She Drives Me Crazy

by Leslie Kelly

  “Now you can put it off another day or so, until your foot’s okay.” He cast a quick look at her ankle.

  “It’s not bad at all,” she insisted. Stirring some cream into her coffee she sipped it, almost sighing with pleasure. “Diner coffee. Is there anything better?”

  “Diner pie. My cousin Virgil’s wife makes the best peach pie in the state of Georgia.”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No way could it beat my grandmother’s pecan. We used to go out to her daddy’s old farm outside of town every year when we’d visit for Thanksgiving. My dad would tie ropes to the branches and we’d shake the nuts onto tarps on the ground. Then Grandma would take them home and dry them to last her the year.”

  She thought for a moment of the lovely afternoons in the orchard. Her grandmother would talk about the old days, and the last little piece of her family’s farm—the orchard—which she’d held onto and promised to leave to Emma. She inhaled deeply, almost smelling the fragrance of Emmajean’s baking. “She’d always have a fresh pecan pie waiting when we came for our summer visit. I’m going to dig through her recipes as soon as I can figure out where she hid them and make one of those pies.”

  “I’d like to taste a piece of pie you baked.”

  He obviously remembered her lack of ability in the kitchen. She didn’t tell him about her Manhattan cooking school experiment…so she wouldn’t have to tell him she’d, uh, failed.

  “I might not have Grandma Emmajean’s creative flare, but I’ve learned to follow a recipe to the last pinch. I do okay.”

  “Maybe I’ll risk my life someday by letting you bake for me.” The twinkle in his eye took any sting from his words.

  “If somebody had told me a month ago that I’d be serving up pie to you in my grandmother’s kitchen this summer, I’d have thought they’d been hitting the kind of moonshine the old-timers used to brew up in the hills,” she muttered.

  “They still do.”

  She raised a curious brow.

  “My uncle Rafe and his brood live up there.”

  More Walkers. Why was she not surprised.

  Johnny drank his own coffee, then got up to put away the groceries. She watched him silently for a moment, seeing glimpses in his strong profile of the teenager she’d known.

  Yesterday, wearing a dress shirt and trousers, he’d been conservative, powerful and mature. Not to mention gorgeous.

  Today, dressed in faded, worn jeans and a tight white T-shirt that did sinful things to the strong muscles in his arms and shoulders, he was downright devastating. Unshaven, rugged, completely masculine. Yet he looked perfectly comfortable in the kitchen, putting milk, juice and eggs in the fridge, taking care of her like he would any old friend who’d been laid up.

  Only they weren’t quite old friends, were they? And being with Johnny didn’t exactly make her think of being laid up. Just laid, maybe.

  Don’t even go there.

  No, friendship couldn’t describe what was between Emma and Johnny. There was something else, something instinctive and deep. It had been present from the very beginning, even while she’d been dating his brother and he’d been playing the role of town rebel to the hilt.

  It hadn’t been mere attraction. Looking back with adult perspective, she knew that now. Heck, even then, when she’d been practically a kid, she’d suspected the charge she and Johnny sparked off each other went a lot deeper than teenage hormones.

  When Johnny got around to finishing with the groceries, and they actually looked at one another, the awareness that had always existed between them would return. They’d begin dancing around the tension and intimate knowledge they’d shared from the first time they’d met. And then he’d leave.

  For some reason, she didn’t want their truce to end too soon. After she’d eaten her fill of the doughnuts and swallowed another gulp of coffee, Emma leaned back in her chair. “You know, I meant to ask you last night, why are you back here? I always figured the way you hated this town, you would have gone far, far away.”

  “Oh, so you thought about me a lot, hmm?” he asked, a note of teasing in his voice. Not returning to his seat at the table, he leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, until his muscles flexed against the white cotton of his shirt. “I thought you hadn’t spared me even a moment’s thought.”

  Sipping her coffee, Emma ordered her heart to return to its normal rhythm. “No, I never did.” Lie. “It was so long ago, I hardly even remember what happened when I lived here in Joyful.” Lie number two.

