She Drives Me Crazy (16 page)

Want. Need. Hunger. Sweetness. Craziness.

Her.

"Are you threatening to bite me?" she whispered, her voice husky and filled with innuendo.

"You never know what a Walker is capable of." He reached up and toyed with the neckline of her dress, unable to resist upping the stakes in this challenging game. He ran his fingertip back and forth. Back and forth. Brushing her skin and pushing the sleeve farther off her shoulder. No bra strap blocked the way. The realization made him hiss out one long breath.

She closed her eyes, then opened them. "Maybe you should be the one who's careful. Because maybe I know how to bite, too."

Oh, wouldn't he love to find out. He'd love her nibbling on his chest. His arms. Using her wicked mouth and her perfect lips and her hot pink tongue and her sharp white teeth on him. Every bit of him. Then he saw the look in her eyes and realized she'd been getting even, paying him back for what he'd said.

"You don't want to start this game with me," he replied, his voice low and intense as he strove for control.

He meant it. Emma Jean was reaching into the fire here, like she never had before. Putting dangerous thoughts in his head. Dangerous, sensual thoughts he had no business thinking. Not here, not now. Certainly not about her.

"Who says it's a game, Johnny?" she whispered, her eyes sparkling with challenge. "Besides, you're the one who started it."

"Yeah, and you'd better be careful I don't finish it."

They both knew what he meant. Both knew that if he tried, he could back her up against the closest tree, and do pretty much whatever he wanted to her. Flip up her dress and take her higher than she'd ever been. The rest of Joyful be damned.

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who held thai power. Because if Emma reached for him, he'd be a goner. At her mercy. Up for anything she wanted, any time she wanted it.

Like now.

He knew she was going to stoke the flames about two seconds before she rose on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down to meet her lips. Her kiss was hot and wet, openmouthed and carnal. Sinful, even, on such a bright, sunshiny day.

And it blew his mind.

She tasted so good. So luscious he had to pull her closer, then tilt his head so he could truly devour her. Their tongues met and tangled in a brief power play until they settled together in a sweet, languorous thrust that both gave and took.

Then, finally, after he'd completely lost his sense of time and place, she pulled away and took a step back. Her chin up, she tried to look steady and calm, but he saw the way her whole body swayed and knew she was as affected as he.

"Maybe
you're
the one who should be careful," she finally said through deeply inhaled breaths. "Because sometimes good little girls do know how to bite back."

Once Claire had decided to make some changes in her life, she didn't waste any time. She was fired up, excited, energetic, feeling like someone who'd just woken up after a long nap.

She'd thrown away her secret stash of chocolate and made an appointment to get a real haircut. Pitching her sweatpants and long T-shirts in the trash, she'd dug out some of her business clothes to see how much weight she'd have to lose—or how big a girdle she'd have to buy—to get back into them. She'd even skipped her favorite soaps two days in a row.

No more soaps. No more 2:00 p.m. chocolate and potato chip binges. No more naptime for baby and mommy. No more shopping trips with flip-flops and ponytails and not one speck of makeup on her face.

No more nights in white cotton nightgowns, lying next to her husband, wondering if he was going to turn off the news, give her a nice peck on the forehead, then roll over to go to sleep. As usual. Or if tonight might actually bring a return of intimacy to her marriage.

Claire was done laying around waiting to see if she was gonna get screwed, literally or figuratively. It was time to take life by the balls and live it again.

"What balls?"

Claire hadn't even realized she'd been muttering aloud until she heard Eve's voice from the back seat of the car.

"Nothin', honey, I was just talking to myself."

Eve shrugged, not asking a million questions for a change. Claire knew why. Her confident, tough little girl was a wee bit nervous about today.

"Mama, are you sure about this day-care stuff?" Eve asked for about the dozenth time since they'd left the house.

"Yep, honey, I'm sure. It's only for three mornings a week. It'll be fun for you."

Eve scowled. "What if Courtney Foster is there?"

"Well, then," Claire said, casting her daughter a stern look in the rearview mirror, "you'll have more chances to try to make friends with her."

She'd contacted a local preschool about getting a spot for Eve in the fall. But in the meantime, she was putting her in her church day-care center three mornings a week, where Eve already knew the teachers and many of the children. Three mornings during which Claire could do whatever she pleased.

It wasn't just good for her, it'd be good for Eve, too. At the very least, it would teach her how to get along with other kids—rather than beating them up—before she started kindergarten.

Eve made a disgusted face. "I don't want to be her friend."

"Hmm…that sounds like another little girl I know. A girl named Angelica," Claire said, knowing Eve's hot button and pushing it.

