“Well, that’s fine, sugar.” Dewey gave her one of his promoter’s smiles. “’Course the ladies did get a kick out of that set, can’t deny it.” He walked away, shaking his head.
MG returned to her stool on stage after she’d had her bottle of water and given herself a short mental pep talk. She propped one foot on the bottom rung, resting her guitar on her thigh. “Okay, now that I got that out of my system, let’s move on to other things, shall we?”
She ran through her repertoire of happy love songs, although she was pretty sure her delivery wasn’t quite as sharp as it had been in the first part of the show. Still, the applause was warm and, at least from the male part of the audience, relieved. Toward the end of the set she slipped in “The Right Guy” and managed to sing it without spitting out the words, a considerable feat. But her throat came close to closing up a couple of times, which was disconcerting to say the least.
In fact, of course, she’d been checking the edges of the room all evening, looking for a large silhouette in the shadows. Darcy had told her Joe would explain everything, but he sure hadn’t managed to do that yet.
Her final song was a Joe Ely one: “Maybe She’ll Find Me.” She wished she had somebody like Joel Guzman playing accordion in the background, but she made do with what she had—her guitar and her voice. For once she really felt the words, the longing for someone special, the desperation that you’d ever find anyone right. Or that the one who seemed right wouldn’t turn out to be a first-class jerk after all.
The crowd was enthusiastic, even the guys, and she did a quick encore before clearing away for the main act—a bunch of cowboys who looked like they’d spent way too long on the road this time around.
As she was counting her take from the bucket and tucking it into her guitar case, Darcy appeared at her side. “Interesting choice of songs there, kiddo.”
MG glanced at the man standing beside her and recognized one of the waiters from the Rose. Off duty he wore an ancient Nine Inch Nails T-shirt that showed off the tattoos lining his arms. Good thing Kit Maldonado required long-sleeved dress shirts for the waiters while they were working.
She snapped the guitar case closed. “Glad you liked it.”
Darcy shrugged. “I loved it. Of course, for the first half of the evening, I saw a lot of guys cupping their privates. I think they were afraid you were going to remove somebody’s nuts as the grand finale.”
MG shrugged. “Maybe next time.”
The waiter’s laughter seemed a little strained.
MG took a breath. “So how are things at the Rose?”
“About the same.” Darcy’s glance darted to her date and back. MG got the message—not in front of witnesses.
“Well, give everyone my love,” she muttered. She picked up her case.
“You going home now? I thought we could buy you a beer.” Darcy raised her eyebrows.
MG started to say she had to get up early, then stopped. Because of course, she didn’t have to get up early. Not anymore. She’d need to find another buyer for her eggs. Maybe Clemencia at the Faro could use them.
“Thanks anyway,” she said dully. “I need to get back. I’ve got chickens to look after.”
Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Right. Because it’s late and you told them you’d be back by ten.”
MG nodded. “Can’t disappoint Robespierre. See you.” She headed for the exit, her guitar case swinging beside her, her heart somewhere in the general vicinity of her toes. She should probably have stayed to have a beer with Darcy and the waiter, maybe listened to a little Western swing played by the worn-out cowboys. But somehow she just didn’t have the stamina.
She glanced toward her car as she walked through the parking lot and had to admit the most embarrassing fact of all. She’d been hoping to see Joe LeBlanc leaning against her door under the mercury light.
“Jesus, could you be any more pathetic,” she murmured as she swung her guitar into the back seat and turned the key in the ignition.
Joe popped two more antacids as he walked down the drive from the Rose. Overall, it hadn’t been one of the better days in his culinary career. The produce guy had been late, and his romaine was a joke. Without romaine, they had to cancel the Caesar salads on the lunch menu and have the waiters try to get people to go for the mesclun in mango vinaigrette instead. Given that most of the Ladies Who Lunch lived on chicken Caesars, they hadn’t had an easy time of it.
Dinner was worse. He kept checking the kitchen for anything out of the ordinary and not finding it. Fairley might be a great actor, or he might be the most clueless man in the known universe—he had no way of telling which. Unless he caught the thief in the act, he probably wouldn’t be able to prove he’d done anything. And he really needed to prove it, both for himself and for MG.
He’d checked invoices and the supplies still on the shelves and the freezer, but nothing jumped out at him. Given the amount of food that came in and went out regularly, it was tough to keep track of everything.
All of this investigating had to be done quietly, when the kitchen staff was otherwise occupied, so that nobody caught on to Joe’s suspicions. And it all gave him a headache of epic proportions.
He began to jog briskly down the road toward MG’s farm. The kitchen had been broken down and he’d posted the prep list for the next day—he’d done everything he usually did. It was late, and he didn’t really think anybody would be watching him. All the same, he’d been careful to put on his warm-up pants and running shoes, along with his T-shirt. If anyone did see him, they’d think he was going out for a late evening run down a pitch dark county road.
Okay, so they’d also think he’d lost his mind. They wouldn’t necessarily be wrong either.
He’d actually driven by MG’s house on his way back from town after he’d made a late afternoon run to find out if anybody had any decent romaine available. He didn’t see any sign that she was around, and for a panicked moment he wondered if she’d pulled up stakes and left Texas altogether. But the chickens were still in their yard out back, and he didn’t think she’d go off and leave them to starve.
She’d be more likely to drop them off in his living room before she left.
He trotted through the dark, humid air, hoping he wouldn’t break a leg in a chug hole or be run down by a bunch of joyriding teenagers in pickups. Logically, of course, he could have driven to MG’s place, but he needed to be outside, running, working off some of the pure fury he’d been dealing with for the past few days.
He’d sent her home on Tuesday, and he hadn’t been able to talk to her since then. The hardest four days of his life. Or anyway, the hardest since he’d kicked cocaine.
