She Drives Me Crazy (8 page)

Johnny's hands tightened on the steering wheel until they went white. When he finally trusted himself to speak, he said, "Virg, another word and you're never gonna give Minnie those kids she wants. You hear me? You say one more thing about Emma Jean Frasier and I swear to God you'll be eating your balls for breakfast."

There was nothing to eat for breakfast. The fruit from the basket Mayor Boyd had left had served as late lunch, dinner and midnight snack last night. This morning, though, rejuvenated after a good night's sleep in her old bed, Emma was starving.

She'd had enough money to buy coffee and necessities at the store yesterday, which was why she'd stopped. Her shopping had obviously been interrupted. So today she was desperate. She wasn't picky—lord knew she wouldn't be getting her standard double mocha cappuccino from her favorite trendy little coffee shop on Fifth Avenue anytime soon. Right now, though, she'd give her right arm for a cup of Maxwell House. Instant.

A quick glance through her grandmother's pantry revealed a few dusty old cans of vegetables, but nothing that could pass for caffeine. She needed something strong to wash down the aspirin she intended to take for her still slightly sore ankle.

Then she spied the big coffee can on the top shelf of the pantry, nearly hidden behind a spice rack. Saying a quick prayer that it was sealed, she stood up on tiptoe. Emma shifted to keep her weight off her sore foot as she reached for it, balancing herself on her grandmother's old cane, which she'd found in the hall closet. She hadn't let herself focus on the smoothness of the cane against her palm. It hurt too much to think about Emmajean's strong but tired hand wrapped around it.

"Oh, please, please be unopened," she whispered. "Or at least not moldy." If the can had even a few coffee grounds left in the bottom, she was desperate enough to brew it up.

Her fingers brushed the metal surface of the container, and she cajoled it within reach by poking at it through the shelf grating. When she finally lifted the can and tested its weight, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Something was inside, judging by a slight jingle, but it definitely did not contain coffee. Then she pulled off the plastic lid, and began to do a little laughing
and
a little crying.

Grandma Emmajean's pin money. She'd forgotten all about it. But like pennies from heaven, here it was. The can held lots of bills, mostly ones and fives. Enough cash to get her through until she could find a job.

Two jobs, really. She'd need one here in town to get her through the next couple of months until the scandal died down. Right now, she and all her former co-workers were persona non grata in the financial world. She had a better chance of becoming Miss Universe than of getting in with another large New York brokerage.

So she'd stay here in Joyful for a while, finding some easy little job to pay her bills, which wouldn't be bad since the house was hers, free and clear. She could spend the summer regrouping, sending out resumes back in the real world—
her
world—and planning a new course for her future. Without ever, hopefully, having to ask her parents—particularly her mother—for a thing.

They'd be furious when they found out.
If
they found out. But it was worth the risk. She couldn't stand the thought of them stepping in to try to "help" her, Transla-tion: trying to retake control of her life, as they'd tried to do last year after her accident.

She loved them. But a pushier, more smothering couple she'd never met. As their only child, she'd been the one smothered for years. At least until Grandma Emmajean had stepped in to support Emma when she'd taken a stand at the age of seventeen and demanded the freedom to decide where she'd go to school.

"Thank you, Grandma, for being there for me again," she whispered with a smile, staring at the cash. "Now, if only Joyful had restaurants that delivered Cheerios, we'd be in good shape."

Unfortunately, she suspected there weren't any cereal deliverymen in Joyful. If she wanted breakfast, she was going to have to drive for it.

Before she could go back to her room to dress, she heard a knock at the front door. Since it was only 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, she couldn't imagine who'd be stopping by. Then she remembered what it had been like living here, where neighbors knew one another's first names. On many a Saturday, one of her grandmother's friends would pop in with a basket of muffins and a cheerful "good morning." She smiled, touched that someone had heard she was back and had come to welcome her home.

It wasn't one of her grandmother's neighbors or friends.

"Oh, no," she said when she opened the door and saw Johnny on the porch.

"That's a nice way to greet a person bearing food."

Eyeing the paper grocery sack he held in the crook of one arm, she raised a brow.

"And coffee," he added.

Almost cooing in relief, she reached for the smaller bag in his other hand. He glanced at her cane. "I've got it."

Stepping back to let him in, she inhaled, catching a whiff of the coffee. It was almost good enough to make her forget she was still wearing the raggedy shorts and T-shirt she'd put on for bed. They went well with the mass of tangled hair she hadn't yet gotten around to brushing.

"Hmm, I take it you're not a morning person?" He didn't even try to hide his amusement.

Bleary-eyed, she couldn't even take offense as she slowly led him into the bright and sunny kitchen. "For coffee, I'll forget that I'm not exactly at my best." She sat at the butcher block table and watched him remove two large foam cups of coffee, as well as creamer and sugar, from the bag. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Grabbing a handful of napkins, he reached into the larger bag and pulled out a few more items. Finally he smiled and showed her a box of powdered sugar doughnuts. "I figured you were stopping at the store last night to get supplies before you were…interrupted. So I picked up some things to tide you over."

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised he'd shown up at her door, bringing her exactly what she needed. He had a track record of doing just that: flowers on prom night, coffee and toilet paper today. Touched by his thoughtfulness, she murmured, "This was very nice of you. I'd almost decided to try to drive down to the store."

"Now you can put it off another day or so, until your foot's okay." He cast a quick look at her ankle.

"It's not bad at all," she insisted. Stirring some cream into her coffee she sipped it, almost sighing with pleasure. "Diner coffee. Is there anything better?"

"Diner pie. My cousin Virgil's wife makes the best peach pie in the state of Georgia."

