Natural Born Charmer (20 page)

Blue wished somebody would pass a law that made it illegal for a person who worked in a place with Tabasco bottles on the table to introduce herself.

“Real nice to meet you, Marie,” Redneck Dean drawled. “What’s good tonight?”

Marie ignored Blue to recite the specials just for him. Dean settled on the barbecue chicken with a side salad. Blue chose the fried catfish, along with something called “dirty potatoes,” which proved to
be a concoction of mashed potatoes, sour cream, and mushrooms smothered in gravy. While she lapped it up, Dean ate his chicken without the skin, added only a small pat of butter to his baked potato, and refused dessert, all the time chatting amiably with the assorted townspeople who interrupted his meal. He introduced her to everyone as his fiancée. When they finally had a moment alone, she addressed him over a big, gooey serving of mud pie. “How are you going to explain our broken engagement after I leave?”

“I’m not. As far as this town’s concerned, I’m staying engaged until there’s a good reason for me not to be engaged.”

“Which will be the minute a breathtakingly gorgeous, incredibly stacked, and marginally intelligent twenty-year-old catches your eye.”

He stared at her dessert. “Where are you
putting
all that food?”

“I haven’t eaten since breakfast. No funny stuff, Dean. I mean it. You can’t break off our engagement by giving me a fatal disease or saying you caught me with another man. Or a woman,” she added quickly. “Promise me.”

“Just out of purely salacious curiosity, have you ever been with a woman?”

“Stop screwing around. I want your word.”

“Okay, I’ll say you dumped me.”

“Like anybody’s going to believe that.” She scooped up another bite of mud pie. “So has it ever happened to you?”

“What? Being dumped? Sure.”

“When?”

“Sometime. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Never. I’ll bet you’ve never once been dumped.”

“Sure I have. I’m pretty sure.” He sipped his beer and thought it over. “I remember. Annabelle dumped me.”

“Your agent’s wife? I thought you said you never dated her.”

“I didn’t. She said I was immature, which I’ll admit was true at the time, and she refused to date me.”

“I don’t see how that constitutes being dumped.”

“Hey, work with me here.”

She grinned, and he smiled back, and something inside her melted, right along with the last bite of mud pie. She quickly excused herself and headed for the ladies’ room.

Which was when the trouble started.

She’d noticed the woman earlier, bony and
bitter-faced, with harsh makeup and dyed black hair. She and the grizzly-looking man sharing her table had been drinking steadily all evening. Unlike so many other restaurant patrons, neither of them had approached Dean. Instead the woman had been staring a hole through Blue. Now, as Blue passed her table, she called to her in a drunken slur, “Get over here so I can talk to you, Pee Wee.”

Blue ignored her and entered the restroom. She’d just latched the stall when the outer door banged open and that same belligerent voice intruded. “What’s the matter, Pee Wee? You think you’re too good to talk to me?”

She began to tell the woman that she didn’t talk to drunks when a familiar male voice intruded. “Leave her alone.” Dean the charmer had been replaced by the field general who demanded instant obedience.

“You touch me, asshole, and I’ll scream rape,” the woman snarled.

“Oh, no, you won’t.” Blue stomped out of the stall. “What’s your problem?”

The woman stood in the harsh yellow light by the sinks, with Dean’s big, broad-shouldered frame filling the open doorway off to her left. Her sneer, the jut of her hip, the coil of her dead, dyed hair, all signaled someone embittered with the world and determined to pin her failures on Blue. “You walked right pas’ me, that’s my problem.”

Blue slammed a hand on her hip. “Lady, you are drunk.”

“So what? All night you been sitting there looking like you’re better than every woman here, just because you’re fuckin’ Mr. Hot Shit.”

Blue stalked forward only to have Dean snake his arm around her waist and pull her back. “Don’t do it. She’s not worth it.”

Blue hadn’t intended to fight her, merely enlighten her. “Let me go, Dean.”

“Hiding behind your big bad boyfriend?” the woman jeered as Dean steered Blue toward the door.

“I don’t have to hide behind anybody.” Blue planted her feet and shoved at his arm. It didn’t budge.

The grizzly bear the woman had been sitting with loomed in the doorway. He was barrel-chested, with a lantern jaw and biceps that looked like tattooed beer kegs. The woman was too focused on Blue to notice. “Your big, rich boyfriend wants to make sure you don’t get too messed up for him to fuck tonight.”

Dean scowled in the mirror. “Lady, you are one foul-mouthed, sorry excuse for a human being.”

Someone in the crowd gathering behind Grizzly Bear thoughtfully wedged the door open so nobody missed anything. Grizzly Bear leaned in. “What you doin’ in there, Karen Ann?”

“I’ll tell you what she’s doing,” Blue retorted. “She’s trying to pick a fight with me because she’s screwed up her life, and she wants to pin all her misery on somebody else.”

