2 On the Nickel

by Maggie Toussaint

  Charla walked in with a pillow. “Here, Mom. Take my extra pillow.”

  I’d tried to get her to throw out that rock hard lump last year, but she refused to part with the pillow because it smelled just right. “Thanks. Where’s the dog?”

  Charla tossed the pillow on the bed, then posed with her hand on her hip. “Lexy took Madonna for a walk. Lexy doesn’t get it, Mom. I’m oldest. I get first dibs on the dog.”

  The girls were acting normal again. The universe was on track after all. I managed a tight smile. “I hear you, dear. She’ll get it right someday. Meanwhile, I could use your help setting the table.”

  Charla rolled her eyes. “How about if I make blue garlic toast to go with the spaghetti?”

  Mama had been teaching the girls to cook. Adventurously, I might add. After the day I’d had, blue garlic toast sounded like just the thing. “Sure.”

  Charla beat me to the kitchen, not that it was a race, but that was her way. I set the table and captured Lexy when she returned. “Feed the dog and wash up for dinner, Lex.”

  We sat down to eat. Charla noticed the empty place. “Where’s Grammy?”

  Unless I missed my guess, Grammy was sleeping off two straight shots of whiskey. I cleared my throat. “She’s resting in her room. She doesn’t want dinner.”

  “It’s because you cooked, isn’t it?” Charla asked.

  I wasn’t so calm that flip remarks about my cooking would just run off my back. “My homemade spaghetti sauce isn’t boring. Skipping dinner was her choice.”

  A car door slammed. Madonna woofed. What now? I wondered as I answered the crisp rap at the back door.

  My reluctance turned into a broad smile as I recognized my visitor. Six feet of athletic perfection with lady-killer brown eyes, strawberry-blond hair, and a smile that could charm the pants off any woman. I sighed dreamily. Here was my reward for all the strangeness of today. “Rafe!”

  I stepped outside to greet him, pulling the door shut behind me. Rafe Golden swept me into a wondrous kiss that had me wishing we were alone and that the night was young.

  “Hey, Red. You taste very Italian,” Rafe murmured against my lips. “My favorite.”

  With sincere regret, I broke off the kiss. “Come on in and have some spaghetti.”

  He frowned as if he suddenly remembered another engagement. “You left your car at the club today. Is anything wrong?”

  “Well—” I stopped as soon as I started. How much could I tell him without sounding like a crazy woman? Madonna scratched at the door and whimpered piteously. “It’s a long story. Why don’t we eat first?”

  “Lead on.” Rafe squared his shoulders.

  Was he bracing for the odd food that normally graced our table? Or did my whacky family have him worried? Madonna quivered all over when I opened the door. She nearly licked the skin off my hand. “It’s okay, Madonna. I’m not leaving you.”

  Rafe and the girls exchanged stilted greetings as I fixed Rafe a plate. I kept hoping the girls would warm up to Rafe, but they barely tolerated him. To Rafe’s credit, he didn’t blanch at blue garlic toast or my girls’ frosty welcome.

  “Madonna’s traumatized from you yelling at her earlier,” Charla said when I rejoined them at the table.

  “Is not.” Lexy twirled sauce-free noodles around her fork. “She’s got separation anxiety. That’s what the whelping literature says about bitches. They attach to one person and become out of sorts if that person isn’t available.”

  “Mama, Lexy said the b-word,” Charla said.

  “‘Bitch’ isn’t a bad word.” Lexy’s pert nose went up in the air. “Breeders use the term to indicate female dogs.”

  I wasn’t crazy about my thirteen-year-old daughter getting in the habit of using the word “bitch.” Bad enough that Mama used it to describe Erica. “As an accountant, I’m a fan of both precision and accuracy. But I agree with Charla. Let’s avoid using that term.”

  Rafe’s plate was empty. “Would you like some more?” I asked.

  He nodded wearily. “Sure. I didn’t eat all day.”

  “Whyever not?” Charla asked, forgetting for a moment she’d been ignoring him. “Are you on a diet?”

  “I don’t eat breakfast, and the shop was slammed at lunchtime,” Rafe said.

