Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series)

Title Page

Rules of Lying

Stephie Smith

Wentworth Publishing

Melbourne, Florida

Copyright © 2012 by Stephie Smith

www.StephieSmith.com

ISBN 978-0-9797034-2-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by

Wentworth Publishing

P.O. Box 123

Melbourne, FL 32902-0123

Cover illustration by Jerry Forney.

Cover by Hot Damn Designs.

Many thanks to the following people for their contributions …

– my editor Beth Hill, whose edits, comments, and suggestions made this a much better book;

– Dr. Kent Bimson, who supplied the purple prose, which, as it turns out, isn’t nearly as easy to write as one might think;

– fellow author and friend, Elizabeth Pina, who let me use her remark about women and shovels;

– Judy Gasperini, who suggested clams linguine for the homecooked dinner and gave me the “secret” ingredient;

– artist Jerry Forney, who drew the picture for the book’s cover;

– Kimberly Killion, who created the cover; and

– my sisters Kim and Pam, who encouraged me to publish this book!

This book is dedicated to my sisters Carole, Pam, Sherry, and Kim, and to my sister Leslie, in memoriam. Five sisters, each with her own unique and hilarious sense of humor, each willing to share and laugh about the ridiculous situations we find ourselves in. How could I have been so lucky?

Lies, lies, too many lies … Jane Dough washes her hands of her wacky family’s deceptive ways. But when a disastrous situation with her homeowners’ association threatens Jane’s newfound security, and her family pumps up the pressure for her to sell her home, Jane reverts to family misbehavior. She blurts out a lie that she’s advertising for a husband to help her out of her jam. It’s just one little lie to get everyone off her back, so no harm done, right?

Wrong! Someone runs a Husband Wanted ad in Jane’s name, and now she’s stuck with the consequences of her lie, even though she has no intention of getting married. Meanwhile, there’s that little business of losing her property if she doesn’t bring it into conformance before the deadline, and with every step forward, she takes two back. And one is a misstep that leads her smack into the middle of a murder.

Either Jane is the unluckiest girl in the world or bad luck is getting good help. Surely not from Mark and Sue, her two best friends, or from the drop-dead gorgeous doctor who comes bearing gifts. And that sexy new neighbor, a hunk of a Texan cowboy, must be on her side. It’s a shame she can’t tell the truth about what’s really going on, but that doesn’t give everyone else the right to lie, does it?

Well, maybe it does. Or maybe not. Or maybe Jane just doesn’t know the rules …
of lying.

W
hen you grow up and get married, I hope you have a little girl who is
just like you.
”

I was only four years old the first time my mother said those words to me, but even then I knew she wasn’t paying me a compliment. It was easy to figure out since she’d said it with a smirk.

Well, I showed
her.
I didn’t have any children, let alone a little girl just like me, I didn’t get married, and I’m not even sure I grew up. Emotionally, anyway.

My biggest fear is that while I was making life decisions based on my determination to thwart Mom’s hope for my dismal future, I gave her exactly what she wanted. What she
really
wanted. Not me grown up and married with a little girl just like me, but me alone, afraid to love or trust anyone. Me unhappy.

Was she really that sly, or could I finally be losing my mind, just as she’d predicted when I was fifteen? It was all so confusing, and sometimes I thought I’d already lost it. Like when I mentioned Mom’s smirk to four of my five sisters and received blank stares in response. They insisted they’d never seen it, though Katherine might have been lying. There was the tiniest widening of her eyes just before her pupils constricted to pinpoints and her gaze slinked away from mine. As for Charlene, the absent sister, I figured she’d seen it plenty. It was probably the reason she married at eighteen and moved across the country, never to return.

Charlene was the smart one, smarter than me, anyway, because although I moved out at sixteen and started building my self-esteem toward some semblance of normalcy, here I was back home again. Everyone was fourteen years older and Dad was no longer with us, but the family dynamic was the same. And Mom, who complained about me every chance she got, was secretly delighted I had returned.

I could tell by the smirk.

Which made the whole situation I found myself in much more agonizing. That my life sucked was bad enough, but to know I was bringing joy to my mother because of it was more than any daughter should have to bear.

*****

“HUSBAND WANTED: MUST DO YARD WORK!”

I stared at the sign I’d shoved into the ground two weeks earlier. Already it was showing signs of aging—though not as many as I was showing—and there hadn’t been a single nibble. Thank God for that. Because if there
had
been a nibble and the guy was halfway decent, I’d probably have to kill myself. Suicide might be a solution to my problem, but it wasn’t one that would make me happy. My mother, on the other hand, would jump for joy. Such a pitiful ending to my life would only prove that everything she’d said was true. All the more reason for me not to do it.

