Nothing Sweeter (Sweet on a Cowboy)

by Drake, Laura

Sweat gathered under her arms.

  Taking her items from the basket, she tried to ignore the men’s heavy presence at her back. Her fingers fumbled, and she dropped several metal knitting needles. They tinkled as they hit the floor and rolled. Bree bent, but the cop was quicker. He squatted and retrieved them, reaching under the candy display for the last one.

  “Thank you.” She accepted the needles with a shaking hand and stood.

  She felt the hot laser of professional scrutiny slide over her body. “Are you all right, miss?”

  She ducked her head and looked away, to hide the scar. “Fine. Thanks.” She spun back to Wyatt’s raised eyebrow. She knew she was behaving oddly, but her sluggish brain couldn’t conjure normal.

  Dammit, Bree, settle down. You don’t have “convict” stamped on your forehead.

  Her palsied fingers slipped off the closure on her wallet. Wyatt pulled the cart through and then stepped between her and the cops. His solid presence and steady touch at her elbow calmed her enough to pay the cashier.

  Finally, she was free to go. She forced her feet to a sedate pace to the parking lot.

  “Bree, what’s wrong?”

  She sped up, leaving Wyatt’s question behind. At the car, she juggled the keys, almost dropping them. When she got the door open, she tossed the bag on the floorboard and relaxed the frozen tendons in her knees enough to sink into the seat. She jammed the key in the ignition and waited for Wyatt.

  There is no reason to get riled up. It’s not like you’re wanted for something. But the rush of adrenaline negated logic. Her heart raced and blood pounded in her ears.

  “Bree, you’re obviously upset. Why don’t you let me drive?” She jumped at Wyatt’s voice, her butt actually leaving the seat. He stood, hand on her door, frowning.

  She put up a palm, as much to halt argument as to hide from his worried gaze. “Please. Wyatt. Just get in.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but complied.

  When he was in, seat belt fastened, she wheeled out of the parking space and sped to the exit.

  “Bree, talk to me.”

  “Give me a minute here, will you? Traffic is nuts.” What was she going to tell him, that she had a phobia for cops? Thoughts scurried through her brain like panicked mice.

  At the main street, she signaled left and pulled out. A horn blared. She whipped her head to the right. A truck bore down on them too fast. Its tires locked and squealed, laying rubber.

  “Shit!” Wyatt flinched back.

  She floored it. The engine roared and the Jeep sprang into traffic, the rear fishtailing as the tires found purchase.

  Oh my God. She’d totally misjudged the oncoming truck’s speed. Blood throbbed in her head, louder than the engine whine. Keeping the accelerator buried, she shot a look in the rearview mirror, expecting blue strobe lights. All she saw was the truck she’d cut off, retreating behind them.

  “Take the first turnoff you come to.” Wyatt’s voice squeaked like a stepped-on mouse. He pried his fingers from the dash.

  “I’m okay, Wyatt. I just—”

  “I think I need to unload my pants.”

  Seeing his clenched jaw, she decided not to argue.

  On the outskirts of town, she took a right onto a narrow dirt farm road. She drove several hundred yards, pulled over, and shut down the engine.

  Wyatt let out a long breath.

  The wind hissed through the curtain of oats on either side of the road. Cawing crows argued on the barbed-wire fence, voicing their displeasure at the disturbance. The sounds leached into Bree’s mind, smoothing her roiled thoughts. Her shoulders had dropped below her earlobes when Wyatt spoke.

  “I know who you are.”

  In her core, a gut bomb of acid exploded. She wanted to see his expression, but her neck muscles wouldn’t obey. She saw only her fingers, thin claws, whitening on the steering wheel.

  “I have a friend. He manages the IT department for the State of Massachusetts.”

  Massachusetts? That couldn’t—

  “He has access to the DMV records.”

  I’ve never even been that far Eas—

  “For the entire country.”

  In her narrow field of vision, her fingers loosened and then disappeared as her hands thumped into her lap. Fingerprints smeared the steering wheel, and a thin layer of dust covered the dash. Funny, she’d never noticed that.

  “You changed your name on your driver’s license. But the Jeep’s plates are registered to Aubrey Madison. Once I had the name, Google did the rest.”

