Kitabı oku: «Hell's Belles», sayfa 2
Mattie considered the caustic comment. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling a little ordinary. Besides, she knew Della well enough to realize that the comment was sheer bravado. Sarcasm was easier than worrying about Erica’s safety.
“Do you have any red wine back there?” Mattie asked. She’d only recently learned to tolerate alcohol in the form of wine. Half of the articles in the medical magazines she stocked at the bookstore were now claiming that red wine was beneficial to your heart. But in all honesty, holding the stem of a graceful wineglass while she read in bed at night made her feel more like a literary connoisseur and less like a lonely spinster.
“No, no red wine,” Della answered absentmindedly, ducking beneath the bar in search of something.
“Are you sure?” Mattie eyed the dozens of bottles on the shelf.
“No.” Her friend’s blond head popped up. “Besides, today I’m making margaritas.” She shook a canister of salt for emphasis, cha-chaing her hips to the beat, then held up her hand when Mattie started to protest. “Don’t be a wimp, Mattie.”
She snapped her mouth shut. Tonight she was not a wimp. She was a successful small-business owner, single and still a size six. She bit her lip. Well, a size six most of the time. If she wasn’t retaining water and if she held her breath. At any rate, she was going to drink a margarita without grimacing, dammit.
After sipping and perfecting, adding various potions and revving the mixer to a deafening RPM, Della returned to the table with the drinks, leaving a half-full blender on the bar.
Mattie took a sip and managed not to grimace. A muted burst of male laughter erupted from the direction of the conference rooms. Della waved her hand as she sipped.
“Chamber of Commerce meeting in the back.”
Mattie was about to get the details when a soft rustle from the entrance caught her attention. Shay stepped out of the shadows, her tall form gliding gracefully toward their table.
“Shay!” Mattie jumped to her feet, scooping her friend into a hug as she neared. Della was next in line for a hug, though Mattie thought she detected a guilty expression, at least one that looked as close to guilty as Della ever came.
“We never dreamed you’d come.” Della hesitated. “How are you?”
Shay took a seat and met their eyes, hesitating until she had their full attention. “I’m great,” she answered, her voice breathy. Shay always gave the impression of being delicately out of breath, as if she’d just breezed in from somewhere important.
Mattie shook her head in amazement. Shay looked like some misplaced Celtic princess. The crushed silk sheath she wore came nearly to her ankles, the effect no less than stunning. Auburn curls wound to her waist, and her ivory complexion was ten years more youthful than it should have been. Cut crystals hung from her ears, matching the crystal pendant that swung between her breasts. The New Age garb was the only hint that Shay’s life had taken a turn down the road less traveled. Mattie sipped her drink and suppressed a surge of jealousy. Did everyone else have to be so damn interesting?
“Cough up that envelope.” Della got right to the point.
Shay opened a delicately crocheted handbag and removed her envelope. Mattie eyed her own pedestrian-looking purse, then Shay’s. Heck, she’d probably grown the cotton—organically, of course—spun it and crocheted herself, all the while chanting good thoughts for the universe. Mattie sat her drink down with a thud. Was it the alcohol or was she just becoming a middle-aged bitch?
Shay added her envelope to the growing pile in the center of the table, her expression serene but not entirely natural. The envelopes themselves told part of the story. Della’s was ringed with coffee stains, Shay’s rumpled but clean, and Mattie’s pristine, having survived its twenty-year wait pressed between the pages of a dictionary.
Mattie thought about what her envelope contained. This was the one that had started them all, the first time one of her fantasies met paper. And for twenty years it had been her little secret. Proof that she could be naughty when she wanted to. But now she wasn’t so sure. What had been deliciously wicked twenty years ago suddenly seemed a little, well, stupid.
There was a feeling Mattie got when she was about to do something colossally dumb. It was a creepy creeping sensation that started at the base of her spine and worked its way to her chest like a big hairy spider. It was crawling now. And once it got to her chest, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. She flexed her shoulders as if she could dislodge it. It didn’t work.
“Jack!” Della’s voice shouted in Mattie’s ear. “Come say hi.”
What? What? She followed her friend’s gaze to find the silhouette of two men frozen in the shadows of the entrance. One was thin and rather short. The other was obviously Jack. The shadows fell across his face but she’d know that perfect silhouette anywhere.
“He and his partner are moving back here from Atlanta.”
