Blame It on the Cowboy

by Delores Fossen

  Reese would call Logan but not about that.

  There was still the whole issue of clown sex pictures and how they might be used. The whole question was if Reese would really wait two weeks for the watch to be repaired. And the biggie question…

  That whole L-word thought she’d had about Logan.

  With that question staring her smack-dab in the face, Reese opened the door to her room and came smack-dab in the face with someone else.

  “Reese,” her mother purred. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LOGAN SMELLED HIS coffee before he sipped it. No cat shit, or if it was in there, it hadn’t altered the taste. However, he was concerned that he’d done something to put that pissed-off look on Jimena’s face.

  “Did another seller cancel business with us?” he asked her.

  Jimena shook her head. “No, but you do have a visitor. I told her you were really busy, but she insisted on seeing you. She would have just charged back here, but I’m bigger than she is and threatened to put her in a headlock. That’s okay to say that, right?”

  “Depends on the visitor. Is it Vickie?”

  “Helene.”

  Logan thought about it a second and decided the headlock threat was still all right. If he could live with the cat-shit threat hanging over his head, then Helene could manage this.

  “What does she want?” Logan asked.

  Jimena rolled her eyes. “To talk to you privately. And yes, she emphasized the privately part.”

  If this had something to do with the clown-sex photos, then it was possible Helene didn’t know they’d been stolen from Jimena’s computer. Or maybe she did know and that’s why she’d insisted on a private conversation.

  “Show Helene in but also call Reese for me and see if she can come over for lunch.” Logan had been swamped all morning with meetings and paperwork, but he really did need to talk to her about these blackmail attempts.

  “I’ll make sure she comes.” Jimena turned to leave, but Logan thought of something else.

  He took out the blue boxed ring from his desk. The ring that was supposed to be Helene’s. “Could you take this over to the jewelry store and return it?”

  “Sure. Is this what I think it is?”

  “It is, and yes, I should have returned it months ago, but I kept forgetting. Just ask for Jeff.”

  “I’ve met him. Reese and I were there earlier. She’s finally getting her grandfather’s watch fixed.” Jimena leaned in closer as if telling a secret. “Jeff said it’d take two weeks for the repair. Two weeks,” she emphasized, and waggled her fingers at him. She had on polka-dotted nail polish. “A smart man would use those two weeks to sweet-talk Reese into staying even longer.”

  Yes, a smart man would, and Logan would try, but with Vickie breathing down their necks, Reese might just run and then sneak back later to get the watch.

  “Logan?” Helene called out from the hall. “I really need to see you.”

  Jimena’s eyes narrowed. “I told her to stay put. Can I headlock her now?”

  While the petty part of him might have found that satisfying, there was no need. “Just do that errand for me. I’ll answer the phones while you’re out.” That was something Helene probably wouldn’t appreciate, but she’d appreciate a headlock even less.

  Jimena glared her way out as Helene slunk her way in, and Helene closed the door behind Jimena as soon as she could.

  “You know I can recommend some qualified office help,” Helene started.

  “No need.” Best to get right down to business. “What can I do for you?”

  Considering that Helene had been so darn anxious to get in to see him, she still took her time answering. “I came by to say goodbye. I’m leaving town for a while. Hoping to regroup my life.”

  He nodded. “Good luck with that.” The phone rang, and Logan held up his hand in a “wait a sec” gesture and answered it. Delbert.

  “Logan, we have to talk,” Delbert blurted out.

  “Apparently, there’s a queue for that. Is this about that personal matter?”

  “It is. I gave that woman money to keep quiet, and she wants more.”

  “Of course she does.” Logan didn’t want to mention names because even though Helene appeared to be studying some new artwork, she also appeared to be listening in. “There’s only one way to fix this. You know what you have to do. Come clean.” And with that, Logan hung up and moved on to the second cog in this blackmail wheel.

  “Do you want to talk about those photos that Vickie has?” Logan asked.

  Helene seemed to release the breath she’d been holding. “You know about those.” She sighed, sank down in the chair across from his desk. “She’s blackmailing me.”

  “Of course,” Logan repeated. Now he sighed. “There’s only one way to fix this—come clean.”

  She glanced at the phone, probably putting the pieces together. Helene likely didn’t know that it was Delbert who’d called, but now she had an inkling that someone else was in the same leaky boat that she was.

  “That’s hard to do.” Her voice was whispery, the sound of a woman of the verge of tears. “I could hurt you and your business.”

  He lifted his eyebrow. “If anything, people will just feel sorry for me. I hate pity business more than pity sex, but I won’t be the one hurt in this.”

  She conceded that with a soft sound of agreement. “So, how would I go about coming clean?”

  Logan had a few suggestions. Helene wasn’t going to like them, though. “You could just tell one of the town’s bigger gossips that there are sex photos. Or print an apology in the newspaper along with enough details to defuse future threats from Vickie. Or you could record Vickie blackmailing you and use it to have her arrested.”

  The last one, though, wouldn’t stop the threat because Vickie would just continue the blackmail when she got out of jail.

