Jenny pushed herself out of the car. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s at the gun range. Want me to call her?”
“No. Please don’t. It’s just—” To her everlasting embarrassment, her voice hitched and broke.
Without a word, Maggie pulled Jenny into her arms, the hug both strong and comforting. “Come on inside the house,” Maggie said. “I’ll fix you something to soothe whatever’s ailing you.”
Jenny trailed her through the back door into the kitchen and sat dutifully at the farm table.
“What’s your pleasure?” Maggie bustled around the room, grabbing a napkin here and pulling out a bowl and glass there. “My special tea or ice cream? Personally, I’ve been known to make an iced tea float from time to time.”
Maggie’s special tea, made with enough bourbon to disinfect an operating room, had a reputation for chasing even the worst worries to the border, but was Jenny’s disappointment acute enough for booze and fat? Probably, but it was still early in the day. “How about ice cream for now?” That way she’d have another option if the cold stuff didn’t do the trick.
Maggie opened the freezer, dug around then plopped a freezer-safe bowl on the table. “Sorry, afraid I downed the last of the good stuff, but we’ve still got a little of Sera’s homemade Heavenly Hash. I can’t promise there’s not really some hashish in the stuff, but it always makes me feel better.”
Sera, a California native with a thing for healthy foods, was normally a resident at Summer Haven too, but she had to return home recently to deal with some personal issues. The fact that one of her desserts was still in residence at Summer Haven should probably tell Jenny something, but she didn’t much care about how old the ice cream was at this point. “That’s fine.”
Maggie took the chair beside Jenny. “What’s going on?”
Jenny pressed her hands flat on the table to either side of the plastic container in front of her. “I surprised Teague with a picnic lunch.”
Maggie’s bangs bobbled over her eyebrows as she checked her watch. “Seeing as it’s only 12:45, I’m guessing your little surprise didn’t go as you’d hoped?”
“Farthest thing from it.” She pried the lid from the container and stabbed her spoon dead center into the middle. And if a tiny piece of her imagined a part of Teague’s body right there, she never had to admit it to a soul. “Remember that house I mentioned last week? The church someone remodeled into a house?”
“Yes. Very clever. I really want to see that place.”
“I bought it.”
“Why, Jenny, that’s exciting.”
“Not everyone thinks so. You’d have thought I’d surprised Teague with a bouquet of porcupines and skunks.” Jenny rammed her spoon back into the container then wrenched out a heaping mouthful.
“That’s right.” Maggie soothed. “Take all your frustrations out on the ice cream.”
The first bite was tangy on her tongue, sort of like yogurt a few days past its expiration date. “First, he acted like some kind of prude. ‘Jenny, we’re not married. What in the world would people think?’”
“Oh, dear. Teague didn’t know?” The smile on Maggie’s lips vanished. “Last time I checked, this was the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, the male ego still operates in circa 1880s mode most of the time. You may have squashed his like a bug.”
“He said I don’t take his job seriously.”
“That’s ridiculous. And what does that have to do with the house?”
“He was mad that I had the dispatcher send him on a fake call. What’s the benefit of being sheriff if you can’t bend a rule now and then?”
“Jenny…”
“Okay, fine.” She ate another bite of the Heavenly Hash, chomped down on what she hoped was a real almond then waved her spoon in an apologetic circle. “I know he can’t break rules. That’s not the worst of it. He’s mad I bought the house. Said he could never afford something like that on his salary. How stupid is that?”
“Oh, honey. Men act like we’re so hard to figure out, but they take the cake when it comes to being confusing. Give him some time. You know he wants nothing more than to take care of you and Grayson.”
“Then he should be happy. If we’re going to be together, we have to be united on everything. What’s it matter who pays for the house or where the money came from?”
Maggie patted her arm. “Yeah, it doesn’t work like that. You need to learn the fine art of letting him think he’s the man—” she air quoted, “—in the family. It’s primal. All the strong men, the sexy men, are bred that way down to the bone.”
“Stupid’s what it is.”
