She Drives Me Crazy (11 page)

Man, she'd missed Claire.

"Hey, Eve, there's doughnuts on the table." Emma pointed toward the kitchen. "Right through there. If your mama doesn't mind, you can help yourself to one."

Somehow, she got the feeling Eve didn't much care whether Mama minded or not, because she was edging toward the hall before Claire even managed a slight nod of approval. "But don't get sugar all over your leotard!"

The minute they were alone, Claire patted the sofa seat next to her. "Sit. Tell all. What was Johnny doing here? Your lips are red, and oh, my God, is that a hickey? Did something happen between you two? Please tell me you at least brushed your teeth this morning. Why haven't you written for so long? Did you really let Johnny in with your hair looking like that? And when did you cut it? I
love
the color! But start with Johnny."

Emma burst into laughter. Same old Claire…not one moment of hesitation, no shyness, no reserve. Had she ever had another girlfriend who could let ten years drop away with a smile and a hug, and fall right back into a pattern of easy companionship? No, honestly, she didn't think she had.

Claire seemed more than ready to welcome her back to Joyful with open arms. Unlike Johnny…who'd probably only welcome her back with an open zipper, judging by the crazy passion that had erupted between them minutes before. Then he'd push her away again. Same old story.

"It's like I said," she finally replied. "Johnny knew I was stranded without any supplies, so he dropped off a few things."

Claire crossed her arms. "Condoms, handcuffs and silk sheets?"

"Oh, please."

Her friend gave an evil laugh. "Oh, please nothing. Remember who you're talking to. I'm the one you poured your heart out to in your letters after you left town ten years ago."

"My heart was never involved," she said, trying to convince herself as well as Claire.
Just my libido
.

"Bull. Come on, Emma Jean, do you think I don't remember the way you talked about him whenever he'd come home from college that year? Even when you were dating Nick, it was
so
obvious he wasn't the Walker you wanted."

"Ancient history."

"Unexplored opportunity."

Emma gave an unladylike snort. "Oh, it was explored all right. On prom night."

Claire answered with a Cheshire cat grin. "And that's all?"

Feeling heat stain her cheeks, Emma declined to answer.

Claire, of course, saw the truth anyway. "Whoa, girl, you've been back eighteen hours and you're already going at it with the most sought-after bachelor in Joyful."

"We didn't go at it!" Then she thought about Claire's other comment. "Johnny's…sought after?"

"You'd think the single women in this town had never laid eyes on a man before," Claire said with a disgusted snort. "So he's gorgeous, single, a lawyer, good to the poor folk and can get it up five times a night."

"What?"

Claire pointed an index finger. "Gotcha."

"Ha ha." Then she glanced at her own hands, trying to sound completely nonchalant. "Does Johnny…is he involved with someone?"

Claire was courteous enough not to look triumphant at Emma's definite interest in Johnny's romantic status. "There are some women in this town who like to brag. But truthfully, Johnny stays to himself. I think he intentionally stays away from the local man-eaters. Despite what some people might hope, lie's good at avoiding the snare nets and bear traps the women around here set for him." She rolled her eyes. "He sure is talked about, though."

Emma had to ask. "And I'm sure the prom night story is still hanging around out there?"

Nodding, Claire patted her hand in commiseration.

"Am I still referred to as the 'loose-buttoned Frasier girl?'"

Claire stood with a shrug. "Nope. You're the girl who turned Johnny Walker into a bachelor for life." Winking, she called for Eve and walked toward the door. "Everyone thinks you broke his heart as retaliation for what Nick did to you. Then you skipped town."

Shocked, Emma thought about Claire's words. Everyone thought she'd intentionally hurt Johnny to get even with his brother? Even for a gossipy little burg like Joyful, that was pretty darn cruel. "I didn't…"

"I know, honey. I drove you home that night, remember?"

Of course she remembered. Claire had helped Emma back into her pretty pink dress, shielding her protectively from the leers and stares. After telling the gawking seniors to go screw themselves, she'd ordered her date to hand over his car keys. Then she'd driven Emma home and they'd proceeded to get drunk on a bottle of Grandma Emma-jean's blackberry brandy.

