“Ain’t Calvin’s fault you got yourself in deep water with the bank men. This Depression they got going on makes ’em mean, you know that. You just let my deputy go now.” Calaway gripped the shotgun with both hands now, but that empty space where Earl Brown’s brain should have been precluded him from taking the warning. The big man gripped Deputy Stamp’s collar and gave it a twist.
Calvin Stamp gave a choke and tried to gasp. “No problem, Boss. I got him right where I want him.”
Calaway aimed the shotgun in the air and fired off a round that sent a thunderous BOOM echoing across the heartland. Earl Brown didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t do much more than let his snarl grow into a demonic growl.
“I said ain’t nobody foreclosin’ here!”
Calvin glanced over his shoulder with bugging eyes and half-nodded to the sheriff. With one lightning-quick move, he broke free of Brown’s vise-grip and whirled him around. Calaway adjusted his grip on the shotgun, and in a flash slammed the butt of the weapon straight into the big man’s forehead.
Earl Brown’s eyes rolled back into his head. A furious knot, already purple-red and pulsing madly, sprouted on his forehead. He collapsed to his knees.
John Calaway bent down to inspect his handiwork. “I hated to do it, Earl, but you have to understand we all have our jobs to do. Calvin, if you would be so kind as to cuff this man, I think we can be on our way.”
While Calvin Stamp and the other deputies finagled the big man’s wrists into a set of handcuffs, Sheriff Calaway licked the tip of his pencil and paused for a moment to compose a note.
Dear Mrs. Brown,
My sincerest apologies. I trust your Pa will take you and the children into his care. Earl decided to get feisty, so he’ll be with us for a while.
Sheriff John Calaway
He tacked his note next to the foreclosure notice and silently wished damnation on the banks and the men who ran them.
****
Annalee guessed she’d gained ten pounds or so since her body became home to the little surprise visitor. At least five of those extra pounds pressed against the waistline of her dress, but the remainder chose gravity’s course and ended up in her feet, which now throbbed in swollen agony. It wasn’t so long ago she’d danced a marathon on a lark. Now she was forced to stop and rest every hundred feet or so, simply to calm the pain in her legs.
“I’m in big trouble when you really start to grow, Kiddo.”
The smell of the river hung heavy in the warm, early summer air. Not an entirely unpleasant smell, but Annalee could not remember a time when her sense of smell was so sharp.
Nor could she remember a time when she’d come across so many dying towns. Life among the rich and famous had sheltered her from the ravages of the Depression. She’d heard stories and had seen pictures in the national news magazines, but until she began her trek eastward and saw the farms and livestock devastated by dust storms and drought, saw the starving people waiting in long lines for soup and a hunk of bread, she hadn’t a clue what poverty actually meant.
So many people going without, so many children going hungry, while folks in Hollywood got paid enormous sums of money to sing and dance and read lines other people wrote for them.
It was depressing.
Walking around with fifty thousand dollars in her suitcase and a belly full of good food when she stopped for the night had a tendency to make her feel guilty. She prayed that this little town called Summer Hill would have fared better, that somehow the guilt of her good fortune would somehow be assuaged.
But as Annalee drew closer to the town proper, a sick feeling started to gnaw at her. Along Great River Road, businesses were shuttered, abandoned by their destitute owners. A feed store, situated across from the sporting houses and saloons that catered to the river men, stood empty. A sign on the door read “Gone Fishing.”
Across from the feed store, along the riverbank, stood what appeared to be a diner of some sort, a two-story structure with a wraparound porch and what might have been an outdoor dining deck. The windows were covered with plywood and a thick blanket of weeds covered the surrounding grounds, but Annalee guessed it must have been quite a lovely place at one time.
A half-rotted wooden signpost jutted from the weeds at a half-cocked angle:
The Blue Lantern Café
Est. 1890
Open for over forty years, and now it’s gone.
Depressing.
