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Marlene shot Martin a withering look. “It’s the way I’m made. Some of us aren’t emotionally or mentally built to indulge in casual sex.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room except for the ticking of the big wall clock. It had worked well enough for three of the four of them present.
Cade spoke up. “If you’re going to do this online dating thing, promise me you won’t go out with anyone until we approve them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. She hadn’t done such a good job with the first husband and there were some real pieces of crap out there. Someone had to make sure she didn’t strike out if she was determined to go round two. And Marlene might not be family, but she worked for him and no one screwed with anyone under his domain unless they wanted a serious ass-kicking.
Linc nodded. “Good plan. We can make sure you don’t hook up with any creeps.”
Marlene looked from him to Linc and back. “Fine. You boys can approve them.”
“And I’ll help you put together your Web page,” Martin announced.
“I don’t need any help putting it together.”
“Sure you do. You want to make sure you don’t put out any casual sex signals and I know all of those.” Martin crossed his arms over his chest in a perfect imitation of Cade. “I know what men your age are looking for.”
“But I don’t want a man like you,” Marlene shot back with a sweet smile.
Linc raised an eyebrow at Cade and Cade answered with a faint shrug. Martin’s scowl deepened. Was Martin’s scowl more territorial than protective? Cade hoped the hell not.
Martin and Marlene would be a disaster. Once Martin had pulled himself up by his bootstraps after Lucy’s death, he’d taken up serial dating. Martin liked women and he treated them with respect, but he made sure they never got too close.
Marlene wasn’t the kind of woman who’d go for the four-week wooing she’d get from Martin. Plus she was damn good at what she did and they didn’t need to lose her when things went south at week five.
Martin gritted his teeth. “Then I’ll put down the opposite of everything I’d look for in a woman.”
“That might work then,” Marlene shot back. She looked at the three of them, ringing her desk. “If I pass out from the overdose of testosterone in here, someone just drag me out to the sidewalk.”
Marlene promptly ignored them, returning to the computer screen, humming that old seventies tune “Love is in the Air.”
Cade headed for the door. He was getting the hell out before he caught whatever was going around. He’d rather face down hardened criminals than get caught up in this love business.
3
SUNNY SANG ALONG with Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” her radio set to classic jazz, on her way to the grocery store after lunch. The remainder of her meal was packed in a to-go box next to her but her kitchen at home was dismally empty. Taking advantage of being alone in the car, she sang louder. Sunny couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved to sing. Sometimes when she sang at home, the cat next door yowled.
She felt better than she had in days. No, make that weeks. She’d run a gamut of emotions—depressed, pissed, violated, humiliated. Yep, that about summed it up. But now she felt good. No, make that great.
Despite the rain clouds gathering overhead, she was setting her personal course for nothing but sunny skies from here on out.
She pulled up to the four-way stop at Jackson and Hull Streets. A man in a Santa suit stood on the corner, ringing a bell, holding a donation can for a local food bank. Blue car went. The car to her left should go next.
Her head whipped around in a double-take. No. Was she hallucinating? It couldn’t be. It was.
Cecil Meeks sat at the stop sign on her left in his shiny, black, chrome-trimmed, late-model Cadillac DeVille. All the emotions she thought she’d processed and worked through in the past four weeks swamped her.
She sucked in a deep breath aimed at calming. Problem was she didn’t feel calm. Hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, she silently chanted.
Meeks spotted her and the son of a bitch actually smirked. Full, in-your-face smirking, despite the fact that he was in one car and she in another. She sucked another lungful of air in on the one before, determined to be the bigger person but it didn’t seem to help.
His turn to drive.
Meeks accelerated and waved. And laughed.
He’d made an international laughingstock of her and now he was laughing in her face. One second she was sitting there, the next she just…floored it.
Bam. Her Mustang plowed into the rear door of his Caddie, the impact jerking her against the seat belt. She didn’t have an airbag to go off, but her horn did.
She sat there. She’d just rammed Meeks’s car…with hers.
He jumped out of his car, screaming and waving a cell phone but she couldn’t hear him over the blaring of her horn. Stunned by her own behavior, she sat and stared at him. Unfortunately, his penis didn’t fall off in the street and no rabid squirrels came running. She did, however, hear the approaching wail of a police siren.
Santa wrenched her door open, his beard askew, his bell still in his hand. “Are you okay? Are you trapped in your car?”
She unbuckled her seat belt, her hand amazingly steady even though she felt as if she were shaking all over. “I’m fine.”
She climbed out, her legs barely holding her upright.
“Hey, aren’t you the lady—” he looked over at Cecil jumping up and down like a maggot on a stick “—isn’t he—”
“I am. He is.”
Suddenly the clouds opened up and it started to pour. Not the soft gentle rain of a summer shower but a cold, driving, early-December deluge that stung.