Emma still couldn't stand the smell of brandy. Or of blackberries. And she'd never stopped loving Claire.

"Don't worry about it," Claire continued, obviously not noticing Emma's distraction. "Your timing's perfect. Joy-ful's got a whole entire new scandal to whisper about. Strip clubs, porn stars, this little slice of Georgia heaven is feelin' downright corrupted these days."

The wicked sparkle in Claire's eye said she didn't much mind that development. Then what she'd said sunk in. "Porn star? Strip club?"

After calling for Eve again, Claire nodded. "Yep. And I've thought about you every time someone's mentioned the club."

Emma raised a brow. "Do I want to know why you think of me in connection with a strip club?"

"Don't worry, honey," Claire said with a low chuckle. "You're awful cute, but I haven't switched sides. I still prefer to play with the men's team."

Grinning as she understood what Claire meant, Emma joined her at the front door. "
Men's
? As in plural?"

"All right, I admit it. One man's. Singular. My husband, Tim." A quick frown crossed Claire's forehead and she muttered, under her breath, "Or I used to, anyway."

"Used to what?"

To Emma's shock, Claire's face pinkened. She couldn't remember her boisterous friend ever blushing before.

"Never mind. I was thinking of something else."

Though curious, Emma sensed that Claire didn't want to continue the conversation. For the first time, she paused to wonder whether Claire's marriage was entirely wonderful, in spite of having a husband able to live up to a
Cosmo
standard of sexual prowess.

"I'm looking forward to meeting your husband," she said. When Claire's mouth pinched a little tighter, Emma knew she was on to something. She also knew Claire would talk about it when she was good and ready, and Emma wasn't about to push her.

"Now," Emma said, "get back to this whole club thing."

Claire visibly relaxed. "Oh, right, sorry, the club. I think of you because of the site where the place is being built. The billboard just went up yesterday. Before that, we all thought it was a diner or something." She chuckled. "Some diner…I don't see Mayor Boyd or Mrs. Davenport sidling up to the counter at dinnertime ordering Jell-0 shooters or Slippery Nipples, and getting them served by a sex kitten in a thong and pasties."

As usual, a conversation with Claire left her slightly unbalanced. Emma sighed, remembering Claire's tendency to ramble. Getting the scoop from her without taking a bunch of detours into some funny and completely irrelevant stories was like trying to get from Manhattan to JFK during rush hour. Nearly impossible, often darn frustrating, but full of some interesting sights along the way.

Emma went back to the important part. "I still don't get why you associate me with a strip club."

Claire called for her daughter again, "Eve, I said now!"

A loud thumping signaled the little girl's return down the wooden floor of the hall. Eve was either stealing the kitchen table, or dragging her feet big time in protest at the thought of the dreaded ballet lesson.

"Sorry," Claire continued. "I think of you because of where the club's being built. At your grandmother's old place. Remember how we'd go out there at night after football games, and light up bonfires? Lordy, that one time the fire sparked and spread too close to one of the pecan trees, I thought you were gonna bash Nick in the head with a burning log."

Not sure she'd heard her friend correctly, Emma touched her arm. "What are you saying, Claire? What about my grandmother's old place? Are you talking about the orchard?"

Claire groaned when she spied Eve, who looked like a piece of chicken ready for the fryer, all covered with white powder and grease. "Baby, now we're gonna have to go home and change."

"Claire," Emma insisted, "tell me what you mean about Grandma Emmajean's pecan orchard."

Claire turned back to focus on Emma, apparently finally hearing the note of dismay in her voice. Her smile faded as she tilted her head in confusion. "Yes, the orchard." Her voice lowered. "I knew how much you loved the place. So when I found out it was you everyone was talking about in the store yesterday, I knew you couldn't be the porn…
person
building the club. I have to admit, though, I had to wonder why you sold the land."

