by Misty Simon
“Sounds fine to me.” A smile broke out on her face—it was almost frightening. “And when I find the person responsible for this mess, I think I might hand them their own heart on a platter.”
Scary thought, that. But I wasn’t going to dissuade her if that’s what she wanted. I wasn’t too keen on their being another murderer around when we’d had a relatively quite last few months. It had been nice not to have to sneak around to get information on who was dead, and why, for a short while. But apparently my sabbatical was over.
I hoped I could go back to the carefree life sometime soon. And Bella, too. I wasn’t comfortable seeing her as Xena Warrior Princess decked out like the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Chapter Six
When I got home after finding absolutely nothing at Bella’s shop, Ben was still on the couch and still in only his underwear. Lust shot through me this time, thank God. So I jumped on him as soon as I walked past the couch.
It was fantastic. It was stupendous. It almost blew the top of my head right off. And then we fell asleep in each other’s arms in my big mahogany bed.
The next morning I woke up refreshed. I was ready to do battle. Someone was out there with my picture frames, and someone else was out there trying to pin a murder on Bella. I had work to do, though not much time to do it in. The police around here were fine for the occasional theft or domestic violence, but so far they’d needed my help on just about everything else that had gone down over the last several months. I’d had underwear stolen out of my shop by a closet cross dresser, someone had died instead of me, toilet paper and other various paper products had gone missing, a lingerie consultant was strangled with my scarf, and a trumpet player was shot before dying of a heart attack. It was a laundry list of mayhem. And yours truly had helped solve every single one of the mysteries.
I hoped I was up for this one.
And speaking of up, someone wanted to play before we got down to work. I indulged Ben (and myself), then got dressed.
“Shouldn’t you be working on that frame thing?” I asked as I straightened one of my pictures thumb-tacked to the wall. “I’m a little bent over the fact that he, or she, came in and took all my picture frames, leaving me with only a goose egg on the back of my head for my trouble.”
“Still hurts?” he asked, rising from the bed in all his male glory. He didn’t even bother to drag the sheet along with him when he walked across the room, which was fine with me. He rubbed the back of my head in soothing circles, then kissed it to make it feel better. Such a nice guy. Which of course meant I had to be a bad girl. I smiled at him as I tweaked one of his nipples.
He yelped, making me feel bad, which required me to kiss it to make it feel better. He got feisty again at that point. But before he could grab hold of me to throw me back on the bed, I trotted into the bathroom to finish getting ready. On top of everything else I had to do today, the Shoppe wasn’t going to run itself.
In the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror, brushing my hair again because Ben had messed it up when he was being playful. I grabbed my toothbrush out of the holder once I was satisfied all was well with my highlights. I had to move Ben’s hair gel out of the way to get to the holder, then half my tube of toothpaste was gone, and it hadn’t been rolled from the bottom. It was squished in the middle. I can’t tell you how frustrating that was, but I certainly told Ben, in a loud voice, with lots of big words.
He came running in. He’d put some shorts on, so I was only momentarily distracted by his chest, not his dangly parts. With the toothpaste tube still in my hand, the distraction didn’t last long.
“What the hell is this?”
“I thought you were still working on the swearing thing?” he asked, running a hand over the top of his hair. Normally, he used that gel standing in my way to pull it up into little spikes all over his head, but since this was first thing in the morning his hair was lying down for once.
“I wouldn’t bring that up right now if I were you.” Shooting him the beady eye in the mirror, I watched as his grin turned sheepish.
“I didn’t roll the toothpaste, is that the problem?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I thought it might be more than just the toothpaste. “Yes,” I said, instead of telling him I didn’t know if I was ready to have a permanent live-in guest. I had gotten rid of my father several months ago by pawning him off onto his new wife Martha. I didn’t feel that was an option this time.
“I’ll try to remind myself to do it. Can I put a sticky note on the mirror?”
“No.” The thought of sticky notes all over the house had me itching like I had hives. “Just remember, okay?”
