Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  “And waited around for years to sell them to Tonya?” Sunny huffed.

  “It’s possible, and I hope you find who’s responsible. I really do. After all, I technically own those diaries. I mean, along with dozens of sketch pads for all that doodling you did, I bought you those diaries and provided them to you so you could pour out your teenage heart.”

  Sunny closed her eyes, and Shaw knew she was trying to rein in her fury. That kind of stupid Sunshine logic always made people want to punch her in the face. “You—”

  That was as far as Shaw let Sunny get. He hooked his arm around her waist, holding her in place when she took a step toward her mother. Sunshine didn’t seem the least bit affected by the fact that a) she’d come damn close to being punched or b) the punch could still happen.

  “I’ve talked to Leyton about this,” Sunshine went on, “and I’ve told him I’ll make an official statement that I didn’t take the diaries, even though they were rightfully mine to take.”

  That time, Shaw had to take hold of Ryan’s arm to keep him where he was. Since he didn’t have any spare arms, he hoped Em didn’t come in. He might need to hold her back, too.

  “You should take a lie detector test,” Shaw advised the woman.

  For the first time since she’d walked into the house, anger flared in Sunshine’s eyes. “I’m innocent until proven guilty, and I won’t be proven guilty because I didn’t take the diaries.”

  “What about the silver name necklaces?” Sunny snapped.

  At first Shaw drew a blank, but then he remembered the necklaces the triplets used to wear. “Those are missing, too?” Shaw asked.

  Before Sunny could answer, he saw it. Not anger in Sunshine’s eyes. Not guilt, either. Just a big-assed sheen of yes, I took them.

  “The necklaces were mine,” Sunshine insisted. “The producers had them made for you girls and gave them to me to lend to the three of you. I simply took them back. Well, two of them anyway. I seem to have misplaced yours.”

  It felt as if the room deflated, like one of those fart-sounding balloons when the air rushed out of it too fast. Sunshine’s warped logic was maddening, but it was also so damn frustrating that it wore you down.

  “What are you going to do with the necklaces?” Sunny asked.

  “I’m looking for the right buyer,” Sunshine readily admitted, and she huffed when Sunny did. “Don’t stare at me that way. You girls hated those necklaces. They meant nothing to you. For years they’ve just been sitting around, and I can make good use of them. Along with making someone very happy. You girls still have a lot of fans who’d pay for pieces like that.”

  “And you’ve found yet another way to make money off us.” Sunny gave Sunshine a dismissive wave as if she couldn’t stand hearing anything else the woman had to say, and she turned to walk away.

  “Don’t judge me,” Sunshine called out. “You’re still young and have your looks. You have no idea how hard it is for a woman my age. Many people think a beauty queen over the age of thirty is a joke. And I gave a lot to Little Cowgirls. Why shouldn’t I benefit from it? You girls certainly did.”

  Sunny kept walking.

  “And I thought my dad was as cold as sour owl shit,” Ryan muttered.

  Shaw muttered something slightly stronger. Well, not stronger than the weird insult that sounded like something Em would have said, but Shaw had perfected a badass tone that Ryan hadn’t had time to develop.

  “You should leave now, Sunshine.” Shaw used the same tone he had with the tabloid-reading ranch hand when he’d told him to run, and he gave Sunny’s mother a mean-as-a-snake look.

  “I don’t have Jameson money like you,” Sunshine declared. Shaw wasn’t sure if she meant that as a dig or an excuse. Either way, she turned on her stilettos and walked away.

  Shaw dragged in a long breath. “Lock the front door after she leaves,” he told Ryan. “I’ll check on Sunny.”

  While the boy hurried to do that, Shaw went in search of Sunny. However, he hadn’t forgotten that he needed to talk to Ryan about the date he’d had with Kinsley. A date that Kinsley certainly hadn’t told Shaw about. Instead, he’d had to hear it from Cait. And while Kinsley wouldn’t consider a date with Sunny’s almost-stepson to be a big deal, Shaw had wanted to make sure...

