She's Got the Look (3 page)

“I'm sorry, you have to get it out of here,” the cop said.

The pretty, sad-looking woman at the center of all of this blinked, looking back and forth between them. Then she wrapped her arms around herself, as if needing strength. Needing support.

Needing.

Nick mentally kicked himself. But even as his internal voice told him he was an idiot, he opened his mouth and surprised them all. “Officer,” he said, looking at the younger man, “between the two of us, we could empty this thing and have these ladies on their way within ten minutes. Don't you think?”

The kid flinched, not expecting the response. With a slight shake of his head, Nick stopped any questions and got his point across. They
were
going to do this. If Miller looked out his window, he'd see a cop and a guy helping a lady move in. Not anything unusual in a Southern town known for its hospitality.

Dex might not agree, but Nick's decision was made. He couldn't explain it, couldn't understand it himself, really. But something inside him wouldn't let this haunted-looking woman load her mattress back on that truck and drive away.

She needed help. And he was going to give it to her.

 

V
ANDALIZING A BILLBOARD
to announce to the world that your husband was a cheating scumbag might not be the best way to save a marriage, but it was one hell of a way to end one.

Melody Tanner-Todd—now just Tanner again, thankfully—had discovered that when she'd sought retaliation against her bastard of an ex, who'd slept his way across Atlanta during their marriage. It had been hugely public, hugely satisfying and it had hugely entertained the city's commuting population. It had also cost her nearly everything she owned.

“You mean he gets practically all your money just because you painted some graffiti on a billboard?” said Paige Winston—now Suffolk—sounding shocked and dismayed.

Rosemary and Tanya wore similar looks of disbelief, which probably matched the one that had been on Mel's own face for the past two months—since the day a judge had given her ex most of what she had earned during nineteen years as a model and actress.

“This is unbelievable! The house? The boat? That cheating sack of shit gets it
all?
Gawd, I'm
never
getting married. Vibrators are just as good and they don't come with six-foot-tall walking dicks attached.” Six years might have turned Tanya into a softer-looking, mature woman, but they hadn't done anything to smooth out that ballsy attitude.

Melody had a flash of déjà vu. It'd been almost exactly six years ago that the four of them had been sitting in this same restaurant, with the same watchful owner, at this same table, drinking margaritas out of possibly these same glasses, on the night before her wedding. Her blissful, lovely, elegant wedding that was supposed to be the start of her perfect life.

The perfection had lasted about ten months. Until Melody had started hearing rumors that her devoted husband was devoted to anything with two parted legs. It had taken another three years for her to grasp the scope of Bill's betrayals. But eventually she'd realized that her dentist husband was willing to drill absolutely any woman who opened wide.

“The judge agreed with his lawyer that I'd damaged his professional reputation,” Melody murmured, knowing the others were waiting to hear the rest of the story.

They'd heard bits and pieces, of course. Though they lived several hours away, her friends had been a great source of support—even with only their telephone calls—during the ugly, rancorous split-up. They'd wanted to come to see her, but Melody had put them off, not wanting them to know how bad it was.

Only Tanya, who was a flight attendant and visited Atlanta a lot anyway—and who would never take no for an answer—had ignored her request. She'd shown up at Mel's door one day last May with a bottle of tequila and a big cheesecake. So she knew something about Melody's disgrace. Just like Rosemary knew the most about her unhappiness. And Paige knew the most about her dreams for the future. But none of them knew the
whole
story.

“I know you've all been wanting to hear everything, but I needed a couple of weeks to pull myself together,” Melody said. “I only want to tell the story once. This is the first time all four of us have been together since I got back, so I guess tonight it's time to let it all come out.”

Paige reached across the table and took her hand. Rosemary listened quietly, and Tanya gave her a nod of encouragement.

“So to start, yes, he got almost everything.” She squeezed Paige's fingers. “You know, letting me borrow that furniture to camp out while Rosemary's father had renovations done on the building was a godsend. I
finally
got the stuff the judge said I could take from the house, but up until a week ago, I wasn't sure Bill would let me have even
that
without another battle.”

