****
“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, Em,” Cal said, standing next to the bars of the cell. “Takes a lot for somebody to get hit by a car, get on national TV and the AP and end up in jail all in one weekend. In fact you might want to get in touch with them there Guinness people.”
“Stow it, Cal,” Millie shouted from the next cell. “Did you call Robert like I told you?”
Cal snickered. “Yeah. He said you both deserved it.”
“Wipe that smile off your face, bud, or you’ve had your last lasagna.” Emily let out a long exhale. “Told you Daddy didn’t care, Aunt Millie.”
“We do,” Carolina said, as she walked down the hall with Quent. “Daddy Blue, Andy and I saw the whole thing and you two are sprung.” She gave Quent a dirty look.
He held out his arms. “What was I supposed to do? I’ve been with the department the shortest amount of time. Everybody else refused to take them into custody.”
Carolina shook her head. “Neither woman hit anyone, and seeing as they’re a lot smaller than Luke Lincoln, I doubt they could do much harm.”
“You must’ve not been around when Em took the karate classes.” Cal nodded his head emphatically.
“Well, I’d call it more of a peace rally from a legal point of view, and I plan to get all charges dismissed. This was freedom of speech.”
“It was slander on Luke Lincoln’s part,” Emily said as she stood and realized her aunt was already out of her cell. “Is someone going to open the door, or do I have to stand here and scream?”
“Did you bring the camera?” Cal asked.
Quent nodded and took a little digital one out of his pocket and snapped a quick pic of Emily holding the bars.
“Now remember,” Cal said. “We want enlargements. Every deputy wants one and Sheriff Bingham wants five.”
“Five?” Emily asked, as Cal unlocked the door. “What’s he going to do, sell them on eBay?”
Cal chuckled. “He says all the commissioners have asked for one.”
Emily frowned. “Get me out of here, Carolina, or I will be up on real assault and battery charges.”
Aunt Millie stomped past all of them. “Not a one of them’s worth hitting.” She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “See if any one of you gets refills on dessert again.”
****
Nick had just walked in the door with Carlos when Grady grabbed his arm.
“I think we need to go out to dinner,” he said, winking at Nick.
Nick grinned. “Are you trying to pick me up? You know I’m not gay.”
He watched as his friend grew red-faced and coughed. “Look, let’s just go, okay? Blue Moon invited us over to his house.” He all but pushed Nick and Carlos out the door.
Striding down the walk, Carlos clicked his tongue. “Aye Chihuahua, Millie or Emily must be mad.” He shook is head. “Papa say when women mad, get out of the kitchen.” He scratched his ear. “I don’t know what it means.”
Nick smiled as he placed his hand in the small of Carlos’s back, propelling him forward, back to the car. “There’s a saying. You don’t have it quite right. I’ll explain later, but you have the meaning down pretty well.”
On the way over to Blue’s, Grady filled Nick in. Turning into the front drive at the cabin, Nick shook his head. “If Emily just found out about Carlos staying there and now is licking her wounds over incarceration, I bet she’s meaner than a wet hen.”
“Do wet hens get mean?” Carlos asked. “Ees the roosters who usually peck at me.”
“Another saying, Carlos,” Nick told him.
The little boy smacked his forehead. “Engleesh, I will never understand.”
“Yes, you will.” Nick leaned over and patted his leg. He turned off the engine and unlocked the child protector. “You can take off your seat belt and get out now.”
Carlos looked out the window. “Dog!” He opened the door and ran toward Blue and Maggie’s Lab, Promise.
“Be careful, I don’t know if Promise likes little boys.”
The dog was already licking him in the face. Nick laughed. “I guess she does.”
“Well, haven’t we become the little daddy in one afternoon,” Grady told him.
Nick jumped out of the car and closed the door as Grady did the same. “It was a very memorable time. Kid had me blubbering at one point. But then I laughed. A lot. And he learned how to swim.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t know how yet,” Grady said.