The woman grabbed the edge of the sink to support herself. “I work for a living, bitch. I don’t take handouts from nobody. How
many times did you have to blow Big Shot so he’d pay for your dinner?”

Dean dropped his arm. “Take her, Blue.”

Take her?

Karen Ann lurched forward. She was a head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier than Blue, but she was also staggeringly drunk. “Come on, Pee Wee,” she sneered. “Let’s see if you fight as good as you suck cock.”

“That does it!” Blue didn’t know why Karen Ann had declared war on her, and she didn’t care. She shot across the tile floor. “I strongly recommend you apologize, lady.”

“Fuck you.” Curling her fingers into claws, Karen Ann made a grab for Blue’s hair. Blue ducked and drove her shoulder into the woman’s middle.

With an oomph of pain, the woman lost her balance and hit the floor.

“Goddamn it, Karen Ann! Get your ass up!” Grizzly Bear pushed forward only to have Dean block his way.

“Stay out of it.”

“Who’s going to make me?”

Dean’s mouth curled in a lethal facsimile of a smile. “You don’t seriously think you’re going through me, do you? Isn’t it enough that Pee Wee over there just kicked your girlfriend’s ass?”

That wasn’t exactly true. “Pee Wee over there” had merely given the drunken woman one push, but it had been exceptionally well placed, hitting Karen Ann right in the solar plexus. Now Karen Ann was curled into a comma and wheezing for air.

“You’re asking for it, asshole.” Grizzly Bear swung.

Dean blocked the punch without even moving his feet. The crowd hooted, including, Blue noticed, the man Dean had said was a county judge. Grizzly staggered and hit the doorframe. His eyes narrowed, and he charged again. Dean sidestepped, which sent Grizzly into the towel dispenser. Grizzly righted himself and came at Dean again.
This time he got lucky and connected with Dean’s bad shoulder, which Dean didn’t like at all. Blue jumped out of the way as her fake fiancé stopped playing games and got serious.

A horrible exhilaration crept through her as she watched his surgically efficient counterattack. Few things in life were as black and white as this, and seeing justice being dispensed so swiftly filled her with longing. If only Dean, with his great strength, quick reflexes, and odd chivalry, could right all the evils in the world, then Virginia Bailey wouldn’t have to.

As Grizzly lay on the floor, the big, balding man Dean had pointed out earlier as the high school principal pushed through the crowd. “Ronnie Archer, you still don’t have the brains of a flea. Pull yourself together and get out of here.”

Grizzly tried to roll to his back but didn’t get far. Karen Ann, in the meantime, had crawled into a stall to heave.

The hairdresser and the bartender pulled Grizzly to his feet. Judging by their expressions, he wasn’t the most popular guy in town. One of the men shoved a paper towel at him to staunch the blood while the other led him out the door. Blue made her way to Dean’s side, but other than a scraped elbow and some dirt on his designer jeans, he didn’t seem any the worse for wear.

“That was fun.” He gave her the once-over. “You okay?”

Her fight had ended before it had begun, but she appreciated his concern. “I’m fine.”

The sound of retching finally stopped, and the principal disappeared into the stall. He emerged with a pasty-faced Karen Ann wobbling at his side. “The rest of us do not appreciate having the two of you make us look like a bunch of drunken hillbillies in front of strangers.” He led her through the crowd. “Do you intend to spend the rest of your life picking fights with every short woman who reminds you of your sister?”

Blue and Dean traded glances.

After the drunks were disposed of, the county judge, Gary the
hairdresser, the principal, and a woman everybody called Syl, who turned out to own the local resale shop, insisted on buying Dean and Blue a drink. They quickly learned that Ronnie was stupid, but not bad. That Karen Ann was just plain mean—as one look at her split ends and bad dye job testified—and that she’d been mean even before her pretty, petite younger sister Lyla ran off with both Karen Ann’s husband and, most damning, Karen Ann’s red Trans Am.

“She sure did love that car,” Judge Pete Haskins said.

Sister Lyla, it turned out, was just about Blue’s size and also had dark hair, although hers had a tad more shape to the cut, Gary tactfully pointed out.

“Tell me about it,” Dean muttered.

“Karen Ann went after Margo Gilbert a couple of weeks ago,” Syl pointed out, “and she doesn’t look nearly as much like Lyla as Blue does.”

Just before Blue and Dean left, the Chris Rock lookalike bartender, whose real name was Jason, agreed not to serve either Ronnie or Karen Ann more than one drink a night, not even during Wednesday’s All You Can Eat Italian Buffet, which was Ronnie’s favorite.

The smell of scotch tickled April’s nostrils as she took a seat at the bar. She needed a drink and a cigarette in exactly that order.

Just for today.

“Club soda with a twist,” she told the hunky young bartender as she sucked in the secondhand smoke. “Thrill me and serve it in a martini glass.”

He smiled and let his boy-child’s eyes roam. “You got it.”