  A knowing smile crossed his lips. “Right.”

  She knew better than to protest too much. “What’s the story? I haven’t seen your picture on the cover of any sports magazines, so you obviously didn’t turn pro after playing football in college.”

  “Nope. With the help of a three hundred pound offensive lineman from North Carolina State, I blew out my knee in junior year.”

  She swallowed hard. “Your scholarship?”

  “Can you believe by then I qualified for an academic one?”

  “Yes, I can believe it,” she murmured, knowing Johnny had always been much smarter than anyone in this town had ever given him credit for. “So you did finish college?”

  “Even worse,” he said. “My professors liked the poor white-trash Georgia boy so much, they helped me get into law school.”

  Her draw dropped. Johnny, the most-suspended teen in the history of Joyful High School, a lawyer? It boggled the mind.

  He must have seen her shock because he chuckled softly, a gentle, delighted sound that reminded her of the way his laughter had always made her feel. Like she’d just sipped something luscious and sweet and her whole body had gone soft with the pleasure of it. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them to find him watching her intently.

  “Tough to imagine, huh?” he continued. “It gets better.” His eyes glowed until he finally delivered the punch line. “I came back to Joyful to take the job as county prosecutor.”

  If she’d had a drink in her mouth, she would have spewed it all over the kitchen table. Because there was no way she believed that one. Johnny had liked the legal authorities as much as Emma liked going to the gynecologist.

  “You’re such a liar.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I actually fell for any of it. Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re really in business with your Uncle Rafe making moonshine up in the hills.”

  “It’s true, Emma Jean, I swear.” He made a crossing motion over his heart. “Every word.”

  Emma didn’t have much faith in anyone’s “I swear.” The last time she’d heard one, Lydia, her former best friend from accounting, had been swearing Emma didn’t have a thing to worry about by leaving every penny of her money invested in her company-backed portfolio.

  Look how that had turned out. With Lydia partying with the rich and corrupt in Buenos Aires, and Emma flat broke but for Grandma Emmajean’s pin money in teeny-town Georgia.

  Johnny’s expression, however, made her pause. “You’re serious? You’re not kidding?”

  “Not kidding. I’ve been the big bad prosecutor of Joyless for eighteen months now.”

  “You’re a prosecutor. Good grief, Johnny, I know how much you hated the sheriff’s office. Heck, any authority figure! So please, using small, nonlegalese words, try to explain something I find completely incomprehensible.”

  He crossed the room, taking his seat at the table as he reached for another of the doughnuts. After he bit into it, he deftly licked at a spot of powdered sugar on the corner of his much too kissable lips.

  Emma’s world rocked a little bit as she watched. Hit hard with a sudden flash of sense memory, parts of her body tingled, reliving the way that tongue of his had felt. How he’d adored her, exploring every inch of her, introducing her to parts of her body she’d barely had a passing acquaintance with.

  He’d been better than anyone after. There hadn’t been any befores, or many aft
ers, probably for that very reason. Once she’d had something so good, she’d wanted nothing less than perfection. Unfortunately, no other man had ever been able to give it to her.

  She forced herself to focus by jerking her injured ankle. Hard. Pain dissipated the momentary haze of horny dementia.

  “I worked in the public defender’s office in Atlanta for the first year after I passed the bar,” he explained. “Then I heard this job had opened up. My mother was still here….”

  Emma didn’t ask about his father. She knew full well how Johnny and his brother had felt about him.

  “She’s not getting any younger. Besides which, like I said, Daneen had moved back to town with Jack, and he was getting older. I thought the kid could use more people looking out for him.” His tone grew tight. “Obviously my brother wasn’t bothering.”

  She skipped that subject, too.

  “What happened to Mr. Early? He was the prosecutor forever.”

  “He got tired of it and decided he wanted to be public defender for a while.” A look of amusement crossed his face. “Between the two of us, we manage to keep Sheriff Brady from doing too much damage. At least, whenever I can pry Cyrus Early’s fishing pole out of his hands long enough to get him to show up in court.”

