Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  And it had clearly done just that. Sunny was surprised though that Sunshine hadn’t noticed it when she’d first gotten in the car. It was possible that her perfume slathering had masked the scent. Not now though. Nothing could mask that.

  “Don’t tell your mom that I said the tuna surprise was like glue,” Em muttered to Shaw.

  In the grand scheme of things that didn’t seem important, but even with the risk of being arrested for assault, Em wouldn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings.

  “What about the mosquitos?” Leyton pressed.

  Em shrugged. “It was time to empty the bags in the traps, and I didn’t want them buzzing around my ladybugs.”

  “She put them in my car so they’d attack me,” Sunshine snarled.

  “And you didn’t notice them and the whining little sounds they make when you got in the car?” Sunny asked.

  Sunshine huffed. “I wasn’t exactly in a good mood when I left. What with being accused of theft by Shaw and you. So, I started the car and drove off. They swarmed at me when I got to the end of the road. That’s when the food fell on me.”

  “It clung to the ceiling longer than I thought it would,” Em remarked.

  Obviously, that wasn’t a good thing for Em to say because Sunshine made a shivery sound of outrage. “I want her arrested. She just confessed to sabotaging my car. I could have wrecked or hit someone else, and it would have been all her fault.”

  There it was in a nutshell. Even though it was a stupid prank, or rather a stupid but interestingly clever parent-to-kid punishment, it could have had dangerous consequences. Of a lesser concern, there had almost certainly been property damage since the tuna surprise would have left stains. And then there were the mosquito bites that Shaw supposed could be stretched to bodily harm.

  “You want me to arrest your own mother?” Leyton asked Sunshine.

  Shaw had to hand it to his brother. Leyton managed to look shocked. Appalled even. But Leyton knew Sunshine, knew the stunts she’d pulled over the years, knew that appalling behavior was her forte.

  “Of course, I want her arrested,” Sunshine insisted. “Lock her up and throw away the key.”

  Leyton’s beleaguered look went up a notch when Em held out her wrists to be cuffed. “It was worth it.”

  Shaw had to put a stop to this and somehow make Sunshine back off. If groveling worked, he would try that, but he suspected cash was the only thing that would get Sunshine to back off.

  “Could I talk to Sunshine alone?” Shaw asked his brother.

  Shaw glanced at Cait, Ryan, Em and Sunny to let them know that alone meant just that. Him and Sunshine. He didn’t want Leyton or Cait to have to listen to him bend the law by paying the woman off so she wouldn’t press charges. There was no need for Ryan to witness that, either. And as for Em and Sunny, well, it would be like setting off double powder kegs for them to hear that this worthless member of their gene pool was going to profit from Em’s antics.

  Cait and Ryan moved with only minimal mumblings of protest. Leyton moved, too, but only after giving Shaw a warning glance. Perhaps because Leyton was wondering if Shaw would potentially become another powder keg if Sunshine pushed for as much as she could get out of this.

  “Please,” Shaw said to Em when she didn’t budge. “Let me talk to Sunshine alone.” He played dirty and brushed a kiss on her cheek.

  Em smiled at the kiss and then turned to Sunshine. “If you mess him and Sunny over, I know a woman in Wrangler’s Creek. She does curses and such, and I’ll have her brew up something that’ll make your hiney and armpits smell worse than the goop that’s in your hair.”

  As threats went, it was bad and in no way helped their current situation—especially because now Sunshine looked as if she was about to throw a hissy fit. The only silver lining was that Em must have thought she’d had her say because she let Leyton take her arm and lead her out of the office.

  “I’m not leaving,” Sunny insisted when Shaw motioned for her to go with Leyton and Em. Not only did she stay put, she reached behind her and shut the door.

  Sunshine folded her arms over her chest and aimed impatient eyes at her daughter. “Are you going to threaten me with warts or something?”

  “No,” Sunny answered. “But if you back off, I’ll give you the necklace with my name on it.”

  Clearly surprised, Sunshine blinked. It became somewhat of an awkward gesture though when a fleck of the tuna surprise dropped onto her eyelashes and caused them to stick together. She swiped it away and swatted at the persistent mosquito that continued to circle her head.