Why the hell didn’t she have a working phone, for Christ’s sake? He could have called her as soon as it happened. Why the hell wasn’t she set up for his convenience anyway?
MG’s drive appeared sooner than he’d expected. He turned in at the top and stood for a moment, catching his breath as he stared at the darkened farm house. He could see a light shining through a window at the side—probably the kitchen. She was there at least. Now for the fun part.
He jogged down the drive, hearing a few frogs chirruping in the darkness. At the front door he paused. He really didn’t want to scare her, but so far as he could tell she didn’t have a doorbell of any kind. He tried knocking lightly, but if she was in the kitchen, she probably couldn’t hear him. He knocked again, louder.
After a moment, he heard footsteps coming toward the door. A curtain moved in the window at the side. After another moment, he heard footsteps heading away from him again.
Goddamn it all to hell.
He pounded on the door this time. “MG,” he called. “Come on, MG. Open the door.”
The resulting silence was deafening. Joe gritted his teeth. Okay, he deserved this. Sort of. On the other hand, there was no way he was trotting back up the road without seeing her at least. He circled to the side of the house, where the light from the kitchen was spilling out onto the grass. The yard was slightly below the level of the house, so that the window was maybe a couple of feet above him. He felt a little like Romeo, assuming Juliet had wanted to kill him rather than shag him.
He could see her in the room, sitting at the table with a beer and a notebook and pencil. She was staring into space, tapping the pencil against the page as she thought. Well, at least she wasn’t loading a shotgun.
He reached down at his feet and found some pebbles, then chucked a few at the window. They rattled down the glass, and he watched MG’s head jerk up. She sat frozen at the table for a moment, then deliberately looked down at her notebook again.
Joe swore a series of oaths, using words he hadn’t thought of since he was a kid in Baton Rouge. He threw another handful of pebbles at the window.
MG narrowed her eyes, her mouth a thin line, then she pushed herself up from the table, stalking across the room to the window. She threw up the sash, leaning out slightly. “Stop that.”
He raised his hands in front of him, palms up. “Let me in.”
“No. Go away. I believe your exact words to me were ‘Get out of here’. Consider them said.” She pulled the sash down again and stalked back to her table.
“Crap,” he muttered. “Crap, crap, shit, fuck, goddamn.” He felt around the ground again, picking up another handful of rocks.
Before he could throw them, she was back at the window again, leaning into the dark night air. “Joe, so help me, if you keep doing that, I’ll call the cops.”
“Then let me in,” he repeated. “All I want to do is talk to you.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it would do for now.
“Talk here. It’s close enough.” She knelt down so that she could lean out the window more easily.
He sighed. “Come on, MG, let me in.”
She shrugged. “I can hear you just fine from here. Anything you want to say to me, you can say now. And hurry it up. I’ve got stuff to do.”
Well, crap again.
Joe dropped the pebbles. “Okay. I’m sorry I had to send you off like that. There were reasons—maybe not great ones, but reasons. I tried to call you, but your phone doesn’t work. Darcy said she told you I didn’t think you were a thief.”
MG nodded. “She did. The question is why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t say anything in front of Fairley. He had to think I believed him.”
“Why, Joe?” She leaned forward slightly so that her elbows were braced on the sill. “Why was it more important that Fairley think you bought whatever he was selling than that I thought you believed in me.”
He moved forward, almost without thinking, to rest his hands below the sill. Romeo and Juliet again. Unless she decided to slam the window closed on his fingers. “Because there’s a thief somewhere in my kitchen, and I’m trying to nail him. Because that thief set you up, and I had to let him think I bought it. And because it never occurred to me that you’d believe I doubted you.”
MG looked like she was considering the window slamming option.
“Look,” he said a little desperately. “It wasn’t a smart thing to do and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wanted to snap Fairley’s neck like a pretzel. But I wanted you out of there so you wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. The whole thing just spun out of control. I’m sorry, Mary Grace. I was an idiot, and I hurt you when I shouldn’t have.”
Her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. She licked her lips. “Somebody’s stealing?”
He nodded. “Yeah, somebody is. I’ve known it for a few weeks. But I’m not sure who it is or exactly what he’s stealing yet or how he’s getting away with it. And I haven’t figured out how to prove it.”
“So the thief took the wine? And then put it in my bag and hid it to frame me?”
“Yeah. He must have figured out Kit and I were on to him. Or onto the fact that somebody was stealing from us. So he looked for a fall guy, and you were it. I’m guessing he also didn’t want somebody around who might see him taking stuff from the pantry or the freezer, which you might.”
She sank down a little heavily. “You knew I was innocent.”
He nodded. “I never doubted you. I just wanted you out of the kitchen. If I’d told Fairley it was a set up, the thief might have found out. Then he might have looked for something else he could do to you. Or he might have picked on somebody else in the kitchen.”
“But you didn’t tell me. For four days you didn’t speak to me.” She didn’t look angry anymore, unfortunately. She looked like a small child whose friend chose somebody else for her baseball team. He’d rather have anger than that. Hell, he’d rather have just about anything except that.
He nodded. “I didn’t tell you. And I should have. If I could go back and do it again, I’d figure out a way to tell you right then or right after.” He sighed, running a hand across his head. “Let me in, Mary Grace. Please. I can’t do the right kind of apology standing out here in the dark.”
After a moment, she pushed herself to her feet and walked to the back door. He heard the sound of the opening lock as he rounded the corner of the house. MG stood silhouetted in the door, her curls tumbled about her face. He wondered briefly what she’d been doing for the four days since he’d seen her. But seeing her now started an ache somewhere below his heart. He reached for her, gathering her into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m so sorry you were hurt.”