Caught by Surprise Page 10

  “I’ll accept your resignation when hell freezes over,” he drawled cheerfully.

  Out of sight below the level of his desk, Millie’s hands wadded wrinkles into the skirt of her flowered dress. “I don’t intend to bring gossip down on you or your office. Can’t you see what’s going to happen if I keep working around Brig?”

  “Millie, folks have always talked about you. This is nothin’ new. Different fuel, same fire.”

  Her breath shortened and she slid to the edge of her chair. “What do you mean?”

  Raybo blanched a little. “You don’t know?” She shook her head numbly. He sat up, fumbled for her letter of resignation, threw it in the trash, and cleared his throat. “You live so durned far out in the woods and keep to yourself so much that you don’t hear much of anything, I reckon.”

  “That’s right. What do people say about me?”

  Raybo flung his hands out in a gesture of dismissal. “Same things they’d say about any unmarried woman doin’ the kind of work you do. That you don’t like men. Or the opposite—that you’re one of those women who gets a jolt out of dominatin’ men.”

  Millie relaxed a little. “Oh, that. It comes with the territory.”

  “Frankly, the rumors about you and Brig McKay are doin’ you more good than harm.”

  “What?”

  “Well, the folks who think you don’t like men have decided that you do, and the folks who think you like to dominate men figure they were wrong, ’cause Brig wouldn’t take after a woman who tried to do that. So all in all, he’s the best thing that ever happened to your reputation.”

  Millie slumped back in her chair. “Good grief.”

  “You gonna run off with him?”

  She straightened again. “No!”

  “Why not?”

  She sighed. “It wouldn’t last. I’m a sexy little challenge to him right now, but what would I be to him in Nashville? A weapon’s expert with martial arts’ skills and a penchant for whacking people, that’s what.”

  “A man can always use a woman like that,” Raybo said hopefully.

  “Or he can try to change her, and when he can’t, he can tell her good-bye.” Millie struggled for a moment with the lump in her throat and tried to sound nonchalant. “I hate good-byes. Guess it comes from all those years of leaving people behind when my family moved.”

  Raybo sighed and picked up a document on his desk. “You better start gettin’ ready for this one then. Judge up in Nashville says to let Brig go a week from today. Early release for good behavior.”

  “I’m gonna be what in a week?” Brig asked incredulously.

  “Free,” Raybo repeated.

  Brig, who sat on the edge of his bunk, put his head in his hands and cursed soundly. “I’ve gotta have more than a week.”

  “I know it’s a horrible thing to do you, son,” Raybo said dryly. “That Nashville judge must be mean as hell.”

  Brig stood up and paced, his hands on his hips. “Does Melisande know?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll talk to her as soon as she comes back from her day off.”

  “She’s not coming back, son.”

  Brig stopped pacing. “I thought you said she didn’t resign.”

  “She didn’t. But she took vacation time for the rest of the week. Said she thought it’d be best to stay clear of you. Gal’s as spooked as a bird in a hailstorm.”

  Brig cursed again, rammed a hand through his hair, and turned toward Raybo in supplication. He was desperate for time, and Millie was running like hell. “All right, this calls for imagination.”

  Raybo smiled sweetly. “Son, on that count I reckon I can help you.”

  Millie wasn’t in the mood for problems. She had enough of them already, considering the fact that Brig would be out of jail in a few days. With him a free man, able to roam where he wanted and confront her at will, she’d have no peace.

  So when she came home from the grocery store one morning and found a hole where a young magnolia tree had stood in her front yard an hour earlier, her tension exploded and she swore revenge.

  Millie ran into the cottage and came back with a loaded shotgun. With the shotgun tucked under the convertible’s front seat, she spun gravel out to the main road and raced to the tiny clapboard house a half-mile away.

  The house sat less than two-dozen yards back from the road, a relic from the time when the road was nothing but a sandy trail. Just as Millie had expected, Imogene Berkley, ninety-five years old but still keen enough to spit tobacco at a fly and hit it, sat rocking on the front porch.

  “Miss Imogene, did you see anybody go by hauling a magnolia tree?” Millie yelled from the car.

  A nod. A bony black finger pointed north. A stream of tobacco arched over the edge of the porch and hit a sluggish yellow tabby cat in the head. “ ’Bout ten minutes ago.”

  “Bless your heart!”

  “Your tree?”

  “Yes!”

  Miss Imogene rocked faster. Someone had stolen all her azaleas a month before. “Kill ’em.” More tobacco juice leapt through the air. The cat ducked this time.

  Millie liked Miss Imogene’s attitude. She gave her a whimsical salute and drove away.

  She felt as proud as a mother cat about to take a particularly tasty dinner home to her kittens. Everyone would be so proud. Especially Brig.

  “Keep it still or I’ll shoot it off, scum,” Millie told the slack-jawed redhead wearing overalls. She poked her shotgun into the chest of the similarly slack-jawed blond. “You too, slime-for-brains.” The two men sat on the office floor at Perkle Greenhouse and Nursery where they’d tried to sell her tree. Their hands and feet were bound with baling wire and construction tape, courtesy of Henry Perkle. Henry lounged nearby, grinning.

