“You mean sex.” Mia shifted in the saddle and closed her legs around the horse to increase his gait. “Well, that’s one thing anyway. Since we’ve never been to bed, I can hardly feel used. But I am seriously disappointed. The prosecution rests.”
“Can I just say, having only met Jack the one time and being a guy myself?”
Mia looked at him and narrowed her eyes, waiting.
“I like him,” Ned said. “And I don’t think he’s a tool. I would bet heavily on the side of there being a reason for his behavior that makes perfect sense.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve been in a few relationships—not many, admittedly—and one thing I know is when you throw your hat in the ring, you gotta be willing to get hurt.”
“Okay, I don’t understand any of what you just said. What hat? What ring?”
“Getting close to somebody is hard—especially when things don’t read like they’re right out of the playbook.”
“God, you guys and your sports metaphors.”
“I’m saying it sounds bad, but maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt. If he’s acting weird maybe it has nothing at all to do with how he feels about you.”
Mia sighed. “I would love to believe that.”
“The point is acting as if you do,” Ned said, patiently, “even if you don’t. Now race me to the river. I deliberately chose a slow-ass horse for you so I could feel good about myself today.”
Mia laughed in spite of herself and squeezed her horse into a canter just as Ned pulled ahead of her.
*****
Sandy Gilstrap sat at the kitchen counter with a cooling cup of coffee in front of her. She glanced at her manicured fingers as they held the cup and a tingle of pleasure sifted through her. There wasn’t a single minute during the whole ten years when she was working in Mabel Sue’s Crush ’n Curl doing nails that Sandy didn’t believe that someday her time would come.
She glanced around the kitchen at the granite countertops, the top-of-the-line appliances, the large palladium window that overlooked a landscaped backyard of apple trees and sunflowers. Her dream came true just like she knew it would, had prayed it would.
“Coffee smells good,” her mother said as she came into the room. Sandy looked up and smiled. The old woman shuffled into the kitchen in her worn mules and house dress and sat down at the counter.
If I thought I waited a long time for my life to start, at least I wasn’t sixty-five when it happened.
“Sleep good, Mama?” Sandy asked, getting up to take a mug from the open shelving over the sink. She poured the coffee and handed the mug to her mother.
“I don’t like the Atlanta air,” Vernetta Hobson said, looking at her coffee. “It feels like it has grit in it or something.”
“I guess Atlanta does have pretty bad pollution. But I think the fall is beautiful. You said you’d give it a chance.”
“I’m still here, ain’t I?” Vernetta sipped her coffee and Sandy felt a rush of affection for her. They’d come a long way together, been through more rough times than Sandy had prayers to throw at them, but somehow they’d come out on the other side.
And the other side was beautiful.
“I talked to Jack Burton this morning,” Sandy said, trying to make her voice sound nonchalant.
“Who?”
Sandy should have known her mama would play this game.
“You remember. He was my boyfriend senior year?”
“Oh, him. I thought he died.”
Now Sandy knew her mother was just trying to be difficult. While she and her mother hadn’t gone to Steven Burton’s funeral week before last, there could be no confusion as to which of the Burton boys had died.
“No, Mama, that was Steven; Jack’s brother.”
Her mother shrugged, as if to suggest she didn’t care one way or the other. But Sandy knew better. She would wait. It was always better if she waited.
Vernetta looked out the large picture window and frowned.
“I can’t believe we bought this place without curtains. Everyone and their neighbor can see us in our altogether.”
“This kind of window doesn’t take curtains,” Sandy said. She had said it many times since they moved in. Clearly she would be saying it until they moved out.
“All windows take curtains,” her mother said firmly. “So did he call you?”
“No, I called him. I thought it was time he got to know Twyla.”
Her mother snapped her head around. “What in the world for?”
“He is her father.”
“So? You think it mattered when Twyla thought Eugene was her father? She still came home drunk four nights out of five.”
“That’s an exaggeration, Mama, but I think he might be able to help. Jack always kept in touch with me about Twyla and I respect that.”
Vernetta snorted but didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you like Jack, Mama? You never have.”
“Why do you have to know why about everything? I’m not going on Oprah to spill my guts about my feelings. Can’t a person have an opinion without needing a reason?”
“Sure, Mama. It’s just…if it turns out Jack becomes a part of the family—”
“You looking to start something back up with Jack Burton?”
“Not at all, Mama. But if he does develop a relationship with Twyla—and I really think that might be a good thing for her—well, we’ll be seeing more of him. He’s not married. Maybe he can be here for holidays and such.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard tell of.”
Sandy sighed. She hadn’t expected her mother to agree or even understand. Sometimes it was the hardest thing in the world for a child to realize that in all the ways that mattered they were the parent now.
“Well, I think it will be good for Twyla,” Sandy said, looking out the palladium window and enjoying the unencumbered view all the way to the property’s fence line.