Partner… Mattie’s tequila-laced mind turned the word over, trying to make the puzzle piece fit.
Jack’s posture spelled r-e-l-u-c-t-a-n-t as he crossed the distance to their table. Mattie’s stomach clutched, then froze in a spasm of denial as Jack stood before her. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit, a stunningly shy grin and…bronzer? She squinted. Mother-of-pearl, he looked like the local news anchorman after last season’s disastrous brush with self-tanner. And to make matters worse, his black hair was spiked and so thick with gel that it could put out an eye.
“Y’all remember Jack, of course.”
Shay stood and embraced Jack without hesitation. Mattie watched her friend’s ample breasts flatten against the lapel of Jack’s suit, strained to make out her breathless greeting. Unlike Shay, Mattie was frozen in place, cemented to her seat. Something was off kilter, something—
“And this is Cal,” Della said, as she motioned the second man to the table. “Cal is Jack’s partner.”
The smaller man literally seemed to pulse with energy as he approached. His head was shaved smooth, the shiny dome interrupted only by a pair of goggle-like glasses perched atop it. He wore a casual white shirt tucked inside eye-popping striped pants. Mattie felt her eyes go round with realization. No straight man she knew would wear tight white denim with wide brown stripes. She cocked her head, thinking for a moment that the vertical stripes had a great slimming effect. She blinked, forcing herself to focus as her gaze traveled upward, finally resting on a diamond stud that winked in one earlobe. Cal smiled in response to her scrutiny. He had blindingly white teeth and one perfectly manicured hand resting possessively on Jack’s shoulder.
Oh God.
“E-excuse me.” Mattie stood.
“Mattie? Mattie Harold?” Jack held out his arms and her stomach lurched. “My God, you haven’t changed—”
Neither have you. The normal response formed in her brain but ended as a strangled noise in the back of her throat. “I— I’ve got to…” She stammered, then reached for the obligatory hug. The sound of a million and one fantasies shattering was deafening. “Excuse me for a moment.” Mattie swiped her drink from the table and dashed to the ladies’ room.
As Mattie hightailed it, Della shook her head. Her gaze fell on her brother, sweeping him from head to toe before settling on his face. “What,” she said slowly, “on God’s green earth happened to you?”
Jack’s jaw twitched and his eyes narrowed. “Kimee happened to me.” He tried to flatten the spikes on top of his head but they only bent, instantly standing up again like a tinsel Christmas tree.
Della burst out laughing. “You look like Dennis Rodman and Peter Pan’s love child.”
“I can’t believe you left me with her.”
“You showed up out of the blue. I had no choice.”
Jack’s face was turning a threatening shade of red. “You told Kimee I was on my way to get a photo made for the chamber of commerce.”
“I did.” Della pretended to swoon, pressing her hand to her chest. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. What was I thinking?”
Jack raised an eyebrow, then pointed to her drink. “How many of those have you had?”
“Not enough. Now please explain to me how telling Kimee that you needed a haircut so that you could get your picture made has caused you to look like—” she wavered a little under Jack’s glare “—like a tanning salon mutant.”
“Because, dear sister, little Kimee was convinced that the photographer’s lighting would…how did she put it?…fade me out.” He rubbed at his face with his knuckle. “She put… What was it called, Cal?”
“Bronzer,” Cal offered with a sly grin.
“Yeah. That’s it. She put bronzer on me with a weird little sponge.”
Della looked at Cal. “And you were…?”
“Reading Cosmo.” He shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “What can I say?”
“Yeah, about that,” Jack interjected. “Try Field and Stream next time you’re in public.” He glanced at Cal’s slacks. “I know subtle isn’t your nature, but you might want to let people get to know you before you break out the tiara.”
“Oh, please.” Cal rolled his eyes. “This is Haddes, not Green Acres. I think they can handle one gay man.”
Jack looked serious. “This is Haddes, not Atlanta.” He shrugged Cal’s hand off his shoulder. “And cut the touchy-feely stuff before you give everybody the wrong idea about us.”
Della straightened. “A tractor and a head of cattle wouldn’t hurt, either.” She fell into a fit of laughter. Shay muffled a giggle.
Cal winked. “Cows. I’ll get right on that.” He looked at Shay, then gestured toward Della and Jack. “Can you believe these two?”
