Tangled Up in You

by Rachel Gibson

  “I haven’t told him who I am.” All three friends paused in the act of eating to stare at her. “While he’s working in his bar, or when everyone’s standing around a barbeque, isn’t the place to walk up to him and say, ‘My name is Maddie Jones and your mother killed mine.’” Her friends nodded in agreement and went back to their meals. “And yesterday was just bad timing all around. I’d had a crappy day. He was nice and brought me the Mouse Motel and then he kissed me.” She speared a piece of chicken and avocado. “After that, I just forgot.”

  All three friends paused once again.

  “To borrow your favorite phrase,” Lucy said, “are you shitting me?”

  Maddie shook her head. Maybe she should have kept that one to herself. Too late now.

  Now it was Clare’s turn to hold up one hand. “Wait. Clear something up for me.”

  “Yes.” Maddie answered what she thought was the next logical question. The one she would have asked. “He’s really hot and he’s good. My thighs about went up in flames.”

  “That wasn’t the question.” Clare glanced around, as she always tended to do when she thought Maddie was being inappropriate in a public place. “You made out with Mick Hennessy and he has no idea who you are? What do you think is going to happen when he finds out?”

  “I imagine he’s going to be really pissed off.”

  Clare leaned forward. “You imagine?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to predict how he’ll feel.” But she did. She knew he was going to be angry, and she knew she sort of deserved it. Although, to be fair to herself, there really hadn’t been a good time to tell him. And she hadn’t come to his house and kissed him breathless. He’d done that to her.

  “When you do tell him, make sure you have your Cobra,” Lucy advised.

  “He’s not a violent guy. I won’t need to Taser him.”

  “You don’t know him.” Adele pointed her fork at Maddie and pointed out the obvious. “His mother killed yours.”

  “And as you are always pointing out to us, it’s the sane-looking ones you have to watch out for,” Clare reminded Maddie.

  “And that without personal safety devices, we’re all sitting ducks.” Lucy laughed and lifted her drink. “‘And the next thing you know, some guy is wearing your head for a hat.’”

  “Remind me again why I’m friends with you three?” Maybe because they were the only people alive who cared about her. “I’ll tell him. I’m just picking my moment.”

  Clare sat back against the seat. “Oh, my God.”

  “What?”

  “You’re afraid.”

  Maddie picked up her margarita and took a long drink until the backs of her eyeballs froze. “I call it being a little apprehensive.” She placed a warm palm on her brow. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  The black metal frame on a pair of Revo high-resolution sunglasses sat on the bridge of Mick’s nose while the blue mirrored lenses shaded his eyes from the scorching six o’clock sun. As he walked across the school parking lot, his gaze was intent on player number twelve in the blue Hennessy’s T-shirt and the red batter’s helmet. He’d been busy going over the books and ordering beer from the distributor and he’d missed the first inning.

  “Come on, Travis,” he called out and sat on the bottom row of bleacher seats. He leaned forward to place his forearms on the tops of his thighs.

  Travis rested the bat on one shoulder as he approached the black rubber T. He took several practice swings like his coach had shown him as the opposing team, Brooks Insurance, stood in the field, mitts at the ready. Travis got into the perfect batter’s stance, swung, and completely missed.

  “That’s okay, buddy,” Mick called out to him.

  “You’ll get it this time, Travis,” Meg yelled down from where she sat in the top row next to her friends and fellow T-ball moms.

  Mick glanced up at his sister before returning his gaze to the plate. Last night’s dinner at her house had been perfectly fine. She’d made steak and baked potatoes and had been the fun-loving Meg most people knew. And the whole time, he hadn’t wanted to be there. He’d wanted to be across town. In a house on the lake with a woman he knew nothing about. Talking about mice and burying his nose in the side of her neck.

  There was something about Maddie Dupree. Something besides the beautiful face, the hot body, and the smell of her skin. Something that made him think about her when he should be thinking about other things. Distracted while he looked over his accounting system for errors.

  Travis once again got into stance and took a swing. This time he connected and sent the ball hurling between second and third base. He dropped the bat and took off for first and his helmet slid back and forth on his head as he ran. The ball bounced and rolled past the outfielder, who took off after it. The first base coach urged Travis to keep going and he made it all the way to third before the outfielder picked up the ball and threw it a few feet. Travis took off again and did a beauty of a slider into home while the outfielder and second baseman fought over the ball.

  Mick hollered and gave Travis the thumbs-up. Extremely proud as if he were the boy’s daddy instead of his uncle. For the time being, he was the male in Travis’s life. Travis hadn’t seen his father in five years, and Meg didn’t know where he was. Or, more likely, she didn’t want to know where the deadbeat was. Mick had met Gavin Black one time, at Meg’s wedding. He’d summed him up in one glance as a loser, and he’d been right.

  Travis brushed off his pants and handed his coach the helmet. He high-fived his teammates, then took a seat on the team bench. He looked over at Mick and grinned, his one missing tooth a black shadow in his small mouth. If Gavin Black had been standing in front of Mick, he would have kicked his ass all over the schoolyard. How could any man run out on his son? Especially after raising him for two years. And how could his sister have married such a loser?