  The wind died. The crows fell silent. The world seemed to stop as her mind snapped a picture. No doubt it would be added to the nightmarish film that ran through her head before sleep most nights.

  When had she let down her guard? Somewhere in the comfortable routine of days, denial slipped in unnoticed. Now she was going to pay. What had she been thinking? She’d known she was different. An albatross hiding in a flock of sparrows.

  Idiot.

  Nothing to do now but drive home, pack, tuck tail, and run.

  “Talk to me, Bree.”

  Home? When had the Heather become home? Thoughts blew through her head, but she was too discouraged to chase them down. It didn’t matter when, anyway. Shame bloomed in her chest. Her heart pumped billows of it, coursing through her body. It burned.

  “Trust me, Wyatt, you don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  If his voice had been demanding, torture wouldn’t have pulled it out of her. But it wasn’t. It was soft and cool like butter on a burn.

  “I know what old secrets can do, Bree. You bury them in the back of your mind and try to forget. Yet they sit there, like a nugget of radioactive plutonium. Poison leaks into everything.” He rubbed his forehead like it hurt. “Until it takes you over. It becomes the sum total of what you are, until you forget you were ever anything more. You are the secret. You need to tell someone. I’m here. Talk.”

  She dropped her head to the steering wheel.

  She was so damn tired. Tired of running like a manic hamster on an exercise wheel. Tired of not sleeping in a futile effort to keep the memories at bay. Maybe if she just let the damn things come, she’d get some peace. Besides, now that the cat was out, she had nothing to lose. For the first time since her release, unconsidered words fell from her mouth.

  The Feds had played hardball. She’d told them to investigate Vic, but he’d covered his tracks well. He’d gone to ground, leaving the eBay account untouched since her arrest. All roads led back to her. Feds traced the money to an offshore bank account in Mexico, but without the number and password, they couldn’t get to it. Aubrey wanted to help them, but she didn’t know the number. The account wasn’t hers.

  Intimating that she’d change her mind soon, the agents left. Not an hour later, a guard came to her cell, ordering her to collect her things as he unlocked the door. They were moving her into the general population. No more single-cell, solitary exercise time, or meals alone.

  Arms full, her too long orange prison pants slapping with every step, he led her through locked doors to another wing of the jail. A cacophony of catcalls rained on her as she strode the gauntlet between the rows of cells.

  “Fresh meat!”

  “Oohh, isn’t she a pretty one?”

  “I see you later, puta!”

  They wouldn’t really leave her here, would they?

  They did. She was locked in a ten-by-ten cell with three women who terrified her with their prison tats, tough talk, and hard eyes. Bree took the only open bunk on top and tried not to cower.

  On the call with her attorney the next day, Aubrey was frantic when he promised to look into it. Look into it? This wasn’t a research project, for chrissake. It was her life! In hindsight, maybe a jail wall hadn’t been the best place to look for an attorney, but she’d paid him a huge retainer and didn’t have money for a better one.

  Before she hung up, Aubrey asked him what La eMe was. Her cellmates spoke mostly S
panish to each other, but this word came up several times, and it sounded important.

  His hesitation told her she wasn’t going to like the translation.

  The Mexican Mafia.

  He rushed on to placate her with assurances that he was busy preparing for the trial. He said there was no way the jury would convict her on the meager amount of evidence the Feds had. All she had to do was hold tight, be safe, and stay out of trouble.

  She’d wrapped her heart in that flimsy blanket of hope and hung up.

  The prisoners were allowed out twice each day, once for showers, once to “exercise” in the yard, a hard-packed dirt square surrounded by guards and razor wire. Day after day, Aubrey kept to herself, trying to perfect her dismal attempt at invisibility. Her thoughts ran in an endless, useless loop, never coming any closer to a solution.

  Her cellmates didn’t address her directly, using English only when they wanted her to overhear. Aubrey wished they’d left her ignorant. She learned that the smallest of them, Lupia, a pretty Latina with a tattoo of an eagle and a snake in a flaming circle over crossed knives, was the girlfriend of one of the Mafia’s top lieutenants.