Shay smiled, laughter replaced by her usual Mona Lisa serenity. “Haddes is pretty good at taking folks in.” She met Della’s eyes for a moment. “Even people who are different.”
“So.” Della jumped back to her brother. “Why did you let Kimee do this to you?”
“I didn’t let her.”
“Then why are you, uh, tan?” Della leaned forward to get a closer look.
“Because when I said no thank you, she started to cry.”
Della laughed. “Kimee does not cry.”
“I can assure you that she does.”
Della was horrified. “Why? Why would that make her cry?”
“You left the poor kid with a gazillion people waiting. When I got there Estelle Ashworth looked like she was going to a Pink concert.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right. Kimee was in over her head. I thought putting up with this stuff—” Jack scrubbed his jawline with his knuckle again, but the uneven color appeared to have adhered permanently “—until I could get to the car and wipe it off would make her feel better. But now it’s not coming off.”
Della smirked. “Well…uh…it’s kind of a stain.”
Jack looked puzzled.
“Self-tanner. It’s what we use in the salon. It’s a semi-permanent application. It won’t wash off, it has to wear off.” Della flinched and jumped behind Shay when Jack straightened his six-foot-three frame to full height. “It may take a week.”
CHAPTER 2
Mattie burst through the ladies’ room door, stopped at the sink and stared at her own horrified expression. The tequila swirled in her stomach, threatening to swirl in the sink. Fighting fire with fire, she threw the rest of her margarita down her throat, sat the empty glass in the sink and headed for a bathroom stall, opting for a good pee instead of a good cry. What was the use, anyway? Jack wouldn’t be any less gay if she burst into tears.
Jack is gay…. Jack is gay…. How could she not have known this?
Mattie zipped her pants and straightened with new resolve. She knew one thing: there was no friggin’ way she was going to read that fantasy letter to her friends. The idea of sharing her thoughts on sex was like a bad joke. Nope. Unlike Jack, she was going to keep her secrets in the closet.
Only one time in her life had she considered herself sexually active. And even then, she’d probably been more inactive than active. Despite the fact that she’d been a virgin, she’d instinctively known that Brad, her college boyfriend, was a sexual underachiever. She squeezed her eyes shut, wincing at the memory of Brad pounding away while she sort of flopped about, her back pressed against the mattress, her expectations withering along with her passion. It hadn’t been the kind of experience she’d dreamed of, definitely not the sort penned in eighteen-year-old handwriting and sealed in an envelope.
It hadn’t been with Jack.
And all these years she’d been certain that, if it had been, it would have been perfect.
Not.
Mattie felt as if someone had just jarred her from a deep sleep. One that she’d been in for, say, about twenty years. She’d written down every passionate thought she’d ever had and had sealed it in that envelope. And there it had stayed, safe and sound, pure and unmarred. Looking back, she doubted that even Brad had gotten the benefit of that passion. How could he? It had been sealed away in an envelope and flattened in a dictionary.
The sense that she’d waited too long flowed over her, and her shoulders slumped. She looked at herself in the mirror. Defeat lined her eyes, softened her jawline. Mattie looked away.
Too late, too late, too late, the tequila taunted over and over in her brain.
She envisioned herself marching out of the bathroom and to the table, snatching up the envelope and breaking the seal. And then what? What would she find? Would the glue crumble, would the pages be yellowed?
The sense that this was not all about Jack was pretty obvious, and yet… How could she not have known? Jack had never been too involved in small-town life, or small-town girls. She had always assumed he was destined for bigger things, had his sights set outside the city limits of Haddes. Of course, it had been easier to fabricate the perfect life for Jack rather than face her own. And in doing so, she’d somehow missed the obvious.
But now… Now she was beginning to feel entirely too sober. Mattie washed her hands, retrieved the margarita glass and gathered her courage. She willed the hinges to stay silent as she eased open the door to the ladies’ room and peered out. Relief washed over her. Jack was gone. She marched straight to the bar, refilled her glass with the melting margarita mix and returned, none too coordinated, to her chair. She stared with hostility at the ominous pile of envelopes instead of making eye contact with Shay and Della. Surely fragments of shattered dreams were still clinging to her face.
“Jack said to tell you that he hopes to see you again now that he’s back in town,” Shay said.
Heaven forbid. “I didn’t know that Jack was—” she hesitated, mentally rephrasing “—that Jack had a partner.”
