Tangled Thing Called Love: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance)

by Juliet Rosetti

  “I think you may have to change your sheets,” Ben said, then added, “I was afraid it was your granny with a gelding knife.”

  “She doesn’t use knives anymore. Too old-fashioned. She just puts estrogen pills in guys’ coffee.”

  Ben hoped she was joking, then decided she had to be, because if he’d been doped he wouldn’t have had a raging hard-on.

  “Could you take him back to his room?” Mazie asked sweetly.

  Ben got out of bed, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold wood floor. He didn’t want to leave Mazie’s warm bed and warmer body, but he didn’t know how much longer he could restrain himself. It was torture, having her only a fraction of an inch away, smelling her hair, seeing her breasts through her thin nightie, yet being afraid to make the wrong move. If this had been one of their usual quarrels, he would have used a hands-on strategy to coax her out of it, but he sensed that hands-on might be a game spoiler at this stage of wooing her back. He didn’t want Mazie to think he was just after sex. Well, that too, but he wanted the air cleared first.

  Ben was not feeling that kindly toward Sam right at the moment, because the kid had just wrecked his plans. His conversation with Mazie would have gone like:

  Ben: You mad?

  Mazie: Yeah.

  Ben: Want to punch me?

  Mazie: Okay.

  Mazie would punch him.

  Ben: Ready for makeup sex?

  Mazie: Yes.

  He was only a few steps down the hall when behind him, he heard the lock turning on Mazie’s bedroom door.

  Chapter Seven

  “Muffin. That’s a dumb name for a dog,” Joey said.

  “You should call him Spike,” Sam said.

  Muffin was gazing up at Joey with adoring dark eyes, as far from a “Spike” as it was possible to imagine, his stump of a tail wagging as he scarfed up most of the boys’ sandwiches.

  Lunch was picnic style today: tuna sandwiches, pickles, and chocolate milk on blankets spread on the back lawn. They’d all had a busy morning—the twins in summer school, Mazie and Gran doing laundry, and Ben helping Scully with farm chores. Scully had sold the dairy herd a couple of years ago and now cash-cropped hay, wheat, and corn, storing the crops in what had once been the cow barn. June was his busy time, with forty acres of alfalfa to mow, bale, and store in the barn; and now, with his wife in the hospital and a new baby on the way, he was busier than ever.

  “Here, Spike,” Sam said, holding out a hunk of his sandwich. Muffin trotted over and snapped up the offering. “See—he likes that name.”

  “He only came because you gave him food,” Joey argued. “Why did you call him Muffin, Aunt Mazie—is that his favorite food?”

  “I didn’t name him,” Mazie said. “He was my mother-in-law’s dog.”

  “That old witch,” Gran muttered.

  The boys stared at her, shocked. Gran never bad-mouthed people.

  “Was she really a witch?” Joey asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah,” Ben said. He was wearing a T-shirt borrowed from Scully. It was too short and rode up when he lifted his arms, revealing a delicious stretch of taut stomach. He was still wearing yesterday’s shorts and his legs were scratched up from handling bristly hay bales. He had straw chaff in his hair, a smear of mayonnaise on his upper lip, and looked so damn sexy it was all Mazie could do to stop herself from leaning over and swirling the mayo off his lips with her tongue. “She tried to electrocute your aunt in her bathtub.”

  “I only met the old bit—biddy—the one time,” Gran said, pursing her mouth. “But if the pointy hat fits, wear it, I say.”

  Mazie laughed out loud. The image of her ex-mother-in-law, Vanessa Vonnerjohn, in a witch hat was just too perfect.

  “Your aunt and I broke into the witch’s house,” said Ben, taking a bite out of his third sandwich. “We were looking for something in the house that would prove Mazie was innocent. Muffin came running after us.”

  Ben bared his teeth, clawed his hands, and made a snarling noise, sending the boys into gales of laughter. “He chased us right into my camera van. Once Muffin got to know us, he started liking us. We asked him if he wanted to go back to the witch and he said no, he wanted to live with Aunt Mazie.”

  “Muffin can’t really talk,” Sam said. “Can he?”

  “No, but he manages to get his message across,” Mazie said.

