Читать книгу She Drives Me Crazy - Leslie Kelly - Страница 8

THE WORLD certainly kept spinning, and the clock probably kept ticking and the sun likely kept shining and the town of Joyful definitely kept whispering. But right here, right now, for Johnny Walker, time stopped. A decade disappeared. Ten years fell away. And he looked into a set of eyes he’d never thought to see again, though he’d seen them in his brain nearly every day since.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Hello to you, too, Johnny,” she said with a tight smile.

He didn’t return the greeting. “So,” he murmured, knowing she’d be able to hear the edge in his voice. “Emma Jean Frasier has done what she swore she’d never do—return to the pits of hell disguised as the hills of Georgia.”

“And what do I find, but the devil waiting here to greet me,” she said, her expression not nearly as jaunty as her tone.

He tsked. “Still sassy.”

She cast a disparaging glance at the spaghetti sauce can in his hand. “And you’re still a big spender. Don’t tell me—you have a hot date tonight? My, you always did entertain with style.”

He instantly remembered their one date. As her eyes shifted away from him, he knew she was kicking herself for bringing up such a loaded subject.

“Guess I should hurry right out to that field over by the Nelson place to pick a bouquet of wildflowers.”

Her quickly indrawn breath told him his jab had hit home. And suddenly, seeing a flash of hurt in her eyes, he regretted the comment. Coming back to Joyful couldn’t have been easy for Emma Jean. Not with the way she’d left. Correction…the way she’d run away.

The thought helped him thrust off the moment of remorse.

“I have to go,” she insisted, trying to push past him. The brush of her arm against his sent a jolt of hot awareness rushing through him again. As they froze, face-to-face, breath to breath, he mentally tripped again into the world of Emma Jean Frasier’s sweet, caramel-eyed stare. Without warning, his senses went on overload, filled with a sudden, quick stream of memories.

Hot summer days when it almost hurt to draw the thick air into his lungs—particularly as he watched her walk down the road in her tight shorts and tighter tops. The way the sunshine caught the sparkle of gold in her long, honey-colored hair every time she walked by.

And that one incredible night. The cicadas taking up a nighttime chorus as they sat and talked for hours. The moisture of her tears against his neck as he’d held her in his lap while she’d cried over his no-good idiot of a brother. Then the return of her good mood, the way he’d teased her into giving him one of those joyous, dimpled smiles that had stopped his teenage heart.

He almost heard the soft strains of Garth Brooks from his truck radio as they danced in the moonlight. Almost smelled the scent of her hair—lemons and tangerines, sweet and tangy, just like Emma Jean had always been. Almost tasted the sugary, slick taste of her strawberry lip gloss.

His brain tripped one step farther, into truly dangerous territory. Right here and now, in the brightly lit store surrounded by people, he heard the echo of the forbidden, sultry whoosh her satiny dress had made as it fell to the ground. And the way she’d whispered his name over and over again when he’d been buried deep inside her body, certain he’d died and landed straight in the arms of an angel.

“Johnny?”

He flinched as she spoke, losing his grip on the can of sauce in the process. They both looked toward the floor at the sound of the loud clunk. Watching the spaghetti sauce roll away, Emma stepped to the side to avoid getting her toes crunched. Johnny took the moment to get a major grip on himself.

By the time Emma looked up again, he felt much more in control. He’d thrust the mirage of memories back to the depths of his subconscious where they belonged, along with all those other stupid, dangerous teenage memories—like hot-wiring cars, putting firecrackers in mailboxes and making out with girls underneath the bleachers after cutting class. Kid stuff. Just like his feelings for Emma Jean Frasier.

If he told himself that often enough, he might actually start to believe it was true.

“Seeya, Emma Jean,” he managed to mutter, pretty damn sure he sounded almost normal. Almost sane. Almost not crazy with wanting to reach out and either pull her into his arms and kiss the hell out of her, or shake her for leaving. And for coming back. At this moment, he couldn’t say which angered him more.

She nodded and stepped away, gingerly avoiding the sauce he’d dropped. Unfortunately, however, stepping over one can didn’t help Emma save her own. Because two seconds after she moved, she slipped on something, causing her feet to fly out from under her.

Then she hit the floor, falling on her butt like a big old sack of rocks.