“Will do, Sarge!” He even saluted me. Which struck me as funny for some reason, making me giggle. Then he made me giggle harder by digging his fingers into my ribs.
A half hour later we were in the kitchen, where Ben threw some Pop-Tarts into the toaster. He even made coffee while I sat and read the latest information on the frame stealer. Nothing new, really, but they were keeping the story running. Ben had said they hoped to catch the person by not allowing the story to be far from Martha’s Pointers’ minds. (I could say something nasty here about the size of those brains. But I will refrain. Aren’t you proud of me?) Plus, there wasn’t a whole lot else going on in local news except for Trev’s murder.
I opened the paper up to see what else it had to offer on this fine morning while my boyfriend was making me breakfast, after which I would go out to kick some mystery ass. A quarter of page three was taken up by a large black-and-white picture. I started reading under the headline HE’S BACK! HE’S BACK! It was a lot of blah, blah, blah about some returning hero named Jackson, who I didn’t know—until Ben looked over my shoulder and said, “Oh, holy shit!”
****
“Now, Bella, I want you to be calm.” I’d run right over to her house, not trusting this kind of news to the phone. “I have something to tell you, but I don’t want you to freak out on me. Okay?”
After flicking her beautifully done mahogany hair over her shoulder, she gave me a bored expression. “I can’t imagine what you have to say that could make this week any worse.” She ticked things off on her fingers. “I’ve been arrested, I had a dead body in my shop, everyone’s cancelled their appointments, and, to top it all off, I’m on the outs with Jared. The man arrested me, and not in some fun let’s-play-cops-and-robbers way. He’s the only one who ever made me sing in bed, and now it’s over.” She shoved her hands onto her hips. “What else could you possibly have to heap on me that’s worse than that?”
The doorbell rang before I could open my mouth. Bella stomped over into the front entryway like an avenging angel gone to war. She whipped open the door saying, “If you want to sell me something, you have seriously come to the wrong house.”
Whatever else she was going to say got choked up in her throat when she looked up into the face of the man I’d seen in the newspaper on page three. “Bastard!”
“Well, hello there, Bella sweetheart. Long time no see.” He stretched an arm up to the doorjamb, leaning against the wood as if he had all the time in the world.
With roadrunner fastness, she aimed a knee at his crotch, but he deflected her at the last second, chuckling. “Is that any way to great your long-lost husband?”
She snarled, her hands hooked into claws. I stood back to watch the display, like when you can’t keep yourself from watching an accident. It was fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
“And who’s your lovely friend there in the hallway?” He took his own life into his hands when he stepped around Bella and came toward me with his hand outstretched. He stopped a mere foot from me. Instead of offering me his hand to shake, he caressed the side of my face. “You must be Ivy Morris, best friend to my love bunny, and the lucky woman who finally leashed Ben Fallon.” He looked me up and down like a side of beef he was planning on buying to fry up for dinner. Ugh!
“What the hell are you doing he
re?” a male voice said, making my knees weak with relief and my heart happy.
“Ben!” I ran into his arms. I remembered to pull the still snarling Bella behind us at the last moment.
Jackson Stewart, aka The Bastard and Bella’s ex-husband, turned toward the three of us, something burning in his eyes, something I couldn’t identify. It died before I had a chance to study it further.
“Well, if it isn’t Ben. Hey, buddy, I was just talking about you. What a fine woman you seem to have found for yourself.” His smile was barely this side of smarmy.
The problem was, it was still a dazzling smile. When combined with his dark, curly hair and broad shoulders, he cut an impressive figure. If I hadn’t known who he was—and if he hadn’t opened his mouth to speak—I could have seen why Bella had fallen for him all those years ago. He stood about three or four inches above Ben’s six foot, and he was filled out in all the right places. He obviously spent time at the gym and at a beauty parlor. He had some of the neatest, most perfect dark eyebrows I’d ever had the pleasure to see.
