Chasing Trouble

by Joya Ryan

  Colt’s previous words hit her hard. It would take a swift kick. Jenna suddenly understood the meaning. Someone else would have to kick her away from this man. Because anytime, anywhere, she would run, jump, and wrap herself around him until someone pried her loose.

  Oh God, was this how her mother felt? In her short skirts and sequins, jumping from man to man, one promise to the next? Constantly chasing the rush and feeling of bliss. In that moment, feeling colder than she’d ever felt before, Jenna thought she might give just about anything to make this instant emptiness go away.

  Maybe she was just like her mother, after all. The thought made her blood slow, and her whole body trembled with fear. She hugged her stomach, trying to get a grip.

  “Stupid,” she mumbled as she grabbed her shorts from the ground and began putting them back on.

  “What’s that?”

  She snapped her shorts just as Colt refastened his belt. When he flipped his hat back around, the shadow of the bill covered his eyes and Jenna wished so much she could see those blazing blues again.

  “Nothing. We better get back.”

  He simply nodded and they both started back toward the bonfire.

  “I hope someone found Penny.”

  Colt smirked. “Sugar, everyone knows that sardines is just seven minutes in heaven, outdoors edition.”

  Great. Just great. “So everyone will know what we were doing?”

  “No. I just wouldn’t worry about the others. They’re probably all drinking back by the trucks already.”

  Jenna massaged her temples. Just as they walked through the tree line and saw the bonfire, she saw that Huck, Lily, and Ryder had all returned. Sebastian must still be looking.

  “Hey? You all right?” Colt asked.

  Jenna kept her eyes forward, concentrating on her steps, because if she didn’t, her shaky knees would cave and she’d collapse.

  It was the second time he’d asked her that that night, and for the second time she wanted to say no. No. She wasn’t okay. She and Colt had sex. Again. But it wasn’t the act that was unsettling, it was the intimacy.

  Why was it that every time she gave in to him, felt his hot skin against hers, she also felt him buried to the very soul of her?

  Her feelings were getting worse.

  She was falling for Colt. No, she’d fallen a long time ago. So why did she look into his eyes while he made love to her and feel more distance than the last time?

  “I’m fine.” Jenna never thought herself a liar, but in that moment no other word would fit. It wasn’t only about losing face or reputation anymore. She was playing a dangerous game with a man whose boots never stayed one place too long.

  The next time Colt left, and leave he would, he’d take her whole heart with him. And right then, with the night wind blowing, Jenna knew that Colt McCade had ruined her for other men.

  Chapter Ten

  Jenna rapped one fist on the trailer door and clutched an envelope with cash in the other. The sound of stumbling was followed by Miranda yanking open the door.

  “Hey, little girl,” she slurred and it took a moment to stand up straight. The smell of old food, mildew, and whiskey drifted so thickly from the trailer Jenna could almost feel it like a film on her face.

  “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, Mama.”

  She examined her. Mascara running down her eyes and wrinkly tank top and the same skirt she’d seen her in yesterday. Too many times she’d tried to get her mother to quit drinking. And too many times she’d gotten the crap beaten out of her for trying. Now that she was an adult, Jenna learned to make her encounters with her mother quick.

  “Yes, it is.” She pulled a half-smoked cigarette out from her bra and lit it. Purposefully blowing smoke in Jenna’s face, she said, “I don’t need you coming here to tell me my business.”

  Jenna coughed and waved a hand to clear the stench. “Yeah, but you do need me for money, so here.” She handed Miranda the envelope. “I already caught you up on rent and dropped the check off to your landlord myself. That there is twenty dollars.”

  “That’s it?” she growled and ripped open the envelope. Her mother really was a mean drunk. “That’s not enough to—”

  “Get some shampoo or dish soap if you need. It’s plenty. And here”—Jenna bent and picked up the brown bag full of groceries and handed to her—“this should last you a bit.”