Sunny tilted her face upward. Maybe she’d just drown before things got any worse. If she was lucky.
Luck, however, didn’t seem to be running her way.
“WHAT IN THE HELL was Sunny Templeton thinking?” Cade muttered to himself as he watched the five o’clock news’s lead story over Marlene’s shoulder on her computer monitor.
Meeks had a bandage wrapped around his head and a sling supported his right arm as he played to the camera. “It was terrifying. I didn’t recognize her until I drove past. It was the rage and hate filling her eyes that caught my attention and then the next thing I knew she attacked me with her vehicle. She clearly tried to kill me. I’m lucky I walked away with only the injuries I sustained.”
“Is this your first interaction with Ms. Templeton since the election?” the reporter asked.
“Mercifully, yes. And I hope my last. The woman’s definitely deranged.”
The female reporter quirked her eyebrow. “Some people believe you crossed the line when your campaign put out that flyer.”
Cecil adopted a sanctimonious demeanor. “Absolutely not. I considered that a public service. When you put yourself up for public office, there can be no distinction between public and private life. The public had a right to know what they were getting with Ms. Templeton.”
The reporter faced the camera. “Ms. Templeton is currently being held at the Memphis Police Department pending bail. We’ll bring you updates as available. Back to you now, Gretchen.”
The camera cut back to the in-studio news anchor and Cade filtered out the rest, his attention still focused on Sunny Templeton and Cecil Meeks.
“That man ought to be ashamed,” Marlene said, switching to another screen with one click of her mouse in evident disgust. “I’m sorry we had anything to do with him.”
Cade straightened. “That makes two of us. Meeks is a worm. It’d be kind of funny that she wrecked his new Cadillac, if it hadn’t landed her in jail.”
Marlene sighed. “I’d go over there and help her if I could.” Marlene had turned Sunny into a regular Joan of Arc in the last month. He’d be hard-pressed to believe Sunny Templeton had a more staunch supporter anywhere in Memphis than Marlene. “I’m sure True Blue will handle the bond.” She shot him a look that made the tiny hairs on the back of his neck quiver. “It’s a shame. I think she’s a nice girl. Pretty. Smart. Nice figure in a bikini.”
“Don’t look at me that way.” Marlene might’ve decided to look for love in all the wrong places herself but she could leave him out of her matchmaking schemes. She’d considered herself the matchmaker extraordinaire when Linc and Georgia had wound up together. She was barking up the wrong tree, however, with him and Sunny Templeton.
“I’m not looking at you any way.”
“Yes, you are.” His single-man-in-danger-of-being-fixed-up alarm was going off.
“You’re paranoid.”
“Go figure,” he said. Marlene obviously had decided in her single-minded brain that Sunny was the woman for him. Not by a long shot. God help him if Marlene ever got wind that he’d put Jones onto Meeks to dig up dirt for the woman sitting across the street in a jail cell.
Unfortunately, Marlene could ride this for hours. Fortunately it was time for him to head home. He wanted a nice dinner and a glass of wine or a cold beer.
“I’m outta here. If you’re through, I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. The upside to their location was they were right across from the jail. The downside to their location…they were right across from the jail. Yeah, that meant a bunch of cops were around, but it also meant a lot of slime was around. Throughout the years, they’d made it a habit for one of them to always accompany the office manager to her car.
Marlene unplugged the miniature Christmas tree she’d insisted on buying for her desk corner but left the chili-pepper lights outlining the front window turned on. She’d turned AA Atco into the most festive bail bond office on Poplar Street—hell, probably the entire city of Memphis.
“Let me get my coat,” she said.
“You can go ahead, Cade,” Martin called out from his office. “I’ve got a couple of things to go over with Marlene. I’ll walk her to her car.”
“Thoughtful,” Cade said in a sarcastic aside to Marlene. Martin knew what time she left. Why wait until it was time for her to leave to go over things?
“I heard that,” Martin groused.
“Good. Remember she’s been here all day and she’s supposed to go home now,” Cade said, stopping by Martin’s office door. Martin wasn’t the most thoughtful employer. Come to think of it, Martin wasn’t thoughtful. Period.
“I’ll take her to dinner to cover the overtime. Happy? And I’ll help her with that Web page.”
What was Martin up to? “Only if Marlene wants dinner.” Cade looked at Marlene. “You want dinner?”
“Sure.” Marlene’s smile was just a tad too honey-sweet. “There’s a new sushi place I’ve been wanting to try.”
Cade grinned at Marlene’s neat turn of the table and Martin’s look of disgust.
“I was thinking something with real food.”
Marlene leveled a guileless look at Martin and Cade made for the door. The two of them would figure it out. He had a feeling Martin would dine on sushi tonight. Marlene could be relentless.