  She was certain that Muffin was a lot happier with her than he would have been with Vanessa. It seemed only fair that Mazie should get something of Vanessa’s—after all, her mother-in-law had gotten everything else. When Mazie had gone to prison, Vanessa had managed to seize all Mazie’s property and assets, which was why Mazie couldn’t afford decent clothes, a car that ran, or a suitcase without a wonky wheel.

  Attracted by the smell of tuna, a barn cat sidled toward the porch. Muffin’s fur bristled and he might have charged at the cat if Scully hadn’t quickly snatched him up. “Forget it, Muff,” Scully told him. “Farm cats are a whole different breed from house cats. Practically feral. He’d have you for dinner.”

  This particular cat was a marmalade tom with no neck—just a forty-pound weight lifter’s body and paws like clubs. His cold, yellow eyes cut to Muffin as though he was ripe for a rumble with this soft, city-bred dog. Sam rushed over to the tom and offered him the rest of his sandwich. The cat snatched it away, nearly skinning Sam’s hand.

  Sam licked the remnants of the tuna off his fingers. “Dad, can we go fishing today?”

  “What for—you want more tuna?” Scully said.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “For trout and stuff.”

  “You said you’d take us fishing this summer,” Joey chimed in.

  “Can’t today,” Scully said gruffly. “I’ve got to go see your mom in the hospital.”

  “Awww.” The boys went into their poor-deprived-kids act.

  “I could take them fishing,” Ben said.

  The boys immediately jumped on the offer.

  The adults looked at Ben, shaking their heads in a you-poor-dumb-sucker way.

  Half an hour later the expedition, equipped with poles, ice chest, and hastily dug worms, set out. Mazie had been invited along but had refused. Spend her day on a buggy lake sticking worms on a hook when she could relax here with a book and a lemonade? Not happening. Anyway, she was trying to avoid Ben Labeck; she felt like a wobbly asteroid trying not to get sucked into the gravitational field of a large, asteroid-eating planet. And she hadn’t forgiven him. Yet.

  Lounging on the back porch hammock, Mazie started rereading a trashy bestseller she’d first read at sixteen. After an hour she went to the kitchen to get a refill on the lemonade and found Gran poking around in the refrigerator.

  “Darn. I was going to make meat loaf, but now I see we’re out of eggs. I can’t make my meat loaf without eggs.”

  “Want me to drive into town and pick some up?” Mazie asked.

  “No wheels, m’dear. My car’s in the shop.”

  “I could take Emily’s bike. She wouldn’t mind, would she?”

  “No, but that’s a three-mile trip and it’s hot as hellfire out there.”

  “It’ll give me a chance to work on my tan. What else do we need?”

  A few minutes later Mazie was on the road with a shopping list in hand, pedaling her sister-in-law’s silver Schwinn, wearing a matching helmet. While she was in town, Mazie thought, she could go visit her high school pal Holly Greenberg. They’d stayed in touch through the years; Holly had been one of the few people who hadn’t cut off all contact when she’d gone to prison. But you couldn’t just pop in on someone without phoning, and Mazie had lost Holly’s number. Besides, their lives were a lot different now.

  Holly was married to a guy named Rich who was a tax attorney.

  Mazie was not married, and probably never would be.

  Holly lived in a beautiful old Victorian house on Quail Lake.

  Mazie lived in a one-room flat behind a drag queen boutique in Milwaukee.

  H
olly had four adorable children.

  Mazie had a dog-lite.

  Holly had a mommy van.

  Mazie got around on public transportation.

  Holly didn’t have to work.

  Mazie didn’t have to work either, unless she wanted to eat.

  Those e-mails Holly occasionally sent—Be sure to tell me when you’re back in town so we can get together—that was just Holly being nice; it didn’t mean she really wanted to see Mazie.

  “Baby, baby, ba-bee—pump that sweet ass!” Two guys in a pickup truck drove slowly past Mazie, yelling and making obscene gestures before speeding off.

  Morons.

  Mazie pedaled another mile, then a car approached from the opposite direction. Open sunroof, music pounding from speakers, shirtless teenagers, hash fumes drifting from the windows—trouble, waiting to happen.

  “Hey—want a ride?” called the driver, eyes crawling all over Mazie.

  “I’ve got a ride,” she pointed out, trying to keep things light.

  The guy stopped, reversed, and pace-carred her.