“I asked you to stay with me,” Rosemary said.

Rosemary's frown emphasized some unusual dark smudges beneath her eyes, and Melody realized just how tired and pale her friend looked. She had to wonder what was up with Rosemary, who was usually very precise about her appearance.

“Or me,” Tanya added.

Yes, they'd all offered. But starting a new life on her own had meant just that.
On her own.
“I know, and thank you. But it was fine. Paige's stuff was all I needed. Thanks again.”

Paige grinned. “You're welcome. It was worth it—that cop looked cute carrying stuff up the stairs in his tight pants.”

Frankly, Melody had been too shaken by the scruffy, bearded stranger in the dingy jeans to pay much attention to the boyish policeman who'd helped them move furniture a couple of weeks ago. She still wondered about the man, who, she had to admit, had come to her aid at a time when she'd nearly been at the end of her rope. Odd, since she'd started out being afraid of him—wondering if Bill had hired someone to stalk her when she saw his car parked around the corner two days in a row.

When she'd actually spoken to him—after she'd so stupidly fallen on the mattress—she'd been taken aback by his smooth, sexy voice. There'd also been something nice about his lean jaw, even though it had been almost hidden by his scraggly beard.

Then there'd been his eyes. During one moment when he was helping carry a table up the stairs, his glasses had slid down briefly, allowing her a glimpse of his brown eyes. Nice. Very nice. She liked brown-eyed men. Maybe because Bill's were green.

Melody had wondered once or twice what had happened to the dangerous-looking stranger who'd been so helpful. He must have accomplished whatever he'd been doing on her street, because she hadn't seen him since that day.

Mel shrugged off her curiosity. “Anyway, like I said, Bill got almost everything.”

Sipping her sweet tea, Rosemary murmured, “I can't believe this, sugar. These things don't happen here in Georgia. All of my friends have lived like queens off their divorce settlements.”

“Atlanta's not Savannah,” Melody replied. “Here, it'd be perfectly understandable for a wife to take retribution against a cheating husband by having that voodoo queen, Lula Mae Dupré, curse him. Or by breading his Southern-fried steak with rat droppings. But Atlanta's different. More…”

“Northern,” Rosemary said with audible disdain.

“They said that, because I painted a billboard advertising Bill's
business,
I hurt him professionally and damaged his ability to practice dentistry. Meaning, I owe him a living for the rest of his rotten life. And oh, how he loves to rub that in. Can you believe he had the balls to come visit me
here?
Just to throw it in my face one more time that he
won.
”

That was the hardest part to swallow. The man could live off her money for a long time. Meanwhile, Melody could be out of funds in as little as two months if she didn't start working fast. Or if she didn't sell her famous peacock-feather lingerie on eBay, which she'd seriously considered.

It'd serve Bill right, the bastard, since he'd tried to get
that
in the divorce settlement, too.

It shouldn't get that bad. Thankfully, she had her photography
hobby
—as Bill had called it—to fall back on. She'd tried to pursue it after the wedding, always having a talent for instinctively knowing how to photograph something—or someone—to make a statement. But Bill had been less than supportive, almost petulant, saying she was wasting her time. Eventually it just hadn't seemed worth the fight and she'd let it go.

Now, though, she had the chance to try again, to prove she was every bit as good behind the camera as she'd been in front of it. She'd already set up her new studio, right downstairs from the small apartment Rosemary's family had rented to her in one of their historic district townhomes. The Chiltons had been wonderfully supportive; Rosemary's brother even arranging for some renovations so she'd have a darkroom. She was all set to begin her new life in Savannah as a photographer.

And a single woman.

That was the silver lining in this whole thing. She was free. Free of everyone for the first time in her life. Free to choose what she wanted—not what her mother or her husband wanted for her. Melody intended to enjoy the hell out of her new life. Not as a kid model with the world watching her every move and a controlling mother on her back. Not the immature, desperate-to-be-wanted-for-herself young woman she'd been before she'd married Bill. Not the wife of an up-and-coming society dentist.

