She Drives Me Crazy

by Leslie Kelly

  Huh-uh. He only grew more angry.

  Having blown past the sheriff, who stood at the desk talking to Fred, he felt a sense of déjà vu sweep over him. But this time, Johnny wasn’t laughing or resigned about seeing Emma in a cell. He was boiling mad. Somehow, however, he managed to hide it. “Hey, darlin’, we’ve really gotta stop meetin’ like this.”

  “Johnny!” She darted over to the front of the cell, extending her hand through the bars. “Thank God you’re here. This is insane.”

  He gave her a tender smile. “Hold on, honey, you’ll be out in a second.” Then he barked over his shoulder, “Let her out. Right now.”

  “Now, you just hold on a minute there, honey,” Chief Brady said from behind him as he approached. “I’m not ready to let her go anywhere.”

  Johnny stepped out of the way so the barrel-chested chief could get through the narrow doorway with the keys to open Emma’s cell. Which he was going to do, even if Johnny had to grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him.

  “Let her out now, Dan,” he bit out.

  The older man instantly stiffened. “I’m questionin’ her.”

  “No, you’re not.” He shook his head in disgust, tired of the old argument which was suddenly so much more serious than it ever had been in the past. “You can’t ignore the law whenever you feel like it. You’ve got no right to just throw somebody into a cell at your whim. Now let her out, or I’ll be the first one testifying against you when she files charges against you and the town.”

  Brady frowned, but he did approach the front of the cell with the huge key ring that usually hung on the hook by the front desk. “She’s the prime suspect in a murder.”

  Murder. Right. It’d almost make him laugh…if only it weren’t true. Little old Joyful had seen its first murder in the past eight years. Now, under his watch.

  Unbelievable. The whole thing was like a bad dream.

  First, that anyone would walk into the Boyd Realty office and stab Jimbo Boyd in the heart with the wooden stake from one of his own damn campaign signs. Like a freakin’ vampire.

  But worse, the sheriff had turned a suspicious eye toward Emma. The woman who’d shared his bed last evening.

  This wasn’t nightmare stuff, it’d gone straight to horror movie status.

  “I want to talk to you, young lady,” Dan said, towering over Emma. “You said you’d talk when the D.A. got here, and he’s here.”

  She opened her mouth, but Johnny threw his hand up, palm out, to stop her. “Don’t say anything.” Boy did that go against every prosecutorial instinct he possessed.

  “It’s all right,” Emma replied, looking much less panicked than when she’d stood on the other side of the steel bars. She stepped closer, not touching him, but seeming to need the solid warmth of his body as near as possible. Then she turned to Sheriff Brady. “I do have something to say.” Her jaw stiff, she snapped, “I didn’t do it. The end.”

  Brady turned red. “You were there…”

  “So was Mrs. Dillon, even before me! Good lord, she was holding the man’s hair in her hand when I walked in the place.”

  Johnny winced. He hadn’t heard that part.

  Probably seeing his surprise, Emma explained. “She said it came right off when she tried to lift his head up off the floor to see if he was breathing. I guess she was too shocked to drop it.” Then she turned her attention back toward the sheriff. “She can tell you I showed up after the man was dead.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” the sheriff said with a scoffing frown. “You coulda followed him from the house. You mighta waited all night outside and followed him into the office to do your dirty work, then came back later to try to throw us off the scent.” His eyes widened. “Or ’cause you realized you dropped your earring and had to come back to find it.”

  Emma’s hands immediately rose to touch her ears. Pretty gold hoops dangled from each one.

  Oh, such colossal intellect. Johnny imagined Perry Mason would be right proud of this moment. Actually, he thought he’d seen that particular case on an old Matlock rerun. “You’re reaching, Dan. You’ve got absolutely nothing. No evidence, no motive, no nothing.”

  “She threatened him last night.”

