by Sandra Hill
To Marcus he said, “Do you mind if I stick around? I promise I won’t interfere with any of your fun and games.”
Marcus was not happy to have Adam there, but he also wouldn’t mind his joining the club, Adam had told her that when he’d mentioned his wife and her involvement with this group.
Conflicted, Marcus glanced around the room. “Anyone uncomfortable with Adam staying?”
They all raised their hands.
“Wanna give him a trial? Half hour or so and he’s out of here?”
Tentatively, the hands went up, one at a time, except for Sam who probably didn’t want any competition.
Marcus nodded and said, “I’ll be right back.”
As he walked away, Marcus dropped his toweling robe.
At which view, Adam muttered, “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” Simone wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to her.
Marcus went over to a panel on the wall that controlled some kind of sound system. Instantly, the room flooded with music . . . theme music to match the night’s role playing. Loud and raucous beats caused everyone to relax and laugh. “Bum dee dee bum, bum dee dee bum, bum dee dee bum . . .” This time it was “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy!” that broke the silence.
“This ought to be fun,” Adam remarked to her with a roll of the eyes. “By the way, what’s your exit plan?”
She blushed.
“You and Dr. Cowboy have no exit plan!” he guessed.
“We do so, but you’re screwing it up.”
“Screw being the keyword in this motley crew of deviants.”
“Go . . . away!” she repeated.
“I sense a little hostility here.”
Just then, faintly and then getting louder, could be heard, even over the loud music, the sound of sirens in the distance. Marcus lowered the volume so they could be heard, coming closer and closer. Police, then ambulances.
“What’s that?” she asked Adam.
“My exit plan,” he said, then shouted to everyone in the room. “Hurry up and get out, folks. I think there might be an accident out on the lake. I thought I saw some activity down on the docks when I drove in. Hurry! You don’t want any cops knocking on your door.”
While the club members rushed for the door, Adam gave Simone a shove, hard, in the other direction and motioned with his head at Gabe for him to follow. When she didn’t move fast enough, he pinched her butt, hard. “Hurry up. I’m parked out back.”
“Our rental car’s out front,” Simone pointed out, rubbing her behind. “Pinch me again and I’ll shoot you.”
“With those toy guns?”
“With the pistol I left in the car, which we need to get—”
“Forget the damn car. If Pitot finds out what you’re up to, you’re dead meat.” He was frog-marching her now, as Gabe rushed to catch up with them.
“Marcus wouldn’t find out if you hadn’t shown up like a lackwit knight in pinstripe armor.”
“I don’t wear pinstripes.”
“Aaarrgh!”
“I’ll get the rental car and our clothes,” Gabe suggested. “Better that we don’t leave anything traceable behind.” As Adam was about to protest, he quickly added, “Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He removed the chain and medallion recording device from his neck and handed it to Simone. “We got some good stuff, boss.”
“Yeah, thanks for your help, Gabe.”
“Gabe? Not Dr. Larry Storm? Surprise, surprise! One of your Legal Belles looney birds, I suppose,” Adam commented snidely as he shoved her into the passenger seat of his Lexus, causing her skirt to ride up and his eyes to about bulge out.
“Bite me!”
“Definitely,” he said. “Later. After I’ve paddled your ass.”
“Another pervert!”
“You have no idea.”
Chapter Sixteen
Thanks for nothing . . .
Simone refused to speak to him during the one-hour drive back to Houma, which really pissed him off, more than he was already pissed off. He was the one who should be angry here, not her.
“Do you realize what a goat fuck that was about to become back there? If you and the nutcake doctor didn’t participate in their games, Pitot would have retaliated, and it wouldn’t just be kicking you out. Believe me, killing is the most merciful of things that psycho does to his enemies.”
When that didn’t prompt any reply, he told her, “I pulled in some favors to get a pal of mine and his friends to ride a couple vehicles into the area with their sirens going. Even so, Pitot might investigate and wonder if I had anything to do with the interruption.”
Did she express concern on his behalf? Not even a little.
“Or you. He might wonder if you two were involved.”
Still no concern, not even for herself or her employee.
He couldn’t in all honesty let her think there was imminent danger, though. “I’m pretty sure we’re safe in that regard.”
Did she thank him then? Hah! Not even a blink of the eyelashes, which he was pretty sure were fake.
So, he tried a different tack. “You look hot in that outfit.” And, man, did she ever! He could practically see her nipples through the straining fabric of her blouse, and the skirt had ridden up almost to the top of her thighs.
She shot him a glare that pretty much said he’d never see her in the outfit again. Too bad!
Which prompted his fool tongue to say, “I don’t mind a bit of role playing myself. One-on-one, though. No sharing the goodies.”
He thought her upper lip curled at that remark. And he noted that her lips were slightly swollen-looking. From his kisses last night, he hoped, not anything that might have happened back at Happy Horndog’s.
Just to get back at her, he observed, “There will probably be butt cheek imprints on the leather seat you’re sitting on.”
That crudity caused her to shift uncomfortably. She was probably blushing. He couldn’t tell in the dim lights of the highway.