Nick nodded. “I know. He said his papa had almost gotten bitten by an alligator once and wouldn’t go back in the water. Besides he said his dad worked almost all the time and just came home for meals, sometimes even working after dark with lights trained on the site. He said his mama worked late sometimes too, but she always came home to feed him and was never gone past seven at night.”
“And they probably don’t get overtime.” Grady shook his head.
“Or didn’t.” Nick looked up at Grady. “I have a bad feeling about what’s happened to his parents.”
Grady stared into his eyes. “Are you sure it’s not just a hope you can keep him with you?”
****
Blue placed a plate of fried chicken on the table while Andy followed behind with the sides. “I decided all us guys might as well have our own howdy-doo if the women were congregating for a strategy session.”
“Strategy session?” Nick asked. “Is getting thrown in jail not enough of a deterrent for these women to leave well enough alone?”
Carlos, pulled on his sleeve. “What ees ‘well enough alone’?”
Nick picked up a plate and filled it with chicken, mashed potatoes and coleslaw. “We’ll have a session one day, and we’ll talk about all sorts of sayings. Why don’t you take your plate into the living room, and I’ll bring you a tray. Don’t share with Promise.”
“Or Riley,” Blue nodded at his gray-mugged black lab standing expectantly at the table. “He’s a bigger beggar than Promise. Maggie’s been working with her.”
“Riley’s a whole lot older, too,” Andy said. “He’s had more time to gain bad habits.”
Grady chuckled. “I’ll go join the boy and eat with him for a few. You folks enjoy your socializing.”
Minutes later, after they had Carlos settled, Nick returned. “So what’s with the strategy session? Looks like they ought to just cool their heels.”
Blue swallowed a bite of cole slaw. “You haven’t been around here long, have you son? These women don’t give up. Hell, some of ’em are still fighting the Civil War.”
Andy laughed. “He means they carry their arguments through generations. I’ll tell you right now, I wouldn’t want to cross one of them, including my wife.”
Nick chewed on a bite of chicken thigh and followed it down with a beer. “Mind me asking why you’d want to marry someone that stubborn?”
Andy sat back and sighed. “Makeup sex is out of this world.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Nick looked over at Blue and cocked his head.
Blue took a long drag on his cup of coffee. “You tellin’ me you got to your age and haven’t had a long enough relationship with a woman to know about making up?” He raised his eyebrow. “Your parts are functioning right, aren’t they?”
Nick felt his face burn. “I, uh, really threw myself into my work. Before that, when I was in college, I had one girlfriend and she made a laughing stock of me when she threw me over for my roommate. Of course, his dad was a multimillionaire.”
“You don’t want to go for a woman with a dollar sign in her eye anyway.” He eyed him from his face to his waist and back up. “You have had sex haven’t you?”
He looked away and cleared his throat. “Of course. Lots of times. But nothing really did it for me after a couple, three dates.”
“Bad selection.” Blue took another spoonful of mashed potatoes. “You have to know how to choose a woman like a melon.”
“Excuse me?
Andy slap
ped his knee. “This is gonna be good.” He grabbed hold of his beer. “You have no idea. Blue can do this all night long.”
Blue glanced at his son-in-law, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “You’re just glad I allowed you to marry my daughter. Now, as I was saying, choose a woman just like a fine ripe melon. First, see if she smells right. It’s that pheromone thing. Big fancy name for sexual attraction, the male smelling the female’s desire to mate.”
“I’m not interested in mating,” Nick said.
“You want to have sex don’t you?” Andy held his sides as he laughed.
Nick frowned at his friend. “Not just for the hell of it.”
Blue tapped him on the arm. “Listen up, son. I’m explaining this to you. Take note.”
“From the master,” Andy told him.
“Now once you know she smells right,” Blue said, “You need to grab her firmly to see if she’s ripe.”
“Ripe?” Nick laughed nervously. “You’re kidding right?”