The low rumble of a car engine grew louder in her ears and snapped her out of her disappointment. Annalee turned and was startled to realize the engine belonged to a police car. Two men in uniform took up the front seats and an angry monster dressed like a farmer filled the back of the car.
The car stopped beside her and the driver, whose brass nameplate read “Calaway,” tilted his head in her direction. His eyes were like sapphire, the kind of eyes that knew her inside and out in an instant, and his lips were so handsomely shaped she could have kissed him if his presence hadn’t startled her so badly.
Those lips curved into a crooked, slightly amused grin. “Don’t see very many platinum blondes out this way. Where you headed?”
The deputy in the passenger seat peered around Calaway’s head to take a gander, and that was enough to raise Annalee’s growing consternation. Particularly when the deputy began to slap the sheriff’s arm with excitement. “Boss, do you know who that is?”
Annalee leaned against the squad car’s door and gave the sheriff a flirtatious little smile. Though her temper had grown short in the summer heat, she knew it was always better to charm a man than to strong-arm him. “ ’Bout time you fellas showed up. I was starting to think you’d let me walk home all by my lonesome.”
“Where’s home?”
“Where’s the nearest hotel?”
Calvin Stamp slapped at Sheriff Calaway’s arm again and leaned forward to holler out the window. “You were in that picture with Wheeler and Woolsey, weren’t you? Annalee Harrison! Lord almighty, Boss, she’s a bona fide movie star!”
“Oh, I don’t know about all that,” she said with a chuckle. “I was always more of a singer. You know, nightclubs and orchestras and all that.”
Earl Brown leaned forward from the back seat, the fresh lump on his forehead aglow, and gave an evil laugh. “You can come back here and sing to me all you want, baby!”
Calvin whipped around, eyes aflame, like a man possessed. “You just sit back in your seat and shut that dirty mouth of yours, Earl. This don’t concern you!”
Sheriff Calaway gave half a grin and shook his head. He was near thirty-five or so, she guessed, a handsome stranger with eyes so deeply blue they made her knees turn to rubber.
She smiled, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and half-wished she would have at least worn some lipstick for the occasion—after all, a lady must always strive to look her best—until Kiddo gave her another swift kick to the kidney. “My car ran out of gas back on the bridge. I was hoping someone could show me the way to a service station.”
“There ain’t but one left in town,” Calaway said.
“Well, I would be awful grateful if you could point me in the right direction,” she said, a little surprised by the flirtatious tone in her voice. Tired and gloomy as she felt coming into yet another dying town, something in the sheriff’s eyes brought a glimmer of hope and, she forced herself to admit, cupidity, to her soul.
Calaway glanced at the low-cut neckline of her flower-print dress and gave a nervous cough. “May I exit the vehicle, Miz Harrison, or have you attached yourself permanently?”
“Annalee,” she said in a sweet voice and stepped back from the squad car. “And you may do anything you like, Sheriff.”
Calaway emerged from the vehicle, and Annalee could swear the air temperature shot thirty degrees higher. He was tall, broad across the shoulders and trim at the waist, the fine physique of an athlete, and when he took off his hat to wipe the sweat off his brow, his tousled black hair glimmered in the sunlight
like fine onyx. The sight of him left her breathless. Time was it took at least three flutes of champagne and a diamond bracelet to get her so worked up. And there wasn’t a sheriff in the world who could afford that kind of luxury.
Must be you, Kiddo. Having you aboard did something to my chemistry.
The sheriff beckoned her to the passenger side and waved Calvin out of the car and into the back seat. “Have a seat, Miz Harrison. We’ll get you sorted out.”
Earl Brown gave a perverted laugh as Annalee settled into the passenger seat. Calvin shut him up with a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Boss, you’d best take me and this ornery sumbitch back to the station. A lady like Miss Annalee’s got no business being around this kind of rabble.”
****
Four deputies were required to haul Earl Brown to a cell. Having never seen the inside of a police station, Annalee kept herself close to Sheriff Calaway and tried to ignore the hoots and catcalls that came from the other side of the bars.