  Well, he didn’t know what he wanted to make sure, but he figured he should have a conversation with Ryan about it. For now though, Sunny had top priority.

  She was probably crying, a thought that twisted him up as much as he wished he could twist up the worthless woman who’d given birth to her. Sunny’s defenses were way down, and this confrontation with Sunshine might send her into an emotional tailspin.

  Or not.

  He found her in the backyard. The spring breeze was stirring her hair and her loose red top, and with a stick in her hand, she was leaning over the sandy walkway that led to the barn.

  “I think this might work,” she said. Sunny barely spared him a glance, instead continuing to draw something in the sand. When Shaw went closer, he frowned.

  She was drawing a dick.

  One with a straight line on the left side of it and a thin diagonal line across the tip.

  So, maybe this was how Sunny lapsed into an emotional tailspin? Or it could be her way of opening up a conversation about sex with him. Shaw reluctantly admitted that last one might be wishful thinking on his part.

  He stooped down to have a better look. As dicks went, it was pretty lame. The shape was right, but it was pointy and stubby at the same time. It definitely didn’t mesh with her description of him as a big boy. And that disturbing diagonal line looked as if some kind of circumcision was going on.

  “Uh, are you all right?” Shaw asked. “Are you mad at me about something?”

  There must have been a slathering of concern in his voice because her head whipped up, and she volleyed glances at him and the stick drawing before she let out a long breath.

  “It’s Slackers,” she said. “I can conceal his penis-like tail feather by having him cross his legs. You know, like resting his left leg over the top of his right knee. The perv readers won’t like that, but parents will appreciate me not showing off Slackers’s duck junk for the umpteenth time.”

  Okay. Since that seemed to be some kind of creative breakthrough for her, he didn’t minimize it, but he couldn’t help thinking that this surge of inspiration was a way of coping with the confrontation she’d just had with her mother.

  “Do ducks have knees?” he asked. He hadn’t actually thought about how stupid and completely irrelevant his question was, but he was glad he’d asked it when Sunny smiled.

  “Thanks.” She stood upright, tossed the stick aside and gave his arm a pat. “I needed that.”

  Shaw was betting that she needed a whole lot more than an unintended lame joke. He knew it for certain when her smile vanished and she shoved both hands through her hair. She groaned.

  “I don’t know why I’m still surprised by anything Sunshine does,” she muttered.

  “The woman’s definitely got a predictable pattern,” Shaw agreed. Along with being as cold as sour owl shit. “If it can be low-down, shitty and reprehensible, then Sunshine has done it.”

  He recalled the times Sunshine had made sure the cameraman caught the girls doing something embarrassing. Often something embarrassing that Sunshine herself had set up—like stealing McCall’s phone, and while pretending to be her daughter, inviting several boys to come over at the same time for a date. Thanks to Sunshine’s clever scheduling and the cameraman who Sunshine was likely boinking, the viewers had probably gasped and giggled as a flustered McCall had tried to sort everything out.

  Em had tried to run interference, and there’d been a few times when she’d set up Sunshine for something less than flattering. However, Em hadn’t had editorial control, and Sunshine had deleted anything that made her look l
ess than perfect.

  A couple of times, Em had also tried to get the filming stopped completely. After all, it was her house. But Sunshine had played the “you’ll lose the girls” card by simply threatening to leave with Hayes and the triplets. The producers had even considered it a good twist for the Little Cowgirls to move to the city, and that possibility had kept Em mostly quiet. Mostly.

  “I wonder if Sunshine hates me,” Sunny went on, “or if she’s just too self-centered to see anything past her cosmetically altered nose.”

  It could be both, but since Sunny didn’t need to hear that confirmed, Shaw put his hand on the small of her back to get her moving to the porch swing. It was impossible for him to take her anywhere on the premises that didn’t hold a bad memory or two—Sunshine had been right about every inch of the place being filmed. Other than the ground, the porch swing was the nearest thing, and he wanted her off her feet.

  And in his arms.