But he was still talking. And consequently getting less attractive with every word coming out of his mouth. “I bet she’s quite a handful, but then you always liked the feisty ones, didn’t you? Even in high school you always picked the ones who were a little out there, huh, buddy? Better in the sack, right?”
He made to nudge Ben with his elbow, but Ben backed away, taking us all with him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, buddy.” Ben sneered in a way I hadn’t seen before. There was obviously more going on here than I knew about.
Bella had at least stopped snarling at this point. She pushed me aside to stand right next to Ben, then jammed her hands on her hips. “I want you to get out. I want you to get out now, and I don’t ever want to see you again. You disgust me. I can’t stand to even look at you.”
Bewilderment crossed his previously handsome face. “But Bella honey, Grammy Nin called me and told me you needed looking after. I came down to protect you while I clear your name.” He spread his hands out before him as if in innocence, but even I wasn’t buying it.
“I think you’d better leave,” I said from behind my B and B wall. He wanted feisty, I could give him feisty.
“I’m not going anywhere, fatty, until Bella and I have a chance to talk. Her grandmother said she needed me. I’m staying until I find out why Grammy Nin seems to think Bella’s stepping out on me with some new guy.”
Bella’s horrified gasp echoed mine. Probably for different reasons, though. No way did he think they were still together, or Bella should be faithful to him, after they’d been divorced for so many years. That was most likely the reason for Bella’s gasp, along with being betrayed by her grandmother. Mine, on the other hand, had to do with being called fatty. Who the hell did he think he was?
I was about to say something to that effect when Ben took up for me. “Jackson, you’re going to want to step back and watch yourself. I have no intention of standing around while you insult my girlfriend.”
I got shivers every time I heard that word. I wanted to stroke him for being such a great guy all the way around. I could handle him watching television in his underwear and not rolling the toothpaste tube right when he did things like this.
“Furthermore, it’s obvious you aren’t wanted here, regardless of what Bella’s grandma thinks. You left years ago. Why don’t you do us all a favor now, and do the same this time?”
Bella’s eyes were shining when he finished. I wondered briefly if anyone had really ever stood up to the Bastard for her. I didn’t think Ben and Bella had been very close before I came into town. They’d known each other in high school, maybe even kept in contact if they passed on the street. But I’d bet a set of yummy Tastykakes they’d gotten as close as they were now because yours truly had forced them to be together so often. Which made me feel good, for myself and for Bella.
Jackson, the idiot, continued standing in the doorway shaking his head. “Don’t you think you have enough woman to handle right there? You need a second to take on, now, buddy? I think you better look again, because I’m not going anywhere. Not until I know the little woman is safe and taken care of. I have a duty.”
And he had insanity if he wasn’t picking up on the murderous vibes shooting off Bella with a vengeance. She was quite obviously not a happy camper. Her hands were fisted on her hips, while her chin jutted out with belligerence. “I appreciate the help, Ben, but this walking dildo can’t hear you through the thick wad of crap in his skull.” She turned to face Jackson head on. “You can go on and go now. Get along like a good little doggy. I have nothing to say to you that I haven’t already screamed at your back as I watched you finally drive away out of my life. I don’t know what my grandma was thinking, but I’ll talk with her. I don’t want to see you again, though. If I’m walking down the sidewalk I expect you to cross to the other side of the street.”
“Come on, honey bear,” Jackson said in a wheedling voice. “You don’t really mean it. I know you’ve been waiting all this time for me. You want to go back to the way we were.” The fool man actually stretched out a hand to Bella. I couldn’t figure out if he was delusional or playing a part.
But then she surprised me by taking his hand yet not gnawing it off at the wrist. Her brilliant smile lit up her eyes, creasing the corners. She brought his hand to her face in a smooth gesture. I thought this would be the time of gnawing. Instead, she rubbed his palm against her cheek. I was so stunned I nearly missed the subtle way she was backing him out onto the porch.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said in a sugary voice. “Why don’t you give me a little bit to get myself together, then we’ll see what we will see?”
