Grace wiped the remaining tears from under her eyes and pulled herself up onto her feet. She took a deep breath before she pushed through the door and walked back into the kitchen. Jax’s cup of coffee was still sitting on the counter, so was his bag of scones. Grace stared at them for a second before she grabbed both of them. She threw them into the trash can with so much force that the coffee exploded up and around the sides.
Okay, starting now she wasn’t going to let him affect her anymore.
* * *
Haldon Anderson had never been a model citizen. He’d never been a model anything. He dropped out of school when he was sixteen and started working off of various fishing boats that came in and out of Mirabelle. He also started drinking, heavily. Haldon had a short fuse, and it was even shorter when it was soaked in liquor. He spent eight years doing whatever the hell he wanted, not caring about the consequences. And then when he was twenty-four, his actions caught up with him.
Patricia Stanton was seventeen when she’d gotten pregnant. She lived with her God-fearing grandmother, who gave Haldon an ultimatum. He could either marry Patricia or go to jail for statutory rape. He chose marriage. Haldon moved into Grandma Stanton’s house after the marriage. The only reason being he no longer had to pay rent and had more money to spend on alcohol.
The first five years of Jax’s life, Grandma Stanton raised him. If it hadn’t been for her, he probably wouldn’t have survived. She might have despised Haldon with every fiber of her being, but she’d loved Jax. She’d been the person who named him, the person who tucked him in at night, the person whose lap he crawled into when he wanted a hug.
Getting attention from Patricia was hit or miss; sometimes she’d want to be in her son’s life, other times she’d just ignore him. For the most part Haldon ignored Jax, too, which had been just fine with Jax. Whenever Haldon did acknowledge his son, there was a sneer on his face. Never one to take responsibility for his own actions, Haldon blamed Jax for being forced into a marriage he never wanted. He blamed Jax for ruining his life and he had absolutely no problem telling Jax that at every opportunity he got. But Haldon knew better than to mess with Jax when Grandma Stanton was in the room. He’d always wait until he could corner Jax.
Jax remembered one time when he’d been playing with his toy cars under the dining room table. Grandma Stanton had gone outside to pick some herbs from her garden to add to the chicken she was baking for dinner, leaving Jax alone for only a few minutes. Haldon had walked into the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge, just like he did every night. Jax had stopped playing, trying to be as quiet as possible, not wanting his father to know that he was in the room. But Haldon had noticed him.
“I hope you know just how worthless you are,” Haldon said, leaning back against the counter.
His cold eyes didn’t leave Jax as he tipped his head back and took a long pull on his beer. He stared at Jax for a few more moments before he pushed off the counter and walked over, crouching down so that he was on eye level with Jax. Jax remembered being too terrified to move or speak.
“Did you hear me, boy?” Haldon asked.
“Y-yes.”
“You ruin everything you touch,” Haldon said as he reached down and grabbed one of the cars. He turned it in his long fingers before he stood up, dropped it onto the ground, and crushed it under his boot.
Jax knew now that he didn’t ruin everything he touched. No, it was Haldon who did. Problem was Jax was included in that category of messed up and broken things. Which meant he wasn’t good enough for Grace, no matter how much he wanted her.
Jax closed his eyes and leaned his head against the headrest. He let his thoughts wander to a little kitchen that he wished he’d never left.
Kissing Grace? There were no words for it. It’d been better than he’d ever imagined it could be, and he’d imagined it for what felt like forever. He wasn’t sure what had pushed him over the edge to finally grab what he wanted, grab Grace and kiss her like his life depended on it. It didn’t matter, though, because if one thing hadn’t changed, it was the resounding fact that Jax couldn’t have her.
So instead of focusing on all of the kissing that had blown his mind, he focused on the image of Grace, staring at him with wide, wounded eyes. That was the reality, Jax hurting Grace. The only way he could protect her from himself was to not be with her. Because if there was one thing Jax refused to ruin, it was Grace.
Jax opened his eyes and shook his head. No use dwelling on this now. He put his truck in reverse and pulled onto the road.
The shoplifter had been at a gas station. Fourteen-year-old Dale Rigels had purposefully spilled a soda in the back of the store so that when the attendant went to clean it up, the boy could steal a Playboy that was kept behind the counter. He’d been unsuccessful in his endeavors.
Jax waited until Mrs. Rigels and Clark Trellis, the owner of the store, had gotten there. Mrs. Rigels had been mortified and furious with her son, but she’d worked it all out with Clark. He wasn’t going to press charges and Dale was going to paint the entire outside of the store in retribution.
Jax headed downtown. He needed to stop by Farmers Drugs and talk to the Harolds.
Hugh Farmer had opened the little store almost sixty years ago and worked there until the day he died. The Farmers had sold it to Lewis and Veronica Harold seven years ago. Lewis ran the pharmacy and Veronica ran the front of the shop.
Two days ago, the Harolds had left the pharmacy at six o’clock, the time they left every day. They’d set the alarm and locked the doors. At around two that night, someone broke in.