  It turned out that didn’t take any maneuvering on his part, because the moment they were seated she settled against him. Sunny slipped right into his arms as if she belonged there.

  That gave him a couple of rounds of second thoughts.

  Sunny and he were getting close again, like they’d been way back when, and that had led to sex. Something he wanted just as much now as he had then. But Shaw had to keep better hold of the reins this time and not find himself in a hayloft with her again until he was certain he wasn’t going to add another heaping of trouble to the plate of trouble she already had.

  “Do you want to have sex?” she asked, looking up at him.

  And just like that, there were no second thoughts, and he eyed the hayloft of the barn.

  “Of course you don’t,” she said before he could answer with the okay that was already forming on his mouth. “Because you know it’d be out of frustration. I’d just be using you.”

  Shaw couldn’t help it. He smiled. Which was probably better than kissing her. “And I’m sure I’d feel taken advantage of afterward. Just how dirty would that kind of frustration be anyway?”

  “Dirty,” she assured him.

  And she kissed him.

  One touch of her mouth on his, and Shaw started to convince himself that all this sex talk was just foreplay. Foreplay leading to something that wouldn’t be frustrating.

  Sunny shifted a little, turning toward him and deepening the kiss. She made it long and dirty, just the way he liked his kisses, but when she eased back to look at him, he saw more than heat in her baby blues.

  “God, Shaw,” she said, and with only those two words, he could have sworn he heard her heart breaking.

  On a heavy sigh and plenty of unspoken cuss words aimed at Sunshine, Shaw pulled Sunny back into his arms. Not for any hanky-panky, either. But for the kind of comfort that only a longtime friend could give. He knew the crap she’d gone through, and despite the thick skin she’d managed to build up over the years, Sunshine could still find a weak spot and slice right through her. No cut was deeper than the one that could come from family.

  “I can set Leyton on Sunshine,” he offered.

  Even though it wasn’t exactly playing fair, Leyton might be willing to have Sunshine watched like a hawk if and when she was in town. Still, a ticket for a traffic violation or loitering didn’t seem like much payback for what the woman had done this time.

  Which got Shaw to thinking.

  “Did you believe Sunshine when she claimed she didn’t take the diaries?” he asked.

  “No.” But she went still a moment and then huffed. “I don’t want to believe her.” Yeah, neither did Shaw. “She didn’t deny taking the necklaces,” Sunny added.

  There was that, and if Sunshine had fessed up to that, then why not admit to taking the diaries, as well? Maybe because Sunshine had known she could be sued for the diaries and not the necklaces?

  Shaw didn’t know the fine print of the Little Cowgirls contracts, but it was indeed possible that Sunshine owned the necklaces. However, he couldn’t see a judge stretching that ownership to a teenager’s diaries. Even if Sunshine had been the one to buy them for Sunny. Heck, if that were true, Sunshine could claim she owned Sunny’s sketches, too.

  “Well, that’s taken care of,” he heard Em mumble.

  That got Shaw’s attention. Sunny’s, too, because they practically came to attention, their gazes zooming in on Em as she walked from the side yard and onto the porch.

  What they saw not only piqued his curiosity but confused him. Shaw was almost positive that Em had one of his mother’s casserole dishes tucked under her arm. There were still bits of food stuck to the sides, and some of it dislodged and splatted onto the porch.

  It was hard to tell, but he thought it was a blob of Lenore’s tuna apricot surprise.

  And that wasn’t the only thing Em was carrying. She had not one but two of those mosquito catchers, and the white mesh sacks that were usually inside the canisters were missing.

  “Granny Em, what did you do?” Sunny asked, getting to her feet.

  “Nothing you need to know about.” Em smiled. “But I don’t think Sunshine will be coming back around here anytime soon.”

  The words had no sooner left the woman’s mouth than Shaw’s and Sunny’s phones rang. Leyton’s name was on his screen. Cait’s on Sunny’s.

  Shaw was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign, but he pressed Answer at the same time Sunny did.

  “Are you still at Em’s?” Leyton asked him. Shaw was plenty close enough to Sunny to hear Cait say, “There’s some trouble.”

