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And for a person who made their living using words, that was unforgivable.
The deer bolted from the window’s view, and Val peeked over her shoulder. Her aqua-blue eyes seemed sleepy, her posture wilted.
Jinni sat next to her, smoothing back a strand of hair from Val’s forehead. “You okay?”
“Just tired.”
Today’s round of chemotherapy must have gotten to her, but after they’d gone to the hospital this morning, Val hadn’t seemed overly exhausted.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Val. Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?”
Her sister touched Jinni’s hand, then guided it away from her face, reminding Jinni of how Val never used to allow people to get close to her. Not until now.
“I’m fine,” said Val. “We needed groceries. You can’t always be at my beck and call.”
“I thought your chemo treatments were mild. Why do you look so tired?”
Val straightened up, as if trying to prove to Jinni that she wasn’t letting the cancer get to her. “I’m fine. Come on, brighten up. Where’s my fun-loving older sis? I see a gleam in your eyes, so don’t try to hide it.”
A spark of joy bounced around Jinni’s chest. Should she tell Val about the man from the parking lot? Let her sister know that Rumor had possibilities after all?
No. Maybe that would be something like gloating, emphasizing the fact that Jinni still had her health and everything that went with it. It didn’t feel right.
Again, the words escaped her. She could only hope her presence would be enough to help Val through these tough times.
“Shopping always puts a bounce in my step.” Jinni smiled, suspecting that her life-style seemed shallow in the face of Val’s challenges.
“Darn. I thought that maybe you’d gotten yourself engaged again. I wouldn’t mind hearing another romantic tale from your files.”
Val leaned against the cushions of the sofa, grinning slightly. Heat tightened Jinni’s throat from looking at her. Her sister: so beautiful, so young to be dealing with something so wrong.
“No, dear. I’m afraid I haven’t found a worthy candidate for my hand in this town.” The Mercedes-Benz man flashed through her mind: blue eyes, dark hair, lean-tall build…. “Though I wouldn’t mind adding to the list.”
“List? I thought you’d compiled a ledger by now.”
Well. If anyone else had dared to make light of Jinni’s ill-fated history with men, she would’ve given them some big-city attitude. But Val was the exception.
Val sighed. “There you go again, getting glum.”
“Who me?” Jinni tried to smile. How could she help it if this was the first time she’d encountered real despair in her life? She had no idea how to offer Val solace.
She tried anyway. “Listen up. I’ll make a deal with you. I promise to remain sunny and vivacious if you stop staring out windows. Shake on it?”
Val laughed softly, extending her hand. “Done.”
Jinni grabbed her sister’s fingers, squeezing them. “I love you, sis. You’re all the family I have left, and I’d fight any battle for you.”
“Me, too.” Val rubbed Jinni’s arm.
Every day they grew closer, opened up more to each other. It was a switch from how they’d grown up, with their wealthy socialite parents in New York. Val had always been the quiet one, headed for life in a small town like Rumor. But not Jinni. Since she hadn’t shown any talent at much, she’d decided early on to distinguish herself by stepping into her mother’s party slippers, loving the gossip-column mentions of her name at society functions, the explosion of the reporters’ flashbulbs as she presented her brightest smiles, the approval she’d earned from her mother with all the pretty pictures Jinni made.
Even when their parents had died years ago, Jinni and Val hadn’t experienced this sort of bond. It had taken breast cancer to bring them together, to help them share secrets while Jinni accompanied her sister to the Billings hospital where Val received treatments.
“You know what we need?” asked Jinni. “Makeovers. Wouldn’t that be a gas? Unless, of course, there’s nowhere that gives them around here.”
“Donna Mason owns The Getaway. It’s a spa off Main Street.” Val lifted her eyebrows. “You seem surprised.”
“Yes, after all, this isn’t the sort of place I expected a spa to pop up. But that’s good news. Let me know when you want to perk yourself up with a good herbal wrap or mud bath.”