  Mick placed his hands on his knees as the next batter struck out and Travis’s team took the field. The best thing for Travis and Meg would be for her to find a nice dependable man. Someone who would be good to her and Travis. Someone stable.

  He loved Travis and would always look out for him. Just as he’d looked out for Meg when they’d been kids. But he was tired now. It seemed to him that the more time he gave her, the more she took. In some ways, she’d become their grandmother, and he’d stayed away for twelve years to get away from Loraine. If he let Meg, he was afraid she’d become too dependent on him. He didn’t want that. After a life of turmoil, whether as a child or living in war zones, he wanted some peace and calm. Well, as peaceful and calming as could be expected owning two bars.

  Meg was the sort of woman who needed a man in her life, someone to balance her out, but it couldn’t be him. He thought of Maddie and her assertion that she wasn’t looking for a husband. He’d heard that claim before, but with her, he believed it. He didn’t know what she did for a living, if anything, but she obviously didn’t need a man to support her.

  Mick rose and moved to the batter’s cage to get a better look at Travis standing out in center field with his mitt held up in the air as if he expected a ball from heaven to land inside.

  He hadn’t planned to kiss Maddie yesterday. He’d brought her Ernie’s card and the Mouse Motel, and he’d planned to leave. But the second she’d opened the door, his plans got shot all to hell. The black dress had clung to her sexy curves and all he’d been able to think about was untying it. Pulling the strings and unwrapping her like a birthday gift. Touching and tasting her all over.

  He raised his hands and grasped the chain link in front of him. Yesterday his timing had been bad, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind. He was going to kiss Maddie again.

  “Hi, Mick.”

  He looked across his shoulder as Jewel Finley walked toward him. Jewel had been one of his mother’s friends. She had two obnoxious twin boys, Scoot and Wes, and a whiny crybaby girl named Belinda whom everyone called Boo. Growing up, Mick had hit Boo with a Nerf ball and she’d
acted like she’d been mortally injured. According to Meg, Belinda wasn’t quite the crybaby these days, but the twins were obnoxious as ever.

  “Hello, Mrs. Finley. Do you have a grandkid playing tonight?”

  Jewel pointed toward the opposing bench. “My daughter’s son, Frankie, is playin’ outfield for Brooks Insurance.”

  Ah. The boy who threw like a girl. Figured.

  “What are Scoot and Wes up to these days?” he asked to be polite. Not that he gave a shit.

  “Well, after their fish farm failed, they both got their commercial driver’s licenses and now they drive big rigs for a movin’ company.”

  He turned his attention to the field and Travis, who was now tossing his mitt in the air and catching it. “Which company?” If he had to move, he wanted to know who not to call.

  “York Transfer and Storage. But they’re gettin’ tired of the long haul. So as soon as they save up enough money, they’re thinkin’ about starting one of those house-flippin’ businesses. Like on TV.”

  Mick figured it would take the twins less than a year of working for themselves before they filed for bankruptcy. To say the boys weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer was an understatement.

  “There’s good money in flippin’ houses.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was going to have to talk to Travis about paying attention to the game.

  “As much as fifty grand a month. That’s what Scooter says.”

  “Uh-huh.” Geez-us. Now the kid was turned completely around and watching cars drive by in the street.

  “Have you talked to that writer yet?”

  He probably shouldn’t yell at Travis to watch the game, but he wanted to. “What writer?”

  “The one who’s writin’ a book about your parents and that waitress, Alice Jones.”

  Chapter 7

  Maddie tossed her overnight bag on her bed and unzipped it. She had a slight headache, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to her lack of sleep, drinking too much with Adele, or listening to her friend’s stories about her fractured love life.

  After she’d had lunch at Cafй Olй, she and Adele had gone back to her house in Boise to catch up. Adele always had really funny stories about her love life—although she sometimes didn’t mean for them to be quite so entertaining—and like a good friend, Maddie had listened and poured the wine. It had been a long time since Maddie had been able to reciprocate with funny and entertaining stories of her own, so mostly she’d just listened and offered occasional advice.

  Before leaving Boise, she’d invited Adele to spend the following weekend with her. Adele agreed to come and, knowing her friend, Maddie was sure she’d have several more dating horror stories to share.

  Maddie took her dirty clothes from the bag and tossed them into her hamper. It was just after noon and she was starving. She ate a chicken breast and some celery with cream cheese while she checked and answered her e-mails. She checked her answering machine, but there was only one message, and that was from a carpet cleaner. No word from Sheriff Potter.

  Later, she planned to find Mick and tell him who she was and why she was in town. It was the right thing to do, and she wanted him to hear it from her first. She figured she could find him at one of his two bars, and she hoped he was working at Mort’s tonight. She really wasn’t looking forward to walking into Hennessy’s, although she would have to at some point. She’d never been inside the bar where her mother had died. To her, Hennessy’s wasn’t just another old crime scene. One she had to visit for her book. She would have to go to note the changes and observe the place. And while she certainly wasn’t afraid, she was apprehensive.