  Helene nodded. Stood. Whether she would do any of those things, he didn’t know. But this was a case of not his bull, not his bullshit. Logan already had enough of his own he had to shovel.

  “Oh,” Helene added. “I tried to bribe Reese into leaving town. I figured I should tell you before Reese does.”

  “She won’t tell me,” Logan assured her.

  “Of course she will.” Said like gospel coming from a woman who clearly didn’t know squat about Reese.

  The phone rang again so Logan motioned for Helene to close the door on her way out. He figured it was Delbert again, calling to whine about the mess of his own making. But it was a different whiner.

  Chucky.

  “Have you seen Vickie?” the man greeted.

  “No. Why? What’s going on now?”

  “She’s gone bat-shit crazy, that’s what.” Chucky was talking so fast that his words ran together. “She hired some thug to bust my nut, and the only way I got out of it was to pay the guy off.”

  “Maybe that was her plan along—to have you pay the guy so she could split the profit with him?” Logan suggested.

  Judging from the long pause, then the profanity, Chucky hadn’t considered that. “Vickie,” he growled, and he made the woman’s name sound like profanity, too.

  “Look, I don’t know what you expect me to do—”

  “I want to leave the country and start a new life,” Chucky readily answered. “I got dreams of owning a beach house in Hawaii.”

  Logan wasn’t sure if he should point out that Hawaii was part of the country. “And you expect me to help you with that?”

  “Yes, I do,” Chucky verified. “I told you about Vickie taking stuff from Jimena’s computer. Well, I took stuff from it, too. Pictures. And I know a lot of other stuff that could ruin you.”

  Hell. Not another round of this. “Are you
blackmailing me?”

  Chucky hesitated. “No, of course not.” Yeah, he was blackmailing him. “Wouldn’t want to say anything in case you’re recording this. Let’s just say I expect you to help me make my dreams come true because you’re a generous person.”

  “I’m not generous,” Logan reminded him. “And neither is Jimena. Do you remember that she can make things difficult between you and your wife?”

  “Let her try. My wife will come back to me when I’m richer than you. I’ll meet you at your office first thing in the morning to discuss this. I’ll see you at 8:00 a.m. sharp. Be there and be prepared to make my Hawaii-house dream come true.”

  Logan would rather eat Hawaii than pay off this turd.

  The moment Chucky ended the call, Logan took out his phone and pressed Reese’s number. If Vickie was hiring thugs—even conning ones—to threaten Chucky, she could do the same to Reese, and Logan needed to warn her.

  Her phone rang but then went straight to voice mail. Logan left her a message to call him ASAP and then got busy thinking up a plan. He had to do something to put an end to Chucky’s and Vickie’s threats once and for all.

  * * *

  “HOW DID YOU get in here?” Reese asked her mother once she got her mouth working. She cursed the jolt of surprise and knew she had let down her guard. Not a good thing to do around Vickie.

  “The door was unlocked so I decided to come in and wait for you.”

  That might be true. Reese had left in a hurry with Jimena so it was possible she’d forgotten to lock up. Just as possible, though, that her mother had picked the lock. Vickie was good at that.

  “Well, you can just un-wait,” Reese told her. “Because I have nothing to say to you.” However, she did have something to do. Reese started checking around the room to make sure her mother hadn’t stolen anything.

  “I have something to say to you,” Vickie answered. “I’m tired of being messed over by life. By you. By everybody.”

  Reese didn’t bother to give her a flat look for the “by you” comment. She just kept checking to make sure everything was there. Things were okay in the kitchen so she went to the small closet.

  “You might have heard,” Vickie went on, “that I happened to come across some interesting photos and information.”

  “I heard.” Since she didn’t have much stuff, it didn’t take Reese long to go through the closet, but that’s when she saw that her backpack was unzipped. She laid it on the bed so she could go through it.

  “You’re pretending not to be interested, but I know you want to know what I have.”

  “Sex pictures that you stole from Jimena’s computer.” She rummaged through her things and found the chef’s knives. It was the only thing that mattered to her now that the watch was at the jeweler’s. For the first time, Reese was actually glad it hadn’t been in the room for her mother to find.

  “And do you know what I can do with those sex pictures?” Vickie asked like a greedy dog over a coveted bone.

  Now Reese gave her the flat look. “Blackmail people.” She used her Captain Obvious voice.

  “Yes,” Vickie answered as if it hadn’t been so obvious, after all. Clearly, she wanted to play a game here, but Reese wasn’t in a playing mood. “I have sex pictures I can use to blackmail that uppity bitch Helene. More sex pictures to blackmail that trashy bitch Jimena. More sex pictures to blackmail that hound dog Delbert.”

  Reese continued her flat look. “Is that all?”

  Vickie’s eyes narrowed. No, this game wasn’t going her way, but then Reese saw something she didn’t want to see. A gleam in those beady-rat eyes. Her mother had something else.

  “I have something else,” Vickie verified a split second later. “I got copies of the old newspaper articles about Spenser O’Malley. How do you think your hot cowboy will react when he sees those?”

  “Hot cowboy?” someone said from the doorway.

  Logan.