“You spoil me.”
“You deserve it.”
If only The Getaway gave life makeovers. Wouldn’t that be the perfect thing? Jinni sorely suspected Val could use one to pull her away from all the windows she was staring out of.
Jinni stood, gave Val’s hair a little swish, which earned a smile. Then she went to the kitchen and started packing away the groceries.
A makeover. Maybe she needed one, too. Not in the physical sense, of course. But perhaps mentally.
Ever since she’d come to Rumor, Jinni had suspected she was out of her element. People here didn’t care about parties or premieres or fashion. She’d gone from the shallow end of the pool into something much deeper.
For instance, if she were in Val’s place—let’s even get more philosophical here, no matter how much it hurts—if she were to die next month, what would the world say about Jinni Fairchild? That she wrote celebrity biographies but didn’t really have a life worth mentioning? Would they say she sustained her soul with the best champagne and beluga caviar? That she’d been engaged more than several times and hadn’t settled down once?
How horrendous. She didn’t have much to crow about, when it came right down to it. Did she?
The phone rang, shaking Jinni out of the dumps. Val answered it, talking with the caller while Jinni finished with the groceries.
“That’s Estelle,” said Val, hanging up and coming to stand by Jinni.
She reached into her mental Filofax. Estelle Worth, the retired nurse whose husband worked with Val at the animal hospital.
“Good,” said Jinni. She wondered if the older woman knew of any tall, handsome, Mercedes-Benz-driving males who frequented Rumor.
“Jinni, you’re going out tonight.”
She started. Had her yearning been that obvious? “Excuse me? Did someone build a discotheque while I wasn’t looking? Where would I go in Rumor?”
Val was gently guiding her toward her room down the hall. “Scoot and get ready now. You’ve been pacing the carpet like a caged animal for the past week. Besides, Rumor’s got plenty of places a sophisticate like you would enjoy. There’s the strip joint—”
Jinni’s motor revved. “Strip joint? Do they have men there?”
“Just in the audience.”
“Oh.” Jinni shrugged. Maybe it would be fun anyway.
Better than watching TV.
“And we’ve got Joe’s Bar—”
“Ding ding ding,” said Jinni. “Tell me where it is. I mean, no. Val, I really should stay with you.” She straightened, expressing her genuine desire to take care of Val.
“For heaven’s sake, Jinni, watching you prowl the house is not relaxing. Besides, Estelle’s very entertaining, full of good stories. She’s going to stay over in the third room.” Val gave her a surprisingly healthy shove down the hallway. “Go. Have a crackerjack time. Meet some people around here. You might even like them.” She was thirsting for a nice swig of Dom Perignon or…something. Maybe even beer and the sight of a muscled ranch hand would do for now.
“Are you sure?” said Jinni. “I don’t want to desert you.”
“Get.”
Jinni sighed, then smiled at her sister as she walked down the hallway to her room.
It was hard being a martyr.
After she’d showered and slipped into a black Dior sheath, which—tragically—she had to cover with a matching cape to guard against the chill of the night, Jinni headed to Joe’s Bar.
Right when she stepped inside, she knew that this was the best party she’d find for the time being.
Loud jukebox music, though it was country, but who could complain at this point? A dance floor, complete with cowboys and scantily clad women doing some sort of ritualistic boot-stomping shuffle. Chintzy beer and food signs, advertising cheap beverages, pizza and Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Hmm. Oysters. Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.
Jinni slipped out of her cape and hung it on a hook next to a row of cowboy hats. Then she dove out of the way of a homely rottweiler chained near the door. How charming. A guard creature.
As she glided through the tobacco-laced air and the peanut shells littering the wood-planked floor, she noted a back room where pool and dart games were in progress. Then she took stock of the nurses who gathered around the tables and the booths in the rear, the ranch hands drinking their longnecks and staring at her from under the semicover of dim lighting.