  Ahh, there was the key. Johnny was still finding ways to do what he always did—help people in need, while also thwarting the local authority. Leave it to him to find a rather unique position from which to do it.

  “I’ll bet your mom loves having a county official for a son,” she said. She hadn’t met Nick and Johnny’s mother too often, but she’d been impressed by the woman’s innate kindness and obvious love for her two boys.

  He nodded. “That makes it worthwhile. She retired, you know, a couple of years back. When I was in my senior year at Georgia State my father was killed.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  She hadn’t ever met Johnny and Nick’s father. Neither one of them talked about him much, and Nick had always insisted she never come out to their small farm on the outskirts of town while they were dating. But anyone who lived in Joyful had heard the rumors about the man, as renowned for his drinking as he was for his mean temper.

  “Feel sorry for the woman whose car he crashed into when he was driving home drunk that night,” Johnny said matter-of-factly. “She miscarried her baby.”

  She shook her head, not sure how to respond. Johnny didn’t sound bitter, merely aloof. She wondered again what it must have been like growing up as the son of a man the whole town considered the most useless—and mean—of all the trashy Walker clan.

  “Now, Em,” he said, settling back in his chair and staring her full in the face. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’ve been doing for the past ten years?” He reached for his coffee. “And why you’ve come back to Joyful.”

  DANEEN DIDN’T LIKE working on Saturdays. It was hard enough getting someone to stay with little Johnny…all right, Jack!…during the week. Weekends were nearly impossible. “Come on, bud. Time to go,” she hollered, glancing at her watch.

  Jimbo understood her limitations as a single mom and was usually flexible. Today, however, he was insistent. He’d called last night asking her to come in. Her dismay at having to work on a Saturday had been equaled by her annoyance at the interruption of the phone conversation she’d been having. She’d been getting an earful about the high-and-mighty Ms. Emma Jean Frasier.

  She couldn’t believe the stories. The town thought Emma was the owner of the new club, Joyful Interludes. Therefore, they figured, she must be the mysterious “porn star” advertised on the billboard. Something about her going to the city and making dirty pictures had made perfect sense to the gossipers. They’d connected point A to point B and come up with a big whopping X.

  Daneen didn’t know much about any porn star rumors, but she honestly didn’t think Emma owned the club. Jimbo had handled the sale of the property, she knew that because he’d made a boatload of money off it. He was still representing the new owners here in town. The checks that came across her desk from the holding company building the club were nice and regular.

  Surely she would have seen Emma Jean’s name somewhere by this point if she was involved in the project.

  Or maybe not. Jimbo was playing this one awfully close to his chest, so she supposed anything was possible. Still, remembering Emma Jean’s prim and proper teen years, and her town matriarch grandmother, she doubted the story was true.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy gossiping about it.

  She swallowed a bit of guilt in her throat because of the way she’d stolen Nick away from Emma Jean in high school. Then she shrugged. Emma Jean could have had any guy she wanted. She didn’t have to go after Nick Walker—the one Daneen had been after forever—the minute she hit town!

  It was just too bad Daneen had eventually gotten him. Nick had been one hell of a lover, but not quite as gullible as most teenage guys. She’d learned that the hard way when he’d started reading up on pregnancy during her second trimester. That’d been the beginning of the end. Because even if he was a big goofy teenager and a bad student, he sure hadn’t had any trouble with basic math. He could easily count to nine—nine months. Then he’d figured out the truth.

  “Mom, why can’t I go to the park for the morning? I know some of the guys’ll be there.” Jack emerged from his room and met her at the front door of their little house, the one Daddy had helped her buy when she came back to town.

  She glanced at her son as they walked out. “I’ve told you, you’re not going to hang around in the park like a juvenile delinquent. Your last name might be Walker, but you don’t have to act like one.” At the frown on his face, she cursed her quick tongue. “I’m sorry, babe. Listen, I don’t mind you being alone for an hour after school, but not a whole weekend morning.”