  “I own that necklace,” Sunshine snarled. “I want it and I want charges filed against that crazy loon.”

  Oh, that was so the wrong thing to say, and even though Shaw wasn’t touching Sunny, he thought her suddenly tensing muscles actually caused ripples in the air. “Em’s not a crazy loon,” Sunny spit out. “She’s just frustrated from having to deal with the likes of you.”

  Sunshine gave her head an indignant wobble that caused more tuna surprise to plop onto her face. That didn’t improve her mood. “I want that necklace, and I want it now.”

  “Tough titty,” Sunny fired back. “I want a mother who isn’t a certifiable ass, but I’ve learned to live with disappointment.”

  While that was a decent comeback, Shaw knew things were escalating and nothing with the word titty in it was going to accomplish anything.

  “Sunshine,” Shaw said, using the tone he did with his own mother when she frustrated the hell out of him. “You can get a lot more money for all three necklaces than you can for just two. I’m sure there’s a fan who’d be willing to pay big bucks for the whole set.”

  He didn’t like Sunny turning over that necklace, but he knew she didn’t have an attachment to it. Just the opposite. She likely hadn’t given it a second thought through the years. Now though, it could be the bargaining tool needed to smooth this over.

  “The necklaces are all mine,” Sunshine emphasized, turning her frosty eyes back on Sunny. “Give it to me now, or I’ll file charges against you.”

  There was frost in Sunny’s eyes, too. “I don’t have a clue where it is,” she said with a straight face. “And I’ll continue to not have a clue where it is until you sign a paper saying that you won’t have Em arrested. If you agree to do that in the next thirty seconds, I’ll throw in one of my old sketchbooks, the one where I doodled pictures of Shaw.”

  Shaw turned toward Sunny so fast that his neck popped. “You doodled pictures of me?”

  Sunny nodded. “I drew pictures of a lot of things, including us.”

  Us. That was potentially worse than doodling just him. Or it could be if Sunny had sketched parts of him. Specifically, any part of him that had been exposed when they’d had sex in the hayloft.

  “Uh, could I see this sketch pad?” Shaw asked.

  Sunny and Sunshine didn’t respond. That’s because they were locked in a stare down.

  “Two sketch pads and the necklace,” Sunshine finally said. “And Em has to do some kind of community service. Something humiliating that’ll teach her a lesson about messing with me.”

  Sunny maintained the stare down. “Two sketch pads, the necklace and Em’s community service. Agreed.”

  Sunshine’s suddenly smug look didn’t last long when Sunny continued.

  “In exchange,” Sunny went on, “you’ll never step foot here again. If one of your toenails crosses into Lone Star Ridge, then you’ll not only have to do some humiliating community service yourself, but I’ll call Tonya the reporter and do a tell-all story on you. What I spill to her will stir up enough stink that it’ll make Em’s threatened curse of hiney-and-armpit odor smell like roses.”

  Shaw watched as Sunshine processed that. Oh, she wanted to fling some snark back at Sunny, but it must have occurred to her that if this particular shit hit the fan,
then Em might try to do a repeat performance with tuna surprise and mosquitos.

  “It’s a deal,” Sunshine snarled through clenched teeth. “Get Leyton in here now so we can start the paperwork.”

  * * *

  SUNNY TRIED TO force the acid churning in her stomach to stay in her stomach. Being around her mother was never easy on her digestive system, but the last five hours had been particularly acid-inducing. It hadn’t been so healthy for her teeth that she’d been grinding.

  Five hours of Sunshine haggling over each word of the agreement Leyton and Shaw were trying to work out with the woman. Five hours of listening to Sunshine whine and demand. And all while being in a closed room—Leyton’s office—with the reeking casserole and the high-pitched mosquito that had evaded every swat the four of them had aimed at the critter. He’d dodged death so many times that Sunny was starting to gain respect for him and might include him in the next Slackers Quackers.

  “I still think Em should have a different community service, a harder one,” Sunshine said as she read over the agreement that Leyton had typed up. “She should have to pick up trash while wearing a sign proclaiming what a bad mother she is.”