Another ten minutes of silence, and he was back to being angry again. “I was worried about you. Do you ever consider other people when you take your risks?”
Silence.
“And how about your mother? Did it occur to you that Mike Pham won’t like anyone who harbors his wife?”
That caused a jolt of surprise on her face, that he knew about Thanh and Adelaide Daigle. But then she immediately wiped all expression from her face again.
It was the indifference that was goading him. Mutual anger, he could handle. Indifference was somehow more insulting.
“To think I was almost falling in love with you!” he muttered.
Big mistake!
For the first time in more than a half hour she spoke, “Tell that to someone who cares!”
For the rest of the trip, they both remained silent, and when they got back to Legal Belles and he was about to get out and accompany her up the steps, she opened the passenger door and flew out, calling over her shoulder. “Stay where you are! I can take care of myself.”
With those ominous words, he just sat for several minutes, watching as she looked under a potted plant on the landing, which must hide a second key, opened the door, and slammed it behind her. Even when the lights turned on inside, he still sat, fuming.
If that was the thanks he got for saving her, then so be it. He stepped on the gas and raised gravel as he shot away down the alley.
It was over.
How many times can a heart be broken? . . .
Simone was so angry, she could cry. And she did.
Then, she was so angry, she could throw things. And she did. Every item in her cowgirl porno outfit as she made a path toward her shower where she needed to scour away the sex club cooties.
Still angry after her shower, she stomped around her apartment in her fallback comfort clothes—oversize sweatshirt, running shorts, and thick cotton socks, no shoes.
“‘To think I was almost falling in love with you!’” she mimicked Adam’s wor
ds aloud in her empty rooms. It wasn’t the reversal of his emotions that had her upset, well, not quite, but that clueless use of the word almost. Was there any woman in the world who wanted a man to be “almost” in love with her? Better he say nothing at all.
The jerk!
The problem was, there was no “almost” about her feelings for Adam. She was full-blown, heart wide open to be broken, Cajun Crazy in love with . . .
The jerk!
But, of course, the worst thing of all was his coming to rescue her. This was her job. If she couldn’t take care of herself, she had no business doing it, whether it be law enforcement or Legal Belles. And, yeah, sometimes the job put you in touch with distasteful, even dangerous people, but those were the risks. Manageable risks.
Furthermore, he’d jeopardized the entire mission. It remained to be seen whether Marcus would connect the dots about newcomers, Dr. Larry and Diane Storm, Adam suddenly showing on the scene after all those years of disinterest, and sirens heading toward the lake lodge just as things were about to get interesting, depending on your definition of interesting. The repercussions could be disastrous.
Even though it was late, she called Helene, who would be worried about her. She expected to get her answering machine, but instead her partner picked up on the first ring.
“Are you okay?” she asked without preamble.
“I’m home, and I’m fine.”
“You’re home already? I thought you’d stay overnight in Nawleans.”
“Things changed. I’ll explain tomorrow.”
“Did you get the goods on Pitot?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You sound funny.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Well, go to bed. I’ll come in to the office early.”
“It’s Saturday. Don’t you have plans?”
“I wish. I’m going over to my parents about nine. They want to take the boat out.”
“Ooh, I remember the days on that pontoon.”
“Wanna come along for the day? A little swimming, a little fishing, just relaxing.”
“You have no idea how tempting that is, but I have too much to do.” Plus, Adam had planted the idea in her head that her mother might be in danger. She would need to go over to The Gates to check on her.
“I’ll see you on my way, then. If you’re not up yet, don’t crawl out of bed for me. I’ll come up to the apartment.”
She called Gabe, as well. “Just making sure you made it out safely.”
“Piece of cake! They were in such a rush to change their costumes and lock things up that they never noticed me leaving. And turns out the sirens weren’t headed to the lodge after all.”
“I know.”
“Adam’s doing?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Looks like he saved the day for us.”
“We would have managed on our own.”
“Probably. I’ll bring your clothes and stuff when I come down to Houma this morning.”
“You don’t have to come all the way here on the weekend.”
“No problem. Livia and I are going catfish noodling in the bayou with a group of friends.”
Seems like everyone had water plans for the day. And wasn’t it nice that Gabe could go from a perverted sex party to a fishing party with such ease? “How could you have made those plans when you didn’t know we’d be done with the Pitot case last night?”
“If I’d been tied up, ha, ha, ha, Livia would have gone without me.”
“Okay.”
“Did you think I would leave you to your own devices, ha, ha, ha?”
“Very funny!”
“Anyhow, I’m anxious to see what kind of photos and audio we get from those computer chips,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“That party was a hoot, wasn’t it?”
She pictured Marcus as a bull with a swinging penis, and Chantung as a horse, and had to laugh. “It was a hoot, all right.” Then she added, “I hope we have a picture of you as the naked cowboy. Your girlfriend should get a kick out of that.”
“Liv’s already seen me as the naked cowboy. And the naked astronaut. And the naked biker.”
He was probably kidding.