“I guess that depends on if you think having a happy marriage is stupid. It’s a balance—you wearing the pants, but letting him think he’s the one putting them on every morning. Tricky, yes, but the rewards are worth it.”
“Sounds like manipulation to me,” she mumbled around another scoop of the cold goop. “I don’t play games.”
“No, deep down, they know women run the world. But they need to toss their ruler-of-the-pride manes now and again.”
“Daniel wasn’t like that.”
“Well, now, your ex-husband wasn’t exactly an alpha lion, was he?”
Jenny snorted a laugh. “Think I should’ve figured that out the first time I noticed his shoes were shinier than mine?”
“For a thirty-something-year-old guy, apparently that ex of yours had some quirky old man habits. I don’t think you have to worry about that with Teague. He loves you more than anything. You’re just hurt right now. I know how excited you must’ve been about the house and starting your life with Teague. Living here with us has got to be a bit of a damper.”
“Please don’t tell my mom. She’d be over there at his throat, making the whole situation worse.”
“She sure would.” Maggie pressed her lips together and turned an invisible key in a lock. “Our secret,” she said with a wink.
Jenny’s stomach rumbled. “My gosh. Excuse me. I think I’m so upset my stomach is revolting.” In front of her, all the so-called ice cream was nearly gone.
“Oh, goodness.” Maggie twisted the container, peered at it a little closer. “I didn’t expect you to eat that much. I should’ve warned you. Last time I ate that I wasn’t right for a week.”
A burp escaped Jenny, and she patted her chest in embarrassment. “What is that stuff?”
“Well, you know Sera is big on food that…uh…cleans the system.”
“Great.” First heartache, now a bellyache.
“About Teague. Why don’t you invite him over for dinner? Sort of an olive branch on neutral territory? We won’t tell the other gals what happened. Just a nice night, and then y’all can talk over some of my special tea on the porch and get things back in perspective.”
“You really think that will work?”
“Absolutely. You just need to let him be the one in the driver’s seat. Don’t bring it up. He will. Trust me on this. I was married to George for forty-some-odd years. He was the manliest man I ever knew, but I had him wrapped around this little finger.” She twirled her pinky in the air. “It’s a nice feeling when you get them figured out.”
Jenny reluctantly nodded. She didn’t have a better idea, but she had her doubts about Maggie’s plan. Teague was no George. He was one-of-a-kind.
* * *
Teague sank into his office chair and dropped his head into his hands. Jesus, what a day. And to think he’d been patting himself on the back this morning before he’d waltzed into the bakery. After he left Jenny’s trumped-up vandalism call, he ended up with a real emergency on his hands. A six-vehicle pileup on the highway headed up to Macon.
One eighteen-wheeler, a chicken truck, several family SUVs, and a sports car smaller than Teague’s big toe. It was a miracle the kid in the little two-seater hadn’t been killed. He’d been driving too fast, come up on the five cars already tangled up and headed down into a steep ditch, but he walked away with only a few scratches.
<
br /> Most of the chickens hadn’t been so lucky. The ones that hadn’t been completely tenderized had flown the coop. It had taken Teague an hour to persuade the truck driver to let the EMTs look him over, and round up a dozen fryers.
His cell phone rang with Jenny’s tone, “My Girl” by the Temptations. For the first time in years, his stomach sank at the thought of talking with her. He knew she’d been disappointed with him and his reaction earlier today, but honestly, he hadn’t had a spare moment to sort out how he felt about her surprise.
But he couldn’t ignore her. That was sure no way to start a life together.
“Hello.”
“Teague?”
“Hey, Jenny.”
“You sound exhausted. Word’s all over town about the chicken truck.”
“Exhausted is as good as a word for it as anything.”
“Maggie and the others wanted me to call you and see if you wanted to come out to Summer Haven for supper. I promise we won’t make chicken.”
“Good, because I’ve seen about enough of those for a while.”
“Mom is cooking up a mess of catfish and Lil’s old family recipe for coleslaw. Of course, they even agreed to french fries and hush puppies when Grayson begged.”