Sold
? Claire thought the orchard had been sold? Emma grabbed the front door handle for support. "Please, Claire, tell me what you're talking about because I have no idea what you mean."

Claire grabbed her daughter, who looked poised to dart back toward the kitchen. She lifted her to her hip, holding her tight in a silent battle of wills and elbows.

"Well," she finally replied, "the club, Joyful Interludes, is being built right there, on what used to be your grandma's land." She shook her head in sympathy. "Didn't you know, honey? The orchard's been pretty much destroyed."

When Emma saw what they'd done to her grandmother's pecan grove, she began to cry. Each tree missing from the lovely, shady parcel of land was like an ancestor torn from her past. Every piece of lumber on the construction site was a spike through her memories.

She supposed whoever had committed this atrocity had thought they were doing well by leaving several of the trees on the perimeter of the lot untouched. But the very center, where Emma remembered having picnics with her grandmother, had been completely cleared for the building which now stood there.

"Who would do such a thing?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Claire answered, though Emma had been speaking to herself. "Em, did you really know nothing about this?"

Emma shook her head. She remained almost dazed by what she was seeing. "Nothing."

The two of them were sitting in Claire's car, parked just beyond the dirt construction entrance of the pecan grove. Emma had begged her friend to drive her out to the site, needing to see for herself if what Claire said was true. Eve certainly didn't seem to mind missing her dreaded dance lesson.

"But you sold the lot…"

Emma jerked her gaze from the nearly completed building, where once a dozen stately trees had stood, and looked at her friend. "I did
not
sell this property, Claire. I inherited it. I have a copy of my grandmother's will saying it's mine. And I would never,
never
have sold it."

Claire's jaw dropped open. "They stole this lot?"

From the back seat, they both heard little Eve say, "Who stolded a lot? A lot of what? A lot of cookies? I bet it was Courtney Foster, cause she's a bad kicking girl, so she's probably a stealing girl, too."

Emma—whose tears of sadness had begun to dry as a great, thick anger choked her throat—was startled into a half-hysterical laugh. "I don't know who, Evie." She swallowed hard and looked out the windshield at the construction workers busy as frenzied termites destroying something valuable and rare.

She reached for the door handle, the handle of Grandma Emmajean's cane clutched tightly in her grasp.

"But I'm going to find out. Right now."

In his former life as a low-paid grunt on the staff of the District Attorney's office in Atlanta, Johnny had rarely had a Saturday off. Sundays had often been sacrificed, too.

That was one good thing about living in Joyful. There was just enough crime to keep him from going stir-crazy with boredom Monday through Friday. And his weekends finally belonged to him.

"Hey, Walker, you gonna pitch it or jerk off on it?"

Johnny shook his head at Mike Gilmore who stood at home plate, his bat at the ready and a good-natured smirk on his face. They stood on the grassy field at the park by the high school, where he and some buddies met every Saturday for nine innings and some good old-fashioned bullshitting.

Speaking of which… "You telling me
that
works better than spit on a spit ball? Well, I guess you'd know." He gave Mike a chance to figure out what he meant. When a grin broke over the other man's face, Johnny fired a fast ball across home plate.

"Strike three, Mike," the volunteer umpire said.

"Just in time for the seventh inning stretch," Mike said, obviously not caring that he'd struck out. Tossing the bat aside, he headed straight for the cooler of beer inside the dugout.

For Johnny, eleven-thirty was a little early to be hitting the cooler, unless it was for an icy cold bottle of water. He'd already had his fill of that, not only drinking two glasses, but also dunking his head under the sink at his house to try to cool off after his interaction with Emma Jean.

Eighteen hours. She'd been back in town eighteen hours and she'd thrown his entire world off-kilter. How on earth he was going to survive having her here for days…or even weeks…he had no idea. But he had the feeling he was going to be taking a lot of cold showers. Or working off a lot of tension with aggressive ball games in the park.

"Ahh," Mike said as he popped his beer bottle open. "Hair of the dog, just what I need after last night."

