She's Gotta Be Mine (A sexy, funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 1) (Cottonmouth Series)

by Jasmine Haynes

  Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Sheriff Braxton working in a dry cleaners. He looked like he was born to be a cop.

  Mavis didn’t even give her a chance to ask about the sister and the fruitcake. “And speaking of the sheriff, that boy is hot for you, Bobbie dear.”

  Bobbie felt herself blush, but thanked God the subject of Mary Alice Turner was over for now. “He just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to kill Warren in his county.” She tapped her chin. “I wonder if it’s okay to do it in the next county?”

  “Don’t waste your time on the nimrod.”

  “Warren’s not a nimrod,” she automatically defended, then wondered why, except that it was such a reflex.

  “Answer me this. When was the last time you had sex?”

  Oh my God, was the truth written all over her flaming face?

  “I thought so. Now, the question is, the sheriff or the serial killer. The choice is yours. ‘Cause they both have the hots for you.”

  It was such a wonderfully delicious thought. Two men interested.

  “I’m partial to the sheriff myself,” Mavis stated, “only because you wouldn’t have to fight the whole damn town to do it. You choose the serial killer, and you won’t be able to walk down the street in broad daylight without being stoned.”

  “Oh, come on. They just need to see him as a human being.” And maybe if she helped bring him out in the light.

  “He isn’t a human being. He’s an icon. Now the sheriff, they’ll trip all over themselves trying to set you up with him.”

  But Bobbie didn’t need anyone’s help. She could do it on her own. She scooped melted ice cream, nuts, and whipped cream from the bottom of the dish. On the one hand, she liked the idea of Cottonmouth rooting for her. But on the other, she just plain old liked Nick. Maybe it was because she’d known him three more days than she’d known the sheriff, but still...she figured it was time for another subject change. Which, after all, was the real reason she’d invited Mavis out for ice cream in the first place.

  “Why does Beau over at the garage hate you?”

  Mavis threw down her spoon with enough force to knock a chink out of the glass dish. “What’s that weasel been saying about me?”

  “He called you a viper.” Bobbie justified tattling on two counts. First, Mavis should know what the man was saying about her, and second, Beau told her to ask Mavis.

  “Asswipe.” Mavis squinted her eyes together and pressed her lips into a white line.

  “So, why does he think you’re a viper?”

  “Probably because I threw him out of the house ten years ago for sleeping with that tramp married to his brother.”

  Her ears burning, Bobbie wasn’t sure what to ask first. “You’re the woman who pays for his teeth?”

  “You don’t think I’d have sex with him if his teeth were falling out from that disgusting tobacco problem he has?”

  Eyes wide with wonder, Bobbie pressed the obvious. “You threw him out of the house, but you still have sex with him?”

  Mavis tossed her head, threatening to topple her bouffant hair. “A woman has needs, you know.”

  Yes, Bobbie knew, all right, but she couldn’t see herself sneaking over to Warren’s office in the middle of the night. “But, your ex-husband?”

  “He’s not my ex-husband. We never got divorced. Medical and dental rates would have been higher if we had. I just make him live down at his damn garage.”

  “But...he slept with his brother’s wife?”

  That was pretty horrible. At least Warren had...what? Waited until he left her? She didn’t know that. She couldn’t ask him that. She shouldn’t have cared anymore.

  “I’ll grant him one thing,” Mavis went on. “He’s been pretty damn consistent about denying he did it with her.”

  “So you think maybe he’s telling the truth?”

  Mavis shrugged. “Could be. I wouldn’t put it past her to lie about it. Bitch never did like him.”

  “Why did you kick him out if you weren’t sure it was true?”

  “That old man’s a frigging sex addict. He might not have been with her, but there was that old biddy English teacher at the high school. I would have caught them at it, too, if she hadn’t made him crawl under her desk. I’ll tell you this, I wasn’t about to stoop to looking under her drawers, if you know what I mean.”

  Bobbie put her hand under her chin to keep her mouth from falling open. “So what happened to your sister-in-law?”

  “Nothing. Yet. But I’m not done with her, you can sure as hell bet on that.”