IF SOMEONE had told her that within her first several minutes in Joyful she’d be lying flat on the floor, with her legs askew and Johnny Walker crouched between them, Emma would have laughed in that person’s face. Particularly if also told that half the slack-jawed, gaping town would be looking on.

What’d they call this? Déjà vu all over again? Because this was, pretty much, the same position she’d been in on her last night in this town, ten years ago.

Fate, she decided, was a mean-spirited bitch with a really long memory and a twisted sense of humor.

“Em, are you all right?” Johnny asked from where he’d hunkered down between her ankles to see if she was okay.

“No, I’m not all right,” she managed to bite out.

She’d slipped in some unseen puddle on the floor, paying such close attention to avoiding the can—and the man who’d dropped it—that she hadn’t even seen the other danger. Now her ankle and foot felt like they’d been twisted into a pretzel shape. For that matter, so did her stomach.

Not to mention her heart.

She scrunched her eyes shut, waiting for the initial rush of pain to subside. Maybe then she could deal with the fact that the first familiar person she’d seen in Joyful was the one she’d hoped to avoid altogether. And that he looked so damned good.

Johnny as a teenager had been heartthrob material. Pure wicked, honey-tongued, hunk-a-licious male. The baddest of the bad boys. The motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking, heartbreaking guy who’d been featured in every teen movie ever made and in every good girl’s most secret fantasies.

Time hadn’t been kind enough to tug frown lines on his lean, handsome face, put circles beneath his stunning blue eyes or gray streaks in his thick, walnut-brown hair. Gravity hadn’t sucked down that flat, muscle-striped chest and stomach. He definitely didn’t have the poochy belly and man boobs she’d occasionally—when in a vengeful mood—wished on him. He wasn’t saggy, pasty and pale. Devil take the man.

No, Johnny Walker was nothing like she’d sometimes hoped he’d be. Of course, the other times, she’d been vacillating between wanting him maimed, dead or imprisoned.

Liar. What she’d really wanted was him pining.

But, huh-uh, just her luck, he looked better than he had ten years ago. Bigger. Harder. Fully masculine in his adult body, with little remaining of the whipcord-lean youth she’d known. Definitely he had not wasted away having spent the past decade mourning the loss of the best thing he’d ever had. Her.

Nope, he was all hunky, smiling, flirty man. The jeans and leather jacket might be gone, as were the chains and silver stud earring he used to wear. But the “Yeah, I really can deliver what my eyes are promising” look was all, one hundred percent Johnny.

“Let me help you,” he insisted. “Hell, Emma Jean, I didn’t imagine you’d drop away in shock at the sight of me.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Because I have to admit, seeing you was a definite surprise, but I don’t think I’d go swooning over it.”

His surprise certainly couldn’t match hers. She’d been so sure Johnny would be long gone. Instead, here he was, crouched between her calves, trying to ease her foot out of her sandal, as if they’d seen each other in the flesh every day for the past decade…instead of only in each other’s nightmares.

“I didn’t swoon,” she muttered. “I slipped in something.”

He just shrugged, continuing to try to unbuckle her shoe.

Emma took a moment to remember the look on his face when he’d first recognized her. She had to admit it—that expression had almost made the subsequent pain of twisting her ankle worthwhile. Surprise didn’t cut it. He’d been shocked. Stunned. And for one quick, nearly unseen instant, he’d been very, very glad.

Emma didn’t care so much about the shock. The glad, however, had almost been worth the sixteen-hour car ride which had ended with her falling on her fanny with her legs askew and the hottest guy she’d ever known in her life crouched between them. In front of the gawking shoppers in the Joyful Grocery Store, no less.

Who were all still gawking.

She sighed. Quite an entrance after ten years away. She supposed it was a vain hope to think no one here would remember her being caught in pretty much this same position on prom night.

Oh, well, at least she wasn’t stark naked this time.

As she ruthlessly shoved the hint of pleasure that Johnny was glad to see her out of her brain, she acknowledged the other parts of her body that were also sparking in reaction. My, oh my, those hard, lean hips of his were between her legs and she was looking at his thick, dark head of hair, remembering tangling her fingers in it. Suddenly she was feeling damp—down low—and it had nothing to do with whatever spilled liquid she’d fallen in.