Most of the guys on his Saturday baseball team were sticking to the water cooler, like Johnny. But Mike was a twenty-three-year-old bachelor who partied from Friday at 5:00 p.m. until early Monday morning.

The players were an odd mix. Eleven years ago, when he'd gotten out of Joyful to go to college, Johnny would never have pictured days in the park with guys as varied as these. He now counted among his good friends the town's new mortician, the local OB-GYN—he took a lot of bashing, that was sure—and a former class president turned CPA. There were also, of course, some of those fun but disreputable Walkers in the bunch. Like Virg.

Joyful had come a long way in the past decade. He wondered exactly when the wrong side of the tracks had stopped meaning anything in Joyful, at least to his generation. Probably for himself, he conceded with a hint of amusement, it had happened when he'd come back to town with a law degree in tow and a much smaller chip on his shoulder.

"Johnny, your pager's going off," someone called from the dugout as he headed toward the cooler.

As he passed home plate, he saw Tim Deveaux, Claire's husband, straighten up and flip off his catcher's mask. He gave Johnny a thumbs-up for the three up, three down inning, and Johnny attempted a weak smile in return.

Hell, he could barely meet the guy's eye this morning. He couldn't stop wondering what Tim could do that would have made him such prime marriage material, according to that magazine Claire and Emma had read back in high school. It could be anything from knowing how to give a woman an orgasm in public when she was fully clothed—which, to be honest, Johnny
did
—to knowing how to sit through a chick flick without falling asleep—which Johnny did
not
. Some day, when they'd downed a few beers too many at the Junctionville Tavern, Johnny was going to ask the man.

"Hey, I thought this was guys' morning," someone called when a cell phone began to ring from the gym bags piled on the bench. "Phones, pagers, you guys wimping out?"

"Always on call," Johnny explained, reaching for his beeper.

Tim's was the phone ringing. "Just want to make sure Claire can reach me in case there's any problem with the baby."

Johnny hid a laugh. No question about it, belligerent little Eve was the apple of her daddy's eye.

After scanning the message on his alphanumeric pager, his jaw dropped. "Assault with a deadly weapon?" he mumbled, not sure he was reading right. Usually when he was called down to the police station for an arrest, the message read something like, "Mooned old ladies outside

Bingo Hall," or "D&D tipping cows at Able farm," the D&D standing for drunk and disorderly. There were a lot of those types of calls, quite often involving a Walker.

Johnny would show up, do his tap dance around Chief Brady, work out a plea involving an apology and compensation to the cow owner…or the scandalized—but secretly titillated—old ladies. Close book, end of case.

But in the eighteen months he'd been back in Joyful, he'd never seen an assault case that didn't involve two drunks armed only with their fists and too much liquid courage. "Assault with a deadly weapon," he mused again, shaking his head in disbelief. "What's good old Joyless coming to?"

"Did you say assault with a deadly weapon?"

Hearing the note of concern in Tim Deveaux's voice, Johnny dropped his pager into his gym bag and turned around. "Sorry, talking out loud. I just got paged to go down to the police station."

Tim's expression was as worried as his tone. "Claire just called. She needs me to come to the police station right away, too. She and the baby are there. She wouldn't say why."

"I'm sure she's okay…"

"What if this assault was some sicko attacking her or Evie? What if they're hurt?"

Johnny watched the worry on Tim's face segue into near panic. Before the man could go any further visualizing horrendous scenarios involving his family, Johnny put a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down. I'm sure they're fine."

Tim didn't look convinced. "But…"

"If they were hurt, she would be calling from the clinic, or the hospital down in Bradenton." He forced a dry laugh. "Deputy Fred probably got a little bossy with his ticket book. And knowing your Claire, she's down there at the police station raising a ruckus about it."

Tim's stiff stance eased a bit. The explanation made sense, and they both knew it. Given Claire's reputation as a fighter—who'd once, as a teenager, publicly called the members of the town council a bunch of Nazis because they were considering a teen curfew—Johnny could easily picture her complaining to Sheriff Brady about one of his deputies.