Blue sat there, deadpan. “Nope. Caress her skin, see through her outer covering and listen to what she’s saying. Make sure there are no imperfections, tears that could cause her to rot. See if she’s interested in the same goals you are and know her values are just as high.”
“Okay,” Nick told him. “Now I’m getting it. This is about her character.”
Blue shook his head. “Only after you feel her skin. You have to know if just the touch of her excites you.”
Nick felt his breath go shallow. “Then what?” His eyes were trained completely on Blue.
“Then you kiss her, boy. That’s when you penetrate through her rind and make her feel the same way about you, your smell, your skin, your character. At the right moment, you take those lips in yours and you show her just what the two of you could have.”
“And then?” he asked, fidgeting in his chair.
“You put the melon away in the refrigerator until you take another slice.”
“I do what?” Nick slapped his hand down on the table. “You’ve been messing with me.”
“Messing with you about what?” Grady walked into the kitchen with an empty milk glass.
Nick shook his head. “I’ll explain it to you in the car.”
Grady shrugged as he opened up the fridge and got out the milk carton. “I’ll hold you to that. Right now I have to feed a really hungry kid.” Replacing the carton onto its shelf and closing the door, Grady strode from the room.
“Blue’s not fooling,” Andy said. “He could get big money counseling couples.”
Blue took another slug from his coffee cup. “Ahh, yeah.” His eyes trained back on Nick. “You have to break the tension, ’cause the woman is all about completing the mission at this point. She’s already thinking about second and third dates and who to choose for bridesmaids.”
He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “So,” he said, “you step back a couple of steps and wait to see if she comes to you. And when she does, ’cause she will, you suggest some entertainment, the real thing and not just the two of you in an apartment or house. You go to the lake, to the river, to a movie, out to dinner. You show her you can be fun without having your hands all over her.” He laughed. “Then after that, take it as fast as you want to. You just hooked her like a bass.”
“I thought we were talking about a melon,” Nick told him.
Blue grinned from ear to ear. “You can carry an analogy only so far.”
Grady came back in the room, his face void of all color. “We need to get out to the building site. Somebody’s just set the brush on fire.”
CHAPTER TEN
Emily watched as Cindy flung down her purse and placed a huge tray of desserts on the table. “I brought a little bit of everything. Figured we need to drown ourselves in sugar and fat. A woman can’t concentrate on breadsticks and veggies alone.”
“We’ve got a whole tray of cold cuts in the other room,” Millie said. “The pharmacy could spare it.”
“Who wants meat when you can go for Cindy’s Good as Sex fudge pie?” Carolina asked.
“Honey,” Aunt Millie said, “When you’re my age, you live for finding good meat first. Then you hope for good as sex anything.”
“Well,” Cindy said, “Glad we can all laugh, but the world’s gotta be coming to an end as we know it if two Franklin women got jailed in this town.”
“Honestly,” Emily said, “Quent Proctor was just seeing to his duty as he knows it. The guy’s only been with the force a few months, and he’s not from here. Got moved in here from Henry County, so he doesn’t know all the politics yet.”
“Not gonna either,” Aunt Millie said. “Not with my own brother, your father, selling us out.”
“Yeah, that was kind of disappointing,” Emily said. “But I should have known with his old military shit, he was going to do something like this.”
“He’s just mad.” Carolina patted Emily’s hand. “He’ll get over it and apologize like he always does.”
“Let’s not talk about him,” Maggie said. “This whole thing today got my Irish dander up in an uproar. I feel like going and bashing in someone’s front door.”
“Oh, dear,” Carolina said. “Daddy’s in for a wild time tonight.”
Maggie grinned. “He is, but I’m not mad at him, believe me.”
Cindy looked around the room. “Where did Justine go? Didn’t she come?”
Maggie shook her head. “No. She called me and said she had a migraine, and Lyle had given her an ice bag and said he’d fix dinner.”
“Wimp,” Cindy said. “At least Lyle’s taking care of her. I’d never suspect that of him. Never have trusted him completely.”