  “Miss Millie, you sure you aren’t half tiger and half greyhound?”

  Millie looked down at her mud-stained blue jeans and torn T-shirt. She’d run the tree-stealing Roger boys around the nursery grounds a few times before she’d cornered them, appropriately, behind a manure pile. She chuckled. “I think I’m half warthog and half skunk.”

  “Then you’re a credit to your species,” Henry noted.

  The sound of a siren signaled the arrival of Charlie and the patrol car. After a stunned assessment of what she’d accomplished, Charlie grinned at her affectionately, put a ham-like hand on the back of the Roger brothers’ necks, and guided them to the car.

  Millie got back in her old convertible and followed Charlie to the jail. A sleek black limousine sat in the parking lot. “Who hired the hearse?” Millie asked, as she and Charlie prodded the Roger boys out of the patrol car.

  “Don’t know.” Excited, he went over and peered into the front window.

  “I’ll take our green-thumbed friends on into the jail,” Millie called. After all, the Roger boys were her collar, even if she was off duty. She wanted to show them off. They shuffled along as best they could, considering that their feet were still tied. Poking their backs with her shotgun, she herded them up the steps and through the front doors.

  Raybo leaped up from the desk and hurried toward her, then gave a happy whoop. Millie beamed at him, her chest swelling with anticipation. “Nothing to it,” she began. “I was on them like a duck on a June bug.”

  “Natty Brannigan is here!” he interrupted.

  Millie halted. “What’s a Natty Brannigan?”

  “Best new country-western entertainer of last year! Haven’t you ever heard “You Calling Me Unfaithful Is Like the Pot Calling the Kettle Black”? It won a Grammy!”

  “Lovely,” Millie said in a dry tone. “And she’s visiting Brig, I suppose.”

  “Yep. She’s the one Brig fought over in Nashville.”

  Millie smiled sickly. She remembered now. “How nice.” Depression settled in her stomach, but she tried to carry on. “I just closed down a plant-theft operation that covered five counties.” She gestured toward her unhappy-looking prisoners. “May I present Arnold and Malcolm Roge
rs.”

  “Yeah, go put ’em in a cell.” Raybo went to the check-in desk and picked up the phone. “I gotta call the newspaper and tell ’em that Natty Brannigan is here.”

  Millie succumbed to a sense of defeat as she guided her prisoners into the cell block. Brig’s cell was empty. Tilting her head toward the closed door to the recreation room, she wondered if Brig and Natty Brannigan were in there. She vaguely recalled seeing a photograph of the woman.

  Great lips. That’s what the woman had. Pouting, bee-stung lips. And oh, yes, great eyes, that could make a man forget to breathe. The woman was a debutante, the daughter of a former governor. The woman was tall and willowy. The woman had earned Brig’s affection so much that he’d taken a two-month jail term for defending her. He had refused to tell the judge and jury what the fight was about. Gallant, that was Brig.

  “Get in that cell,” Millie demanded, pointing the slow-moving Roger brothers through an open door. Arnold, the blond, twisted around and leered at her.

  “I’m not goin’ in. How do you like that, you butch little bitch?” he asked smoothly.

  She fought repulsion. “How do I like that?” she repeated, her voice rising. The anguish inside her boiled over. “How do I like that?” She grabbed his collar and yelled, “Didn’t anybody warn you about the tough lady deputy? Didn’t they tell you that I’m violent? For all you know, I could have PMS!”

  Arnold’s eyes widened and he took a step back. She took a step forward, screwing her face into a fiercer expression as she did. “I didn’t mean nothin’,” Arnold mumbled.

  “Sure you did! And now you’re going to pay! Sometimes I get so mad I have to be restrained! Restrained, Arnold, but right now there’s no one here to restrain me!”

  Malcolm, who had shuffled to the far side of the cell, threw back his head and screamed, “Help! She’s gonna hurt my brother!”

  “Get in that cell with Malcolm, Arnold!”

  “Okay! Okay!” Arnold took baby steps backward, his feet shifting frantically to compensate for their bindings.

  The door from the recreation room banged open. “What the hell’s going on in here?”

  Millie swung around at the sound of Brig’s deep voice. The tall, elegant, and delicate Natty Brannigan stood behind him, clutching his arm and peering over his shoulder. She had hair like brown silk.

  “Close that door, Mr. McKay, and mind your own business!”

  “Strewth. Melisande. What are you doin’?”

  He strode forward. Millie ran out of the cell, slammed the door, and held up a warning hand. “This isn’t your concern. Take your friend back into the recreation room or I’ll order her out of the jail.”

  He halted, exasperated, and put his hands on his hips. “Dammit, you look as if you’ve been chasin’ pigs through a sty. Are you all right?”

  Humiliation fueled new anger in her. Natty Brannigan was spell-binding in high heels and a creamy, flowing dress. If words could wound, then Brig had just scored a direct hit. “Thank you so much for telling me how bad I look,” Millie said with slow, lethal precision. “I’m fine.”

  He exhaled in dismay. “Dammit, don’t misinterpret my words. Melisande, meet Natalie Brannigan. Natty, meet Melisande. Melisande, Natty came down from Nashville to talk to you. She was comin’ out to your place in a little while.”