Another prisoner, passed out drunk and covered in vomit, was carried into the cell adjoining Earl’s. Annalee glanced his way, caught a whiff of the stink that emanated from his body, and felt ill. Though her regular bouts with morning sickness had begun to subside a bit, her heightened sense of smell meant she was at the mercy of her surroundings. She grabbed the sheriff’s hard, muscular arm to steady herself and was heartened when he did not pull away.
“Is it always this rowdy in here?” she asked quietly, hoping the sick feeling in her stomach would go away. After all, she might be amongst hayseeds, but she still had an image to maintain, and it would not do to have these men see her hunched over a wastebasket.
Calaway handed a stack of paperwork to Calvin Stamp and donned his hat. “Aw, it’s usually not so bad ’til the riverboats come in for the week. I swear those fellas work their fingers to the bone just to keep the saloons awash in cash. ’Bout the only folks with money these days are the bartenders.”
Annalee’s sour stomach worsened. “Would you mind taking me to the service station now?”
The sheriff looked at her with concern. “You don’t look so hot. Why don’t you sit—”
“I just need some air.”
****
It was a short drive back to the bridge. Annalee took in a deep breath of still, humid air and tightened her grip on the cash-filled satchel until the next wave of nausea passed.
Calaway filled the Roadster’s tank with gasoline and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. “Gonna be a hot one. No wonder you got all green around the gills. Feeling any better?”
“I am now, thank you.”
“That true, what Calvin was saying about you? You some kind of Hollywood star?”
“Don’t go to the pictures much, do you?”
“I got better things to do with my time.”
Annalee wasn’t sure if she liked the way he was looking at her, particularly when his eyes lingered on her belly. Kiddo wasn’t showing too much yet, but Calaway looked at her as though he knew the truth and already judged her a harlot.
Or worse, she thought. A washed-up floozy.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a star just yet, but I do all right for myself. I was a WAMPAS Baby Star two years ago, and made seven pictures last year. Did you see Blue Carousel?”
“What’s that? Some kind of musical?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“That was my favorite,” she gushed. “I played a college girl who had to choose between the chance for fame and fortune on Broadway or true love and poverty with a handsome young minister.”
“What did you choose?”
“True love and poverty,” she said with a quiet, sarcastic laugh. “Probably should call it a fantasy instead of a musical.”
“Not much of a romantic, are you?”
Annalee laughed and waved her hand as if it were the most ridiculous notion ever conceived. “Romance is for saps.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you.”
Calaway hopped into the front seat of her car and tried to start the engine. He turned the ignition once, but the Roadster remained silent. Furrowing his dark brows, he gave it another try, but the engine was stubborn and refused to turn over. “You’ve got bigger problems than an empty gas tank. Don’t ask me how you made it two thousand miles in this jalopy, but I’d hazard to guess your alternator is shot.”
He might as well have been speaking Greek to her. “The alternator?”
He climbed out of the Roadster and strode purposefully to his squad car to call for a tow truck. “They’ll have to take it to Fish Hook. Charlie Owens up and left town and took his garage with him.”
“Fish Hook?” Annalee’s heart sank, partly at the unfortunate name of the nearest town. Sully would have died laughing. “How long do you think it will take to fix it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He called in to the police station, ordered the tow truck, and when he was finished gave her a good long stare. For once, there was no judgment in his eyes, just the look of a man wondering what to do next.
Annalee felt the pressure in her ankles building once more and tried not to show her discomfort. “I don’t suppose you might be so kind as to take me to the nearest hotel,” she began slowly. “And I was hoping you could be of some help to me in another regard.”
Calaway narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. “In what regard?”
She opened her satchel and showed him the stacks of bills, twenties and fifties bundled neatly together with brown bank wraps. The sheriff’s eyes widened. For a moment, it was all he could do to keep from gasping. “It was a gift, come by honest, I promise,” she said quickly. “I just don’t trust banks.”