“We have enough people to be suspicious of,” Aunt Millie said. “What are we gonna do to counterbalance all this bad press, which now includes moi and my darling niece?”
“And the town,” Carolina said. “We need a first class bullshit artist of our own. Someone who, in front of a camera looks as honest as the day is long, trustworthy as your favorite dog and straightforward as the path to your own refrigerator.”
“Well,” Emily said. “No doubt who fits that bill.” She grinned.
All the women nodded. In unison they said, “Blue Moon.”
****
Nick and Grady stood in front of the site and shook their heads. “I’m glad we told Blue and Andy to hang tight with the kid. Who’d want to watch this if they didn’t have to? This is depressing beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”
Grady nodded as he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Pretty damned bad. Damn, that’s hot.”
Volunteer firefighters swarmed over the land with hoses. Flames shot up in the middle of the open field where a bunch of brush had been purposely placed. A scarecrow wearing what was left of a red devil suit, burned on a makeshift cross to the side of the pile of burning grass and twigs.
“Mr. Troy?” A state trooper addressed him, “Do you have any idea how this happened?”
“What?” Nick looked up, dazed. “No, why?”
“It’s just that, sir,” the officer said, “there’s an awful lot happening out here around this building site.”
“And you think I had something to do with it?” he asked, his face burning and his gut clenching in rage.
“Sir.” The man, about fifty with graying hair, shifted from one foot to the other. “I have to ask you, Mr. Troy. It’s procedure.”
“Go ask that preacher, Luke Lincoln,” Nick told the trooper. “Go find the man who’s running the drugs and whoever’s running this whole charade. The puppeteer. Someone’s running the show. Just find him and make him stop.”
“Is there anyone you saw around the property we need to question?” he asked.
“No.” Nick rubbed his face, not believing any of this is real. “No, today was supposed to be a day of peace, a day of rest.”
The trooper stared at the land, charred to a crisp, shaking his head in disgust. “Looks like someone
didn’t get the memo.”
****
“Oh, no, no no.” Blue shook his head. “I don’t like cameras and I don’t like press. If I wanted to be famous I would have gone and worked for some engineering firm fresh out of college. I didn’t.”
“Come on, Daddy,” Carolina said. “I’ll help you. Even write your speeches.”
He turned and gave her a glare. “Stop it and don’t talk too loud. I don’t want to wake the boy.”
“What boy?”
Blue nodded over at the side of the room. “Carlos. Next to the kitchen. I set up a sleeping bag for him.”
“What’s he doing here?” Maggie asked. “And if he is, why isn’t he on the sleeper sofa?’
“Number one, because there was a fire out at the building site,” Blue said. “And number two, kids like sleeping bags better than pull-out beds.”
“A fire?” Maggie grabbed his arm.
Blue nodded. “Somebody sure doesn’t want that building there.”
“No kidding,” Carolina said. “As for your advice about the sleeping bag, I’m filing that under the parent-to-be file.” She looked around the room. “Don’t tell me Andy’s with Nick and Grady.”
Blue shook his head. “Nope. One too many beers.”
“Great,” Carolina said. “I go away and my husband gets drunk.”
Blue laughed. “Give the guy a break. It was a weekend and he needed a release.”
Carolina shook her head. “Okay, I’m putting that behind me right now. Back to what we were talking about. We need a spokesperson, and I’ll take care of all the details. With your input of course, so it sounds like you.” She crossed the room and sat down on the sofa. “Let’s face it, some high-powered attorney from somewhere outside of Climax isn’t going to cut the mustard when trying to convey what Climax people are trying to say to media who are trying to screw us.”
“Trying?” Blue asked. “I’d say they did it and walked away with a satisfied smile.”
“Not that satisfied,” Maggie said. “They’re still around digging for more.”
“Oh honey,” Blue said, “Don’t you know when you get down and get funky, you want to come back for another long session?”
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 134