Her daughter stuck her lip out. "I am not like Angelica on
Rugrats
. She's a bad girl."

Claire caught her daughter's eye again and winked to let her know she was teasing. Eve responded with a giggle, but that spark of devilment remained in her pretty eyes.

Lordy, her daughter was holy terror. And she loved her like mad. She had since the first moment she'd felt her child flutter around in her stomach when she'd been four months pregnant. Claire would miss the munchkin, but Eve would be better—
happier
—if she was raised by a mother who didn't resent everything around her because she hadn't grasped at a chance to do something more with her life.

"Why didn't Daddy come with us today?"

She couldn't tell her daughter the real reason: because Tim didn't know. She, uh, hadn't told him yet. But he'd find out soon enough. It might take him a couple of days before he noticed she wasn't in the house as much. Sooner or later—probably when they ran out of Eve's favorite ice cream and he came griping to Claire about it—he'd figure it out.

She wasn't doing anything wrong. She and Tim had agreed before she ever got pregnant that she'd be a stay-at-home mom for at least the first year or two of their child's life. They'd
never
agreed that she'd become a drone. A quiet, overweight woman whose entire life revolved around her husband's work schedule and her four-year-old's play dates and temper tantrums.

Four
years. Quite long enough. It was time for Claire to do some living outside her nice house on her nice street in her nice town.

She'd tried talking to Tim about it in the past. But every time Claire mentioned going back to work at the newspaper, he came up with a reason why she shouldn't. Okay, so her job with the
Joyful Gazette
hadn't made her much money. And it certainly hadn't been Pulitzer Prize stuff. She'd covered everything from high school football games to garden club fund-raisers. She'd interviewed farmers who grew gourds shaped like Elvis, and local politicians who always said the same thing: "I'm a good ol' boy, vote for me."

But she'd loved working, really loved it. Apparently, Linda Whitaker, her old boss who'd hired Claire right out of high school, had loved her work, too. Because the minute she'd heard Claire's voice on the phone Monday morning, she'd asked her if she was finally ready to come back to work.

The answer was yes. Part-time at first, but definitely yes.

"Mama?"

"Yes, honey," she murmured, smiling at how enthusiastic Linda had been about her return.

"Let's make a deal," Eve said in that singsong voice that Claire knew only too well.

Uh-oh,

"If you don't tell Daddy I acted like Angelica, I won't tell him you said balls."

Claire sucked her lower lip into her mouth and slowly began to shake her head, trying not to laugh. Eve had no idea what Claire had meant, but she'd obviously zeroed right in on the tone and recognized a naughty word when she heard one.

Then she nodded. "Deal."

Eve's smile was decidedly self-satisfied.

God help her, it was definitely time to get back into the workplace. If only so she could get back some of her negotiating skills. Because she was definitely going to need them to raise her precocious daughter.

Contrary to her confident predictions to Johnny about being able to deal with the club issue on her own, Emma needed help. She'd tried going down to the courthouse and looking up the tax records, to no avail. The county workers there were about as fast-paced as everyone else in Joyful. Meaning, they didn't wind up to start their days until about ten minutes before lunchtime. And they mentally called it quits a half hour after they got back.

She imagined prison guards were more helpful and friendly.

To make things even worse, her search for employment hadn't been any more successful. By the time she got back to the house on Friday afternoon, she was tired and annoyed. Frustrated. And still jobless.

"I can't believe nobody in this town is hiring," she muttered aloud as she kicked off her sandals to pad around in bare feet. The smooth, polished oak floor felt cool against her toes, a relief after yet another stifling hot June day.

Since she wasn't sure she'd be able to afford to pay the electric bill next month, she'd been getting by without using the window air conditioners Grandma Emmajean had had installed sometime in the past ten years. Today, however, she couldn't stand it She walked over to the one sticking into the room from the front window and jerked the switch on. Rewarded by a blast of cold air, she closed her eyes and reveled in it, letting it cool off her overheated skin. And her temper.

Emma certainly hadn't expected to land in a permanent job, one suited to her qualifications. There weren't any brokerage houses in Joyful, as far as she knew. But jeez, she couldn't even get work as a bagger at the Joyful Grocery Store!

Of course, she hadn't actually applied there. The mem-ory of the faces of those girls at the checkout counters the day she'd hit town had made her pass by the store. Still, she'd sure tried a number of other places, and had gotten the same odd reactions: either gawking shock, laughter or rudeness.

Apparently everybody in Joyful still thought of her as the rich outsider. Maybe they considered her job hunt a joke. The woman who ran the Let Your Hair Down salon certainly seemed to think so, since she and her clients had laughed uproariously when Emma had tried to apply for the wash-girl position.