“I thought you did.” Della shrugged. “Cal’s great. They’re opposites. Sort of yin and yang. A great fit.”
Mattie flinched at the image Della’s words conjured.
“I didn’t tell you that they’re moving back to Haddes because I just found out myself— Oh my God!” Della interrupted herself, her gaze glued to the entrance.
“Erica?” Mattie and Shay said in unison as they followed Della’s gaze.
Erica’s normally athletic gait was slow and as she neared, Mattie realized her friend’s arm was in a cast. The three women hesitated, as if not quite sure what to do with the injured, solemn-faced woman in front of them.
Erica grinned then, her face transforming into a familiar expression of bravado. She shrugged. “Land mine.”
The comment broke the ice and the next few minutes were filled with swapping comforting hugs and laughter.
Shay helped Erica into a chair with characteristic sympathy. “What really happened? Were you in an accident?”
Erica looked momentarily confused. “Land mine,” she restated, her brows arching.
“You mean a real line mand? Land mine…” Mattie corrected, hoping no one else noticed the tequila-slip.
Erica nodded, her face serious. “It was activated by a humanitarian relief crew I was following in Afghanistan. They were killed instantly.” Her gaze appeared distant before she straightened with a weak smile. “I’m okay, though. Just a few bumps and bruises.” She held up her arm. “And one minor fracture. I’m taking a month or two off to recuperate.”
“Here in Haddes?” Della asked.
“Um…maybe.” She pulled a tiny black purse into her lap and unzipped it. The envelope she produced had been folded accordion-style, no doubt to fit.
Erica always did travel light, Mattie thought. Friendships and relationships included. Without fanfare she tossed the envelope into the pile.
Della brought a drink, but Erica declined, holding up her injured arm. “Better not mix it with the meds,” she explained.
Mattie’s gaze slid from Erica’s arm to her face. She’d changed very little during the years that had separated them. Still strikingly beautiful, her dark hair spilled over strong tanned shoulders, and the calculated movements of her body fell somewhere between athletic and graceful. If you didn’t look into her eyes, it would be easy to assume she spent her days on a tennis court. But there were new lines at the corners of Erica’s eyes, and for reasons unclear to Mattie, she was certain that they’d been hard-earned.
Della slid the drink in front of Mattie instead and the next hour was spent filling in the gaps of information about their lives. It was awkward at times, a social dance that included accepting Shay’s silence when the subject of men came up and the lack of detail surrounding the last few years of Erica’s life. Della played hostess and gossip instigator like the pro that she was.
Conversation finally waned, and the four friends lapsed into companionable silence.
Mattie realized that their gazes had all inadvertently settled on the pile of envelopes. The creepy spider feeling began to walk up her spine again and her lips felt numb. The tequila? Maybe. The sight of the envelopes reminded her of an old black-and-white episode of The Twilight Zone, when the object of some paranormal event began to take on a life of its own—growing, heartbeat throbbing, spinning in the center of the camera lens…
“I just remembered…” She made a move toward the stack of envelopes.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Della said. She leaned her palms on the table, tenting the envelopes with her body.
Della looked like an angry rottweiler guarding its kibble. Was that a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth? Mattie stifled a hysterical laugh at the thought, then straightened, attempting to gain control of her ping-ponging thoughts.
“I’m sorry. I—I really can’t say—stay…” she stammered. “I have a shipment of books from Ralph Barnes’s estate that I need to go through.”
“Ralph Barnes?” Erica shivered. “He gave me the heebie-jeebies. Always walking around in that silk smoking jacket like Hugh Hefner.”
Della ignored her, focusing on Mattie. “You’re not wiggling out of this one, Missy. I don’t care if St. Peter died and left you the keys to heaven.”
Erica fidgeted with a bar napkin, seemingly oblivious to Della’s rising temper. “Isn’t St. Peter technically already dead?”
“It’s okay,” Shay said, shooting Della and Erica disapproving looks. “We understand.”
Erica shrugged but Della landed on her feet, pointing at Mattie. “No, we don’t!”
Mattie cocked her head, studying the image of her friend. With her arm extended in perfect pointer position, she looked more rabid golden retriever than rottweiler.
“Mattie!” Della’s voice cracked and Mattie jumped, suddenly alert. “I’ve waited twenty years to hear what’s inside of that envelope of yours.” Della’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “What are you so afraid of, Mattie Harold?”