Teague had to smile at that. Jenny’s son had the older women out at Summer Haven under his spell even though only one of them was his real grandmother. That kid was already living a charmed life in this town.
And as good as a plateful of crispy fish sounded, Teague couldn’t say yes.
One of his deputies leaned into Teague’s office and said, “You ready?”
“Who was that?” Jenny asked.
“Deputy Winston,” he told her and nodded to his deputy.
“Ready for what?”
“Jenny, catfish sounds tasty, but I’m meeting Winston over dinner.”
“Oh.” That one word was so small, so disappointed, so unlike his Jenny, he almost changed his mind. But if he did that now, she’d expect him to give in every time. And that sure as hell didn’t make for a sheriff anyone in his right mind would respect.
“Tell everyone there I appreciate the invitation, but I can’t make it tonight.”
“Teague, we need to talk about the house.”
He bit back a sigh, just barely. “Do you think we could let this whole house thing rest for one night?” Surely he’d be in a better mindset to talk civilly about it tomorrow. Hell, maybe all the Ts hadn’t been crossed. That could be best all around. Every time he’d pictured his and Jenny’s life together, he’d imagined the three of them starting out in his small house. Sure, he’d always thought they’d move on to a bigger one eventually, but a house he and Jenny picked out together. Not a church she just dropped on him. And definitely not one she paid for.
“Tell you what,” she said in a clipped tone that had every hair on his body rising in alarm. Echoes of Abby Ruth would do that to a man. “Why don’t you give me a call when you’re ready to behave like an adult about this whole thing? I live with enough sulking and pouting and stomping as it is. And that’s just from my mom.”
And the line went dead on the other end.
A parade of four-letter words chased one another through his brain. Some of them so ugly, they even shocked him a little. But he bit them back because both he and Jenny needed to cool off. Maybe for more than a day.
Teague grabbed his hat and met Deputy Winston at the front door. Winston, the newest Bartell County deputy, had proven himself on the city streets in Chesapeake, Virginia. He’d completed advanced tactical training but hadn’t had much chance to put those skills to use yet. Still, Teague considered himself lucky to have had hired him.
When he’d locked up the office, he and Winston headed toward the Atlanta Highway Diner in silence. The benefit of hanging out with a guy instead of a woman. Blessed damn silence.
They strolled in and Sue Ellen, the diner’s young waitress, looked up from where she was sliding a massive slice of coconut cream pie in front of a customer. “Well, Sheriff, to what do we owe the pleasure?” With a wide smile, she shimmied her shoulders, giving him a glimpse of her quivering cleavage. When would this girl give up flirting with him? Maybe when he finally got Jenny down the aisle. “Haven’t seen you here in a month of Sundays.”
Just one more example of how he’d been out of touch. Before Jenny moved to town, he was in the diner every two or three days, minimum. And now that Sue Ellen had said something, he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d come in for a blue plate special. “I’ve had a mighty hankering for a plate of Monday Night Meatloaf.”
Sue Ellen’s smile faltered. “Oh, we changed the menu a while back. Mondays are stuffed cabbage day now.”
Dammit. He hated stuffed cabbage. But rather than saying any such thing, he took off his hat and set it on the stool to his right. “Sounds perfect.”
While he and Deputy Winston were concentrating on stirring sugar into their iced teas, the front door whooshed open, slamming against the diner’s inside wall. Then Hollis Dooley, along with his old hound dog Ritter, came stumping up to Teague on his walker.
“Hey there, Hollis,” Teague said.
The old guy squinted at him and cleared his throat. “What’s this I hear about that little gal you’re sweet on buying the old Methodist church? You know anything about that, Sheriff?”
Hollis was asking a simple question, but after Jenny’s surprise, the words sounded mocking to Teague. He sure couldn’t say he’d just heard about Jenny buying the church-house today. “Don’t know that it’s a completely done deal yet.”
