“Humph,” she muttered. “How can I vote against him if he always runs unopposed?”
Moments later, Dylan stood outside the elementary school building and pulled his mobile phone from his shirt pocket. He briefly debated whether to check in with Dispatch.
The two-man department’s second officer was on duty today, and although Dylan couldn’t have asked for a more dedicated employee, Todd Wilson still had less than a year of experience under his belt.
Also, the rookie could be a bit of a zealot in making sure the town’s citizens adhered to the exact letter of the law, handing out citations to jaywalkers and litterbugs. Wilson sometimes carried a ruler to measure how far drivers had parked from the curb, and then slapped a ticket on their windshields if a quarter of an inch put them in violation.
The young man’s fanatical devotion to the job combined with his clumsy nature often made him the butt of jokes, and the good folks of Cooper’s Place teased the guy mercilessly. Some even compared him to the bumbling deputy from a classic black-and-white television show.
Holding the phone to his ear, Dylan listened as it rang twice before the dispatcher answered.
“Quiet as usual, Chief,” Marjorie Jackson said robotically, as if she’d been expecting his call. After all, he always checked in on the two days off he allowed himself each month. Dylan guessed he’d torn her away from one of the celebrity magazines she read constantly.
“And Wilson?” Dylan inquired.
“He drove the cruiser out to Old Mill Road to monitor for speeders.”
Dylan briefly considered driving out there to tell the officer to stick closer to town, since the area around Old Mill Road had both spotty radio coverage and cell phone dead spots, but he decided against it. The dispatcher had already confirmed nothing was going on.
Traffic was practically nonexistent on Old Mill Road now that the new bypass had opened. Surrounded by cornfields, there was little chance of the young cop finding a speeder or getting into a situation he couldn’t handle.
Exhaling, Dylan stared up at the sky and squinted against the beaming sun. He caught sight of a small dark cloud in the distance as he donned his wire-rimmed aviator shades, and despite the otherwise placid skies, he couldn’t shake the feeling a storm was about to blow into town.
Chapter 3
Lola squirmed behind the wheel of her red Mustang.
After hours on the road, driving to New York City no longer seemed like the brilliant idea it had back in Nashville. Her shoulders ached and her butt had gone numb fifty miles ago.
She should have stopped to stretch at the last rest stop, on the Kentucky-Ohio border, Lola thought, massaging the kink in her neck. Instead she’d blown right past it, still buzzing with excitement over the offer her talent agency had presented to her earlier this morning.
America Live!
Lola stopped rubbing her neck long enough to give her driving arm a hard pinch.
Nope. It wasn’t a dream.
In a few days, she’d actually be filling in as a temporary cohost on America Live! And the producers had indicated the one-day gig would also serve as her audition for a permanent spot on the top-rated morning show.
A smile formed on her lips as she imagined her family, especially her big brother, looking over the rims of their coffee mugs at their television screens Monday morning and seeing her. They’d be shocked, all right.
The same woman they’d cast aside would be looking back at them. Lola grinned harder. Too bad she wouldn’t be able see the looks on their faces.
“Notoriety appears to have worked to your advantage this time,” Jill had told her during the brief call. “This is your shot, Lola. I don’t have to tell you how important it is for you to bring your A game. Look your best and wow that audience,” she’d instructed, before ending the call with a warning. “Don’t screw this up!”
Not a chance, Lola thought.
Erring on the side of caution, she’d opted to drive solo to New York rather than fly. She didn’t want to inadvertently bump someone on a plane and end up falsely accused of beating the crap out of the person. Also, tabloid television shows tended to stake out airports to corner their prey. Now that she was on everybody’s radar, she needed to lie low.
Still, one thing she hadn’t been able to avoid was summer road construction. Her car’s GPS system had instructed her to exit the interstate to follow detours on state and county roads. She stifled a yawn with her fist. Every mile seemed to take her deeper into the rural countryside. At least flanked by miles of Ohio farmland broken up with an occasional one-stoplight town, there was no way for her to find trouble or for trouble to find her.
The sound of her ringtone filled the Mustang’s interior, and Lola snatched the cell phone off the passenger seat. She peeked at the number flashing across the screen and blew out a sigh.
Although it was Friday, she’d managed, while driving through Kentucky, to secure last-minute appointments in the city for an oxygen facial, brow wax and tint, and of course, a fresh manicure. Now she had to somehow persuade NYC’s top stylist to work his cut-and-color magic on her lackluster mane over the weekend, so every head would turn to look at her when she entered the America Live! studio Monday morning.
“Pablo,” Lola crooned into the phone. “I need a huge favor.”
She’d briefly considered using the top-notch beauty team at her sister’s flagship Espresso Sanctuary Spa before leaving Nashville, but she was too pissed at Tia to ask her for anything.
Besides, Pablo and Lola went way back, before he was known by just one name and had opened the exclusive salon with it emblazoned on the front door. She glanced at her split ends in the rearview mirror as she explained what she needed done to her hair.
“You should have called six months ago, babes, because that’s how far in advance I’m booked,” Pablo said, a European accent lacing his words. “I’m only returning your call personally as a courtesy, because we’re friends. However, I’m afraid what my receptionist told you earlier stands.”