  Last night. The words pierced through the red haze of anger in his brain. Twice now Brady had said something about last night. “She was at my house last night,” Johnny admitted through clenched teeth.

  He heard a soft, nearly imperceptible sigh. Casting a quick glance at Emma, he immediately noted her pinkening cheeks. Hell.

  “Not at eleven o’clock she wasn’t,” Brady said. “I was standing right there in the room when she threatened the man.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “You said you’d make him wish he’d never heard of you.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no. Emma had not left his house and gone over to Jimbo’s to confront the man, full of righteous anger and fire. And threats.

  The way she nibbled her bottom lip told him she had.

  A keeper. That’s what she needed. Either that or a pair of handcuffs to prevent her from leaving home and getting into trouble.

  Emma continued to defend herself to the frowning sheriff. “I said I wasn’t going to let him forget me, which wasn’t a threat. And I most certainly did not sit outside his house on Sycamore Avenue stalking him all night.”

  A sharp crack caught the attention of all three of them. Glancing over, Johnny saw Deputy Fred, picking up a notebook he’d dropped near the doorway. He’d probably kicked it, wanting to get nice and close for the best eavesdropping angle.

  Beside him, Emma snapped to attention. “Wait, if you don’t believe me, ask your own deputy. I drove right by him when I left the neighborhood. He had somebody pulled over.”

  His analytical mind kicked in. Whether Fred had seen her leave or not, it really didn’t matter. Emma wouldn’t have had to follow Jimbo to know he’d show up at work today.

  What was he thinking? He shook his head, hard, forcing himself to think like a lover. Not a prosecutor.

  “Well?” Emma asked, looking at Fred, who opened and closed his mouth a few times.

  Finally, the red-faced man merely shook his head. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Emma gaped. Sheriff Brady immediately got back to questions about Jimbo. And Fred stood there, frowning, looking very confused. Not to mention secretive…though about what, Johnny had no idea.

  How strange that Fred would lie—as he so obviously was—when the truth wouldn’t matter a bit, anyway. He couldn’t imagine why the normally straight-laced deputy would do such a thing.

  But it suddenly seemed very important to find out.

  EMMA HAD NEVER seen Johnny so furious. As they drove away from the jail, his hands grew white from his death grip on the steering wheel. His pulse pounded in his temple and his jaw looked stiff enough to crack. Though she knew his anger wasn’t directed at her, it was still somewhat intimidating to see.

  “The mentality in this town is going to make me lose my mind someday,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  Dropping her hand onto his leg, she rubbed up and down as much to distract as to console him. “You’re the one who wanted to move back here.”

  “So I could batter my head against an idiot sheriff and small-minded people for the rest of my life. What was I thinking?”

  She thought about it. “About your mother. And your nephew,” she finally murmured. Then, speculating about some of Johnny’s choices, she continued. “About living in a place where you don’t have to lock your door at night. Where you can open a window on a summer day and hear kids playing ball in the park.”

  A slight shrug was his only response. But she didn’t give up. “About having neighbors who are always ready to come over to help you fix your lawnmower or offer you a beer.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look. “Yeah, right.”

  “You’re telling me it’s not like that, now?” she asked, knowing he’d started rem
embering his childhood as a white-trash Walker, instead of the life he lived today.

  “I suppose,” he admitted, his tone grudging.

  She nodded, glad he could admit it. “Besides all that, I suspect you came back here because you know there are people in this town who deserve to have at least one public official who knows how to do his job.”

  The tightness returned to his lips. She almost regretted mentioning town officials, which immediately brought to mind the dead, hairless mayor and the blustery sheriff.

  Moving her hand up to his cheek, she scraped the back of her fingers along his jawline. “I’m okay, Johnny. I’m really okay.”

  He glanced over, emotion, stark and raw, evident in his eyes. That emotion told her she’d reached the right conclusion. He was afraid for her. More, enraged for her.