Before he reached the door, the jingle bell wreath on the glass jangled as a woman stepped inside. Average height. Dark hair. He’d guess early to mid-thirties. There was something vaguely familiar about her. Cade never forgot a face, which came in very handy in his line of work, but he couldn’t quite place this woman.
The woman looked at Marlene. “Hello. I’m Nadine Axmoor. My sister is Sunny Templeton and I need to post bail for her. I’ve never done this. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”
That’s why he recognized her. There was a family resemblance in the chin and the line of her jaw.
Marlene’s mouthed gaped for about two seconds before she recovered her usual aplomb. “Sure. You know that we’re the company that campaigned with Cecil Meeks. Are you sure you want to go with us?”
“Marlene,” Martin bellowed from his office, “just do it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The woman waved a dismissive hand. “You’re right across from the jail and I need to get this taken care of.” She shrugged. “I didn’t vote for her, either.”
What the hell? Cade’s hackles rose. She didn’t vote for her own sister? With family like her, who needed enemies like Meeks?
Marlene’s lips tightened into a thin disapproving line but she efficiently processed the paperwork. She slid the bond form across the desk to the Axmoor woman who stared at it as if was a snake. “What do I do with that?”
Marlene looked back at her as if Nadine Axmoor were something stuck on the bottom of Marlene’s shoe. “You take it across the street and the officer at the front desk will tell you what you need to do from there to get Sunny out.”
Nadine pushed the paper back across the desk with one manicured finger. “Oh, no. I have to meet my husband for dinner. It’s a business affair with some of his associates. I’m already running late. And have you seen the media waiting on her across the street?” Cade glanced out the front window into the burgeoning twilight. Sure enough, media vans lined the street in front of the jail. “I’ve gone to the trouble to come down and post bail. I’m done. Sunny got herself into this mess. She can figure it out. Maybe she’ll learn to think things through.”
Every protective instinct in him surged. He barely bit back a growl of disapproval.
What. A. Bitch.
“We’ll handle it from here,” Marlene said, standing, practically shoving the other woman out the front door. “If you hurry, maybe you can avoid the worst of rush-hour traffic.”
Cade didn’t catch the woman’s closing comment on the way out, but he had no trouble hearing Marlene once the sister was down the sidewalk. “What a hideous, odious woman.” She brushed her hands together. “Good riddance.”
“She was a piece of work,” Cade agreed.
“Poor Sunny.” Marlene inclined her head toward the melee of reporters across the street. “They’re going to eat her alive.” She very pointedly stared at Cade.
Sunny did need help. He nominated Marlene. “You’ve got your wish. You can go over there and bail her out.”
“No, I can’t. You just heard your father ask me to work late.”
He was doing what he could on the private-eye front with Danny Jones. That was enough. “Sunny Templeton is not my problem.”
“Who would you call to bail you out if you landed in jail?”
“First off, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to land in jail—” Marlene cut him off with a look. “Okay, okay. Linc. I’d call Linc. And if I couldn’t get him I’d call Gracie. If I couldn’t get those two, I’d call you. And after those three strikes I’d be dialing Martin.”
“And do you think any of us would leave you to make your way through those sharks waiting outside?”
“I’d lay money Martin might.” He didn’t count on Martin for shit.
“Watch it, boy,” Martin grumbled, but it lacked any real thunder. They both knew there was too much truth backing Cade’s words. Martin, his father, the man who should be his staunchest advocate, wasn’t altogether a sure thing.
“Sorry, Martin. I call ’em the way I see ’em.”
“He wouldn’t.” There was a quiet firmness, a surety about Marlene’s simple statement. “I think he’d lead the way for you, carve a path between them for you. No one that you called would leave you to face that alone.” Okay. Okay. “That woman that just walked out of here was the best Sunny Templeton had to call and that’s just plain sad.” Unfortunately, that was true. “You’re on your way out anyway. It’ll take ten, maybe fifteen extra minutes out of your day to handle the bail.” She examined the fingernails on her right hand. “Linc says you’ve got Jones looking for something on Meeks.”
Dammit to hell. Linc had a big mouth.
Every internal radar he possessed was going off. Sunny Templeton would be trouble. He knew it. He was working behind the scenes, doing what he could to fix the fact that he’d gone along with Cecil when all his instincts said he shouldn’t.
“You know she needs you,” Marlene said softly.
The instinct to protect her was even stronger than his instinct of self-preservation. That was his undoing. He couldn’t just walk out the door and leave her hanging. He’d go get her out. But it didn’t mean he had to like it.
He held out his hand for the paperwork. Marlene beamed at him but didn’t relinquish the form. Instead she pointed toward the back closet with the paperwork. “You might want to grab a jacket and take it with you for her. The temperature’s dropped about twenty degrees since midafternoon. There’s a cold front moving in.”