  Bobbie wondered if big cities had as many intrigues as small towns. Probably. It was simply that she’d never known her neighbors well enough to ask. “So, is she someone I’ve met?”

  “I haven’t said her name in ten years. I’m not going to start now. Ask the weasel. I’m sure he’d bend over backwards to tell you.”

  Bobbie was equally sure she wouldn’t walk over to Beau and say, So, who was the woman you were having an affair with when Mavis kicked you out? Maybe she could finagle the answer out of him without being obvious.

  “You ladies didn’t leave any for me?”

  The bass voice wasn’t loud, but Bobbie jumped as if it had boomed in her ear. She’d been hanging on Mavis’s every word.

  Mavis recovered first, batting her lashes. “Oh, Sheriff, you can lick my ice cream cone any time.” Then she pointed across the table. “Or maybe you’d rather have Bobbie’s.”

  Oh. My. God. Flame, flame, foam, foam. Bobbie sputtered but nothing came out. She started coughing, then her eyes watered, and she was sure her mascara streaked down her cheeks.

  “You shouldn’t embarrass her like that, Mavis. She’s not used to you.”

  The sheriff gave her a surprisingly gentle pat on the back that helped stop the coughing fit. It didn’t do anything, however, for the smudged cheeks. She’d die for a compact mirror.

  “It’s all right,” she managed, surreptitiously wiping under her eyes. “I’m starting to understand Mavis perfectly.”

  Why was everything suddenly so quiet? She peered around the sheriff’s big body to find every single pair of eyes in Johnson’s Soda Fountain right on her. Oh, except the baby, who was happily smearing ice cream over his, or her, entire body.

  “I have to go.” Mavis scraped back her chair.

  “So do I.” Bobbie executed a matching scrape.

  “No, you don’t.” Mavis pushed her back down. “Keep the sheriff company while he eats his ice cream.”

  The sheriff himself settled it, thank God. “Sorry, ladies, but as much as I’d like to, I can’t stay. Just stopped in to say hi.” Bobbie realized his hand was still on her back. Warm. Did it feel better than Nick’s? Hmmm, had Nick even put his hand on her anywhere?

  The sheriff was looking at her with a very blue, very knowing gaze—had she said that aloud? “I’ll take a raincheck, okay.”

  “Shall I put that in writing?” Mavis offered.

  “I think we can both remember, Mavis.” He put a hand to his cute sheriff’s hat, did a mock bow, and left.

  “What’d I tell you?” Mavis whispered. “He’s got a cucumber in his pants for you.”

  Bobbie stared through the window as he climbed into his green and white car. “I think that’s cool as a cucumber. You’re mixing metaphors.”

  “No, I’m not. He gets a cucumber when he looks at you, and there ain’t nothing cool about it.”

  * * * * *

  “We’re open seven days a week, my dear.” Mr. Fry cleared his throat with a great rumble. “Won’t find a pharmacy at the minimall that responsive to the every day consumer’s needs.”

  This had to be the absolute dumbest idea Bobbie’d ever had. No, not coming to Cottonmouth, although at the moment, that ranked second. Second only to coming to Fry’s Pharmacy on a hot Saturday afternoon for...a prescription.

  Mr. Fry stared at the paper in his hand, first at arm’s length, then close to his bifocals. “Oh,” he finally cried o
ut, tapping at his hearing aide. “Birth control pills.” Bobbie tried to sink into the floor. “I wish these damn doctors would work on their damn handwriting.” Then he smiled at her.

  Bobbie could only thank the lord there were few shoppers in Fry’s Pharmacy. And they were in other aisles at the moment. Please, please, let everyone go to the superdrug in the minimall. She should have purchased her darn pills back in San Francisco.

  “When do you need them by, my dear?” Mr. Fry peered over the top of his half-glasses.

  Nothing more than a puddle of mush on his clean floor, she pasted on a dazzling smile. Oh God, were those footsteps behind her? Biologically, the timing would be perfect for effectiveness if she got them tomorrow, but she couldn’t say that. “No hurry.”

  The change was subtle. Mr. Fry’s gaze shifted to somewhere over her shoulder. His already thin lips flattened slightly. Fine hairs stood up on her neck. She would not turn around, she just would not.