  Johnny had never been the fighter of the Walkers. His temper had always been slow to rise to a boil, unlike Nick who’d punched his way out of a lot of situations. Johnny had never needed to. He’d been the sexy rebel with the wicked smile and the irresistible charm. On the rare occasions when he did get mad, he yelled, got it out of his system and moved on. It would take a lot to bring the man to violence.

  Right now he looked ready to rip someone to shreds.

  “Don’t take me home yet,” she murmured, knowing they both needed a distraction. “I can’t stand the thought of every set of eyes on the block watching us walk into my house together. And we probably shouldn’t go to your place, either.”

  He immediately turned the car in another direction, without telling her where they were going. During their silent drive, Emma tried to think of anything except how that black toupee had looked in Cora Dillon’s hand. Her tummy felt queasy thinking about it. Thank God she hadn’t gone into Jimbo’s private office. Otherwise she’d be picturing his dead body on the floor instead of just his saggy hair.

  She’d distrusted the man, but she’d certainly never wanted him dead. And she couldn’t imagine who would.

  Emma would have liked to talk about it, but kept quiet. Johnny finally seemed to have calmed down a bit. The last thing she wanted to do was stoke his anger again.

  They’d get to it, eventually. He’d certainly have something to say about her going over to the Boyd house last night. But not now. Now, she just wanted to be alone with him, to crawl into his arms and kiss him and forget the ugliness of the morning.

  Seeing the top of the grange building, Emma suddenly realized where he was taking her. “The gazebo.”

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for permission or offer to go someplace else. There was no place else for them, no place as right, anyway.

  The gazebo stood near a small playground on the edge of a tiny lake, where Emma remembered feeding the ducks with her grandparents as a child. And hanging out with her friends late at night during high school.

  It’d been a pretty spot, off the main road. With not a house in sight—the old grange building was the only structure within a half mile—the place had been secluded, almost separate from the rest of the world.

  That hadn’t changed…it was still secluded. But the park itself was a surprise.

  “It looks abandoned,” she murmured.

  Weeds had sprung up through the gravel of the parking lot, until it resembled a mere clearing. The trees and shrubs circling the playground had become overgrown and tangled. Orange rust covered the chains of one swing, while the other was gone altogether. And only a very foolish parent would allow a child to slide down the mangled remains of the sliding board.

  “Doesn’t anybody come here anymore?” she asked.

  “The city built a big new park downtown. This one’s been pretty much forgotten.”

  “Sad,” she murmured.

  “Private.”

  Ah, yes, it would be that.

  Getting out of the SUV, she walked around to the front and held her hand out. When he took it, lacing his fingers with hers, she immediately began to feel safe, calm and relaxed. For the first time all day.

  Judging by the condition of the park equipment, she half feared the gazebo would have fallen into disrepair as well. Almost holding her breath, she glanced past two ancient oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, and breathed an audible sigh of relief to see it standing just where it had a decade ago.

  Near the lake, surrounded by a tangle of jasmine, the once white structure was now a milky gray, with brownish water stains on its roof. Some of the vines had curled up over the railing, providing a thick wall of privacy that had been absent years ago. If it’d been there on prom night, she might not have been so, umm, exposed to her classmates.

  By unspoken agreement, they stepped up inside, Emma inhaling deeply to savor the scent of the jasmine.

  “Johnny?”

  He didn’t reply, didn’t need to. Because he obviously heard the need in her voice. His arms opened to her and she launched into them. Stroking her back, he whispered sweet things into her hair, absorbing the confusion and fear that had consumed her since she’d stumbled into a murder scene this morning.

  And soon he did even more. Because the hard strength of his form, the feel of his breath on her neck and the soft rumble of his voice brought all her senses into full alert. Their bodies touched from top to bottom, and Emma became aware of a different kind of tension building inside her. The hungry, wicked kind this man had always inspired.