  “Throw your bike in the trunk. C’mon, hon—we’re on our way to a par-tee.”

  Mazie kept pedaling, hoping another car would come along soon.

  “Stuck-up bitch.” The boy ground the car into gear and it shot forward, laying rubber, rap music ratcheting up to a volume that was probably causing seismographs to spike as far away as Chile.

  Mazie’s thighs were beginning to burn. She hadn’t remembered this being such a long bike ride in the old days, when she’d sometimes ridden her bike to school in Quail Hollow. She was relieved to spot the town limits sign about a half mile ahead.

  A vehicle came up behind, fast. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a white van with a man driving. Suddenly the van veered straight toward her. No time even to scream—she swerved, lost control of the bike, went flying over the handlebars, and landed in a ditch. The van sped away, a cackle of laughter floating back. Hauling herself shakily to her feet, Mazie surveyed the damage. Skinned shin, thistle thorn in palm, scraped elbow—it could have been a lot worse. She examined the bike. It didn’t seem to be badly damaged, although its front fender was bent and a reflector light was smashed.

  The van driver had aimed at her on purpose! Scare the crap out of a biker—hilarious. Should she report it to the police? She hadn’t gotten the van’s license number, but Quail Hollow was like Lake Wobegone—everybody knew everyone else’s vehicle.

  No. Never involve the police: Maguire’s Rules to Live By, Mazie decided as she attempted to bend the fender back into shape. Ever since she’d been arrested for her husband’s murder, Mazie had distrusted law enforcement officials. Keeping a wary eye out in case the creep came back, she biked the remaining distance into Quail Hollow.

  It was a hilly town spread out along the shores of Quail Lake. Most of its stores and businesses were clustered along Main Street, while its few industries were on the highway on its outskirts. The tallest building in town was the grain elevator, towering eight stories alongside the railroad tracks.

  She needed the supermarket, but it was still a quarter mile away, at the opposite end of town, and at the moment Mazie felt incapable of pedaling another foot. Sore, sweaty, and sunbaked, she ground to a halt in front of Oscar’s Bar, longing for a place to sit down and have a drink. She locked the bike to a utility pole and limped into the bar.

  Oscar’s looked exactly the same as it had years ago when it had been called Woofer’s. Even the dead flies in the windowsills might have been the same dead flies. It smelled the same, too—like spilled beer, moldy bar stools, and stale popcorn. It was a typical Wisconsin tavern, with beer signs from defunct breweries, dartboards, and a moose head mounted on the wall. It had pinball machines, pool tables, and an authentic 1947 Rock-Ola jukebox with a stained-glass art deco grill, and pulsing neon gas bubbles.

  The bartender turned from watching a baseball game. “What’ll it be, honey?”

  The name stitched on his T-shirt was Oscar. Presumably the owner, he was tall, middle-aged, shaved bald, and built like he didn’t need a bouncer to handle ejecting drunks. His brows were black, his eyes were dark brown, and he had the kind of skin that looks tan even in February. A small silver hoop graced one eyebrow.

  Mazie thought of ordering a Sex on the Beach, the trendies’ drink of choice back in the city, but she’d always had the feeling that sex on the beach wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Sand in body crevices, midges in your hair, spider crabs pinching your posterior—beds were better.

  Maybe something citrusy. “Could I have an Orange Sparkler?” she asked.

  “A what?” Oscar said.

  “Orange Sparkler. You juice up a blood orange and mix in a shot of Prosecco, two tablespoons of thyme, and—”

  “I ain’t got the thyme.” Oscar cracked a smile. “And I never heard of Prosecco.”

  Quail Hollow. Party like it’s 1960, baby!

  “How about a Watermelon Julep?” Mazie suggested.

  Oscar looked as though she’d asked for a hit of neon gas off the jukebox. “I’ll fix something just for you,” he said. Turning to the back bar, Oscar reached for a bottle of vodka so off-brand you could almost see the potato sprouts in it, poured out a jigger, snapped open a bottle of cherry pop, and glugged it into the vodka. Then he banged the glass down in front of Mazie.

  “There ya go,” he said. “It’s my own special recipe. It’s called a Pain in the Ass.”

  Mazie took a sip. Not terrible, actually. “Are you the owner?” she asked.