Closing her eyes, Emma took a deep breath, trying to work up the courage to deal with her current predicament. Hmm…she was flat on her butt in public, lusting for a guy she should hate, wishing her panties weren’t so tight and her skirt wasn’t so short and her sex life hadn’t been so miserable lately that her own body would betray her in spite of the pain in her ankle. And in her heart.

Today was going onto her top ten list of bad days.

“I’m sorry, Emma Jean, your foot’s already swelling.”

Sorry for causing her to slip on some unseen wet spot? Or for breaking her heart? Not that she’d give him the satisfaction of voicing that question. No, Johnny Walker had no idea he’d broken her heart…because he’d never known it was his to break.

“Nobody calls me Emma Jean anymore,” she said, wincing as he gingerly touched her heel with the tip of his finger.

He visibly stiffened and met her stare, his deep blue eyes still incredibly dramatic against the dark brown hair. “Do you go by another name? A screen name?”

Not sure why on earth he’d care about her Internet name, she frowned and leaned over to gingerly unbuckle her sandal. “I mean, I go by just Emma now.”

“As in just Cher? Or Madonna?” he asked, his voice thick with something she couldn’t identify. She put it down to embarrassment—he couldn’t be feeling any better about the situation in which they’d suddenly found themselves than she did, particularly with the wide-eyed onlookers all around them.

“No,” she explained her patience growing thinner as her embarrassment increased. “As in just Emma Frasier. No Jean. Now, if we’ve straightened out my name to your satisfaction, would you mind leaving me alone so I can stagger to the nearest emergency room for X-rays and a cast?”

He muttered under his breath and she’d swear she caught the word “sassy” again. “I’ll take you over to the clinic,” he finally said when he saw her staring at him.

“Forget it,” she muttered. “I can get up.” She glanced around the floor. “What did I slip in?”

They both spotted a big, smeary blue puddle of sticky goo at the same instant. “Did two Smurfs battle to the death in here or something?” she said with a disbelieving groan.

Johnny tsked. “Laundry detergent. Or fabric softener. I think a little girl was trying to get some spilled juice out of her clothes.”

“Great. Welcome home, Emma, enjoy your fall,” she said.

He shrugged. “You always did know how to make an entrance.” Then his eyes narrowed. “And an exit.”

She shot him a glare, not appreciating his humor—nor his reminder of the last time they’d been together—one teeny bit.

“You’re sure it was a little girl? Maybe it was you who had to suddenly clean up his clothes…though I never figured you for a man who’d wet his pants at having to look me in the eye again.”

The insult skimmed right off his gorgeous hide. “Aww, honey, I hate to disappoint you, but you didn’t have me shaking in my shoes.” He lowered his voice. “Or needing to get out of my pants in a hurry.” His grin was positively evil. “For a change.”

Zing. Another dangerous recollection. Johnny sure hadn’t needed much urging to get out of his pants the last time they’d been together. The dog.

Before she could give into her first impulse, which was to laugh in spite of herself, or her second, which was to smack him, he continued. “It was the Deveaux kid. I don’t think she’s quite mastered the whole sippie cup thing yet.”

“So then what?” Emma asked, raising her voice and looking around the store. “Was there a run on mops or something today? Blue light special on paper towels?”

The two young cashiers, as blatantly nosy and fascinated as their customers, exchanged a look. She read it easily. Both silently ordered the other to take care of the mess. Then they each refused. She could almost predict how this one was going to end—with a game of rock, paper, scissors, loser gets the floor duty. In Joyful, some things never changed.

“Doggone, I sure wish I had a camera to get a picture for the paper,” the old man said with a snort. “I can see the headline. Star slips…”

“Enough, Tom,” Johnny muttered, giving him a warning look.

Star? Before she could even ask what on earth the old-as-dirt guy was talking about, one of the cashiers reached around her register and grabbed a disposable camera.

That was enough for Emma. Without another word, she yanked two fistfuls of Johnny’s shirt between her fingers. Using his shoulders for leverage, she pushed herself up into a half-standing, half-leaning position. She ignored the sudden rush of heat in her belly. It was almost certainly caused by embarrassment and not the warmth of his exhaled breaths against her stomach as she leaned over him.

Not his breaths. Not his lips. Not his mouth.

Definitely not.

