I was forced to put “boyfriend” in quotation marks because my admittedly weak cursing skills couldn’t come up with a name foul enough to accurately quantify him. Sadie called him an ass-clown, but that seemed unfair to both asses and clowns.

Still, the Mayfair had a cozy, college-dorm feeling, especially when I caught sight of Cyrus, one of Kelsey’s adopted nerd-herd buddies, on her hall. Cyrus was one of four software programmers who lived two doors down from Kelsey—Aaron, Cyrus, Wally, and Bud. When they first moved in, they hadn’t quite evolved beyond their grad school lifestyle, living two to a bedroom and playing video games until three in the morning. Kelsey was drawn to that sort of carefree, not-quite-grown-up lifestyle. Her passion for sci-fi and fantasy TV knew no bounds, so she fit right in as their den mother. She cooked for them on occasion and made sure they left the house for fresh air. In return, they secured bootleg copies of obscure British TV shows and fixed her computer when Darrell downloaded multiple viruses while surfing for porn.

Cyrus, a sweet guy with shocking white-blond hair and rimless glasses, was hefting a huge bag from GameStop under his arm and had a smile on his face that was downright frightening.

“New gaming equipment?” I asked, nodding toward the bag.

“Ergonomic floor cushion,” he said. “Now my butt won’t fall asleep on game nights. Victory is within my grasp.”

“Awesome.”

“Here to see Kelsey?” he asked, raising his pale eyebrows. “Good, Darrell’s at it again.”

I sighed. “What is it this time?”

“Kelsey had the ‘gall’ to ask him to contribute some money to their expenses. They’ve had a lot of bills come in, including a Visa card that Kelsey didn’t know she’d applied for. She asked him to get a job. Darrell got all huffy. He said she’s just a nine-to-fiver, and she couldn’t understand how the entrepreneurial mind works. He needs space and freedom to expand his business without silly things like ‘deadlines’ and ‘expectations.’” Cyrus sneered. “He’s being particularly obnoxious about the fact that she bought herself some new clothes. If
they
can afford new clothes, he says,
they
can afford his bills. And his new iPhone.”

“You mean her consignment sale work clothes, which she wears while earning the paycheck that pays for the iPhone?”

Cyrus nodded, a dark look on his face as he unlocked his apartment door. “The boys and I have taken the liberty of e-mailing you a list of the ways we can make his death look like an accident. I believe Sadie would be willing to provide us all with transportation and an alibi.”

I gave him a little salute. I knocked on the door to find the aforementioned “boyfriend” standing before me. Darrell was tall and dark-haired, with an athletic build he’d taken for granted in school, so now he was going soft around the middle. He frowned at me, rolled his eyes, and turned away from the door without a word.

Charmer.

Kelsey, however, bounded from the back bedroom and threw her arms around me. “Sweetie! I’m so glad to see you. What’s going on with your hair? You look all post-traumatic stress. Are you okay?”

“I—”

She gasped. “Oh my God, you didn’t kill that sexy mayor, did you?”

“I—”

“Don’t panic. People make mistakes when they panic and that’s how they get caught. We just have to think this through.”

“Really, Kelsey—”

“We’re going to need shovels and heavy-duty plastic, maybe some lime. And we’ll buy it at different locations all over town. Pay cash. We don’t want a paper trail. And we’ll wear baseball caps to hide our faces from the in-store security cameras.”

“Kelsey, I didn’t kill anybody.”

Kelsey snapped out of planning mode, frowning a little. “Oh, good. But we should probably write all that down, just in case, because I’m pretty sure I had some solid ideas there.”

“Kelsey. Breathe. There was a big storm last night that blew over my trailer. I’m here to get some of my clothes that I stored in your closet. Really, everything is fine.”

“So, no fake alibis and cover-ups,” she huffed, clearly disappointed. “Wait, why are you living in a trailer? And what happened to it?”

“Long story.”

Darrell slunk out of the bedroom in low-slung jeans and the gaudiest Ed Hardy T-shirt I’d ever seen. He didn’t spare either of us a glance as he strolled over to Kelsey’s purse, helped himself to twenty bucks, and walked out the door.

“I’m going to Zach’s,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re gonna be talking business. Don’t wait up.”

I flopped down on the couch, staring up at Kelsey. I couldn’t even make the “would you please” part of my “would you please dump him” face before she told me, “Don’t start.”

Kelsey force-fed me a decent meal—leftover beef pad thai from Golden Palace, thank you very much—and I flopped facedown onto her guest room futon for about twelve hours of sleep. I woke up to hear my ringtone—which Kelsey had apparently changed to a Metallica song while I was sleeping because she knew that drove me crazy—blaring right next to my head.

I slapped at the floor mattress until I managed to close my fingers around my phone. I opened one eye and hit the “Accept” button. “Yello?”

“You took off,” a voice said with a hint of indignation.

Did. Not. Compute.

Clearly, my silence prompted a more thorough opening salvo from my mysterious caller. “You took off, from my house, from my damn bed, without a word. Do you think I let just anyone sleep in my bed?”

“Will?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Unless you got up in the middle of the night and climbed into someone else’s bed.”

I held the phone away from my face and frowned at it.

“Uh, your silence is leaving me with a lot of uncomfortable thinkin’ room,” I heard him say.

I said, “I’m sorry. It was really nice of you to let me stay, but I had so much I needed to sort through and I knew you had to be exhausted. What with the storm duties of the fire department and the stripping me while I slept and all.”

“You could at least have woken me up,” he insisted. “I was a total gentleman. Even after kissing the hell out of you in my truck, I didn’t try anything. I slept on the couch, for goodness’ sake. When I changed you, I didn’t even peek!”

Cue more phone-frowning from me.

He admitted, “Okay, I peeked a little bit.”

“Awesome, and I would imagine that everybody in town knows that you drove me away from the trailer park last night,” I muttered.

“No! Don’t be silly! People have been too worried about storm damage to keep track of you— Okay, yeah, everybody knows,” he admitted. “My neighbor, Rosemarie, saw you sneaking out of my house in the morning and activated the gossip phone tree. But that’s not so bad, right? You might make more friends around town if people think that we’re dating. Not that you have too much trouble in that area, but still.”