  “You had that charitable tournament this afternoon, didn’t you?” I spooned out another generous helping of spaghetti.

  “It was a zoo,” Rafe said between mouthfuls. “In addition to getting the carts out, we had to do the pairings at the last minute. The organizer was a no-show.”

  “Who left you hanging like that?” I asked. With the blue crusts from my garlic toast, I sopped up the last bit of red sauce from my plate.

  Rafe paused with another forkful of spaghetti in midair. “Bud Flook. I thought for sure he wouldn’t miss this event. He’s been planning this tournament for six months.”

  How odd. Bud was an avid golfer, a contemporary of my father’s. We’d golfed with Bud many times over the years. I couldn’t imagine Bud missing a golf tournament for any reason.

  Rafe lounged back in his chair after emptying his plate for the second time. He shot me a pointed glance. “What happened today?”

  I glanced over to see girls were hanging on our every word. “Didn’t you hear already?”

  “Nothing like getting it straight from the horse’s mouth.” He flushed. “Not that you’re a horse, I didn’t mean that. I meant that you were there so I can get an eyewitness accounting.”

  “It was an accident! I swear.” My hands waved in the air. “No one would have even known we were there if Jonette hadn’t pushed me. We didn’t mean to fall into the crime scene.”

  Three sets of eyes latched on to me. Rafe’s mild amusement vanished. Too late, I realized he’d been asking me about my lousy golf score. He’d probably been insulted that my score was so high when he’d given me so many free lessons.

  “What crime scene?” Lexy stared at me with doglike fixation.

  I swallowed thickly. I might as well tell them the truth. God knows what they would hear at school tomorrow. “There was an accident in the church parking lot. The police roped off the entrance to Trinity Episcopal, so Jonette and I scooted around back to see what had happened. It wasn’t our fault. In fact, it was downright embarrassing.”

  “What have you done, Mama?” Charla put down her fork.

  I started laughing in spite of my red face. I couldn’t help myself. If anyone was going to be embarrassed by my behavior, it should be me, not my kids. “Jonette and I were forcibly removed from an off-limits area in handcuffs. And my black underwear showed through my ripped shorts. I couldn’t hold my shorts together because of the handcuffs. Then little Eddie Wagner, I used to babysit him before he grew up to be a cop, paraded us through the assembled crowd with cuffs on.”

  Charla groaned and clapped a hand to her cheek. “How could you do this to me?”

  “You went to jail?” Lexy asked.

  I shook my head. “No jail. Only a few minutes of handcuff time on Main Street.”

  Rafe’s narrowed gaze didn’t offer much hope that he approved of my clandestine activity. Not that I thought he would approve, but still. How could he blame me for what happened? “It was an accident,” I reiterated. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “I am never leaving this house again,” Charla said, her wavy red hair forming a thick curtain over her woeful brown eyes.

  Chapter 4

  We rode with the top down. Honeysuckle-scented wind whipped my shoulder-length hair around my face. The cooler air of twilight had me burrowing deeper into the sumptuous leather seats. Usually a ride in Rafe’s luxurious convertible had me purring with delight. But each rotation of the tires added to my unease.

  Rafe drove his high-performance car with single-minded precision. Trouble was, that’s all he was doing. His eyes stayed on the road, his hands on his side of the wood-grained console. He hadn’t touched me once.

  He had e
very right to be mad at me. I had behaved like someone half my age. But he’d known I wasn’t suave and sophisticated from the start. I hadn’t misled him. I stared straight ahead at the headlight beams, but I was too conscious of the man beside me. What was he thinking? Why didn’t he say something?

  His brooding silence got to me. “I shot a sixty-two today,” I blurted out. “I lost strokes around the green. Those bunkers were brutal, and me with no sand wedge. The greens kept getting faster and faster. I couldn’t read a putt to save my life. Good thing I know an excellent golf teacher.”

  Rafe shot me a stern look. “Don’t think you can distract me with flowery golf talk. How did you end up in handcuffs?”