  “Yup. I’m Oscar Woods. Bought the bar off Woofer Jones a few years ago.”

  Mazie was just about to ask whether Oscar still offered the terrific hot beef sandwiches Woofer’s used to serve when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Mazie? Mazie Maguire?”

  She swiveled around to find a tall man studying her intently. He looked vaguely familiar. Short hair the ashy shade natural blondes get as they age, blue-gray eyes, long narrow wedge of jaw, tanned, thirtyish.

  He extended his hand. “Johnny,” he said. “Johnny Hoolihan.”

  Rapid reshuffle of memory cells. The Johnny Hoolihan she’d known had been Quail Hollow’s bad boy. At least he’d tried hard to be the bad boy. He was too good-looking for true bad-boy status—his teeth too white, his long sandy hair too clean-looking, his nose too straight. Still, he’d given the bad-boy thing his best shot—beer parties, underage drinking, fights, suspensions, possession of controlled substances, and once, driving a motorcycle down the school hallways.

  Could this be a different Johnny Hoolihan? He was wearing khakis, for Pete’s sake! And a short-sleeved knit shirt with a pair of reading glasses tucked into the pocket.

  If you’d thrown high school Johnny in the showers fully clothed in the black denim he favored, he would have tipped the scales at one forty, but the man in front of Mazie had filled out. Broad shoulders, baseball player-sized forearms, and muscles visible even under the boring knit shirt.

  He seemed to be following her thought process, because the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Remember now?”

  “Wow. What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Grew up, got serious. Joined the Navy. Went to college.”

  “Well, that’s kind of disillusioning. I’d sort of hoped you’d be running a crime syndicate by now.” Studying him, she could just catch a glimpse of the old Johnny in the sardonic smile.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Oh … grew up. Got serious. Went to prison.”

  “People around here were laying bets that I’d get there first.” Johnny sat down at the stool next to Mazie’s. “I heard you got a bad rap.”

  Mazie nodded. “Very bad.”

  “I also heard you rooted out the guy who committed the murder.”

  “I did. With a lot of help.”

  Johnny, a year ahead of Mazie, had been the coolest guy in high school, the guy all the other boys tried and failed to beat up
to prove their manhood; the guy all the girls wanted to make out with; the guy girls’ mothers warned them against. Mazie had never gone to a slumber party where the talk hadn’t turned to: What would it be like to kiss Johnny Hoolihan. And when they got older, the conversation changed to: What would it be like to do it with Johnny Hoolihan? Back in those days, she would have been tongue-tied if Johnny had ever spoken to her. Now, sitting with him in the bar, she discovered that he was easy to talk to. She’d assumed he would have long since moved to some hip place like New York or Seattle and was surprised to learn that he still lived in town.

  “I like small-town life,” Johnny said. “But Quail Hollow’s changing. Not for the better.”

  She told him about being run off the road. He nodded. “You get a lot more of that kind of thing these days. The drug crowd.”

  “Is it really a problem?”

  “Times are tough. Jobs are hard to come by. Factories moved to Mexico, farmers lost their farms. Guys who want to make fast, easy money cook meth. Stores around here keep their drain cleaner under lock and key.”

  Someone plugged a number into the jukebox. “I Want It That Way” started playing.

  Johnny grinned. “Remember that?”

  “The Backstreet Boys! I had a huge crush on Nick Carter.”

  “You and every other girl. Dance?”

  Oh, what the hell? It’d been so long since she’d danced she scarcely remembered how. But it came back as Johnny escorted her onto the few square feet that served as the bar’s dance floor. After the song ended they loaded every ’90s song they could find on the jukebox menu and danced to them, a trip down Memory Lane sponsored by *N Sync, Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Bon Jovi …

  “Bon Jovi—that was your nickname in high school,” Mazie said, a memory resurfacing. “Because of your hair.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he groaned. He pulled her a little closer. “So have you remarried since … uhh …”

  “No.”

  “Man in your life?”

  That was a really good question. What was Ben Labeck’s status in her life, Mazie wondered. Boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? Gentleman caller? Unsure how to answer, Mazie turned the question back on Johnny. Which she should have done sooner, she realized, because dancing with someone’s husband in a small-town bar was a big no-no. Prying herself out of his arms, watching him carefully to catch a lie, Mazie asked, “Are you married?”