Then he added, “Too bad you wouldn’t let me take a pic of you as Deep Throat Cowgirl. But then, I’m pretty sure your boyfriend, Adam, has that image imprinted on his brain forever. Did you see the look on his face when he first got an eyeful of you?”
She was about to correct Gabe’s impression of Adam being her boyfriend. Not anymore. But she figured that would take too much explaining.
After she clicked off her cell phone, she made herself a cup of steaming chai ginger tea with a splash of honey and took it into the bedroom with her. It usually helped her sleep. It was three a.m. by the time she climbed under the covers. As she lay in the darkness, listening to the silence, she realized that she’d been expecting Adam to call and apologize.
But he didn’t.
By five a.m. when the sun began to rise in a pink haze, she was still awake, and still waiting for a call that did not come. She realized then that he might not call tomorrow, either, rather today, or the next day, or at all. He might be as adamant about the rightness of his actions as she was about hers. That didn’t make her any less certain of the stand she’d taken.
Her anger returned, and it was a cold, hard stone, which settled right in the vicinity of her broken heart. Her mother was right. She was Cajun Crazy. Again.
Shop till you drop . . .
Adam fully expected Simone to call him and apologize, then thank him profusely for saving the day—and her ass—in that centerfold cowgirl skirt . . . that made a man want to drop a coin for her to pick up . . . and the snap-button shirt that posed all kinds of unsnapping possibilities. He was still angry as hell. But he was mellowing as he pictured all the ways he would make her “pay” for his forgiveness.
But then he remembered the reason he’d been so angry, and still was. Simone was a stubborn risk taker who would be more likely to be engaged in a shoot-out at the local corral than baking brownies for the PTA. Not that she would have any reason to be involved with a PTA, or that he would want that kind of woman, unless he was thinking about marriage.
Which he was not.
But suppose he was.
He couldn’t predict what Simone would do in any given situation. It would be crazy to bring a stick of dynamite into his home and hope it never went off. Bad comparison, but still.
When she didn’t call before he fell asleep, he wasn’t concerned. He intended to let her call go to voice mail, anyhow. He just wanted the satisfaction of knowing that she realized her mistake.
She’d said that she didn’t care. Hah! He would call her bluff. She cared, all right.
But she didn’t call that night, or the next morning, or while he tortured himself that afternoon strolling the aisles of Party Circus with Maisie, who thought everything was “So cool!”
He refused to buy Uncle Sam, Abe Lincoln, and Betsy Ross costumes for himself, his father, and Maisie on the premise that they would be ruined when going in the pool. But she did talk him into a dozen each of the Uncle Sam top hats and Lady Liberty tiaras.
Which made him think of the costumes he’d seen last night. In particular, the one worn by Simone, who, incidentally, had not yet called. But he soon cut off that line of thinking, or rather, his daughter did with her definitive ideas on what constituted a good party. Like they had to have twirly whirlys, cascade centerpieces that looked like rockets blasting out tinsel sparks, and window clings, whatever the hell they were.
His cart soon overflowed with flag décor table covers, banners, tiki lights, pool inflatable rafts, lawn pinwheels, and a huge flag and pole for the front yard, even a flag bathing suit for Maisie and, yes, for himself. In addition there were red, white, and blue paper plates, cups, napkins, straws, and balloons. And star-spangled nail polish, which he’d promised to help her put on.
“Oooh, look at
that wavy flag cake mold. It serves twenty-four. PawPaw would like that,” Maisie said, dropping it into their overflowing cart. “Make sure we get some food dye and red, white, and blue sprinkles.”
“Of course.”
Maisie missed the sarcasm.
“I thought Tante Lulu was making Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake.”
“She is, but we have to have a flag one, too.” She gave him that patronizing look that said he should know that.
“Okay, but no fireworks. We already agreed that we could see the fireworks being set off at the park from our backyard.”
Reluctantly, she took several rockets out of the cart and put them back on the shelf. “How ’bout some sparklers?”
“Only if you promise not to light any unless me or PawPaw are with you.”
She nodded.
As they were checking out, with not one but two carts, the bill came to almost four hundred dollars. Wincing, he asked, “What’s our RSVP total so far?”
“Only sixty.”
He shook his head and grumbled, “Where are we going to fit everyone?”
“Oh, Daddy! People circle-late at a party. Dontcha know that? They’ll be in the pool, on the patio, dancing, in the house, everywhere.”
She thought about all the possibilities, and beamed.
He thought about all the things he’d have to lock up. Like Hannah’s fragile pottery. And any legal documents he had lying around.
“Do I need to have the cleaning lady come in before the party?”
She thought for a moment. “No, but we’ll prob’ly need her the next day.” Then, with the astuteness of a five-year-old matchmaker, she said, “Why do ya keep checkin’ yer cell phone, Daddy? Are ya waitin’ fer See-mone ta call?”
Busted! By his five-year-old kid!
To atone for his lack of attention, he spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool with Maisie and his dad, who was barbecuing ribs for dinner. “So, do you have a final menu for the big party?” he asked.
“Aside from all the stuff that interfering old lady is bringing?”
Adam assumed that interfering old lady referred to Tante Lulu. “You mean that peach cake?”