Well, if that wasn’t vague as anything I’d ever heard, I didn’t know what was.
But he fell for it, continuing to take shuffling steps back as she pressed her body to his, and pressed her advantage. Back, back, back he went until he was completely through the door, out into the crisp clean air of early spring.
And then, during the blink of an eye (I really have to stop doing that because I always miss the good stuff) he was standing on the other side of the wood, probably with his nose squished up and his face tight against the grain. I hoped he acquired a splinter.
The pounding started nearly thirty seconds after she’d slammed the door. He must have been a little more stunned than I had thought. But by that time I was snickering behind my hand. Ben and Bella were grinning so hard I thought their faces might split.
“I’ll call my mother if you don’t walk away now, Jackson.” It was the first time I’d ever heard her use his name. Surprisingly, there was just a whiff of sadness in it. “You don’t want my mother to come up here and light into you, do you?”
After my brief acquaintance with Bella’s mother a few months ago, I knew I wouldn’t want her anywhere near me if she wasn’t happy. Some poor clerk at Cameron’s Classics had gotten the tongue lashing of her life when she’d referred me to the curvy section with a wave of her hand, dismissing me. Apparently Mama Landry wasn’t one for dismissal unless she was the one doing it. The clerk was sent scurrying on her way with scorch marks under her feet.
The sane part of Jackson—if there really was one—must have known the perils of Mama Landry. I could hear him clumping off the porch, yelling he’d be back at a more convenient time.
Chapter Seven
The table was set with exquisite china. Silver candleholders filled with burgundy tapers stood proudly on the polished wood. Sconces provided a soft glow to the scene. A scene ready for a couple to sit down to enjoy a romantic, wonderful dinner. Unfortunately, this was not some great layout for Ben and me; it was a window display down the street from The Masked Shoppe.
I’d never really thought about antiques until I’d moved to Martha’s Point. In the seventies furniture of my father’s house, I never thought about the couch or end tables. Now, I couldn’t seem to think about anything else. Truthfully, it was th
e gorgeous armoire Great-Aunt Gertie had left me that started the whole thing. Closets built into walls had always done it for me as long as I had enough room for my clothes. But since the move to Virginia it was like some obsession had grabbed me. All I wanted were old sideboards and étagères. In fact, I was seriously thinking of asking Ben to take me to this awesome estate sale I’d received a flyer for in the mail. It was in Pennsylvania, which would be a really convenient excuse for us to rent a hotel and get away for the hot-monkey-sex part of our relationship. Mmmmm.
A door banged shut, catching my attention, jerking me out of Ecstasy Land, and thumping me back onto Main Street. Again I was struck by the beauty of the man of about thirty. But he stalked down the sidewalk in front of me, anger radiating off him like the sun. I had really thought he would have left after our little showdown at Bella’s. At least he should have hightailed it out of the area once Bella had told him, in no uncertain terms, that she wanted to have nothing to do with him.
But here he was, striding over the sidewalk as if he owned it. He threw a glare back over his shoulder, and I almost fell over when he directed it my way. Uh-oh.
Then Thelma Boden stepped out of the post office. It was as if a switch was flipped. His eyes widened, a smile broke out across his face, and he sauntered his way over to the lady with light blue hair piled on top of her head in a beehive from the fifties. Her clothes weren’t far in front of the era, either.
Curiosity compelled me to watch as he handled her like she was a movie star. Glad-handed her as if she were the press, and he only wished to spend the day with her. The charm was something I hadn’t seen before, since he had been a bit of a raving lunatic at Bella’s. But I could definitely see how someone would have a hard time resisting him when he turned it on full blast. It was like a different person emerging from the cocoon of his madness.
To say the least, it frightened the hell out of me.
I didn’t want to pass him on my way to the small building housing my store, so I upped my pace to a fast walk. I can move pretty quickly when I need to, though running isn’t really my thing. I would never run unless the devil was on my heels. Even then I might try to just power walk away from him. But I felt a powerful need to book it with Jackson in the vicinity.