The alarm system had a sixty-second delay. Once it was triggered, a remote company in Tallahassee received the alert. By the time they contacted the Atticus County sheriff’s office and a deputy responded, the thieves had already been and gone. They’d stolen morphine, OxyContin, Ritalin, and all the other class two drugs they could get their hands on. They were going to make a lot of money selling what they’d taken.
This incident held similarities to the other breaking and entering cases Jax had been investigating. The people involved were getting more confident, and if Jax knew anything it was that confidence led to stupidity when it came to criminals. And stupidity was always dangerous.
Jax pulled into a spot across the street from the store. He walked in and nodded to Mrs. Harold who was in the middle of helping a customer. Loud bangs echoed from the back, so Jax made his way through the store, following the sounds.
The only signs of forced entry to the pharmacy were the scratch marks on the dead bolts to the back door. The inside was a whole different matter.
Bennett worked for Marlin Yance Construction and he was working on the repairs. The thieves hadn’t been minimal in their destruction. They knocked down the door that lead into the pharmacy, completely ruining the door frame, and ripped a metal cabinet off the back wall, destroying a pretty good section of the drywall.
Bennett had already removed the damaged portion, leaving the structure and insulation of the back wall exposed. Bennett was building a sturdier frame that would make the new reinforced cabinets harder to break into. The Harolds were also having him install a reinforced steel door.
“Hey,” Bennett said, spotting Jax in the doorway as he turned to the worktable.
“Hey. You find anything?” Jax asked, indicating the mess on the floor with his chin.
“Nothing you guys didn’t,” Bennett said, shaking his head.
“How long do you think it took them?”
“From the time they got in the front door? Five minutes.”
“Yeah.” Jax nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
“They knew exactly how much time they had, which means they knew what to expect with that alarm system.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Can you grab another box of nails for me?” Bennett said, indicating with his chin a spot somewhere behind Jax. “They’re in my toolbox on the counter.”
Jax turned
and walked the few steps. He grabbed a box from a stack inside of Bennett’s black toolbox. When he turned around, Bennett was grinning.
“You stop by Café Lula this morning?” Bennett asked. There was nothing nonchalant about Bennett’s question. Somehow he knew something.
“Yes. Why?” Jax asked, narrowing his eyes as he handed Bennett the box.
“You and Grace talk?”
Among other things. God, that kiss would forever be ingrained in his brain.
“Yes. Why?” Jax repeated, not liking where this was going.
“So it was a good talk then?”
No, the talking hadn’t been good. Every time Jax had opened his mouth he’d said something stupid. Who was he kidding? Everything he’d done with his mouth had been stupid.
Incredible? Yes. But also incredibly stupid.
“Is there a point to this?” Jax asked.
“Yeah. Two as a matter of fact, and they’re on your ass.”
“What?”
“You’ve got some nice Grace-size handprints.”
“Shit,” Jax said, wiping his hands vigorously on the back of his pants.
“It’s on the back of your shirt, too, and on your collar. You two roll around in flour or something?”
Jax looked up and glared at him. “You finished yet?”
“Sure.” He shrugged, still grinning.
“Good, ’cause I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, that just sucks for you, doesn’t it? I’m pretty sure this is going to be talked about for a while.”
“You planning on informing everyone about it?”
“No, you took care of that all on your own. Where did you go after you left the café?”
“The Gas-N-Go. Then here. Maybe no one saw,” Jax said hopefully.
“Not likely,” Bennett said, shaking his head.
“Shit,” Jax repeated.
This was all he needed, for everyone in Mirabelle to know that Grace had grabbed his ass. It was perfect, just perfect.
* * *
Grace tried to eat her salad, but all she was doing was pushing it around her plate. She’d failed spectacularly in her mission to not let Jax affect her. She’d been affected all freaking day, burning two batches of cupcakes, spilling a five-pound bag of sugar all over the kitchen floor, and making butter instead of whipped cream when she blended the cream too long.
But how the hell was she supposed to concentrate on anything when all she could think about was Jax? How he’d grabbed her. How he’d kissed her. How he’d explored her mouth with his. How his hands had traveled all over her body. How her hands had been all over his body.
But those thoughts were also accompanied with the burning reality that he’d proclaimed it all to be a mistake. That none of it should’ve happened.
Her stomach churned again and she shoved her salad away. She looked up at the table of women who surrounded her, trying to focus on the conversation she’d hardly contributed to.
Every Thursday, for as long as Grace could remember, a group of women got together to eat lunch at Café Lula. Originally, it had been Lula Mae, Claire, and Lula Mae’s cousins, Pinky and Panky Player. Grace had been able to come during the summers, but she hadn’t officially joined the ranks until she graduated from high school, but by then, Claire had passed away.
Pinky owned a hair salon, but she also styled the hair and did the makeup for the deceased at Adams and Family Funeral Home. She had short strawberry blond hair that she gelled so it stuck up all around her head. She had a tendency to wear bright eye shadow under her overly plucked eyebrows. Her propensity for biker clothes was pretty appropriate since she drove her Harley Davidson whenever weather permitted, which was most of the time.
Pinky and her boyfriend, Reginald, or Reggie, had been together for thirty-four years and refused to get married. They’d had two kids together, always had a barrage of fluffy mutts running around their house, and traded in their Harley’s every five years for a newer model. And they were more than happy.