Oh crap. All sorts of things came to mind—bugs, the bottom of her garbage can when she lifted the bag out, the rejection of men dipped in self-tanner….
Mattie had never had an athletic moment in her life. She’d always assumed that whatever gene was responsible for hand-to-eye coordination was dormant in her body. She had a colorful history of sending tennis balls into outer space and gymnastic coaches to the ER. But for one shining moment, she was Olga Korbut and Chris Evert rolled into one. She was on her feet before anyone could blink. Her hand shot out, unchallenged, grasped her envelope and shoved it safely into her purse. She executed a perfect half-spin and was halfway across the room before Della knew what had happened.
“Gotta run!” she called cheerfully.
Then she tripped over the threshold on her way out the door.
Jack watched Mattie Harold weave her way hell-bent through the maze of bar tables and pinball machines toward the back door of the bowling alley. He’d suspected she was tipsy earlier. Her gaze had seemed a little out of focus and her face had been flushed. But when she stumbled over the threshold, arms flapping like she was an agitated flamingo in an effort to keep from falling, he realized she was more than tipsy. He grinned. Damn, she was cute. She’d always been the cute one in the bunch. She was Della’s age, a few years younger than he was, but she still looked like the kid he remembered.
A kid who was about to walk into traffic drunk as a skunk.
He stepped out of the building and slipped behind Della’s minivan, ready to intervene if necessary. But Mattie successfully made her way through the cars in the parking lot and to the sidewalk that lined Main Street. But she’d now stopped and was fiddling with a piece of paper. An envelope, maybe? What in the world was she up to? He thought he recalled seeing a stack of envelopes on the bar table, but hadn’t paid much attention. The haze of his own embarrassment at his appearance had been pretty thick.
He watched as Mattie began tearing the paper into pieces. He couldn’t help but grin. She appeared to be seriously pissed off at the envelope. Mattie then wadded the pieces of paper into a ball and tossed it into the roadside ditch.
Jack felt a rush of curiosity that he hadn’t felt since he’d stopped taking on personal investigations. He slipped his shades on and repositioned himself by another car, making certain that Mattie wasn’t headed toward a vehicle of her own. The last thing she needed to do in her condition was to get behind the wheel. Thankfully, she was leaving on foot, though her feet didn’t look too steady, either.
He watched until Mattie disappeared from sight, then his gaze settled on the ditch. Whatever lay crumpled in that soggy ditch was none of his business.
But that wasn’t going to stop him.
Mattie dipped the sponge into the soapy water and squeezed, her head pounding as she bent over the bucket. She straightened, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose with her free hand. She’d slept off the tequila last night—well, yesterday afternoon and last night—but woke this morning feeling like she’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. And had been dragged behind it for about a mile.
The midday sun was now glaring off the chrome bumper of her car like a laser, and the sunglasses were no match. And she was unnaturally hot, even in shorts and a tank top. Not to mention a little queasy. She wanted to go inside her duplex, pull the curtains and die. But she wasn’t going to. Washing the land barge was her penance for drinking like a fish and buying the ridiculous vehicle in the first place. Besides, she wasn’t exactly mentally sharp, and washing the car was one task that didn’t require her to think. She’d managed to retrieve one load of books from Ralph Barnes’s estate this morning, but by the time she’d hauled the heavy boxes into the store she’d felt bloodless and about as strong as a noodle. No more tequila, she vowed. Never, never, never.
She squatted next to the side of the car and scrubbed at the dingy silhouette of the police shield as if it would miraculously disappear. No such luck. Little flakes of faded white paint stuck to her sponge. Groovy.
Mattie stood and snatched up the hose. She shot a stream of water at the sudsy side and pretended the nozzle was an Uzi. More paint chips cascaded to the asphalt with the water and settled in a mocking little puddle around her bare feet. So much for improving the outside. Hauling the estate books this morning had left a trail of spiderwebs and grime in the back seat, so she traded the hose for her cordless vacuum, shoved her sunglasses on top of her head and crawled inside.
The car was like a vault. But it wasn’t the size that unnerved her as much as the car’s gender. Insane, she knew, but the car was a guy.
She’d always had a secret habit of assigning gender to inanimate objects. This car had male written all over it. Testosterone practically haunted the thing, left behind by the countless police officers that had driven it. It even smelled like a man. The scent of aftershave and the faint odor of cigarettes still lingered, forever embedded in the worn upholstery.