“Not the way I heard it,” Hollis said. “From what some folks are saying, that gal plunked down a nice sum of hard, cold cash for the place. Seems a little weird to me that anyone would want to live in a church. Rich folks always do weird stuff like that. More money than they got sense. ’Specially them Northerners.”
“Jenny’s not rich and she’s originally from Texas, Hollis.”
“Well, wherever she’s from, she’s a looker. Guess I’d let her take care of me if I were you too.”
Teague bit his tongue, but when Winston’s eyebrows winged up, he shot his deputy a glare that drained the color from the guy’s face faster than if Teague had drawn his service weapon. Winston ducked his head and went back to doctoring his tea.
Hollis gave a phlegmy laugh and jabbed Teague in the ribs with a pointed elbow. “You picked the right woman there, didn’t ya? Lucky you to be a kept man.”
Thank goodness, Hollis didn’t wait for a response. Teague tried like hell to arrange his face in a pleasant expression, but acid burned in his midsection, and it sure felt like everyone in the diner had turned their attention in his direction.
All this and at election time? Felt a lot like career suicide. Because, quite honestly, there wasn’t a single person in this county who’d believe he could manage their safety when he couldn’t even control his own woman.
Chapter 4
The next morning, Teague was sitting in his office, trying to regain control over his little slice of the world, when a deputy stuck his head in and told him that Abby Ruth was at the front desk demanding to see him. Just what he needed. A surprise visit from Jenny’s mom, a.k.a. Aunt Bibi, something Teague had called her when he and Jenny were kids back in Houston.
He hadn’t even had time to get out of his chair before Abby Ruth was standing in his doorway, her short hair spiked up and her hand on her hip like she was ready to draw a gun from a holster. From across his desk, he could see one dang eyebrow of hers arched so high it looked like a question mark. Nothing good ever followed that look.
Jesus, can I catch a break?
From the agitated tap of her cowboy boot, Abby Ruth’s anger was as plain as a red flag flapping in a thunderstorm, but his momma had raised a gentleman, so Teague got to his feet. “Good morning.”
Abby Ruth marched right up next to him and popped him on the head. “What in blue blazes is wrong with you?”
He stepped back and rubbed his crown, not because it hurt, but because she’d caught him off guard. “You realize I could arrest you for assaulting an officer.”
That eyebrow went impossibly higher. “You do that and my one phone call will be to your momma.”
Teague winced and plopped back into his chair. “Well then, hello to you too. Want to tell me what’s got you all hot this early in the day?”
“When my daughter is so upset that she confides in Maggie instead of me…well, you must’ve really gone and done it.”
Teague’s teeth clenched. He really wasn’t in the mood to discuss his and Jenny’s disagreement with Abby Ruth now, or ever. Besides, Jenny wasn’t the only one upset. Everyone in the diner last night had heard Hollis Dooley chatting it up about Jenny buying the church-house. Which meant today the word was winging its way all over the county. His life was speeding out of control faster than a fat guy on a zipline. And not on a sissy one. Level-five canopy sailing.
“You promised me you’d never hurt her again.”
Teague reached up to tug on his hat but came up empty-handed. Of course he did. He never wore his damn hat inside the building. “What did she tell you?”
“That’s just it.” Her right hand fisted at her side. “Not a blessed thing.”
“It’s not what you think. I didn’t hurt her. In fact, if anyone has a right to be upset, I’d say it’s me. We just aren’t seeing things eye-to-eye right now. It’ll work itself out.”
“You’ve already lost her once. Don’t you toy with this again or you’ll end up without her forever.”
The thought of that made Teague’s insides ache, but the situation was more complex than Abby Ruth realized. “There’s other stuff going on that I need to address.”
“What could possibly be more important than Jenny and Grayson? Boy, you better get your priorities straight.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control.”
“No, sir, you certainly do not. Not if my daughter eats so much of Sera’s fake-o ice cream that she spends all night curled up in a fetal position with a bellyache. She divorced the last man who hurt her. And, mister, you haven’t even gotten around to putting a ring on her finger yet. I’d think you’d want to watch your step.”
Come a Little Closer Page 3