  Sunny was about to give her a hell-freezing-over look, but Shaw beat her to it. He was better at it, too. The glare he gave Sunshine was sort of a blend of Scorched Earth meets the tornado from Wizard of Oz. Definitely formidable.

  “Em’s community service of doing story and art time in the kindergarten class won’t be easy,” Leyton told Sunshine. “You must remember how hard it is to deal with kids that young.”

  Touché. It was genius on Leyton’s part because Sunshine would indeed see that as grueling since she’d hated spending time off-camera with her own children. She likely thought everyone felt the same way, but Em would love being with the kids.

  Which was the reason Sunny had suggested it.

  She hadn’t done that at first, though. Sunny had let Sunshine babble off a string of other possibilities such as cleaning the toilets in the police station. Or scrubbing the jail floor. Or collecting roadkill. Sunny had countered each one with punishments so light for Em that they were laughable.

  No sweets for a week.

  Time out in her bedroom.

  Limited television privileges.

  When Sunny had finally brought up “duties” at the kindergarten, Sunshine had jumped on it. Her mother didn’t seem so eager now that it was in writing, but Sunny spurred her along with a one-word reminder.

  “Tonya.”

  A couple of days ago, the reporter’s name had had its own acid-inducing effect on Sunny, but like the mosquito, it was starting to grow on her.

  With narrowed eyes, a pinched mouth and a seriously clenched jaw, Sunshine signed the agreement, which Sunny had already done. Em had signed it, too, but Leyton had carried the papers out to her so that she and Sunshine wouldn’t have to breathe the same air.

  Now that Sunshine had scrawled her name on the bottom line, it was a done deal. Yes, Sunny would have to give up the necklace and two sketchbooks and Em would have to put in ten hours at the school, but all those things were small potatoes if it truly kept Sunshine out of town and away from Em.

  “I don’t know why I can’t just go out to the house and get the necklace and sketchbooks now,” Sunshine remarked, getting to her feet.

  Sunny tapped the top of the second page of the agreement. “Because I don’t want you there. As agreed, I’ll go to the post office tomorrow and mail them. You’ll have them by the end of the week.”

  “If I don’t, there’ll be hell to pay,” Sunshine snapped.

  “Tonya,” Sunny countered, and had the pleasure of watching Sunshine turn on her heels and leave in a snit. It helped, too, that one of her stiletto heels was dragging the net bag from the mosquito trap. It wasn’t as good as a trail of toilet paper would have been, but it was close enough.

  Even after Sunshine was gone, Leyton, Shaw and she sat there like survivors of a natural disaster. They’d had to do a lot of talking during the negotiations, and when Shaw had offered Sunshine a check. Sunny had nixed that, which had resulted in more talking, more arguing, but in the end she’d won. Shaw wasn’t using Jameson money for Sunshine to line her coffers.

  “Just how important are those sketchbooks to you?” Shaw finally asked.

  Since he was battle worn and didn’t need to be weighed down by the truth, Sunny patted his hand. “Not important at all.”

  But they were, of course. All of her sketches were like little secret windows and mirrors. Pieces of herself and what she’d been feeling or working out when she’d sketched them.

  Each one was her.

  McCall and Hadley might have her face, but they’d never had what she’d seen with her eyes. They could never put her memories down in those pencil marks on the pages.

  “Are there dirty drawings of me?” he asked. She saw the slight smile and knew that he was throwing her a bone because she, too, was battle worn.

  “Only flattering ones. If they’re ever made public, you’ll have more women wanting you than you’ll know what to do with.”

  When Shaw leaned in as if he might brush a kiss on her mouth, Leyton cleared his throat. “I need a drink.”

  Shaw’s brother got to his feet and went out into the squad room where the dispatcher and deputies had their desks. Shaw and Sunny followed, expecting to see Em and Ryan, but they weren’t there. Only Cait was at her desk.

  “Ryan took Em home,” Cait explained. “I figured Shaw could drive you back.”