  “What happens when school lets out in a couple weeks?” he asked with a knowing grin. “You don’t need to waste money on a baby-sitter all summer. How about we decide together, like two mature people, that I’m old enough to take care of myself?”

  She laughed as they got into her car. Jack…what a wheeler-dealer. Just like Jimbo. “How about we don’t and say we did?”

  He rolled his eyes and nagged her all the way to the office. When they got there, Daneen was both surprised and relieved to see her father’s cruiser parked outside, next to Jimbo’s Lincoln. “Look, Pa-paw’s here. Maybe he’ll take you back to the station to hang out or something while I work.”

  Jack’s eyes lit up. “Last time he let me radio Deputy Fred and tell him a spaceship landed in the Wal-Mart parking lot.”

  “That’s not very nice,” she murmured.

  Fred was a decent man. Nicer than most men in this town. He always treated her like a lady and was very protective of her, even though she’d made it clear she was not going to follow her father’s advice and go out with him again like she had a few times in high school.

  Her father. Whew. If he ever found out about her and Jimbo, there’d be pure hell to pay. He seemed determined that Daneen was still his “innocent” little girl who’d been done wrong by a rotten Walker.

  One of these days, he’d probably find out the truth. Allof it. Daneen looked forward to judgment day more than that one.

  Inside the office, Daneen pointed to a chair and whispered for Jack to sit in it. Walking toward Jimbo’s door, she heard her father’s voice. “Damn, you swore she’d never come back.”

  “I didn’t think she would,” Jimbo replied easily. “But it doesn’t matter. Everything’s filed, legal and tidy. And what’s she going to do about it? Huff and puff and blow the place down?” Jimbo gave one of his big, hearty politician laughs. “Dan, my friend, you need to relax. I’ve got things under control.”

  Wondering who they were talking about, Daneen knocked lightly on the office door. “Hello, there,” she said as she walked in and smiled in greeting.

  “There’s my baby girl,” her father said, giv
ing her a bear hug. Then he glanced out into the reception area and spied Jack. “Come on in here, boy. Mayor Boyd was telling me your mama had to work today. I was hoping you might be able to spend some time with me.”

  Jack ambled into the room, as if he wasn’t busting with excitement about getting to spend time with his blustery grandpa. “You gonna let me turn on the siren in the squad car?”

  “You betcha,” Dan said with a big laugh. “You believe this kid, Jimbo? My grandson knows how to work all the angles.”

  “Quite a boy Daneen’s got there all right,” Jimbo replied.

  Daneen nudged her son in the shoulder. “Say hello. Then say goodbye. We got work to do.”

  “Yes, son, we surely do,” Jimbo said, hunkering down eye to eye with Jack and giving him one of those big, genuine smiles. Then he looked up at Daneen and gave her an intimate look. “I don’t know what I’d do without your mama.”

  Daneen clenched her jaw, ordering herself to be strong. Unfortunately, her whole body was reacting to that warmth in his eyes. She cursed her own weakness, knowing it was inevitable.

  Well, at the very least, she would make him beg for forgiveness for his inattentiveness the previous afternoon. Because she suspected this morning she’d be helping Jimbo file away more than just legal deeds.

  JOHNNY DIDN’T EXPECT Emma to open up and be honest about what she’d been doing for the past ten years. At least not if she’d really been off making dirty movies…which he doubted. But there was no question in his mind she was hiding something when she breezily informed him about how great life had treated her.

  She was blissfully happy. She was successful. She was thrilled to pieces.

  She was lying through her teeth.

  Emma looked stressed, tired and worried about more than a twisted ankle. She definitely wasn’t the happy-go-lucky Em he remembered. Besides, whenever Emma Jean Frasier lied, her cheeks turned bright red. He knew it was true, he’d seen it firsthand in the old days. Right now she looked like a circus clown, complete with two bright spots of face paint on her pale skin.