  Miranda looked at the sack like it was some kind of alien object. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?” she said in her low, raspy voice she reserved for when she was really pissed off. “You think that you always know best, don’t you? That’s what they taught you in that fancy school, isn’t it?” She scoffed and shook her head. “Well, I see you. I’ve watched you try to run and pretend you’re better than what you are. But you’re nothing more than this.” Cigarette between two fingers, she opened her free arm and gestured to the trailer. The same trailer Jenna grew up in. The same trailer her mama would probably die in.

  Jenna’s entire chest felt like it was going to cave in on itself. Her mother affirming the very things that terrified her the most. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Mama,” Jenna whispered. “I’d help you if you let me.”

  “Fuck you and your help,” she spat. She was nearing her boiling point. A sight Jenna knew well. It was right before the fists came out. Time to go.

  Jenna turned and walked back to her car.

  “Jenna-Jayne!” her mother yelled after her, but she kept walking. “You ungrateful brat! I ask you for one thing and you bring me this shit!”

  She got in her car at the same time she saw her mother drop the groceries, the sound of what was probably the jar of jam breaking on impact.

  Leaving the trailer and her mother behind, she tried, like she did every time she came back, to not look in her rearview when she drove away.

  …

  Colt had driven to Diamond’s graveyard and had been sitting in his truck, right outside the gates, since dawn. It had been a week since the bonfire—and their revised version of sardines—but he still couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  The armor he’d put around himself years ago was being chipped away. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like having to deal with things. But for some reason, avoiding his problems didn’t seem a viable option anymore.

  He’d had several drinks last night, trying to drown out the creeping memories. He hardly remembered what happened, just that he was three sheets to the wind at Penny’s BBQ and woke up in his pickup parked out in front of it at sunrise.

  He’d driven straight to the cemetery while trying to get a grip on his life. The things he once valued most, like riding and the circuit, he hadn’t given a second thought to in weeks. He glanced at his shoulder and patted his ribs. “Maybe I’m done.”

  Hell, he didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that every time he was with Jenna, he felt more complete and happier than he had in…

  Ever.

  There was an emptiness that had settled in his chest the day his parents died and had continued to grow every day since. When he was with Jenna, that cold hollowness ebbed and he felt like a man again, a good man. Afterward, when she left, that stupid ache came flaring back tenfold.

  He was getting tastes of something he wanted, something he’d seen others have.

  Something Mom and Pop had.

  But JJ seemed to want something different, and for a long a time, Colt valued the idea of temporary. No strings. No attachment. No permanence. Hell, the only thing permanent was death. Colt learned that early on. To hope for more was useless.

  So there he was, hiding out like a pussy, wrestling with himself and procrastinating.

  He’d known this moment was coming. He’d avoided it every time he came back to visit.

  Thirty-five years. He clutched the steering wheel. Today his parents would have been married for three and a half decades. He reached over to the passenger seat and snatched u
p his ball cap, slapping it once before shoving it on his head. He opened the truck door and began the long walk toward their graves.

  …

  “Hold your head still, honey.” Mrs. Tena Smith Thompson Dean Harrington, owner of Perm My Poodle, tugged Jenna’s head straight before continuing her snipping.

  “Sorry, Miss Tena.”

  The seventy-year-old stylist had been married and remarried so many times, everyone opted for her first name. She had always been kind to Jenna. After a stressful last week that started with Colt in the woods, only to be followed up by her mother’s rant, Jenna was happy to be sitting down for a little bit of girl time.

  “Are you finally going to cut it all off?” Lily asked from the chair next to her, foils splaying from her head while she sipped her Diet Coke.

  “Nah, just a trim.”

  Miss Tena combed and clipped Jenna’s wet hair. “Lord have mercy, child, you have so much hair. Shame you don’t wear it down more.”

  Jenna smiled to herself. She had let her hair down more in the last couple weeks than she had in a long time. Though her mother was back in town, which made her normal ease level not so easy, Jenna hadn’t heard from her since she dropped off the groceries, so that was a plus.

  Lady Buttercup, a white Shih Tzu two chairs down from Jenna, barked.