  Shaw’s F5-tornado look was gone, but he had a glimmer in his eyes. Maybe because of that near kiss. Or maybe he was wanting to get her alone so she could tell him about the dirty pictures she’d sketched of him.

  It probably wasn’t a good idea for her to use those pictures to flirt with him, but after dealing with Sunshine, Sunny felt as if she’d been in the muck too long. There were problems—correction, there were serious drawbacks—to playing around with Shaw, but at the moment she couldn’t think of one that didn’t erase her itch for him.

  And just like that, she became a teenager again.

  There wasn’t a single memory from her teen years that didn’t involve him. She could have gotten past that, but it was hard to come up with ordinary good memories that he wasn’t a part of. Simply put, Shaw had been a big part of her life before she’d climbed up those hayloft steps with him.

  She’d been in love with him.

  All of that was in the diaries, but if he looked close enough, it was in the sketches, too.

  Like those sketches, Shaw had been uniquely hers. Not a necklace or clothes that someone else had insisted she wear. He was the first non-scripted part of her life that she could remember. Perhaps that had been part of the attraction. Sort of forbidden fruit that her mother and the producers hadn’t been able to manipulate.

  Maybe it was because she’d become that teenage girl again and was thinking like someone who had been a repeat offender runaway fiancée, but Sunny began to consider that maybe it was possible to fall in love with Shaw all over again. And even though there’d be obstacles to anything permanent with him—their baby disagreement, for one—she found herself smiling at the possibility of it.

  “You’re thinking about those dirty pictures of me, aren’t you?” Shaw whispered to her.

  Sunny would have answered absolutely if Cait hadn’t interrupted.

  “Oh, and Ryan wanted me to remind you about his date,” Cait told her. “He said he might not be at the house by the time you made it back there.”

  The date. That snapped her out of her teenage fantasies and brought her back to reality. One that involved two actual teenagers.

  “Ryan’s going to take Kinsley for ice cream,” Cait added to Shaw.

  “I heard,” he said. No glimmer now, and his voice was practically a growl. “I’m not sure it�
�s a good idea.”

  Sunny wanted to sigh with relief that he’d been the one to say it first. If she had, it might have sounded as if she was dissing Kinsley or maybe worrying that the girl would corrupt the honor student who was the polar opposite of Shaw’s half sister. Because of everything Hugh had put Ryan through, she felt very protective of her almost-stepson.

  “What time’s the date?” Shaw asked.

  “Soon.” Cait checked her watch. “In about a half hour.”

  Shaw opened his mouth to say something, but he must have rethought it. Instead, he took Sunny by the arm and led her outside, away from Cait’s earshot.

  “Want to do something low-down and sneaky that’ll make us feel guilty?” he asked.

  Sunny didn’t think this had anything to do with sex, but if so, Shaw had put an interesting spin on it. “Sure?” And yes, she made it a question.

  “Come on,” he added, and slipping his arm around her waist, he got them walking. It didn’t take her long to see the direction he was heading.

  The Lickety Split.

  “We’re crashing their date?” Sunny asked.

  “Not quite. We’re going to observe their date. We’ll get the booth at the back of the shop. The seat’s high enough so they won’t see us, but we’ll be able to keep an eye on them.”

  “We’re crashing,” she concluded, not at all certain about this. “I trust Ryan.”

  “Do you trust Kinsley?” Shaw countered as they walked.

  Sunny wanted to say yes, but she hardly knew the girl. “I think Kinsley’s just troubled.” Which, of course, meant it troubled an almost-stepmother who cared deeply for her almost-stepson.

  “Let’s just think this through,” Sunny went on, but she didn’t dig in her heels. “Their date’s in a public place. Obviously, if they’d wanted to do something that involved clothing removal, they would have gone elsewhere.”

  “Ice cream could be the foreplay that leads to elsewhere,” Shaw quickly pointed out.

  Now she did dig in her heels, but they were already outside the Lickety Split, and they weren’t alone. People were on the sidewalk, and some of those people included men who wanted to go out with her. And gossips. Of course, maybe there was so much talk about Sunshine and Em that no one would bother with Shaw and her.