  Reese wasn’t sure she wanted him here for this conversation, but her mother smiled, thinking she was about to drop a bombshell.

  “You don’t know what Reese did,” Vickie said.

  “Yes, I do. I read the entire report on Spenser O’Malley. I personally think he got what he deserved, and Reese was in no way to blame for that.”

  If her mother’s eyes narrowed any more, she’d look as if she had straight lines where her eye sockets should be. “Well, the town might not be so forgiving,” Vickie spat out.

  That was true, but then Reese had never stayed around a town long enough to know how they reacted to news like that.

  “Plus, there’s Jimena,” Vickie went on. “I can mess things up between her and her cowboy lover boy. I can show him those sex pictures of Jimena with another man.”

  “Please.” And Reese didn’t say it as a plea, either. “Jimena will probably show Jason the pictures herself. She uses them as foreplay.” That was possibly true, anyway.

  More eye narrowing from Vickie. Reese wished she had some superglue to squirt on them so they’d stay shut that way.

  “Fine. But you’re not going to blow off the rest of what I’ve got.” When Vickie opened her eyes again, she didn’t look at Reese but rather Logan. “I’ve heard plenty of stories about the night your folks were killed. Word is you blame yourself.”

  Everything inside Reese went still, and she thought she might permanently shut her mother’s eyes without the use of superglue. A couple of punches might do it.

  “You stay away from Logan,” Reese warned her. Then she instantly regretted it. Because her mother smiled again, and Reese knew she’d given her exactly what she wanted.

  A way for her to manipulate Reese.

  “Those stories are old news,” Logan explained.

  “Yes.” Vickie could have won a smugness award with the tone slathered on that one-word response. “But it’s another thing to see those stories in print. Think of how painful it would be for your family to read them. Oh, did I mention that I’d be going to the newspaper with all of this?”

  Reese wanted to believe the newspaper wouldn’t touch it, but they actually had a gossip section under the general label of “What’s Going on, Y’all?”

  “So, basically you’re trying to hurt Logan, Delbert, Helene, Jimena and me?” Reese asked. She didn’t have to ask why. “How much?”

  Still smiling, her mother stood. “I’m still considering that, but I thought you could talk to all parties involved, and you could find out what they’d like to do to make me go away.”

  “If I bargain with you,” Logan said, “will you give me dirt to put Chucky away? I only want to deal with one of you.”

  Vickie’s smile widened. “Well, of course. I have…things on Chucky, too. I’d be glad to give them to you for, well, let’s just say services rendered.”

  Logan nodded. “I’ll meet you later with my answer.”

  “Wonderful. Just know that if you double-cross me, I have those photos and articles hidden away. They’re with a friend, and if I get arrested or if I disappear, the package will be delivered not just to the local newspaper but to everyone in the tricounty area.”

  With that threat still hanging in the air, Vickie turned and walked out. If Reese had thought it would do any good, she would have gone after her, but her mother’s favorite things were steak and desperation. Reese didn’t want to give her either. So, she did the only thing she could do even though she knew it would do no good at all.

  “God, Logan. I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Reese could have added a whole lot more to that apology if Logan hadn’t kissed her. Not a little peck, either. He really kissed her. When he had robbed her of her breath and seemingly the cartilage in her kneecaps, he pulled back.

  And he was smiling.

  “I have a plan,” Logan announced.

/>   CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  6:00 p.m.

  LOGAN SUSPECTED THAT some wars had been launched with fewer working parts than this plan, but if it worked, it would solve all their problems. Well, it would solve everything for everyone but Vickie and Chucky.

  Of course, there was a big-assed “if” attached to all of this, and it was possible it could blow up in his face. He didn’t mind some face-blowing every now and then but not when Reese could be hurt. And his family.

  Hell, lots of people could go down if he screwed this up.

  That probably explained why his stomach was doing some twisting and turning. But it wasn’t all bad. He got that feeling a lot right before he closed a big sale. Maybe it was a good sign now, too.

  Logan opened the back door to the Fork and Spoon, and once he made his way into the dining area, he spotted Chucky right away. The weasel had taken the far corner booth, and he was already doing that rat-twitch thing with his face. The twitching eased up just a little when he saw Logan. Probably because Chucky was relieved that he’d actually shown up.

  Chucky was perhaps smiling about something else, too. He could see Vickie pacing in front of the grocery store across the street. That wasn’t by accident. The woman was exactly where she was supposed to be, and she was waiting for Logan to show. Of course, she hadn’t seen Logan go into the café because he’d been sure to use the back door.

  “I made sure Reese wasn’t here,” Chucky said right off while Logan was still standing. “Bert said it was her evening off. I also checked the table and booth to make sure it wasn’t bugged. Now you gotta empty your pockets just like you said you’d do.”

  Logan had indeed agreed to that since Chucky was afraid that Logan would record him saying something to incriminate himself. But that wasn’t Logan’s plan at all. He took out his wallet, phone, the small tape recorder, the pocketknife and his keys. Chucky didn’t pat him down exactly, but he did motion for him to turn. Logan had purposely worn a tighter fitting shirt so the man would be assured that he wasn’t wearing a wire, either.