Panky shared her twin’s strawberry blond hair, big green eyes, and overly ample chest. But that was pretty much where the resemblance ended. Panky was way more conservative. Her hair flowed down to her shoulders in big, thick curls. She always wore bright red lipstick and 1950’s housewife dresses that made her look like Lucille Ball. Panky was a florist, and while she owned her own shop, she also arranged the flowers for the Adams and Family Funeral Home.
Panky was currently enjoying her new status as the owner of the funeral home’s new wife. Burley Adams was a huge man, bald and beefy with a thick neck and wide shoulders. Panky had been in love with him since grade school, but they’d never gotten together. He’d married Jan Clemont, and Jan had died five years later giving birth to their son. Burley had been devastated by the loss and refused to date or get involved with any woman. He’d devoted himself to his son and the family business.
Panky had gotten married, too. And after thirty years of marriage and three sons, Sydell Dryer had decided he was done with Panky. She’d been on the market for four years before Burley had opened his eyes to the fact that she still wanted to be with him. They’d gotten married four months ago.
Tara Montgomery had been invited to join the luncheons five years ago when she was hired as a receptionist at the funeral home. She’d moved down to Mirabelle from South Carolina when she’d met her husband, Juris, on a dating Web site. Tara was a Southern belle through and through. But, boy, did she have a smart mouth on her, so she fit right in with the rest of them.
Tara had short reddish brown hair that was cut at a slanted angle, framing her face. The cut of her hair made all the sharp angles of her nose, cheeks, and chin stand out even more. She was tall and had a tendency to wear heels, making her well over six feet. Which was a good thing since Juris was a mountain man, or a mountain of a man.
Juris was a taxidermist, which skeeved Grace out. He also did the embalming and cremation at the funeral home, which really skeeved her out. But plain and simple, the man was a strange bird. He reminded her of Sasquatch with his long scraggly hair and just as scraggly beard. He and Tara were such an odd pairing.
Tara was very well groomed, with her makeup always in a state of perfection, while Juris’s idea of sprucing up was to put his brown hair into a braid that stretched down his broad back. Juris was also a man of very few words, while Tara could probably have struck up a conversation with one of the deceased at the funeral home.
But, hey, who was Grace to judge? People couldn’t help who they fell in love with. She knew that firsthand.
Paige had started coming to the lunches about a year and a half ago about the time she began working at the funeral home. That was also when things started between her and Brendan. Denise, Paige’s mom, began coming to the lunches last October.
It had been almost seven months since Denise’s husband, Trevor, passed away. She was doing better, but she couldn’t hide her sadness all the time. Sometimes it made an appearance in her eyes or the set of her mouth. But today, she was laughing and talking with the rest of the women. Her dark brown bob bounced around her shoulders as she talked animatedly with her hands.
“And then would you believe it, but he pulled his pants down in the middle of the store, in front of God and everybody, to show me this spider bite that was on his rear end. He said he couldn’t be bothered to go down to the doctor and would I just tell him what he needed to get to treat it.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” Lula Mae said as everyone laughed.
Paige reached for her glass of lemonade, her eyes dancing with laughter. But as she pulled back she looked up and made eye contact with Grace. Paige’s smile faltered as her eyes narrowed on Grace and then fell to the barely eaten salad.
“Who wants dessert?” Grace asked, throwing her napkin on the plate to hide the evidence of her lack of appetite.
“What did you make?” Tara asked.
“Blueberry pie,” Grace said, pushing her chair back from the
table. It was one of the few things she hadn’t ruined.
“Absolutely,” Tara said.
Grace looked around to see everyone else’s nod of assent, but she avoided looking at Paige.
“Coming up,” Grace said, grabbing her plate and heading for the kitchen.
She pushed through the door and dumped the food from her plate into the trash before she put it with the stack by the sink. She washed her hands and grabbed a pie cutter from a drawer. As she made her way to the counter where the pie was cooling, she heard someone pushing through the kitchen door.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Grace turned to find Paige leaning against the counter. She stretched to the side, the green material of her dress pulling over her belly as she rubbed at her ribs.
“Trevor kicking?” Grace asked as she reached above her for a stack of plates.
“He’s just making camp in my ribs. What’s going on, Grace?” Paige repeated.
“Nothing.”
“I didn’t know you were lying to me these days.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Does this have to do with what happened at the bar last night with Jax?”
“I swear Brendan gossips like an old married woman,” Grace said, turning to frown at Paige.
“He’s worried about you.”
“About what?” Grace asked, turning back to the pie and slicing it. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Bullshit.”
Grace’s hand stilled and she looked over to Paige again. Brendan’s hadn’t been the only heart Paige had made her way into. Paige had quickly become one of Grace’s best friends, and she truly did think of her as a sister. She trusted Paige in every sense of the word.
“Jax came over here this morning to apologize about last night. Except he didn’t really know what he’d done to upset me. And then I started yelling at him about not seeing what was right in front of his face. And then he kissed me.”
“He what?” Paige asked, her mouth falling open.
Undeniable (A Country Roads Novel) Page 5