The stylist was her friend. That was why she decided to confide in him about her overall career situation and the humiliating way she’d been dumped as the face of Espresso. “So you can see how crucial it is that you do my hair and not relegate me to your assistant.” Lola’s voice cracked as she tried to persuade him to make an exception. “I’ve got a lot riding on this opportunity, Pablo. I need to look my best, which means I need you. Please.”
Long moments of silence ensued. Lola pressed her lips together and stared through the windshield at the endless ribbon of winding road, hoping he’d change his mind.
“Impossible,” Pablo said, finally. “Not only do I not work on weekends, but I’ve been invited to an A-list celebrity party in the Hamptons. I’ll be hanging there all weekend.”
Lola wasn’t giving up. “Nothing is impossible. Like when I insisted on you as my stylist for a magazine shoot, back when you were fresh out of cosmetology school and sweeping hair off Espresso Sanctuary’s floor.”
“I know you helped me out, Lola, but...”
“Not to mention floating you a loan to help you open your first salon in Nashville, when your loan applications were rejected by the both the bank and the small-business administration,” she said. “Remember?”
She heard a sigh at the other end of the phone as she turned the steering wheel sharply to avoid hitting a squirrel that had darted out onto the road.
“Come on, Lola. We’re talking the Hamptons here.”
Lola frowned. She hadn’t wanted to take it there, but he’d left her with no other option. “Be that way, Sherman.” She emphasized his real name.
“You wouldn’t.” Pablo quickly lost his faux accent.
“What? Start a rumor that international stylist to the stars Pablo, who’s led folks to believe he hails from Barce
lona, is really Sherman Meeks from Shelbyville, Tennessee?”
“Don’t you dare!” Pablo shrieked.
“Of course I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said in a syrupy-sweet tone as fake as “Pablo’s” persona. “Besides, I’m sure your A-list friends and high-profile clients already know the real you.”
“All right, you win,” the stylist said in a huff. He rattled off a time on Sunday. “But you’d best be punctual, earlier if possible.”
Lola glanced at the GPS, which estimated her time of arrival. She thanked her friend and assured him she’d be there.
“Good,” Pablo said. “Otherwise, you’ll be out of luck.”
Lola tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat just as the GPS beeped. Here we go again, she thought.
“Accident ahead,” the robotic voice warned. “Detouring to an alternative route.”
Following its directions, Lola exited the state road. She steered the car along winding smaller roads that all seemed to lead deeper into nowhere.
“Turn left onto Old Mill Road.”
She made the turn, and then noticed the gadget had recalculated her arrival time, adding another half hour to her journey. She also noticed a sign warning drivers to be on the lookout for cows in the road. The next sign took the speed limit down to forty-five miles an hour.
“At this rate, it’ll take me a month to get there,” Lola muttered.
Peering through the windshield, she didn’t see any cows. In fact, she hadn’t even encountered any other cars. Just a stretch of two-lane road cutting through acres of cornfields.
She nibbled on her bottom lip and shifted her gaze to the speedometer and then to the GPS’s ever increasing arrival time. A life-changing career opportunity awaited her, and what was she doing? Slowpoking down back roads that looked like a corn maze, Lola thought.
The big toe of her driving foot twitched.
Giving in to the overwhelming impulse to floor it, she pressed the accelerator pedal. The muscle car lunged forward as the powerful engine roared its approval.
“This is more like it,” Lola muttered, steering the car along the deserted road.
She didn’t own a Mustang to drive it like the chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. The GPS took the faster speed into account and shaved ten minutes off her arrival time.
Lola switched on the sound system and the acerbic lyrics of Nicki Minaj poured through the car’s speakers, filling the interior. With the afternoon sun on her face, Lola drummed out the fast, thumping beat with her fingertips against the steering wheel.
She saw the speedometer needle inch toward the seventy-five-miles-an-hour mark and then beyond. She was clocking eighty-five miles an hour when her killjoy of an inner voice reared its head, admonishing her to slow down.
The GPS shaved another twenty minutes off her estimated arrival to Manhattan. Lola scanned the windshield and then checked the side and rearview mirrors. No cows. No cars. Nothing but cornfields and open road. There was absolutely no reason for her not to make up some of the time that detours and delays had cost her.
She cranked up the radio and sang off tune in an off-key attempt to rap along with Nicki about being a badass.
A flash of blue lights caught her eye.
“No, no, no, no,” Lola chanted, hoping it was just her imagination.
The wail of a siren drowned out the music. She spotted a police car in the side mirror, and her stomach did a free fall to the floorboards. She definitely wasn’t imagining it. Maybe he wasn’t after her, Lola thought, taking her foot off the accelerator. She saw a tractor in the distance plodding across a field.
Yeah, right, her inner voice scoffed.
Braking, Lola slowed the car enough to pull over to the side of the road. Her talent agent’s warning about trouble and not to screw up played through her mind as she moved the gearshift into the Park position.