  “Hush now, we’re just getting these bows right,” Sue-Ellen Blackwell, the best dog groomer in five states, said. She tsked at the dog while her fingers tied pink bows in the pup’s ears. Only in Diamond could someone get their hair done while their dog got groomed.

  “How’s Rachel doing?” Jenna asked Tena.

  “Oh, she’s doing all right. I wish she’d move back home. She misses you, though. That doorknob she’s married to is another story.”

  “Teeny! That’s no way to talk about your grandson-in-law.”

  Tena stopped cutting, threw her hand on her meaty hip, and eyed Sue-Ellen. “That boy does not know his ass from a cold fart and treats my Rachel like stale leftovers. He doesn’t deserve to be called a man, and I’m too old to start lying now.”

  Jenna laughed. Lily’s chin dropped.

  Miss Tena whirled back around and motioned at Lily. “Gonna catch flies with that open mouth there, sweetheart.”

  Lily snapped her mouth shut.

  Jenna went to college with Rachel and missed her dearly. Rachel was lucky to have a woman like Tena who loved her so fiercely. And frankly, Tena was right—Tom was a doorknob.

  “But speaking of moving home, Lily dear, I saw your brother the other day. So glad he’s back.”

  Jenna tried to ignore the flutter of her heart when Colt was mentioned. But her reflection in the massive mirror showed just how pink her cheeks were.

  “He is back, for the summer at least.”

  “I don’t know why that boy won’t just set down his roots,” Tena said, waving her scissors in Lily’s direction. “This is his home. Everyone loves him. Said he’d come in for a haircut, you know?”

  Lily nodded. “Yes, ma’am, he mentioned that.”

  Tena nodded, as if Lily’s reassurance eased her. “Good. Because I can hardly hang my new sign without his picture.”

  “Sign?” Jenna asked.

  “Yes. I got me some of that billboard space over on Main Street. Going to hang my advertisement: ‘Colt McCade likes permed poodles.’”

  Lily nearly spit out the Diet Coke she was drinking and Jenna just choked on her own inhale.

  “If that doesn’t bring in business, I don’t know what will,” Lily said, laughing and wiping tears from her eyes.

  “That’s what I was just saying to Sue-Ellen!” Tena smiled happily and went back to cutting Jenna’s hair. “Perhaps he’ll be in today?”

  Lily raised a shoulder. “I don’t know, Miss Tena. Today isn’t the best day…”

  “Oh, child, please forgive me. Silly woman I am, I forgot what day it was.”

  That’s when it hit Jenna. Today was the anniversary of the McCades’ death. Unfortunately, it also happened to be their wedding anniversary. Killed in a car accident by a drunk driver on their way to an anniversary dinner.

  “Everything is on me today, girls.”

  “Oh no, Miss Tena, you don’t need to do that. Really, it’s okay. It was so long ago.”

  “Hush. I said it’s on the house.”

  No one had ever been successful in arguing with Miss Tena, and today didn’t look to be the day things were changing.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked, looking at Lily through the mirror.

  “I’m fine.” Lily leaned over, her voice quiet. “But Colt didn’t come home last night. I haven’t seen him all day, either.”

  Jenna’s heart skipped. Lily shook her head.

  “I dealt with it a long time ago, but Colt never did. He moved, joined the circuit, and has been busy keeping his mind on other things and other places. He’s managed to be anywhere but here on this day since they passed.”

  “Do you think he’s all right?” Jenna asked, not caring that her voice sounded strangled and laced with worry.

  “Yes. Colt is tough, I just think he needs to find a way to let go of his anger.”

  “Anger?” Jenna knew Colt took it hard—who wouldn’t—but anger?

  Lily nodded. “It took me a long time to figure this out, and honestly it wasn’t until I had Alex that things clicked. Colt saw our parents the same way I did. Perfect. The kind of love they had for each other was incredible.”

  Jenna nodded. She had spent most of her time at Lily’s house when they were young. She saw how much they loved each other. Like they never left their honeymoon. Their presence had been powerful and engulfing.