It was completely foreign to her.
Men in general were a mystery to Mattie. She was an only child and therefore had missed brother exposure. Her parents divorced when she was ten, wiping out any chance that she’d have a sibling and severely altering her view of her father, who’d gone from father extraordinaire to awkward director of every-other-weekend activities in the blink of an eye. Of her friends, Shay was an orphan and Erica’s older brother had married and moved away by the time they’d become close. Della was the only friend with a brother still at home, and Mattie’s feelings for Jack were hardly sisterly.
Mattie’s gut took a one-two stomach-acid punch as an image of Jack, complete with bad self-tanner, formed in her head. She moaned, revved the vacuum and went to work on the upholstery. Her tenuous grip on mental and physical health just couldn’t process the new Jack.
A mechanical scream suddenly came from the hand vac, ripping Mattie from her thoughts. She dropped the vacuum and listened with dread as a chopping sound replaced the screech, decreasing as the engine sputtered to a halt. She eyed the vac, which now lay on the floorboard like a dead animal. Obviously something other than lint had been sucked into the lint trap. She sighed.
The day just got better and better.
She sat cross-legged on the back seat, pulled the vacuum into her lap and popped it open, exposing the disposable lint trap. Sure enough, a small hole had been ripped through the liner. She pulled the damaged lint trap out, holding the edge of the crud-encrusted thing with two fingers, then tossed it out the car door. But when she tilted the vac to examine the exposed motor, a ring fell out, landing on her bare thigh. She was shocked. She’d expected a small rock, maybe a penny, but not a ring. She picked it up. It was a thin gold band with a filigree setting, centered with what looked to be a ruby. The ring’s band was marred with a few nasty scratches from the motor, but was otherwise intact.
She mentally backtracked, trying to judge where the nose of the vacuum had been when it sucked up the ring. Probably the seat’s crevice, she reasoned. Mattie held the ring up to the sunlight, examining it. The setting was old-fashioned, either a reproduction or an antique—it was difficult to tell. She pushed it onto the ring finger of her left hand for safekeeping.
In all likelihood, the ring had been stored with the books she’d bought from Ralph Barnes’s estate and had fallen out when she was transporting them. Since Ralph had no living relatives, she could only ask the Realtor handling his estate if she knew anything about it. If that didn’t turn up anything, she could always ask around at the police precinct. But she doubted that would do any good, given that all Haddes’s officers were male. Maybe she could keep it. A gift from the universe for having treated her so poopy lately. Mattie spread her hand, admiring the ring. It really was beautiful.
She retrieved a fresh lint trap from the duplex and reassembled the vacuum. To her relief, it revved back to life and she returned to work, keeping an eye out for foreign objects. She came across a quarter and a hairy cough drop but nothing else out of the ordinary.
Finally, exhausted, she treated herself to a cold cola and a break. She dragged a folding chair from her porch to the driveway and plopped into it. She wasn’t wearing her age-defying makeup with an SPF of a gazillion and, frankly, she didn’t give a damn. In fact, she spritzed her legs with a fine mist from the hose, hiked up her shorts a little, slid her shades down over her eyes and leaned back. Burn, baby, burn. She was still too hungover to do anything but succumb to the sunshine. And she didn’t care who saw her. She wiggled her toes. Besides, her neighbors were all of the geriatric set. If you didn’t steal the Sunday newspaper or play loud rap music, they generally didn’t notice you.
“What say, Mattie Harold?” The voice was deep, a little raspy and a lot sleazy.
Mattie bolted upright and was rewarded with a pounding pain to her right temple and dancing spots before her eyes. She blinked up at the silhouette that was now blocking her sun, but she’d know the voice anywhere. She pressed her fingertips to her temple. The voice was about as welcome as a tornado siren. She adjusted her sunglasses as she stared up at Shay’s ex-husband, Mac McKay.
“Mac.” It was more of a statement than a greeting. Her voice was cold, lacking inflection. And that was just how Mattie intended it. “What are you doing here?”
He ignored the question. “Getting a little sun?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” He shifted and the sun hit her full force, blinding her. If possible, she was even more annoyed. “What do you want?”
“I just saw the cruiser. And you.” He hesitated and the comment suddenly seemed suggestive. “I thought I’d stop and see if it was still performing like it should be.”