This was slumming, all right. But she smiled at the men anyway, loving the attention.
At the bar, she slid onto a stool, crossing her legs for pure show, then ordered whiskey. When the bartender brought the beverage, she took a demure sip.
Yooowwww. Not exactly Johnnie Walker Black Label, but it was better than drinking out of a paper sack while sitting on the curb.
Okay. This was fun. Sitting alone. Drinking.
Was she too old for this crowd? Were they wondering why a forty-year-old—who, by the way, didn’t look a day over thirty-four—was barflying in Rumor, Montana?
Jinni reached for her handbag, took out a cigarette. She hadn’t smoked in months—applause, please—but sometimes the feel of that smooth rolled paper tucked between her fingers lent a sense of control. A little stick of death couldn’t hurt her. No, siree. She’d whipped the habit, and it felt good to know that.
As she ordered another whiskey, she tried to think of additional ways to cheer herself up. It’d been one heck of a downer day—except for the hunk in the parking lot. Yet even that hadn’t ended in fireworks.
Was she losing her touch?
No. No possible way. She was just off her game in a new environment.
Anyway, back to cheering up. She could get her publisher off her back by hunting for a new biography bestseller. Pity that Prince Charles and Princess Monique were out of the question.
God, what she’d give for a good subject right now, someone to take her away from sorrow.
How about Rumor itself? There were the murders. Or maybe someone interesting would show up to entertain her.
Jinni twirled the cigarette through her fingers. Right. The people in this town were about as exciting as the ash and dirt blowing off Main Street.
She stared at the cigarette. It called to her, beckoning her back to a life of smoky parties in the glittering cities of Europe, times when she didn’t have a darned thing to worry about.
A man flopped down in the seat next to her, and Jinni’s male radar burst to life. She peered at him from the corner of her eye.
Egads. MonMart Man.
Her pulse skittered like champagne bubbling from a fountain. The night had just gotten more intriguing.
“Hey,” she said, posing with her cigarette.
He sort of grunted in response. Well, at least he was speaking the same language as this afternoon. He could play Neanderthal all he wanted as long as it kept turning her on.
She swiveled the front of her body toward him, legs brushing his pants. Uh-huh, still looking like he’d just come from a high-class wheeler-dealer meeting, except for his hair. Now the salt-and-pepper locks had tumbled all over themselves, slouching over his forehead.
What a cutie pie.
He ordered a shot of tequila from the bartender while talking loudly over the music. “No peace for the wicked.”
Didn’t she know it. “Rest isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
He glanced at her, ran his gaze over her body, leaving a shimmer of heat over Jinni’s limbs. God bless Val and Estelle for letting her loose tonight.
Definitely a wonderful way to pass the time in Rumor. She liked fire in a man. In fact, she couldn’t get over the way he’d hunkered into his fancy car today, shooting a burning glare at her….
Wait. Mercedes-Benz. Snazzy threads.
Did this guy have a life worth writing about?
As his brilliant-blue gaze traveled back up from her breasts to her face, Jinni batted her eyelashes at him, smiling.
He merely looked away, then threw down his shot of tequila.
Hello? The eyelash trick always worked. And, actually, it had been the prelude to more than a few marriage proposals. What was this guy…immune?
And was it possible that he didn’t recognize her? No. Unthinkable. Jinni Fairchild did not go unnoticed.
Not before, anyway.
She “hmphed” and absently stuck the end of the cigarette in her mouth, reaching for her purse.
Suddenly, the item was snatched from her lips. The next thing she knew, she was watching the man snap her death stick in two with one hand.
“Hey,” she said, about to give him a piece of her mind. What nerve. What cheek. What…hands.
Oooo. Long, tapered fingers. Large and able. Hands—one of a man’s many admirable features.
He tossed the remnants of the cigarette onto the bar, ordered another tequila, then offered one of those hands to Jinni. “Max Cantrell,” he said.
The name sounded familiar. Cantrell.