Lola eyed the side view mirror and watched the officer get out of the police car. She rolled down her window and narrowed her eyes as he walked toward the Mustang. With his lanky build, awkward gait and uniform a size too big, he looked like a teenager playing cop.
He fumbled with a notebook before dropping it on the ground. When he bent over to retrieve it, his hat fell off. She shook her head at the sight of him trying to get himself together. If she weren’t facing what would undoubtedly be a pricey speeding ticket, she would have felt sorry for the guy.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said, when he finally reached her car.
She removed her sunglasses. The officer blinked and then gawked at her, openmouthed. Lola was used to it. In a moment his face would register one of the looks she regularly got from strangers, recognition or, in the case of men, instant adoration.
She smiled, and his face flushed red. Yep, she thought, adoration.
“Officer.” Lola looked at the name tag pinned to the shirt of the baggy uniform. “Officer Wilson.”
The sound of his name appeared to snap him out of his stupor. “Um...ma’am, do you realize how fast you were going?” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “The posted speed limit on this road is forty-five miles an hour. I clocked you doing ninety-four.”
Talking her way out of a ticket would be a chip shot, Lola thought. Feign ignorance, smile a lot and hit him with the facial expressions the camera loved.
Easy peasy.
You’re in the wrong. Take the ticket and be on your way.
Lola sighed. Maybe it was time for her to finally allow that inner voice to take the wheel.
“Sorry, Officer,” she said simply. No explanations. No excuses.
Her goal was to get to New York City as quickly and uneventfully as she could. Sitting here trying to sweet-talk her way out of a ticket would only delay her further, or even worse, get her into trouble she had gone out of her way to avoid.
The blush rose from Officer Wilson’s neck to his thin face. “I’ll need to see your driver’s license and car registration.” He fumbled with the pad in his hand, but this time he managed to hold on to it.
Leaning over, Lola opened the glove box and retrieved a small plastic folder containing both her car registration and proof of insurance. She handed it to Officer Wilson, then winced as it slipped from his grasp.
While he looked over her registration, Lola hefted her designer tote from the floorboard of the passenger’s side to the seat. Her arm muscles strained from the effort. Geez, she thought, if the thing got any heavier she’d have to put wheels on it and roll it around like a piece of luggage.
“Your registration is in order.” Officer Wilson returned the plastic folder. “Driver’s license, please.”
“Just a sec.” Lola stuck her hand inside the black hole of the oversize pink bag in search of her wallet. She rifled through the contents, unearthing a camera, next a flashlight and then a packet of protein powder.
One of these days she was going to have to clear out this bag, she thought, her arm elbow-deep in the mouth of the purse. She pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and a pocket pack of tissues.
“Do you need help, ma’am?” The officer leaned down and peered through the open driver’s side window.
“No, I got—” Pain sliced through her hand, and Lola yanked it from the bag. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Blood oozed from her palm and dripped down her arm. Damn scissors, she thought, looking at the wound. She should have pulled them from her bag weeks ago.
Lola glanced up at the officer, holding her bloody hand in her other one. “I know I have a first-aid kit somewhere in my purse. Maybe you could empty it and...”
The cop stepped back from the Mustang on wobbly legs, and the color drained from his face.
“Blood,” he whispered, staring at her hand.
“It’s just a little cut,” Lola said, though it hurt like hell.
She positioned her arm to give him a better look. “See, it’s not a big...”
His eyes rolled back in his head, and the poor guy looked as if he was about to drop on the spot.
“Officer Wilson,” Lola yelled, throwing open the car door.
She reached out to steady him with her good hand, but was a second too late. He crumpled to the ground. Lola heard a horrifying thunk as the back of his head hit the gravel, cushioned only by weeds poking through.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Lola hissed.
Her cut forgotten, she knelt beside him.
“Officer Wilson?”
No response. She lifted his head to her knee and noted from the rise and fall of his chest that the cop was still breathing. Thank God, she thought, sending up a silent prayer. He didn’t appear to be bleeding, but with her hand still dripping blood she couldn’t be sure.
Grabbing the two-way radio from his belt, she pressed several of the buttons.
“Officer down,” Lola yelled into it, imitating the lingo she’d heard on TV cop shows. But unlike television there was no reassuring voice saying the cavalry was coming to the rescue, only the hiss of dead air.
Closing her eyes briefly, she shoved aside the panic threatening to consume her.
“I’m just going to my car for my phone to call for help,” Lola told the unconscious officer.
She rested the cop’s head on the ground as gently as she could, and then dived inside her car. After snatching her cell phone off the passenger seat with trembling fingers, she hurriedly called 911.
Lola clutched the phone to her ear. Silence. She glanced at the screen. The words No Service had replaced the dots indicating signal strength.
The panic she’d banished was creeping up on her now. Looking down the barren road, she saw the tractor still inching through a field in the distance. It was too far away. She ran to the police car, hoping its radio would be more effective than the one the officer carried. Her efforts were rewarded with static and then more silence.
Returning to the unconscious cop’s side, Lola exhaled a shaky breath. She had no idea if she should move him, but what choice did she have? She couldn’t leave him here to go for help.
Heated Moments Page 3