Another giggle from the crowd made her straighten her back. Her ankle screamed in protest, but she turned and hobbled toward the door, anyway. She just couldn’t do this right now. Not after the night she’d had. Not after the month she’d had!

Emma had no problem laughing at herself when she deserved it. But this was too much. She was stressed, jobless, exhausted from driving. Oh, yeah, and penniless. Then, she’d come face-to-face with the guy who’d stolen her virginity and broken her heart.

And finally, the cherry on this particular hot-fudge sundae of her life, she ended up flat on her butt next to a big puddle of sticky blue goo in front of half the town.

Dammit, some days it didn’t pay to get out of bed. Then she remembered: she hadn’t been able to afford springing for a cheap hotel room along I-95 last night. So she’d actually been out of bed for more than twenty-four hours.

No wonder she was on the verge of tears. Not because of pain or humiliation. Not even because of the ache in her heart, and the other one between her legs at seeing Johnny Walker again. It was merely fatigue making her eyes sting and her lids flutter to keep any suspicious moisture from flowing down her cheeks.

This didn’t go into the top ten worst days, it was in the top five.

She was almost to the door when she realized Johnny had followed. He stepped around her, blocking her exit. “Where do you think you’re going? You can barely walk.”

“Away. From. Here.” She punctuated each word with a harshly snarled breath.

“Running away. Your M.O, isn’t it? You get embarrassed and hit the road.” He shook his head in disgust. “Typical Emma Jean Frasier.”

She clenched her back teeth so hard her jaw hurt. But she’d already given the town gossips quite enough to chew over tonight on the gossip lines, thank-you-very-much. She was not about to get into a screaming tizzy of an argument with Johnny over who’d run out on whom. “Please leave me alone.”

She tried to walk around him, finally giving up on the stupid shoe, which made the ache in her ankle even worse. She bent over and yanked it off, letting it dangle by the strap from the tip of her finger. Then she marched toward the door, with her head held high. Or, at least as high as it could be, considering she descended a good three inches each time she went from her good foot—still in the high-heeled sandal—to the bad one, which was completely bare. The bad one also made her cringe with pain every time she put her weight on it.

Johnny, however, wasn’t going to let her make her grand exit. Emma could barely suck in a shocked breath when she felt him scoop her up from behind. “Stubborn woman.”

He held her easily, bracing her behind the shoulders and beneath the knees. She might have been a stuffed doll for all the effort it took him. Emma had just enough time to clutch at her dangling shoe before it fell out of her fingers as the grocery store door opened before them with a swish, letting in a thick blast of stale summer air.

Before they could exit, however, a titter and a few whispers reached her ears. Emma groaned. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d fallen, but now she was being swept out of here like some romance heroine…by the guy who’d given her her first adult taste of heartbreak as a teenager.

She leaned close to his ear to avoid being overheard. Forcing her nose to stop working so she wouldn’t smell the familiar earthy scent of his skin, and her eyes to stop noticing the cute way his hair still curled behind his ear, she whispered, “Put me down right now or I swear I’ll kick you.”

He raised an amused brow. “With a broken foot?”

“My other foot’s not broken.”

“It will be if you kick me. Those shoes of yours are pretty useless, aren’t they?”

“Johnny, please don’t do this.”

“I already did. Now shut up, Emma Jean, and let’s get you X-rayed.”

Over his shoulder, she saw a cluster of shoppers inching closer. They made no bones about trying to hear every word she and Johnny exchanged. Surely nothing this exciting had happened in Joyful since, oh, say, ten years ago. That would have been the night this bastard had seduced her in public, then roared away, leaving her to explain to a bunch of gawking onlookers while trying to fasten two-dozen tiny, silk-covered buttons up the back of her pink prom dress.

Before they could escape the store altogether, however, a female voice said, “Hey, Johnny, what about your sauce?”

Emma glanced at the cashier who’d spoken, a young woman with teased up bright red hair and a serious case of acne. The woman watched them with eyes as big as dinner plates, and a definite pout on her heavily glossed lips.

“I’ll be back for it,” Johnny informed her.

“You have to buy it. You bent it all up when you dropped it,” the belligerent cashier exclaimed.

“Yeah, and your date’s gonna be real disappointed if you don’t make her a gourmet meal,” Emma muttered.