*****
Mia drove straight from the barn to the gun range. She liked the fact that she looked like she’d just stepped off a wagon train. Her jeans were stained and the front of her sweatshirt was dabbled with horse slobber and the remnants of the ointment she’d put on the animal’s hooves before releasing him back into the pasture. She felt sorry for people who didn’t have this kind of outdoor therapy in their lives.
Sometimes being around horses and being outside in all kinds of weather was just about the only thing that kept her sane.
She saw Bill Maxwell, Chief of the Atlanta Major Crimes Division, waiting for her by the checkout counter. A big man in his early sixties, he had entered Mia’s life the year before when his wife was murdered and he began dating Mia’s mother, Jessie. Since then, he’d done everything he could to show Mia that he didn’t really think she was crazy on just about every level there was to be crazy on.
Today was clearly one of those times.
“Hey, Chief,” she said, joining him at the counter. “Remind me again…why are we meeting here?”
Maxwell made a face that Mia could only assume was a visceral assessment of the way she smelled after four hours at the barn, or the way she looked for the same reason. Feeling impish, she reached out and touched his arm.
He reacted as if he’d been burned, his face flushed.
“Stop that,” he said, knowing all too well why she’d touched him. With her gift for finding the full story behind anything she touched, Mia was not shy about probing the people around her when finding the truth in more pedestrian ways proved too slow. Her mother, Jessie—who was the love of Maxwell’s life—had the same gift.
“Just checking to see if you really want to be here,” Mia said, grinning.
“I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t,” he growled. “You don’t need to use your touch-thing to see what I’m feeling. I’m annoyed because you’re thirty minutes late.”
“Sorry. My horse was a slow eater.” She turned to the counter. “Ar
e we shooting?”
Maxwell picked up two sets of earmuffs and handed her one.
“We are. Or at least you are. Your mother’s worried.”
“This really isn’t necessary,” Mia said.
Maxwell hadn’t been at dinner the night before when Mia went over to Jessie’s and clearly spent too much time complaining about how poorly her self-defense and shooting classes were going.
“I’m fine, Chief.”
“Good to hear. I told your mother I’m happy to give you a few pointers. Please don’t take this as any sort of support for you carrying a handgun, which is just about the craziest idea I’ve ever heard, but if you’re stubborn enough to insist then you should know how to use it.”
“The noise and kick-back are really the only things I’m having trouble with.”
“Those are both things you should be comfortable with if you’re going to use a gun under pressure.”
“This is a waste of time. And I have to get home. I’m making a special dinner tonight.”
“We’ll be done in thirty minutes,” he said, guiding her to a booth and picking up the Glock lying on the shelf. He quickly loaded the clip and pushed the button on the wall to hang and position a new target.
“Keep the nose down,” he reminded her, “until you’re ready.”
“I have used a gun before,” she said peevishly.
Twenty minutes later, he walked her out to her car and stood while she fished her keys out of her purse.
“I just don’t understand how you can be this bad,” he said, frowning.
“Hey, don’t sugarcoat it. I can take criticism, you know.”
“I would have thought your gift would make you more sensitive.”
“What does that have to do with aim?”
“You didn’t hit the target even once.”
Her phone rang and she dropped her purse and everything in it in her excitement to dig it out. One glance at the screen told her it wasn’t Jack. She knew it wouldn’t be and it was just as well. Calling this late probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
“Hello?” she said, smiling gratefully at Maxwell as he squatted in the parking lot picking up the contents of her purse.
“Ms. Burton?” A man’s voice, sounded youngish.
“This is Mia Kazmaroff.”
“The detective agency?”
Her face cleared. “Yes! Yes, this is the Burton and Kazmaroff Detective Agency. May I help you?”
She looked at Maxwell to see him roll his eyes, but he handed her purse back to her.
“I need you to find out if my wife is cheating on me,” the caller said.
“Well, yes sir,” Mia said. “We can certainly do that. I am away from my office at the moment…working another case.” She grinned at Maxwell, who smiled tolerantly back. “Can I call you in thirty minutes to get the details?”
The man gave her his number and she disconnected.
“I got a case!”
“I heard,” Maxwell said dryly. “Thank God it doesn’t appear to be one where’ll you need a firearm.”
“A cheating wife,” Mia said happily.
“Those can be some of the most dangerous. Please wait until Jack can do this with you.”
“Sure, Chief.” Impulsively, Mia stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Tell my mother not to worry. And don’t you worry either. I’ve got everything lined up in neat little rows. Trust me.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
*****
Sandy looked at her mother with dismay. Vernetta wouldn’t support her in this. She wouldn’t risk being the “bad cop.” Though God knows that never stopped her thirty years ago when she was raising me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Vernetta said. She sat on the couch, the television remote in her hand. “I told you the girl needs her own money. How is she supposed to learn to handle it responsibly?”
Twyla flounced down onto the couch next to her grandmother and glared at Sandy.
“See? Even Grannie says I need my own money. You’re just a wicked bitch who doesn’t want me to have any fun or friends.”
Sandy gasped at her daughter’s language and looked again at her mother. Now will you see what she’s become?
Vernetta patted Twyla’s leg to comfort her.