  They called Aubrey carne ratón—mouse meat.

  One night, a week into her personal hell, Lupia’s whisper cut into Aubrey’s feverish thoughts. She said Aubrey would be getting a conjugal visit from her “boyfriend” soon. He would give her drugs. She was to stash them in her almeja and bring them to Lupia.

  Maybe it was the darkness that emboldened Aubrey. Or maybe she was losing hope.

  She just said no.

  Her cellmates laughed. She didn’t need to worry about being caught. Her boyfriend would be a gringo, and the guards would never suspect a princesa like her. Aubrey should thank Lupia; she’d even get laid!

  Aubrey bit her tongue until the iron taste of blood filled her mouth. Giving in to hysteria wouldn’t get her anywhere with the guards, and the scent of fear would only frenzy the pack. Aubrey knew if she were caught with drugs, any chance she had of walking out of this hellhole would vanish.

  Turned out, she’d been naive to think things couldn’t get worse.

  Two days later, Aubrey was showering with seven women she didn’t know when Lupia’s soldiers came. As she turned to rinse soap from her face, she was grabbed from behind and wrestled to the floor.

  Her head cracked on rough cement, leaving her dazed for precious seconds as water pelted her face. Her hair was caught in a viselike grip as a brown face filled her vision, features contorted with hate, waving what looked like a toothbrush in her face. Light glinted off a wicked shard at the tip. Panic surged, but fear immobilized her.

  The girl’s wet hair hung in a curtain, cutting off Aubrey’s peripheral vision. “You can let go,” she’d growled. “She won’t scream. Will you, ratón?”

  The weight on her limbs lifted. Aubrey felt a prick at her throat and jerked. A sticky warmth trickled down her neck. She was going to die on this filthy cement floor.

  Screw that! Fueled by desperation and the adrenaline held inside since she’d been dumped in this shithole, Aubrey clubbed the girl’s temple with her fist. She collapsed, unconscious, on Aubrey’s chest, but before she could scrabble from under, the others were on her.

  A dark-skinned, pockmarked girl straddled her chest. “You wanna play, puta?” She spit in Aubrey’s face. “You don’t even know the game.” She cocked her head. “I tell you what, white girl. I give you a necklace to remember me by.” A laser of molten pain burned an arc down Aubrey’s throat.

  The artery pumped straight up: a geyser of crimson, spraying them all. Aubrey screamed in pain and horror, blinded by blood. She heard scrabbling and then they were gone. Aubrey slapped her hands to her throat, frantically trying to hold the gaping skin together and stop the heat of blood sheeting down her neck.

  She was alone, with the sound of water drumming on the floor, the coppery smell of blood, and the chill of shock and cold cement seeping into her bones.

  Bree lifted her head from the steering wheel to stare through the windshield. “I woke up in the prison infirmary. What passed for a doctor there told me the artery had only been nicked, that I was lucky to be alive. I was on the fence about that. My attorney assured me that I’d be returned to a solitary cell, and even if I were convicted, the judge would grant leniency due to the ‘incident.’ ” As if the words were emptying her, her voice diminished to a breathy whisper.

  “I got four years, to be served in a Federal penitentiary. Club Fed may not have been up to Martha Stewart’s standards, but it looked like heaven to me.”

  She reached to trace the scar, surprised to find it wet. When Wyatt handed her a tissue, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Her face was mottled, and a red weal stood out on her forehead where it had rested on the steering wheel.

  “Feel better?”

  She ran a gut check as she dried her face and blew her nose. “Maybe.” Both her body and mind quieted, calm after the storm.

  If you’re going through hell, keep going.

  She turned to face Wyatt and what came next.

  He gave her a shrug and a slow smile. Something twitched in her mind. “You knew.” She snatched the random thought before it was gone. “The first meeting of Total Bull, when you stood up for me. You knew then, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why…?”

  “I know it all, Bree. I know that the judgment was dropped when your boss got caught.”

  And she’d thought she was ready for anything. Anything but kindness.

  “You’re no threat to the Heather. In fact, as a controller and businessperson, we’re lucky to have you.”