  Tilting her head back, she looked up at him and moistened her parted lips. Johnny responded with a groan, then gave her what she’d silently been begging for. His mouth opened on hers as he kissed her deeply. She circled her arms around his neck, sinking her fingers into his thick hair.

  A lot was said in the kiss…a lot of tender things that spoken words might have diminished. She thanked him and he told her he was glad she was safe. They shared emotion and kindness and a sweet, languorous kind of want so appropriate for this place on this hot summer day.

  Finally, after their long, intimate kiss, he pulled away. Emma drew in a few deep breaths to calm her raging pulse, wondering how he’d managed to make every other thought completely evaporate from her mind. Except one: how much she wanted him. Here and now. In a place that had once been so important to them both.

  “How do you always have this effect on me?” she asked, not meaning to voice the question aloud.

  “What effect?” He kissed the corner of her mouth. Then traced his tongue across her lips. “Making you want to rip off your clothes, not caring where we are or who’s nearby?”

  Tilting her head back, she nearly purred when he kissed his way down her throat. “Exactly. Like the last time we were here.”

  He hesitated for the briefest moment and she almost bit her own tongue for mentioning their last time here. Prom night.

  His hands were at her waist, his fingertips sliding under the edge of her top, caressing her hips with featherlight touches. Closing her eyes, she gave herself over to the sensation, wanting more. Wanting it all. Especially the delightful kisses he was placing on her neck.

  “We ever gonna talk about it, Em?” he whispered against her sensitized skin.

  Talk about it? About what? Were they talking? How could she possibly know when he continued to press hot, wet kisses onto the hollow of her throat, and then lower.

  He whispered something against her collarbone.

  “Hmm?”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  Sorry? For this? Goodness, no man should ever apologize for being able to reduce a woman to a five-foot-six pile of jelly with just his lips and oh-so-sweet tongue.

  “I’m sorry I took off that night.”

  She stiffened, suddenly realizing they were still talking about prom night.

  Lifting his head, he whispered, “I’m sorry I left you standing here alone, Emma Jean.”

  She couldn’t help it. Moisture gathered in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, mentally willing the tears to disappear. It was hard. His words brought back what had been the most awful moment of
her life, up until that night.

  Now, as an adult, being caught naked in the headlights of a bunch of cars would be darned embarrassing, but she might be able to laugh at it. Eventually.

  Then, however, at age eighteen, having just lost her virginity to a guy she was crazy about—who’d morphed into an angry stranger for some unknown reason—it was absolutely devastating.

  “You were a prick.”

  And a prince.

  “I wanted to kill you.”

  I wanted to lose myself in you.

  “I hated you.”

  I loved you.

  Johnny didn’t flinch from her hard words. “I hated myself once I had a chance to calm down.”

  He stepped away, giving them both some distance to continue with what she sensed was going to be an important conversation. The kind they had to have if they wanted this…thing…between them to have any chance of going further.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked softly. “Why did you turn into a stranger?”

  Crossing his arms, he leaned his hip against the railing and countered with a question of his own. “Why did you do it? Why did you let me make love to you?”

  Because I loved you.

  The words leaped to her lips, but she quickly adjusted them. “Because I wanted you.” Remembering something he’d said the other night, she wondered if he’d doubted that over the years. She approached him, lifting one hand and placing it flat on his chest, over his strongly beating heart. “I wanted you. I didn’t need you.”

  Seeing a quick flash of relief on his face, she was glad she’d admitted it. “Now, why did you get so angry? It wasn’t because I was a virgin, because you were so…” Her face grew hot and she realized she was blushing like a kid. She pressed on, her voice a little shaky. “You were so wonderful when you realized.”

  “It was the locket,” he admitted, his words thick and tight. “When you started crying about the locket and I realized you’d practically been engaged to my brother, well…”

  Her jaw dropped. “Engaged? What?”

  “Nick asked you to wear the locket on your honeymoon, remember? And you cried like someone whose heart had been completely trampled on when it broke.”