"Listen, why don't you hitch a ride with me down to the station. The last thing you need is to get into an accident because you're driving like a maniac. Or to get another speeding ticket from Deputy Fred."

Tim frowned. "Will
you
drive like a maniac?"

Johnny chuckled and led the way to his car. "Yeah. I get to do that whenever I'm paged by the police."

Johnny didn't drive recklessly during the three-mile trip from the park to the station. But he did move fast enough to satisfy Tim, who leaned forward in his seat, a sheen of sweat on his brow as he mumbled under his breath. Johnny thought he caught the words "please be okay."

That got him thinking. About Tim and Claire. Other couples he knew. Even, just a little, himself.

Tim and his wife seemed to epitomize everything the textbooks said marriage ought to be. They were crazy in love, anyone could see that. But it seemed to Johnny that they were a rare breed. Like Virg and Minnie. The exceptions, not the rule.

Most marriages seemed to be more like carefully balanced monogamy zones, where each partner tried to keep cool and faithful, figuring stability was better than being single again. And some…some were worse. His own par-ents' marriage had been a battlefield. His brother's attempt at matrimony had lasted less than a year and had ended in a ton of anger.

All in all, marriage seemed like one risky proposition. Especially for a Walker. Good thing he wasn't interested in it. And he hadn't been, not for a long time.

Oh, sure, he'd thought about it once. About ten years ago. With the girl who'd ripped his heart and his guts out on the very same night he'd finally been sure they'd started something perfect. The night he'd made love to her under the stars. Heard her whispering his name. Watched her beautiful face bathed in moonlight as she looked at him with an emotion he'd incorrectly interpreted as love.

Not love. How could she love him when she'd obviously been in love with Nick? Not only in love, but planning to
marry
him.

"Hell," he muttered, unwilling to even consider the thought of Emma as his sister-in-law. The idea had given him nightmares for months after she'd skipped town. He'd never have been able to survive. Not given the way he'd felt about Emma Jean Frasier from the first time he'd sat in her car with her, smelling her fruity perfume and hearing the husky, sexy note in her voice that all her golden-haired sweetness could never fully hide.

Unfortunately for him, she'd only looked at him as a savior. Someone to lean on. Someone to take care of her.

Seemed like things hadn't changed too much.

"You okay?" Tim asked.

Startled, Johnny yanked his attention away from the painful past and back to the confusing present. At least, it had been confusing since yesterday, when she'd waltzed back into town with her short skirt, short hair and riding a wave of porn rumors.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Tim's frown eased for the first time since he'd answered his cell phone back at the field. "Woman."

Johnny just grunted. Guys always knew. He sure as hell always did, whenever one of his buddies was wearing that sappy, stupid, "who am I and how did I get here?" look that always accompanied a fascination with a new woman.

Of course, Emma Jean wasn't new. She'd owned a chunk of his heart for going on eleven years now.

"If you need to talk.

Johnny briefly thought about asking Tim about the whole eyebrow licking thing, but figured it wasn't the time. Actually, he wasn't sure there was
ever
a good time to ask a guy that kind of question. At least not while they were both sober.

They arrived at the police station, and Tim was opening the car door before Johnny'd even had a chance to put the SUV into Park. Once inside the station, Deputy Fred Willis—who was Johnny's main contact here at the sheriff's office since Johnny and the sheriff loathed each other—nodded from behind the desk. Handing Johnny a police report, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the holding cells. "I don't know any of the details. Sheriff brought 'em in himself."

Typical. No details, probably no proof, just Sheriff Brady throwing his weight around and sticking somebody in a cell for one of his infamous "cooling off periods. Same old routine.

"My wife is here," Tim said, placing his hands flat on the front desk. "She called me. Is she all right? Where is my daughter?"

Willis merely nodded impassively, and jerked his thumb in the same direction. Johnny didn't quite understand. At least not until he pushed open the door and walked toward the holding area.

Inside a locked cell were Claire and Eve Deveaux.

And a fired-up-looking Emma Jean.