  The pharmacist’s voice rose to a level just below a shout. “So, about the sheriff.” Had they been talking about the sheriff? “You won’t find a nicer, more stable character in the whole town.”

  “Uh, that’s good to know.” Was that a whiff of manly-man soap behind her? No, it couldn’t be. Please.

  Mr. Fry’s white eyebrows came together in a glower, directed over her left shoulder. “One might even say he’s Cottonmouth’s most eligible bachelor.”

  “You don’t say,” she mumbled. The scent was definitely a familiar manly-man soap.

  “Hear you two have a date tomorrow night.”

  That was news to her. The tips of her ears started to burn. “The sheriff and me?”

  “Yeah. Heard it from...” He tapped his hearing aide as if the information was stored somewhere in there.

  “Eugenia Meade perhaps.”

  Nick’s voice trickled over her like maple syrup. No, oh no, no, no.

  “It most certainly was not Eugenia.” Mr. Fry sniffed like an irritated old woman. Even if Nick hadn’t spoken, the old man’s tone revealed exactly who loitered at her elbow. Not to mention the manly-man scent.

  “How about Patsy Bell Sapp?”

  Nick’s body heat settled next to her left arm, sending a wave of warmth over her back. Why did he have to stand so close? She didn’t dare turn around.

  “I don’t like your implications, young man.”

  And why did he have to be here today, of all days?

  “I was just trying to be helpful, Mr. Fry.”

  “Well, you’re not. It’s making me forget things.”

  “Sorry about that.” Nick didn’t sound in the least bit sorry, amused was more like it.

  Mr. Fry thought the amusement was at his expense. “What do you want?”

  Nick stepped forward to look at Bobbie, very slowly, up and down, like a touch. She squirmed with the need to cover her chest. Goodness, her nipples had peaked against her thin cotton tank top, and goose bumps peppered her bare legs.

  “Well, let me see...” Staring at her breasts, Nick tapped his ear in imitation of the elderly pharmacist.

  Please don’t say it. This was all Warren’s fault. If she’d needed birth control pills with him, she wouldn’t have had to buy them here. She wouldn’t be in this mortifying position. She’d be back in San Francisco.

  She wouldn’t be getting a divorce.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow, Mr. Fry,” she yelped, like Princess, the irritating pooch.

  “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. This...person made me forget what I was doing.”

  She hoped he didn’t accidentally make her prescription up with cyanide. On second thought, maybe that wasn’t a bad idea. She could crawl over to the serial killer’s backyard and die there. Then Nick would have something else to bury.

  “Tomorrow’s fine. Really. Just fine.” She started backing away, hoping she wouldn’t accidentally touch Nick.

  “Wait, wait. Let me get you something.” As fast as his creaky knees would let him, Mr. Fry scurried from behind the counter and down an aisle.

  Nick took one step to her two. “Got a date with the sheriff, huh, Bobbie?”

  He should have been laughing at her total humiliation and embarrassment. But his eyes, much darker than their normal brown, were not amused.

  “Ahh, not that I know of.”

  He wasn’t listening. “Extremely fast work there.”

  Another step. She resisted the urge to feel if anything stood in the way behind her.

  “Stop bothering my customers.” Mr. Fry, at her elbow, rustled a paper bag.

  “Am I bothering you, Bobbie?”

  Yes. “I’m fine, gotta go, though, you know.” Another unnaturally high, dog-like yip.

  “Here, dear, take these.” Mr. Fry shoved the bag in her hand, then leaned in for a faux whisper Nick was sure to hear. “Something to tide you over, on the house, just in case you and the sheriff can’t wait.”

  He wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. He was close to seventy years old. He probably had to look up S-E-X in the dictionary. So he couldn’t possibly have just given her a bag of...freebie condoms to use on the sheriff.

  She wouldn’t wait around to find out. “Thanks. Bye. Tomorrow.” A code she hoped the overly helpful pharmacist would understand.

  She shot down the open aisle, Mr. Fry’s voice carrying like a foghorn. “Now you just get out of my store.” Pause. “Unless you want to buy something.”

  Stepping out into the afternoon heat was like getting in a hot shower with a bad sunburn. The sidewalk was on fire, and she still had to walk home. The few blocks would drench her in sweat.