  As she rinsed her plate in the sink and put it in the dishwasher, she wondered exactly how angry Mick was likely to get. Until her friends had mentioned it, she hadn’t thought of packing her Taser when she told him. While he seemed perfectly nonviolent, he had shot Hellfire missiles from helicopters. And of course his mother had been a nut job, and while Maddie liked to think she had a special psycho radar, honed after years of meeting with them while they’d been chained to a table, it never hurt to err on the side of caution and a really good pepper spray.

  The doorbell rang, and this time she wasn’t surprised to see Mick standing on her porch. Just like last time, he held a business card between two fingers, but there was no mistaking that the card was hers.

  He stared at her from behind the blue lenses of his sunglasses, and his lips were set in a flat line. He wasn’t wearing a happy face, but he didn’t look too angry. She probably wouldn’t have to hose him with the pepper spray. Not that she even had it on her.

  Maddie lowered her gaze to the card. “Where did you get that?”

  “Jewel Finley.”

  Crap. She really hadn’t meant for him to find out that way, but she wasn’t surprised. “When?”

  “Last night at Travis’s T-ball game.”

  “I’m sorry you heard about it like that.” Maddie didn’t invite him inside, but he didn’t wait for an invitation.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked as he brushed past her, six feet two, one hundred and ninety pounds, of determined man. Trying to stop him would have been as futile as trying to stop a tank.

  Maddie closed the door and followed. “You didn’t want to know anything about me. Remember?”

  “That’s a bunch of bullshit.” Light from outside flowed in through the large windows, over the back of the sofa and coffee table and across the hardwood floor. Mick stopped within the spill of light and took off his sunglasses. Maddie had been wrong about his anger. It burned like blue fire in his eyes. “I didn’t want to know about your old boyfriends, your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, or who you sat next to in the second grade.” He held up the card. “This is different, and don’t pretend that it’s not.”

  She pushed her hair behind her ears. He had a right to be angry. “That first night at Mort’s, I went there to introduce myself and to tell you who I was and why I was in town. But the bar was busy and it wasn’t a good time. When I saw you at the hardware store and on the Fourth, Travis was with you and I didn’t think it an appropriate time then either.”

  “And when I was here alone?” He frowned and stuck his glasses on top of his head.

  “I tried to tell you that day.”

  “Is that so?” He slid the card in the pocket of his black Mort’s Bar polo shirt. “Before or after you stuck your tongue down my throat?”

  Maddie gasped. Yeah, he had a right to be angry, but not to rewrite history. “You kissed me!”

  “An appropriate time,” he said as if she hadn’t protested, “might have been before you glued yourself to my chest.”

  “Glued? You pulled me in to your chest.” Her gaze narrowed, but she wouldn’t allow herself to get angry. “I told you that you didn’t know me.”

  “And instead of you telling me the important shit like you’re in town to write a book about my parents, you thought I would be more interested in knowing that you’re ‘kind of sexually abstinent.’” He rested his weight on one foot and tilted his head to one side as he looked down at her. “You weren’t planing to tell me.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “This is a small town and I knew you’d find out.”

  “And until I did, were you planning to fuck me for information?”

  Don’t get mad, she told herself.

  If you get mad, you might get out the Taser. “There are two problems with your theory.” She held up a hand and raised one finger. “That I need you to give me information. I don’t.” She raised a second finger. “And that I was planning to fuck you. I wasn’t.”

  He took a step toward her and smiled. Not one of his nice, charming smiles either. “If I’d had more time, you would have been flat on your back.”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  “And you’re lying. To me and to yourself.”

  “I never lie to myself.” She looked into his eyes, not in the leas
t intimidated by his size or anger. “And I never lied to you.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You purposely hid the truth, which is the same damn thing.”

  “Oh, that’s rich. A morality lesson from you. Tell me, Mick, do all the women you sleep with know about each other?”

  “I don’t lie to women.”

  “No, you just bring mousetraps thinking that will get you into their pants.”

  “That isn’t the reason I brought you the trap.”

  “Now who’s lying?” She pointed toward the door. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  He didn’t budge. “You can’t do this, Maddie. You can’t write about my family.”

  “Yes, I can, and I’m going to.” She didn’t wait for him but walked to the door and opened it.

  “Why? I’ve read all about you,” he said as he moved toward her, his boot heels an angry thud across the hardwood. “You write about serial killers. My mother wasn’t a serial killer. She was a housewife who’d had enough of a cheating husband. She flipped out and killed him and herself. There’s no big villain here. No sick bastards like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. What happened to my mother and father is hardly the sensational sort of stuff that people want to read about.”

  “I think I’m a little more qualified to determine that than you.”

  He stopped on the threshold and turned to face her. “My mother was just a sad woman who snapped one night and left her children orphaned, victims of her mental illness.”

  “All this talk of you and your family, you seem to forget there was another innocent victim.”

  “That little waitress was hardly innocent.”

  Actually, she’d been talking about herself. “So you’re like everyone else in this town and think Alice Jones got what she deserved.”

  “No one got what they deserved, but she was screwing around with a married man.”

  Now. Now she was truly good and angry. “So your mother was perfectly justified in shooting her in the face.”