“I am not giving you money,” Sandy said between gritted teeth, “because you’ll only use it to buy drugs.”
“Oh, give me a break! Like you didn’t do drugs when you were young. Uncle Steven told me you did.”
“It doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t do,” Sandy said, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. “It only matters that I’m your mother and I call the—”
“I don’t have to listen to this. I want to live with my father!”
Vernetta jerk her head when Twyla said that.
As well she might.
Which one? Sandy wanted to ask, but she bit her tongue.
“I hate you!” Twyla screamed, jumping up from the couch. For one mad moment, Sandy thought the girl would attack her but she only pushed past to stomp upstairs to her bedroom. Sandy waited until she heard the door slam and then turned to Vernetta.
“Would it have killed you to have taken my side for once?” she asked, feeling a weakness in her knees that prompted her to sit down abruptly on the overstuffed chair facing the couch.
“There are no sides in child rearing,” Vernetta said, pointing the remote at the TV to raise the volume.
As she watched her mother turn her focus to her television show, Sandy felt exhaustion roll over her. Could she do this alone? Did she really have the strength to do what was necessary for Twyla? Her hands shook and, just for a moment, she wasn’t at all sure she did.
Chapter THREE
In the end, she did go to some trouble. And Jack’s normally spotless kitchen looked it. Mia stood by the stove carefully stirring a bubbling pot of cheese grits while the biscuits in the oven baked. She knelt in front of the oven and peered inside. They didn’t look much like the biscuits her mom made—or Jack for that matter—but she was sure she used all the right ingredients. Even if they didn’t rise up, they were bound to taste fine.
She turned the heat down on the grits and, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, walked again to the living room window to see if she could see his car yet. She glanced at the clock on the wall of the kitchen. It was six straight up. He must have run into traffic coming into town. Should she have put the biscuits in? Can I keep them warm or should I pull them out now and restart them later, like the dishwasher in mid-cycle?
A new aroma coming from the kitchen made her hurry back. The grits were boiling a little too energetically so she lifted the pot off the burner. She leaned a hip against the counter and reached for the bottle of beer she’d been too busy to drink up until now. It wasn’t ice-cold but she’d settle for a bit of a buzz.
I’ll be able to tell the minute he walks in the door. If he’s changed his mind about us, it’ll be clear as soon as I see him. The condensation from the beer bottle made her wipe her hands again, this time on her jeans. She’d spent too much time trying to decide what to wear for Jack’s homecoming and, in the end, had opted for casual sexiness. Jeans to show she didn’t really put that much thought into it, and a plunging camisole with a push-up bra she dug out of the back of her underwear drawer—to show him what he’d been missing the last two weeks.
The sound of the key in the front door made her yelp in surprise. She turned around to put the grits back on the stove, her heart racing with anticipation.
Oh, God, please let him still want to start something. She straightened her camisole with newly damp hands and went into the living room.
“Wow, that smells good,” Jack said as he pulled the door open and dropped his overnight bag on the floor in the living room. His face was alive with anticipation and relief, his grin real.
Mia forgot the line she’d rehearsed for him to make it sound like she was just so cool about it all and
instead went straight to him, her arms around his neck and her lips hungrily finding his. He grabbed her as if he were starving, lifting her off her feet as they kissed. He smelled like coffee and aftershave…and Jack.
The feel of his hands on her sent electric shocks up and down her back and hips.
“God, I missed you,” he murmured into her neck, her mane of hair.
She pulled back to look at him, to see his eyes and watch his face.
“Dinner later,” he said hoarsely, finding her mouth again and claiming it with his own. He picked her up and carried her to her bedroom. When he put her on the bed, his hands went to the zipper on her jeans and with a flick of a wrist he had them undone and off her. She gasped as he pushed her back on the bed and straddled her, his eyes glazed with desire, his lips parted as he drank in the sight of her.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he said, cupping her breasts. “I want you so bad. I’ve thought about this moment so many times.”
“Me, too,” Mia whispered, her hands on his hips. “Take these off.”
“Not yet,” he said, running his hands down the length of her and slowly peeling her panties off.
She groaned in anticipation and fumbled for the zipper on his jeans. He leaned and pulled her camisole off over her head.
“I want you naked,” he said. “I want to see every inch of you.”
His eyes were shining as he gazed down on her, his skin flushed, his hands cupping her bare breasts, flicking the nipples gently with his calloused thumbs. The sensation triggered a trembling of desire that spread across her body—as if as if someone had lit a match to a bonfire. She felt his hands, moving across her hips and down between her legs, ignite every nerve ending they touched. Her mouth was dry and her blood pounded in her throat.
“Now, Jack,” she said, tugging at his jeans.
He stepped off the bed and shed his jeans in one movement then drew his T-shirt over his head and tossed it away. Before she could sit up he was back, pressing her down into the bed, his body covering hers. The feel of his naked body touching every inch of her sent electroshock pulses tingling down the length of her body. She opened her legs to him, her very core throbbing to receive him, never wanting anything has badly as the need to feel him in her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, trying to draw him closer.
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 42