At this point I’d
like
to say I have no idea how I ended up here—but I’d be lying. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not if you come from my family. My family has the lying thing down pat. As long as you follow the rules, lying is completely okay. In fact, it’s expected, and if you are any kind of decent person at all, you will certainly do it and do it so well that no one will dare suggest that what you are saying isn’t the honest-to-God truth. And as long as we’re talking about God, let me also say when it comes to my family, God is all for the lying thing. He must be since it was my mother, good Christian that she is, who taught us the rules of lying—through her actions, of course, not her words. Heaven forbid she actually admit to being a liar.

Of course there was no rule that would cover my lying about advertising for a husband. I could try using rule number one, that I was lying for someone’s
own good,
but I’d be lying for
my
own good, which isn’t allowed. That particular rule only covers lying for someone
else’s
own good. It doesn’t matter whose. We could even say it’s for the dog’s own good. At least my sister Katherine could say it and pull it off, I’m quite sure, since it’s often said by everyone (especially Katherine) that she hasn’t a selfish bone in her body.

But let’s forget about the rules of lying for now; they’re only important when defending deceitful behavior to family, which isn’t necessary if you never, ever admit to your lies. And that was exactly where I was sitting, and yes, I was a hypocrite. I’d condemned my sisters for lying, but here I was doing the same thing. In fact, it was a series of lies that landed me here, though not all were mine.

There were the lies told by my boyfriend Pete, the discovery of which sent me thundering from Los Angeles back to my high school hometown of Palmeroy, Florida, where I was met by my mother and sisters with open arms—and daily advice on how to fix my life.

Then there were the lies told by my sisters regarding Granny and the assisted living facility that resulted in screaming fits (mine) and outraged denials (theirs), reminding me of the reasons I’d left home to begin with. Coming so close on the heels of Pete’s deceit, which had made me feel like a fool, their lies had enraged me, and I’d hacked up the tenuous ties that bound me to my sisters. Since there is no such thing as eating crow in our family—one must admit to wrongdoing in order to eat the proverbial crow—I would rather starve than go crawling to my sisters for help.

Finally, there was the lie
I’d
told in a childish attempt to shock my family into silence. Not that it worked. Nothing can be so horrifying to my relations that it precludes all future advice or criticism, though my lie that I was advertising for a husband to help me out of my jam came damned close.

In my defense, I was just minding my own business when the whole thing began. Okay, so maybe if I’d done a better job of tending to business, the situation wouldn’t have arisen, but how was I to know? Who reads every word of everything they sign? Not me. Or at least I hadn’t. That could change.

I swatted at the mosquito circling my ear, one of the few places I hadn’t doused with bug spray. I looked around and for a moment I could see it all. The butterfly garden in the courtyard, trellises thick with coral honeysuckle vines. Hummingbirds would visit daily. Mockingbirds would nest in the woody stems. Butterflies would flit from leaf to leaf, laying their eggs. I’d have walkways and seating areas, maybe even a pergola covered by bleeding hearts where I could sit every day and smile, albeit ruefully, at the irony of the name of the flower that covered my sanctuary.

A bead of sweat trickled from my forehead down the side of my face, teasing the corner of my eye as it passed. I blinked it away and found myself staring at an abundance of weeds and straggly shrubs where the pergola had moments before stood so clearly in my mind. A feeling of despair tried to find a crack in the armor of optimism I’d sworn to keep myself wrapped in, but I wouldn’t let it. Something was about to break. I could feel it.

The thud of a heavy door shutting across the street was followed by the leisurely clacking of high-heeled sandals on the drive. Not exactly the break I was anticipating. I cringed, awaiting the commentary that was sure to begin.

“You know why you haven’t gotten any offers, don’t cha?”

I shaded my eyes from the ever-brightening sun to see my twice-divorced and thrice-married bleached-blond neighbor, Sheila, sauntering toward me, her margarita a perfect match to her greenish shorts and halter top. Ten a.m. and half drunk. This would be good.

“You don’t mention the word
ssssexxx.”
She slurred the word, holding it on her tongue as though it were a savored morsel. And it undoubtedly was, for those lucky enough to have a taste.

Another trickle of sweat took off for its life, running straight down to my jaw. I shook my head impatiently and the drop went flying, although it didn’t land, as I was hoping, on Sheila’s perfectly manicured, still-wet-with-polish toenails. Too bad. Sweat-plopped toes would have sent her scurrying back to her house, thus ending the how-to-catch-a-man advice I’d been forced to listen to ever since I moved in without one.

“The word
husband
implies it,” I said. “Married people generally have sex, don’t they?”

I regretted asking the question the instant it was out of my mouth. I didn’t want to talk about sex, probably because the only sex I’d had in the past two years was with a man who turned out to be a colossal jerk and the experience wasn’t one I wished to recall. Still, Sheila’s philosophy that men would do anything for the promise of sex and nothing without it rang a distinct bell. Wasn’t that what I’d been brought up to believe?