  I squirmed in my seat. His crazy meter would peg off-scale if I told him I’d been acting on a feeling. Accountants like me went on hard facts, and that was how I operated, for the most part. “I’m not a criminal. I was curious. I acted on that curiosity and got caught. That’s the whole story.”

  Rafe stopped behind my Volvo sedan in the empty golf course parking lot. “Curious people do not have nine lives. You can’t claim ignorance. You purposefully put yourself in harm’s way. Why were you anywhere near a crime scene?”

  I shivered at the frosty disapproval in his voice. Had my impulsive actions opened his eyes to the real me? “Believe me, I have had my fill of crime scenes. At the risk of repeating myself, today’s incident was an accident.”

  Rafe released his seat belt and leaned against the interior of his door. Though I could reach over and physically touch him, the emotional gap between us yawned like a fathomless bunker.

  Was he breaking up with me? I waited in agony.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt, Red.” His deep voice rumbled through me.

  Was that catch in his voice concern, pity, or control? My Sampson pride sparked. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Touchy little thing, aren’t you?”

  What kind of a sexist remark was that? A warning voice in my head whispered to tread cautiously, but I’d already used up today’s patience and tomorrow’s too. “What’s your point?”

  Rafe absently fingered the steering wheel. “Your safety. It’s important to me. It tears me up inside to think of something bad happening to you.”

  Oh.

  I inhaled slowly and got a thick dose of male and expensive leather. The potent combination fogged my thoughts. I’d nearly blown it because I thought he was pulling a Charlie on me. Rafe wasn’t Charlie. He didn’t want to control me. He valued my safety.

  Honeyed warmth spread through me. “Thanks. I care about your safety, too.”

  There. We’d declared an interest in each other’s safety. Not exactly a declaration of undying love, but close. Or at least, I hoped it was. My feelings for Rafe ran deep these days.

  Those feelings brought joy and uncertainty, giddiness and despair. Rafe seemed comfortable in this middle place between dating and commitment, but I wasn’t so sanguine. I wanted more.

  Rafe didn’t talk about his feelings. He talked about golf and cars. He tolerated my family’s lukewarm reception of him. His hobby was women, and for all intents and purposes, I was his current hobby. Not exactly the stuff of lasting commitment.

  His gaze warmed. “I know how you can reassure me that you’re okay.”

  The pheromone level in the car spiked abruptly. I fingered my shirt collar, allowing the sudden heat of my body to escape before it gave me away. Don’t get me wrong. Spontaneity has its place. But the girls knew what time I left.

  “Rain check?” I asked.

  He stroked the side of my face, practically igniting my skin. “Come home with me. It’s early yet.”

  The sharp edge of desire jabbed at my sense of duty. “For you, maybe. I’ve got two kids and a pregnant dog counting the minutes until I return.”

  Need and something much more primitive flashed across his face. “Kiss me goodnight?”

  I slid across the leather seat and into his open arms. I’d never done it in the front seat of a car, but his sensual kiss had me thinking there had to be a way.

  He blazed a trail of fevered kisses down the column of my neck. Entranced, I strained upward to meet his touch. Rafe’s passion stirred needs buried deep within me, needs I’d thought to never again have filled after my divorce. I ran my hands through his hair and held his precious head close. My heart fluttered wildly.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” Rafe murmured against my tingling skin. “You know that, don’t you?”

  My senses spiked at the vibration of lips on skin. I wanted this man. Wanted him in my bed. In my life. For better or worse. In sickness and in health.

  I was vaguely aware he’d spoken. “What?” My voice sounded husky and full of longing.

  “I want more of you,” he said. “We never have enough time together.”

  Time.

  We needed it.

  I didn’t have it.

  With that realization, the fizzle went out of my sizzle. Adrenaline still pounded through my bloodstream, urging me on. Where, I didn’t know.

  The steady pressure from the center console on my hip bone dictated a shift in my position. I eased back slightly and banged my elbow on the steering wheel. The sharp pain lent clarity to my jumbled thoughts.

  “There are limits to what I can give, Rafe,” I said with resignation. “I have responsibilities. My family depends on me.”

  His expression hardened.