With the exception of last year when she was bald, she'd been washing her own hair for a long time. How much skill did it take? Apparently, according to the salon owner, more than Emma possessed. Though, she had laughingly said that if Emma showed up bearing one of her grandma's pecan pies, she might reconsider the matter.

Speaking of which…Emma still hadn't found the recipes. Not that she had time to start baking—or the money to buy the ingredients.

Glancing at the answering machine, she sent up a quick, silent prayer for messages. The red light wasn't blinking…but maybe the bulb was out. Half holding her breath, she punched the play button.

Nothing. Not a single, "We got your application and will let you know when we have an opening." Not even a "Hey, heard you were back in town and look forward to seeing you at the reunion."

Nobody had come knocking on her door bearing muffins or anything else. No calls all week, except for two from Claire. No word from Jimbo Boyd, in spite of her numerous messages.

Emma was beginning to wonder if she'd turned into the invisible woman.

She knew better than to even try turning on her laptop to see if she had any e-mails responding to the resume's she'd sent out. Until the SEC investigation was over with, she and all her former co-workers were on the outs in the financial world. She'd known sending out the resumes had been nothing more than flinging hopeful coins in the World Wide Web fountain, praying her wish would come true.

She had to admit the worst part, what had really been bugging her: no Johnny. She hadn't seen or heard from him since Wednesday when she'd given in to some sadomasochistic impulse and kissed him.

Kissing Johnny always got her into trouble. This time it'd left her shaking, empty and confused for forty-eight hours.

She might not have seen him, but she'd sure heard about him. The women in this town seemed to enjoy talking about their hunky D.A., particularly when Emma was within earshot. She'd overheard two tellers at the bank gossiping about him. The waitresses at the diner, the women at the beauty parlor, they'd all somehow managed to bring up his name whenever Emma was around. It was a wonder nobody came right out and asked if the sex had been any good on prom night.

Uh, yeah, that'd be a big 10-4.

It was her own fault. She figured a bunch of people had to have seen—and gossiped about—the kiss she'd laid on him in the town square.

Laid. Hmm…

No.

Smothering a sigh, she went into the kitchen and got down Grandma Emmajean's coffee can. The pile of bills was still sizeable, mainly because Emma had been downright thrifty this week, living primarily on lettuce and coffee.

Which was why she was about to lose her mind with a craving.

Chocolate
. She needed it. Needed it bad. Needed it now. Sex might have done as. an alternative, but she couldn't guarantee it.

Unfortunately, there was no sex to be had,
Johnny Walker get out of my head
, and no chocolate, either. Nothing. No stale candy bars, no dried out Kisses floating around in the bottom of the candy jar. Not a sticky fudge pop in the freezer or a bottle of Hershey's syrup in the fridge that she could squirt straight into her mouth.

It seemed utterly pathetic to get in her car and drive back downtown for a Baby Ruth bar, but she was seriously considering it. Then she spied the chocolate baking squares up next to the baking powder and vanilla up on a shelf in the pantry.

It'd do.

Grabbing the box, she tore it open and eyed the waxy hunk of black stuff inside. "Chocolate chips," she muttered. "It'll taste like chocolate chips."

Only, it didn't, which she realized after she took one tentative nibble on a corner.
Unsweetened
. "Blech."

Grandma Emmajean had had some sugar left in her pantry when she arrived, but one of the first things Emma had done was to make a pitcher of sweet tea. It'd been pure heaven after drinking the stuff Manhattan called iced tea for ten years. But she'd used up all the sugar. Inside the pantry, however, was a box of sweetener packets. Desperate times…

"What the heck?"

She went to work, and soon discovered that chocolate baking squares coated in sprinkled-on sugar-substitute weren't going to kill her. They definitely weren't orgasmic. They weren't even entirely palatable. But they were cheap, and at hand. And they contained cocoa.

After she finished as much as she could stand of one, though, she still felt…hungry. Ravenous. In need of—
craving
—something. Lousy chocolate hadn't even come
close
to making her feel better. She wasn't sure Godiva would have, either.

"It's the heat," she whispered. This heat was making her itchy and restless and tense. That's all, she just needed to cool off. More sugar wouldn't hurt, either.

She grabbed the pitcher of tea out of the fridge and poured a big cup, filled to the top with ice. The coldness of the glass provided sweet relief to her fingertips, so she lifted it to her face. When the condensation touched her temples it brought instant delight.

Sipping her tea, she returned to the front room, toward the air conditioner. Lord, it was hot. New York City could be stifling in the summer, particularly with millions of tourists everywhere. But Georgia was downright wicked.