  The wind started in the oats again and another crow flew in, to join the group on the barbed-wire fence, setting off a cawing gossip chain. Bree took what felt like her first breath since she’d parked.

  “But you’re still a threat.”

  Seeing Wyatt’s tight lips, her stomach clenched for the next blow.

  “To Max. He cares for you. I haven’t been around in years, but I know my brother, and I’ve never seen him look at a woman before the way he looks at you.”

  She squirmed in the seat. This was getting complicated.

  Wyatt leaned forward, intent. “I’m not going to tell him, Bree, but you have to.”

  “I know, Wyatt. I will.” Somehow. “Soon.” She started the car and executed the three-point turn that would take them back to the main road. “Oh and, Wyatt? Thanks.”

  They rode in silence, the secrets on both their minds swirling in the cab of the Jeep. Bree lowered the window to let the wind blow them away. She couldn’t wait to get back to the cocoon of High Heather and settle back into her simple life.

  Wait. Her life wasn’t so simple anymore, was it? She pictured Fire Ant standing in the corral. She owned livestock for cripes’ sake!

  Her gorge rose. Total Bull. What had she done? She’d stopped here, looking for a haven of anonymous mediocrity. Somehow she’d jumped right back into another high-profile business. Hadn’t she learned from her last experience? Hadn’t she learned the hard way not to trust her own judgment?

  “Hey, isn’t that Max?” Wyatt pointed to a solitary horseman trailing a few head of cattle in the pasture fronting the road.

  When the cowboy lifted his hat, a silly thrill burst inside her, remembering Wyatt’s earlier words. Max kicked the horse and cantered up to the fence, matching the speed of the Jeep as she slowed. She pulled over and let the engine idle.

  “Hey, guys, where’ve you been?” He shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun.

  In spite of her worries, his broad grin was contagious. “Walmart.”

  “Well, you know what they say. If they don’t have it, you don’t need it.” He snuck a glance at the cattle, which had stopped to graze. “Hurry up and get back to the house. Tia’s making chili rellenos for supper!” He smiled a carefree boy’s smile, wheeled his mount, and slapped his hat to its rump. The horse bounded away, scatt
ering the cattle.

  Wyatt watched him go. “That’s our Max, the sophisticated businessman.” He turned to Bree, a fond smile still in place. “I have to admit, even if he is my brother, he’s kinda cute, isn’t he?”

  “Too cute for his own good.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, she pulled back onto the road. And mine.

  How could she possibly worry that a venture with the Jamesons could end up like one with Vic Christakos?

  Remembering Max’s guileless smile, Bree shook her head. She might not be able to trust herself, but she knew she could trust him.

  “Wow, Wyatt, I’m impressed.” Max leaned over the desk in Wyatt’s bedroom, peering at the corporate website Wyatt was creating for Total Bull.

  “Back up, Max. I can’t see what I’m doing.” Wyatt’s fingers flew, and a new page opened. “We’ll have a page for our bulls, showing lineage, stats, photos, and semen prices.”

  A photo popped up. It was of Fire Ant, chewing grass in the field. He looked as scary as a milk cow.

  Max snorted. “I hope we’re not leading with this one. Maybe we can get some action photos of him when we have the Heather bull-riding event. If he doesn’t look better when he’s bucking, we’re dead anyhow.” He leaned in again. “You’re a guru at this, Wyatt. Where did you learn to do this?”

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. “What do you think I do for a living?”

  “I thought it had something to do with writing software, not designing websites.”

  “That’s the advantage of having an IT geek on the team. A software engineer can do lots of stuff. That’s what’s so fun about the career. Aside from the fact that it makes me a sex magnet. Damn, Max. Will you quit hovering?”

  Max got an elbow to the gut, and he sat back. “Not my fault—your typeface is so small, I can’t read it!”

  Wyatt frowned at him. “Next time you’re in town, you need to buy some stronger reading glasses at Walmart, old man.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. I’m telling you, the type is tiny.”

  “Max, there’s no shame in needing glasses. This happens to men around your age. It’s perfectly understandable.” Wyatt’s lips quirked. “While you’re down there, you may want to pick up some Viagra, because I’ve heard that about the same time the eyes go, the—”