Just Melody. Free, independent and ready to
live,
back here in the only place she'd ever considered home, with the only people she'd ever considered family.

“So,” Paige said, “you never were clear on this. What
exactly
did you do, and how did Bill know
you'd
done it? People vandalize signs all the time. You should have denied it.” A few people looked over. Six years and a husband hadn't done much to quiet Paige's big voice. Or tame her big curls.

Nibbling her lip, Melody shook her head. A thick lock of reddish-brown hair fell across her eye, and she brushed it back, loving the way her new, shorter hairdo felt. She'd chopped half of it off to frame her face in chunky layers that barely touched her shoulders. Returning to her natural auburn color had been an extra perk—another up-yours to her ex. Bill had adored her long hair, which he'd talked her into dyeing blond again after the wedding.

So much for saying he wanted her for who she was, not the model the world knew. Within a month of their marriage, she'd looked just like the twit who'd gushed to
Teen Magazine
that what she most wanted was world peace.

World peace would be great. But right now, she'd settle for a five-figure balance in her money-market account.

“Mel?” Paige prompted. “Why did you admit you did it?”

“I couldn't deny it when I was plastered all over the eleven-o'clock news standing up on the billboard platform with the paint can in my hand,” she said. “Not to mention that the fresh paint was the same Cherry Cordial I'd used to redo the guest room.”

“Cherry Cordial? Gosh, the room must have been so dark,” Paige said, immediately distracted.

“Hush up, I want to hear the rest,” Rosemary said as she tapped a long, pink-tinted nail on the table. “Now, honey, what was it you said that was so damaging to your lesser half?”

Rubbing her eyes wearily, Melody didn't even look at her friends as she explained, “The billboard was directly over his building, by an exit ramp, so it was pretty high profile.”

High profile, indeed. God, she still couldn't believe she'd been so damned furious at Bill that she'd climbed up a rickety scaffold ladder with a paint can in one hand and a thick paintbrush clasped tightly in her teeth.

Being honest with herself, she acknowledged that it hadn't been just his cheating that had driven her to seek revenge. She'd gotten used to the infidelity. Her feelings for Bill had been dead for a long time—she'd just been biding her time, waiting for the opportune moment to hit him with divorce papers. Her lawyer had been looking into ways to separate their money first since she'd been too young and too stupid to demand a prenup.

In that instance, she
should
have listened to her mother.

She'd waited patiently, trusting her lawyer. But finding out
who
Bill had had that last fling with had sent her right out of her mind. Shaking her head, she murmured, “The billboard had this big giant picture of Bill, smiling his phony ‘you can count on me' smile, with the caption ‘Trust Dr. Bill to Drill.'”

Tanya snickered at the cheesiness of it, as Melody had a few years ago when her husband had informed her of the slogan he planned to use in a new ad campaign.

“I wouldn't trust him to clean my litter box,” Paige said. Then she smiled. “Did I tell you about my new cat? He's so—”

“Shh!” Tanya hissed, silencing Paige. Never an easy feat.

“I had planned to wait him out—let him ruin himself,” Melody said. “But that day, I learned from one of our closest friends that Bill had seduced her eighteen-year-old daughter…a kid we'd bought Girl Scout cookies from a few years back. I sort of lost it. So I got what I needed and drove to his office.”

Around them, the cacophony of noise seemed to diminish, as if everyone were waiting for her to continue. A look confirmed a few eavesdroppers. But considering everyone in Atlanta had seen her swinging like a deranged monkey from a billboard, she'd pretty well used up her lifetime supply of embarrassment.

In a low, shaky voice, Paige asked, “What'd you do, Mel?”

Reaching for her glass, she admitted, “I added a few words to his slogan until it read, ‘You can Trust Dr. Bill to Drill…your wives, your daughters and certain barnyard animals.'”