  “It was the reason I fell so hard for Alex’s dad. I wanted that kind of love. I still do. But Colt, he went the other way. It’s like anything about them, or our lives before they died, he stays away from.”

  It all made sense now. Colt never stayed in the same place, with the same woman, because everything about long-term happiness made him wary.

  “It’s like at any moment he waits for the bottom to fall out, so he just rides on his way before it does.”

  Lily’s words snapped everything together and Jenna felt the weight of them settle in. Here she sat this whole time, telling Colt she was nothing permanent. That should make it easier on him, right? So why did she feel like someone had just sucker punched her in the gut?

  Because the other night at the bonfire he said the word “more.”

  Jenna’s chest lurched.

  She was in deep with a man she understood intimately, yet threw her for a loop at every turn. All her childhood, he’d been her hero. Swooping in and saving the day. He was a good man. And Jenna didn’t know if she was helping him with their “arrangement” or hurting him. Either way, she was in over her head.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jenna adjusted three different stacks of colored paper on the table. So far, she’d been able to sign two new parents to the PTA and get a volunteer for the back-to-school movie night in September.

  “Thought you could use these.” Penny smiled and handed her a brownie and glass of lemonade.

  “You’re a life-saver,” Jenna said and took a long swallow of the tart drink. The sun was bright, and the higher it got in the sky, the more it brought out the scent of sunscreen from all the people passing by. Jenna was lucky though; set up close to Penny, she caught a whiff of fresh berries and smoky marinade every time the breeze picked up.

  “How’s your booth doing?”

  The Diamond Farmers’ Market took place twice a month at Diamond Park, and Penny was just across the way with her prized barbecue sauce, treats, and teas.

  “Pretty good,” Penny said.

  “How’s your extracurricular cooking for Sebastian going?”

  Something dark flashed in Penny’s pretty green eyes. Turns out, Sebastian had won their little bet at the bonfire and now Penny had seven nights of meals to prepare for the attorney.

  “It’s no
t going yet. I guess this week wasn’t good for him to come pick up dinner.” She quickly glanced around as if worried she’d spot the attorney in question, then turned her focus back on Jenna. “How’s your booth doing?”

  Jenna looked down at the few signatures on her sign-up sheets. “Not too bad, got a few volunteers so that’s good.”

  Just as the words left her mouth, Yvonne Taylor shimmied up. Her bright pink pants matched her gigantic sun hat and oversize sunglasses. Large bracelets lined her wrist and—oh God—was that a dog in her purse?

  “Well, hey there, honey,” Yvonne said sweetly—too sweetly—to Jenna before looking around, undoubtedly gauging how many people were within earshot.

  “Hi, Yvonne.”

  “Oh, this is nice.” She motioned her manicured finger above Jenna’s table of papers.

  “Just trying to get more support for next year’s school events.”

  “Yeah.” Yvonne looked around, rubbing her fingers together as if she’d just touched something sticky. “Well, this is one way to go about it. I personally prefer a phone call. You know, I just got a donation that will cover most of the field trips for the elementary school next year.”

  Jenna’s heart sank a bit. But before she could say anything, Penny piped in with, “So you got your mom to write a check, huh?”

  Yvonne whipped around and glared at Penny. “Oh, hello, Penelope. I didn’t see you there. I forget what a tiny little thing you are. Almost childlike.”

  Jenna thought she saw Penny snarl. Sure she was petite, but five foot two was hardly childlike. The Diamonds and the Taylors went all the way back to the founding of the town. The little digs Yvonne dished out over the years were nothing new. Still, Jenna disliked her with every fiber of her being, if for no other reason than she was just a mean woman. The fact that she and Colt had some sort of history didn’t sit well with her either, but that wasn’t something she should care about. Yet she did.

  “Did you secure chaperones for these field trips as well?” Jenna asked.

  Yvonne studied her nails, avoiding the question, which meant she hadn’t gotten any chaperones. It wouldn’t be that big a deal except Yvonne didn’t even attend her own class trips. She was mysteriously sick or some emergency always came up, and Jenna or another teacher would have to cover.