  My voice sounded cold and exact. I winced inwardly. Why couldn’t I throw caution to the wind? Why couldn’t I say, yes, let’s take a cruise together and leave Mama and Charlie to deal with the girls?

  The answer to my questions came to me with startling rapidity. I was trapped in my small-town world, hampered by my view of what everyone might say, but more importantly, afraid to step out on that plank all alone and take a chance.

  Bottom line, I was a coward.

  But I had really good excuses. The best in the world. Saint Cleo would do anything for her family, but she wouldn’t grab something she very much wanted because of paralyzing fear.

  Wait.

  That was the old Cleo.

  The new Cleo wasn’t afraid of living. The new Cleo had a plan, a cool sophisticated plan. Have the hottest, sexiest affair on record. No emotional entanglements, unless that was what he wanted as well. And there was the rub. The new Cleo was hardwired to be the old Cleo, the woman who gave love and expected commitment.

  Until Rafe shared more of his feelings with me, I had to keep my emotional distance from him. Otherwise, I’d lose everything. My self-respect, my honor, and my heart.

  Why didn’t he say something?

  I rushed to fill the void. “You think I don’t want more time with you? You think I don’t want to run off and have wild sex with you whenever the need strikes? I do. You’re a fever that complicates my life.”

  Oh, God, my hands were waving in the air like a crazy person’s. I sat on them.

  He stilled. “I’m a fever? Like the flu?”

  Crap. I’d shocked him. Better fix it quick. “Not literally. I don’t think of you and vomiting in the same breath. Not by a long shot. Look, I don’t want to screw this up. And I am feeling pressured tonight, like I’m on the clock because my family is waiting. Can we continue this later?”

  He hesitated for an eternity of seconds. I held my breath in the awful silence, wanting the world from him. Was it a false hope?

  “How about Friday night?” he asked.

  I exhaled slowly, allowing hope to sparkle and twirl and dance. This was Wednesday. I could hold my lust for him in check for two more days. “Friday works for me.”

  His dark eyes gleamed. On Friday he would fill all of the sensual promises his kiss had implied. Of that I had no doubt.

  “I’ll pick you up at six. And Cleo?”

  “Yes?” I collected my purse and fumbled for the door handle.

  “Wear the black lace underwear.”

  Heat returned to my cheeks insta
ntly. I wasn’t that easy. The black panties were supposed to be held in reserve for special occasions. “We’ll see. Thanks for the ride.”

  I fanned myself all the way home. Rafe’s kiss lingered on my mind. He wanted me. For some magical, logic-defying reason, he wanted me, Cleopatra Jones.

  The thought made me long for a whole drawer full of black lingerie. Not practical, especially when I was living on such a tight budget. I had household items I desperately needed. Like new sheets because the dog ate mine.

  I pulled up in my gravel driveway, wishing we were on even footing. I pushed Rafe out of my mind, and my thoughts slid around to Mama’s peculiar behavior. Something more was going on in her life, something she’d chosen to keep secret from me.

  The events of the day returned in a rush as I locked my car. I ticked them off on my fingers.

  One, there had been a vehicular accident at the church. Two, Erica Hodges was dead. Three, Mama had a history of run-ins with Erica Hodges. Four, on Monday I listened to Mama and Erica Hodges exchange insults in public. Five, Mama’s whereabouts today were a mystery and her over-the-top behavior even more of a mystery.

  I don’t know what made me look at her Oldsmobile. Honestly, I don’t know why I looked at all. But I did. And then I wished I’d gone straight inside the house and minded my own business.

  The motion-detector light on the corner of the house had activated when I pulled into the driveway. The parking pad was now brightly illuminated.

  I touched the jagged safety glass of Mama’s shattered headlight cover. A suffocating sensation tightened my throat at the large indentation in her not-so-shiny bumper. The hood of her car mounded in the middle, pushed back from the leading edge. This car had hit something.

  Or someone.

  Dread charged through my veins, taking my breath away. Fear clawed at my heart, dragging me down to a place where I didn’t want to go. Dazed and bewildered, I staggered over to my Volvo for support. The hood warmed my cold fingers.