Not so much anymore, she thought. She gazed down at her salmon Marc Jacobs flats. She was getting a bunion. My Life in Shoes, she thought. Five-inch platforms; boots of every size and shape; stilettos, stilettos, more stilettos. And now, flats.

She’d needed to get away from the farm tonight, away from Dean’s
disdain, but mostly, she needed to get away from Jack. She’d driven to the next county to find solitude at this upscale steak house. Although she hadn’t planned on stopping in the half-empty bar before she ate, old habits had drawn her in.

All day, she’d felt like a homemade sweater unraveling inch by inch. She hadn’t imagined anything could be more difficult than Dean’s appearance, but spending hours painting that kitchen with Jack today had sent too many ugly emotions struggling to break through the surface of her hard-earned serenity. Fortunately, Jack hadn’t been any more anxious to talk than she, and they’d kept the music loud enough to make conversation impossible.

Every man in the bar had noticed her arrival. As bad elevator music played, two Japanese businessmen studied her. Sorry, guys. I don’t work in pairs anymore. A man in his late forties with more money than taste preened for her. Not your lucky day.

What if, after all her hard work, all the healing she’d done, Jack Patriot once again managed to cast his spell over her? He’d been her folly, her madness, the beginning of her ruin. What if that happened again? But it couldn’t. She controlled men these days. They didn’t control her.

“You sure you don’t want a double?” hunky bartender said.

“Can’t. I’m driving.”

He grinned and added a fresh shot of club soda. “You need anything else, you let me know.”

“I’ll do that.”

The bars and clubs were where she’d lost her life, and sometimes she needed to go back so she could remind herself that the druggedout party girl eager to debase herself with any man who caught her eye no longer existed. Still, it was a dangerous practice. The dim lights, the clink of ice cubes, the enticing smell of liquor. Fortunately, this wasn’t much of a bar, and the cheesy instrumental version of “Start Me Up” grated so badly that she wasn’t tempted to linger. Whoever recorded shit like that should be thrown in jail.

Her cell vibrated in her pocket. She checked the caller ID and quickly answered. “Mark!”

“God, April, I need you so much….”

April returned to the cottage a little before midnight. In the old days, the party would have just been starting. Now all she wanted to do was sleep. But as she stepped out of the car, she heard music coming from the backyard. A lone guitar and that familiar raspy baritone.

“When you are alone at night,
Do you ever think about me, darling,
Like I think about you?”

The rasp had more gravel now, and he held the words further back in his throat, as if he couldn’t bear letting them go. She went inside the cottage and set down her purse. For a moment, she stood where she was, eyes closed, listening, trying to hold herself back. Then, she did as she always had and followed the music.

He sat facing the dark pond. Instead of a lawn chair with its metal arms, he’d dragged out an armless straight-back kitchen chair. A chunky candle sat on a saucer in the grass not far from his feet so he could see to jot down a lyric on the pad of paper lying next to it.

“Baby, if you ever knew
The heartache that you’ve put me through,
You’ d cry,
Cry like I do.”

The years slipped away. He curled over the guitar just as she remembered—stroking, persuading, inflaming. Candlelight flickered
off a pair of reading glasses lying on top of his notebook pad. The wild, long-haired, rock-and-roll rebel of her youth had turned into an elder statesman. She could have—should have—gone back inside, but the music was too sweet.

“Do you ever wish for rain
So you don’t feel alone again?
Do you ever wish the sun away?”

He saw her, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he played to her as he used to, and the music rippled over her skin like warm, healing oil. When the last chord finally drifted into the darkness, he let his hand fall to his knee. “What do you think?”

The wild girl she’d once been would have curled at his feet and ordered him to play the bridge again. She would have told him he needed to clean up the chord change at the end of the first verse and that she could hear a Hammond B3 sweeping into the chorus. The grown woman gave a dismissive shrug. “Vintage Patriot.”

It was the cruelest thing she could have said. Jack’s obsession with exploring new musical trails was as legendary as his scorn for the lazy rock idols who only repeated their old tricks. “You think so?”

“It’s a good song, Jack. You know that.”

He leaned down to lay his guitar back in the case. The candlelight outlined that bladed nose. “Do you remember how it used to be?” he said. “You heard a song once, and you knew whether it was good or bad. You understood my music better than I did.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and gazed out over the pond. “I can’t listen to those songs anymore. They remind me of too many things I’ve left behind.”

His voice drifted toward her like cigarette smoke. “Is all the wildness gone, April?”

“Every bit of it. I’m a boring L.A. career woman now.”

“You couldn’t be boring if you tried,” he said.

A deep weariness overcame her. “Why aren’t you at the house?”

“I like to write by the water.”

“It’s not exactly the Côte d’Azur. I hear you have a place there.”

“Among others.”

She couldn’t do this. She unclasped her arms. “Go away, Jack. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

“I’m the one who should be saying that.”