“Close that satchel, girl, and don’t show it off again,” he warned. “Good God almighty, you’d best not be a bank robber.”
“I told you, it was a gift—”
“Whoever it was give you a gift like that must’ve liked you somethin’ fierce.”
“For a little while, anyway,” she conceded with a shrug. “But I can’t walk around with this kind of money, and I sure can’t leave it lying around...and you look like the honest type. I will pay you a fair wage to look after me as long as I am in town.”
“To do what? Do you know how close you are to me taking you in just on suspicion? For all I know, you could’ve knocked somebody over the head—”
Annalee’s smile was brilliant. “Don’t you trust me, Sheriff?”
“Not as far as I can throw you.”
She linked her arm around his and gazed prettily into his shocked face. “My proposal is fair and valid, and the money is real. It was a going-away gift from a friend, and I am going to use it to secure my future.”
Calaway rolled his eyes and let out a loud breath. “What’s the matter? Is Hollywood a dying town, too?”
“Hollywood and I are experiencing, um, creative differences,” she told him, thinking she should have been embarrassed by the haughtiness in her voice. Something she learned on the dinner party circuit, she supposed. “I do not wish to return to California until those differences have been resolved to my satisfaction.”
“And how long do you expect that to take?”
Annalee dug into her satchel, folded a bill in half, and slowly slid it into the front pocket of his service trousers. “Don’t worry, I won’t impose on your good nature for too long.”
Calaway glanced down at her hand, as she slowly slid it out of his pocket, and cleared his throat. His cheeks flushed red. “So if I have this straight, I get to waltz around town with a gorgeous blonde on my arm for as long as it takes for her to once again hightail it out of town. And I get paid for it.”
“I’m sure you can tough it out for a while.”
“And all you want is someone to make sure you don’t get knocked over the head and robbed, is that right?”
“You’re a quick study, Sheriff.”
“What makes you think I won’t be the one to knock you on the head?”
; Annalee’s eyes glittered as she let out a laugh. “There’s not much stopping you, is there? But I knew the second I saw you you’re the decent type.”
“The second you saw me...all of an hour ago.”
“I’m an excellent judge of character.”
John Calaway grinned and leaned in close, as if to tell a secret meant only for her ears. “You already got me, doll. You don’t have to try so hard.”
Annalee raised one artfully-shaped eyebrow and felt her smug little smirk blossom with delight. “I like you already.”
****
Annalee’s room at the Steamboat Inn was dark, dreary, cluttered with old Victorian furniture, and gloomed further by dark brown wallpaper festooned with a gold-leaf fleur-de-lis pattern. The only bright touch was the lace curtain that billowed inward whenever a breeze dared to blow into the room.
And she loved it.
For the first time in her life, she was free, blessedly free of Sully’s constant whining and insults. For once, there were no rehearsals, no ghastly dinner parties with people who left her bored to tears, and no womanizers who lied and made promises they never intended to keep.
Unless one counted Sheriff Calaway, that is.
Annalee almost laughed at her own idle thought. He’s no womanizer. Handsome, yes. The sort of man a girl could go crazy for, definitely. But no way in hell is that man a womanizer.
He’s a dream. And most likely too good for the likes of me.
She kicked off her heels, sat down on the hard, comfortless bed, and picked up the telephone.
“Sully? I think I found the right place.”
The phone line crackled and popped, but her manager’s voice came through loud and clear. “Great, Toots! Where?”
“Some little hayseed town off the Mississippi River. It’s called Summer Hill.” She glanced at the rotary dial and read the phone number to him. “It’s awful quiet here, once you get past the river. This might take some getting used to.”
“You’ll be home before you know it. Home here, I mean.”
“Yeah,” she replied, though her tone was dark, depressed. She fidgeted with the phone cord. “Maybe you should send the rest of my things here.”
Bombshell Page 2