She pursed her lips and shook her head. "No way could it beat my grandmother's pecan. We used to go out to her daddy's old farm outside of town every year when we'd visit for Thanksgiving. My dad would tie ropes to the branches and we'd shake the nuts onto tarps on the ground. Then Grandma would take them home and dry them to last her the year."

She thought for a moment of the lovely afternoons in the orchard. Her grandmother would talk about the old days, and the last little piece of her family's farm—the orchard—which she'd held onto and promised to leave to Emma. She inhaled deeply, almost smelling the fragrance of Emmajean's baking. "She'd always have a fresh pecan pie waiting when we came for our summer visit. I'm going to dig through her recipes as soon as I can figure out where she hid them and make one of those pies."

"I'd like to taste a piece of pie
you
baked."

He obviously remembered her lack of ability in the kitchen. She didn't tell him about her Manhattan cooking school experiment… so she wouldn't have to tell him she'd, uh, failed.

"I might not have Grandma Emmajean's creative flare, but I've learned to follow a recipe to the last pinch. I do okay."

"Maybe I'll risk my life someday by letting you bake for me." The twinkle in his eye took any sting from his words.

"If somebody had told me a month ago that I'd be serving up pie to
you
in my grandmother's kitchen this summer, I'd have thought they'd been hitting the kind of moonshine the old-timers used to brew up in the hills," she muttered.

"They still do."

She raised a curious brow.

"My uncle Rafe and his brood live up there."

More Walkers. Why was she not surprised.

Johnny drank his own coffee, then got up to put away the groceries. She watched him silently for a moment, seeing glimpses in his strong profile of the teenager she'd known.

Yesterday, wearing a dress shirt and trousers, he'd been conservative, powerful and mature. Not to mention gorgeous.

Today, dressed in faded, worn jeans and a tight white T-shirt that did sinful things to the strong muscles in his arms and shoulders, he was downright devastating. Unshaven, rugged, completely masculine. Yet he looked perfectly comfortable in the kitchen, putting milk, juice and eggs in the fridge, taking care of her like he would any old friend who'd been laid up.

Only they weren't quite old friends, were they? And being with Johnny didn't exactly make her think of being laid up. Just laid, maybe.

Don't even go there.

No, friendship couldn't describe what was between Emma and Johnny. There was something else, something instinctive and deep. It had been present from the very beginning, even while she'd been dating his brother and he'd been playing the role of town rebel to the hilt.

It hadn't been mere attraction. Looking back with adult perspective, she knew that now. Heck, even then, when she'd been practically a kid, she'd suspected the charge she and Johnny sparked off each other went a lot deeper than teenage hormones.

When Johnny got around to finishing with the groceries, and they actually looked at one another, the awareness that had always existed between them would return. They'd begin dancing around the tension and intimate knowledge they'd shared from the first time they'd met. And then he'd leave.

For some reason, she didn't want their truce to end too soon. After she'd eaten her fill of the doughnuts and swallowed another gulp of coffee, Emma leaned back in her chair. "You know, I meant to ask you last night, why are you back here? I always figured the way you hated this town, you would have gone far, far away."

"Oh, so you thought about me a lot, hmm?" he asked, a note of teasing in his voice. Not returning to his seat at the table, he leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, until his muscles flexed against the white cotton of his shirt. "I thought you hadn't spared me even a moment's thought."

Sipping her coffee, Emma ordered her heart to return to its normal rhythm. "No, I never did."
Lie
. "It was so long ago, I hardly even remember what happened when I lived here in Joyful."
Lie number two
.

A knowing smile crossed his lips. "Right."

She knew better than to protest too much. "What's the story? I haven't seen your picture on the cover of any sports magazines, so you obviously didn't turn pro after playing football in college."

"Nope. With the help of a three hundred pound offensive lineman from North Carolina State, I blew out my knee in junior year."

She swallowed hard. "Your scholarship?"

"Can you believe by then I qualified for an academic one?"

"Yes, I can believe it," she murmured, knowing Johnny had always been much smarter than anyone in this town had ever given him credit for. "So you did finish college?"

"Even worse," he said. "My professors liked the poor white-trash Georgia boy so much, they helped me get into law school."

Her draw dropped. Johnny, the most-suspended teen in the history of Joyful High School, a lawyer? It boggled the mind.

He must have seen her shock because he chuckled softly, a gentle, delighted sound that reminded her of the way his laughter had always made her feel. Like she'd just sipped something luscious and sweet and her whole body had gone soft with the pleasure of it. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them to find him watching her intently.

"Tough to imagine, huh?" he continued. "It gets better." His eyes glowed until he finally delivered the punch line. "I came back to Joyful to take the job as county prosecutor."

If she'd had a drink in her mouth, she would have spewed it all over the kitchen table. Because there was no way she believed that one. Johnny had liked the legal authorities as much as Emma liked going to the gynecologist.

"You're
such
a liar." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I can't believe I actually fell for any of it. Don't tell me, let me guess. You're really in business with your Uncle Rafe making moonshine up in the hills."

"It's true, Emma Jean, I swear." He made a crossing motion over his heart. "Every word."

Emma didn't have much faith in anyone's "I swear." The last time she'd heard one, Lydia, her former best friend from accounting, had been swearing Emma didn't have a thing to worry about by leaving every penny of her money invested in her company-backed portfolio.

Look how that had turned out. With Lydia partying with the rich and corrupt in Buenos Aires, and Emma flat broke but for Grandma Emmajean's pin money in teeny-town Georgia.

Johnny's expression, however, made her pause. "You're serious? You're not kidding?"

"Not kidding. I've been the big bad prosecutor of Joyless for eighteen months now."

"You're a prosecutor. Good grief, Johnny, I know how much you hated the sheriff's office. Heck, any authority figure! So please, using small, nonlegalese words, try to explain something I find completely incomprehensible."