“Honey, sex is never implied,” Sheila said, rolling her eyes at my naiveté. “It’s either there or it isn’t, you know what I mean?”

Unfortunately, I knew exactly what she meant, and as I watched her return to her house shaking her head, the little voice in
my
head told me she had a point. Not that it mattered since I wasn’t looking for a husband.

I tapped my hammer against the side of the sign, expecting it to topple over since I’d only haphazardly shoved it into the ground to begin with, but it remained exactly where it was. This was the story of my life. If I’d
wanted
the sign to remain upright, it would have blown over with the slightest breeze, but since I’d decided to remove it, there would have to be a fight. I thought about taking all my frustration out on the sign, pounding it into the ground and then stomping on it, but I preferred to store up my anger until it exploded. Besides, fighting my way through the humidity each time I raised the hammer would tucker me out.

Sweat started down the side of my breast but was soaked up by my thin cotton tank top. The thought of an ice cold beer almost made me faint with longing, and I promised I’d have one the minute I replaced this sign with the new one that I’d decided in the last five seconds would read, “Husband Wanted: Must Work for SEX.”
That
should make my sisters swoon.

With a burst of irritation, I hit the sign full force. It not only came up, but broke away from the stake and went flying. I settled back on my heels and watched it land face down in my driveway.

“Y’all found a taker, I presume?” drawled a deep southern voice that rumbled with humor.

My stare began at his slightly worn but expensive leather boots and continued up a boot-cut style pair of jeans hugging very long, leanly muscled thighs.

A long, tall drink of water.
Wasn’t that a Texan saying? Because if Texas was half as hot as Florida, I could see how that particular phrase could say it all. I was suddenly very,
very
thirsty, and my gaze was still glued to his thighs, or, rather, to
something
in that vicinity, something that was being hugged just as snugly as his thighs, something that was also long but not so leanly muscled. Another Texan saying was trying to work its way into my head, but for some reason I was finding it hard to concentrate.

I dragged my gaze up to his face. His mouth curved into a grin.

I had the grace to blush. No, not grace. I seldom had grace these days, though I remember having plenty of it before my break-up with Pete. That is what lies and deceit do to you.

“It’s true,” he said. “Everything does grow bigger in Texas.”

No point denying where my eyes had been; best to just move on. “Why would I assume you’re from Texas? A pair of cowboy boots does not a Texan make.”

“Maybe, but my drawl must have clued you in,” he said chuckling.

He shifted slightly, blocking the sun with his shoulders, and I got a good look at him. My first thought was
he sure knows how to dress.
His snug white T-shirt showed off his tan, not to mention his chest and abs. But anything would have looked great on him. He was as fit as any man I’d ever seen—tall enough and with muscles that were definitely there but not too bulging.

My second thought was
darn.
He had a closely cropped beard, and I’d never cared for beards, but maybe I could talk him into shaving it off once we were married.

Married?
What was wrong with me? I reminded myself that I didn’t want to get married and besides, he hadn’t applied for the job. Surely, though, that was why he, a perfect stranger, was remarking on my sign.

Those thoughts—and more that I won’t mention here—were running through my mind while I took stock of the rest of him. He had a firm, angular jaw discernible beneath the beard, broad cheekbones, a somewhat crooked though attractive nose, and
very
kissable lips.

Huh? I snapped myself out of my lust daze, but not before it struck me that a husband might not be such a bad thing to have around. For some activities anyway.

I was still thinking up a retort when I saw that his muscles
could
bulge because the biceps in his arm was bulging now, now that he was lifting his arm to grandly sweep off his cowboy hat.

Good grief. He was bald.

Okay, so he was a
near
perfect stranger.

“I’m Hank Tyler,” he said with a friendly grin. “I’m rentin’ the house down the street. Wanted to introduce myself to my neighbors.”

I scrambled to my feet. Hank Tyler? He sounded like a character in a romance novel, and I should know since I’d written a few. Except none of my characters were Hanks.
Hank
didn’t go with the Duke of
anything,
and my heroes were always dukes. That thought was followed by the realization that I’d misread the situation. He wasn’t applying for the job that didn’t exist.
Dang.

But how did he know about my situation? He asked if I’d found a taker. I glanced at the sign where it lay face down.

“I read about you in the paper,” he said. “You’re Jane Dough, right?”

My jaw dropped, and the latest dribble of sweat that had been running down the side of my face ran right into my mouth, the sight of which would surely make me irresistible to any Texas hunk. But I could hardly worry about such inanities now. What the heck was he talking about?

He shifted from one booted foot to the other, still completely at ease with himself, while I struggled to put together a coherent string of words. But in spite of my shock over his statement, the only thought that came to mind was a disappointed
he isn’t applying for the job.
I gave myself a mental slap. There wasn’t a job to apply for.