  “What happened?” Shaw said in a loud enough voice for both his siblings to hear.

  “It’s Sunshine,” Leyton answered.

  Cait finished up the sparse explanation to Sunny. “The cootie queen is demanding we arrest Em, Shaw and you for assault.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUNNY FIGURED THERE’D never been a more ridiculous-sounding complaint filed at a police department. Assault with mosquitos and tuna apricot surprise. Sunshine’s accusations would have been laughable had it not been so serious.

  Okay, it was still laughable.

  Sunny had gotten some perverse satisfaction when Shaw, Em, Ryan and she had walked into the Lone Star Ridge Police Department and seen Sunshine’s face and arms covered with the itchy red splotches from the mosquito bites. Ditto for seeing the remains of tuna apricot surprise in her mother’s hair.

  The congealed fish mix was turning bad, fast, and it reeked to high heaven. If Sunny had needed any incentive to keep her distance from Sunshine, that would have done it.

  However, there was no satisfaction in realizing that Sunshine had indeed filed a complaint. One that Leyton was obviously going to have to do something about.

  “Hey, Sunny,” Cherry Miller immediately called out to her. “Tell me a joke.”

  Cherry was the dispatcher, and even though she’d been a couple of years ahead of Sunny in school, she’d always been friendly to Sunny. The woman sat at the desk that faced the door, and she had a big smile of anticipation on her face. Clearly, Cherry wasn’t very perceptive if she thought this was the time for jokes. Still, Sunny gave her one.

  “What do you call a sad cup of coffee?” Sunny asked and then provided the lame punch line to go along with the lame joke. “Depresso.”

  Cherry slapped her jeans-clad knee and laughed. No one else did, but Em did give her arm a poke and said, “Good one.”

  Nothing about this was good, including the fact that they were walking into a police station. Sunny didn’t know what’d happened with Sunshine, but it must have had something to do with Em. She doubted it was a coincidence that Em had had the casserole dish and mosquito catchers with her when she’d come onto the back porch. On the drive over, Em had simply said that she’d done what was necessary.

  “One of them tried to kill me,” Sunshine insisted when they
all went into Leyton’s office. Cait and Ryan followed them, both of them staying in the doorway.

  Sunny was about to insist that no such thing had happened, but Em spoke before she could say anything.

  “I did it,” Em readily admitted. She didn’t sound even remotely remorseful, either.

  Leyton looked at Sunny and Shaw for verification. She shrugged. He scowled. Neither of them would implicate Em, especially since they didn’t know what was going on.

  “Shaw and Sunny didn’t have anything to do with it,” Em added a moment later. “And it was fair and square punishment. Parent-to-kid kind of punishment. My daughter’s so crooked that she has to unscrew her britches at night, and I just wanted her to get a taste of what it’s like to be malarkeyed.”

  Sunny had to work her way through the Em-ism. She thought that was a good assessment of her mother, but not such a good thing for Em to do. Sunshine wasn’t just crooked and greedy. She was also vindictive.

  “Could you tell me exactly why you thought your daughter needed punishing?” Leyton asked Em.

  “How much time do you have?” But Em didn’t wait for an answer. “She took the girls’ money, their things and anything else she could get her grubby hands on.”

  “Anything I took was mine,” Sunshine insisted. She scratched at her neck, making the splotches even redder, and then cursed and flicked away a mosquito that sprang from her hair. It was possible the insect had gotten caught on the sticky helmet of hairspray and had just managed to get loose.

  Looking very much like the beleaguered lawman he was, Leyton put his hands on his hips while he volleyed glances between Sunshine and Em. “How’d you get the casserole in her hair?” He directed that question at Em.

  Em didn’t hesitate. “When she was inside talking to Sunny, Ryan and Shaw, I went to her car. It wasn’t locked so I smeared the apricot tuna surprise on the ceiling above the driver’s seat. That stuff sticks better than glue, but I knew sooner or later, it’d come plopping down on her.”