The woman’s voice rose in pitch. “My boss’ll make me pay for it if you don’t.”

Right. As if her boss wouldn’t have heard the whole sordid story within six-point-five minutes on the infamous Joyful grapevine. Every person in the store was practically shifting on their feet, itching for Johnny and Emma to get gone so they could spread the news to the four corners of the Joyful kingdom.

Emma tried to wriggle out of Johnny’s arms. “Go pay for your sauce and I’ll go out and get back in my car. I can drive myself to the clinic.” Then, giving him a slightly malicious smile, she whispered, “You damaged the can. I wouldn’t want you to get falsely accused of vandalism…again.”

Direct hit. His eyes widened at the insult, and his lips thinned. He obviously remembered when he’d told her about being accused of vandalizing the town fountain as a kid. Another memory from prom night—during their hours of talking, he’d told her what it was like growing up a member of the trashiest family in town.

Not too unlike what it had meant growing up a rich kid in boarding school.

Lonely.

“Damn, you got bitchy while you were away, didn’t you?”

The camera-hungry old man, whose pants were hitched up almost to his nipples, snorted with laughter. Yes, he probably approved of the caveman tactics. Emma shot him a glare and he quickly turned away, pretending to carefully examine a sign advertising a weekly special on toilet paper.

Over near a breakfast display, a harried-looking mother shoved a box of marshmallows and sugar masquerading as breakfast cereal into her toddler’s hands to get him to stop crying. Heaven forbid she miss a word of Emma and Johnny’s confrontation.

“And you got hard of hearing,” Emma finally retorted, making no effort to keep her voice down. She didn’t much care if everyone in the store heard and took notes. “I said put me down.”

“Uh, okay, that’d be a big no.”

Without another word to anyone, he strode out the automatic door, still holding her securely in his arms. Emma watched over his shoulder as the cashier, her co-worker and every shopper in the place rushed to the front window. They might as well have pressed their noses against the glass for a better look.

He didn’t even pause as he passed by her convertible. When he reached a black SUV, he lowered her to the ground, effectively trapping her against the car with his long, firm body. Another flood of memories invaded her brain. She remembered what it had been like to dance with him, both vertically at the prom, and later, horizontally under the misty, moonlit sky.

“Don’t you understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?” she asked, wondering why she sounded so darned weak all of a sudden. “Or has it been so long since a woman said it to you that you’ve simply forgotten what it sounds like?”

He raised a brow. “Jealous?”

“Oh, puh-lease.”

“Emma, answer me one question. That little car you squealed in here on. Manual or automatic?”

Flustered by the change of subject, not to mention his, umh…closeness…she admitted, “Manual.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “Of course. You would never buy a car you couldn’t drive like a screaming bat out of hell. Your poor gears are probably already ground down to nothing.”

She couldn’t deny it. An automatic transmission had seemed almost sacrilege in an eight-cylinder car meant to go from zero to ninety in the length of time it took to touch up her lipstick in the rearview mirror.

“Which ankle did you twist?”

She followed his pointed stare toward her left foot, already looking swollen and tender. Then she knew where he was heading. The clutch would be a killer. “Oh.”

“Right.”

He opened the door, and lifted her, putting her in the passenger seat.

“My car…”

“Will be fine here,” he insisted.

His tone allowed for no more arguing. It was time to admit the truth. To her eternal mortification, she really did have to accept the help of the one man on earth she’d hoped never to see again.

Correction. This day was going to her top three list of bad days. Maybe even top two.

“All right,” she finally conceded, hearing the dismay she couldn’t keep from her voice. “Let’s go.”

DANEEN BRADY WALKER buttoned her blouse and smoothed her skirt in the tiny bathroom off the reception area of Boyd Realty, wishing yet again that they had a shower on hand. Paper towel cleanups just didn’t cut it after quickies on the boss’s desk.

“You swore there’d be no more quickies,” she told her reflection, angry at her lack of willpower when it came to Jimbo Boyd, her full-time boss and her often-times lover.

He’d had her in the palm of his hand for years. Whenever she tried to back away, knowing he’d never give her what she wanted—a real commitment—he always managed to seduce her back into their long-standing affair. This latest time, she’d managed to resist for a month. Long enough to start looking beyond him, beyond the fruitless dreams of him leaving his wife for her. She’d begun thinking she could live without him, though he’d been a major presence in her life since she’d been young and dumb, wowed by the attention of a handsome, much-older man.