  Behind her, the door whooshed open. A wave of cool air washed over her scorched back.

  “Need a ride, Bobbie?”

  Why did he keep saying her name like that, with a sultry puff of air that sent a tingle from her ear, down her spine, to the insides of her thighs?

  “No, thanks.” She looked up and down the street, avoiding him. Then, almost involuntarily, she drew in a deep breath that seared her lungs. She held it until she felt dizzy. Tension drained out with the exhale. She only had to feel humiliated if she wanted to.

  “You did that on purpose to embarrass me, didn’t you?”

  Nick slipped on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. “I think it was more for the druggist’s benefit.”

  She didn’t doubt it was for hers as well. “At least you’re not lying about playing a game in there.”

  “I’ve never thought you were an idiot.” Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t toy with her. “What’s in the bag?” He tickled it with the tip of his finger.

  “Stop it.” She really hated sunglasses on a man when you wanted to see what he was thinking. Except that with men it wasn’t easy to tell even when they weren’t hiding behind shades.

  “What exactly is it you want me to stop, Bobbie?”

  A strangely numb feeling edged down her arms to her fingertips. Despite her momentary embarrassment inside Fry’s, she didn’t want Nick to stop anything. Because everything he said or did was new and exciting and made her feel alive.

  And it made her forget how long it had been since she’d needed birth control with Warren.

  * * * * *

  Nick slapped soapy water on the already clean surface of his orange and black 1970 Charger. He’d bought it used his junior year of high school, and he’d washed it every Saturday since, whether it needed it or not.

  The sun settled down over the detached garage as he squatted, scrubbing the wheels viciously. His gut roiled. That’s what he got for thinking about her date tomorrow with Brax and the condoms Fry had stuffed in that damn bag she’d clutched tightly beneath her arm. That’s what he got for following her in there in the first place.

  Get out unless you want to buy something. The old man’s usual down-his-nose look had never bothered Nick before. So why now? Because Bobbie had witnessed the antagonism? What the hell did that matter?

  He’d scrub off the chrome if he wasn’t careful. He stood,
slammed the sponge into the bucket, spraying soapy water over his legs up to his cutoffs.

  That’s when she came out on her porch. He had to admit, washing the car had been an excuse to wait for her. Christ, he’d morphed back to high school.

  She stopped, waved at him, then scampered down her steps to her car, legs wobbling as if she wasn’t quite used to the height of those heels. The skirt of her flippy black dress swished around her thighs. Sequins glinted in the early evening sunlight. Two thin straps holding the dress up bared her shoulders. Nick held his breath waiting for a glimpse of the neckline. Plunging, he was sure. His heart plunged with it. She beeped her car open and climbed in.

  Where the hell was she going dressed for a party?

  And worse, who was she going with?

  * * * * *

  The Chalet. Five miles out of town along Highway 26, the restaurant nestled in pine and oak. She’d wanted expensive and fancy, and Mavis had said she wouldn’t find more expensive or fancy unless she drove fifty miles into Red Cliff.

  The purpose for her dinner out? She’d never in her life had a fancy dinner all by herself. Even on her infrequent business trips, she’d ordered room service. In her view, people didn’t go out by themselves, as if dressing up and treating yourself was something you only did with someone else. As if it lost its taste when done alone.

  Only a confident, self-assured woman would dress up in a skimpy cocktail dress and ask for a table for one. And that same woman would buy birth control without embarrassment, because it was her God-given right as a woman.

  Nick would not be thinking about some girl he may or may not have gotten pregnant years ago when he was looking at Bobbie today. And he had been looking as she bopped out to her car tonight. Oh yes, he had. A mutant tingle still lingered in her mid-section.

  Her champagne cocktail arrived, the sugar cube still fizzling at the bottom of the glass.

  “We have some wonderful specials tonight, ma’am...” Her waiter proceeded to enumerate them all.

  She didn’t listen. In her head, she played eenie-meenie-minie-mo. She wanted the most expensive thing on the menu, which was lobster, because she never ordered the most expensive. Warren had always gotten that look on his face when he got the bill, even if she’d ordered chicken.