He was still handsome and she was still dumb, as evidenced by today’s naked wrestling session on his desk.

He’d sounded so unhappy last night, that’s what had done her in. He’d called her at home, telling her how terrible his life was without her. That she believed. Jimbo was the most put-upon man she’d ever known, controlled by his rich wife. The mayor would never admit it, but Joyful knew exactly who was in charge, at work, at home and at city hall. First Lady Hannah Boyd.

Jimbo might cheat on her, but he wouldn’t leave Hannah. Daneen had thought the realization would give her the strength to stand firm when he started begging her to come back to him.

Uhh…wrong.

“Idiot,” she called herself, then left the powder room.

She’d known this morning that Jimbo would lay on the charm today, wanting an after-hours dick—yuck, yuck, hardy-har-har, emphasis on the dick—tation session. Nope, no surprise there. Not after last night’s teary phone call, and the loud argument Jimbo’d had with Hannah this morning. Fighting with Hannah always made Jimbo want to have sex…with someone else. Not that Hannah suspected that Daneen was the someone else these days.

Since it was after five-thirty, she began to gather her things to leave. Maybe she’d beat Johnny to the house and he’d never hear her phone message. She’d told him she was working late and he should heat up some leftovers in the microwave for supper.

Grabbing her purse and keys, Daneen knocked lightly on the closed door of Jimbo’s office. When she didn’t receive an answer, she pushed it open and saw him at his desk, talking on the phone.

“I told you it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “The paperwork is perfect. There’s nothing she can do.”

She waited, wondering who he’d called, knowing the phone hadn’t rung. Five minutes ago, they’d been panting and naked on his desk. He must’ve reached for the handset before he’d zipped up his fly. Well, didn’t that make her feel special.

“The tracks are covered. Nobody can do a thing. Do you think I don’t know this town? Stop worrying.”

“Jimbo?” she whispered.

He looked up and saw her standing there, then impatiently waved her out with his hand, not saying a word. Daneen stiffened, hot moisture rising in her eyes, to her absolute mortification.

God, it killed her that she loved the son of a bitch. At least, she usually loved him…on the days she didn’t hate his faithless guts.

Backing out of the office, she blinked rapidly, righteous anger drying her tears. She turned on her heel and walked to the exit, prepared to give the door a good slam as she left. But as she reached it, she saw someone standing outside.

“Came to get paid,” Cora Dillon said as soon as Daneen unlocked the front door, which Jimbo had locked shortly before their five-minute interlude in his office. The woman tried to push inside. “I did some cleaning for Mr. Boyd today.”

Cora, one of Daneen’s late mother’s friends, was known far and wide as the nosiest busybody north of Atlanta. She’d just love to come inside and catch a hint of scandal, perhaps something as damning as Daneen’s lipstick on Jimbo’s chin. Not to mention the unmistakable aroma of illicit sex.

“Sorry, we’re closed.” Daneen stepped out and tried to pull the door shut behind her. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

The steely-eyed old bat had the gall to stick her foot in the door and shoulder it back open. “Mister Boyd said I could get my money today. I know he’s here, so I’ll wait inside for him.”

Daneen gritted her teeth, wishing she’d left earlier, or at least sprayed down Jimbo’s office with some air freshener. Busybodies had the noses of bloodhounds. Since their eyes were almost as deadly keen, she didn’t even dare to glance down at her blouse to make sure she hadn’t missed a button.

That’d be the last thing she needed—for her father—or worse, Johnny, to hear rumors about her and Jimbo. He’d be devastated. Humiliated. And Daneen would die before hurting him.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said to Cora, trying to sound unconcerned. “It’ll be a very long wait. He’s been in on that phone all afternoon, I barely got a minute with him today.”

God, it was hard to stay steady and meet the other woman’s eyes. She did it, though, because Cora Dillon collected gossip the way some old ladies collected ceramic pigs or antique dolls: with single-minded precision.

Daneen didn’t want anyone to know about her secret affair with Jimbo. Not Hannah Boyd. Not Cora Dillon.

And especially not Johnny.