  “Why? Looking for a bodyguard? With a body like yours, Ms. Brannigan, you need an army of them. And I mean that as a compliment.”

  Natty spoke up. In a voice born of magnolias and money, she said firmly, “Now listen, honey, there isn’t any ol’ reason for you to get yourself fidgety. I just want to tell you a few things about Brig here.”

  “I gotta go to the john!” Arnold called to Millie. “You’d better untie my hands.”

  Millie saw anger replace exasperation on Brig’s face. Arnold was about to get a different kind of attention than he bargained for. “How’s about I fix it so you don’t ever have to go to the john again?” he asked Arnold.

  “Police brutality!” Malcolm yelled.

  Raybo came into the cell block. “Can’t a man use the phone without a damned circus in the background?” He faced Millie and jabbed a finger at her. “Do you have this situation under control?”

  She was dying inside. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t even on duty or wearing a uniform. She was responsible. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then make it sound that way!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he stomped off, she turned back toward Brig. She didn’t care that his gaze centered immediately on the sheen of tears she couldn’t hide. Having tears in her eyes was one thing. Letting them fall was another. Her brother Kyle had once called her “Clint Eastwood with boobs”. Clint wouldn’t cry if his dignity were going belly up, and neither would she.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she told Brig. “And I don’t want my arm twisted by your old girlfriend. I grant you one thing, you inspire loyalty among your women.”

  “Well, I declare,” Natty said. You sure have got the situation wrong.”

  “Spare me the Scarlett O’Hara act.”

  Charlie hurried into the cell block, huffing. “Sony, Mel. Didn’t mean to stay outside so long. I’ll take over.”

  “Melisande,” Brig interjected, looking upset and worried. “Come on into the rec room and talk with me and Natty.”

  “I have paperwork to fill out.” Millie propped her shotgun on one shoulder. She watched Natty’s amused eyes go over her and the gun as if both were from a bad horror movie: Petite Deputies From Hell.

  Brig shook his head. “Melisande, don’t be stubborn.”

  “Stow it,” she retorted.

  His eyes turned dark with anger. “Hellion.”

  Millie nodded, while her heart twisted into a large lump of suffering. His ex-lover was standing behind him, aflutter with grace and elegance and traditional femininity. Why had he thought that meeting Natty Brannigan would reassure her in some way? It only confirmed Millie’s fear that she wouldn’t fit into his life. She had no doubts now. No doubts, no hope, and no control left. Turning on one heel, she left the cell block quickly.

  Brig slapped his hand against one thigh and, for Natty’s sake, fought back several vicious words.

  “Sorry, Brig,” Charlie said wistfully. “Guess plan one didn’t work.”

  Natty cleared her throat and patted Brig’s arm. “I would have talked some sense into the little thing, if she’d given me half a chance.”

  Brig sighed. “I know, Natty, I know.”

  “She certainly is spunky.”

  He laughed wearily. Spunky, yes. Now if he could just come up with some way to get Spunky to quit running, before time ran out on them both.

  He was gone, and the cell felt like a cell again.

  Millie sat on the bare mattress of Brig’s empty bunk. She gazed at the spot on the dresser where he’d always thrown his ridiculous, macho bush hat. She looked at the corner chair where he’d always left his guitar.

  “Feels kind of lonesome without him here,” Suds commented from the cell door.

  Millie stood up slowly, noting that her body and spirit seemed to be about two-hundred years old this morning. “I should put one of the Roger brothers in here.”

  “No. Wouldn’t be right.”

  After a moment, she nodded. “It’d be like putting a mule in a thoroughbred’s stall.”

  “Yes.”

  “He took a hotel suite in town?”

  “Yes. Millie, I’m sure he’ll come to see you.”

  She went to the cell’s window and stood with her back to Suds so that he wouldn’t see her tears. “I hope not.”

  Millie forced herself to stay busy, but the day passed in lethargic routine. She wondered where Brig was. She wondered how many nights she’d cry before she washed him out of her memory enough to get on with her life. She wondered how it would have been to make love to him, to sleep with him, to watch him smile when he woke up in the morning.

 
About four-thirty, a monster of a man walked into the lobby and towered over her desk. Millie looked up in awe, then noted the pleasant, somewhat dull look on his beefy face.

  “Hi,” he boomed. He raised both hands in mock menace and growled. “Name’s George Oliver. But you can call me Killer Cretin. I’m a wrestler.”

  Millie laughed. “What can I do for you?”

  “I got lost. Which way to the Happy Mac?”

  The Happy Mac was a small blue-collar bar. “Go back to the main road and take a left. It’s just over five miles. On the right.”

  “Geez. I’m late. Thanks for the info.” He growled again, and left.

  Charlie arrived for the shift change just as the call came from the Happy Mac bar. Millie took notes, then sat frowning at them for a minute.

  “What’s up?” Charlie asked.

  “Brig’s fighting. He’s fighting with someone at the Happy Mac bar.” She began to shake with disbelief and fury. “How could he! He’ll blow his parole!”

  “Want me to take the call?”

  “No. I’m going to strangle him.”

  She was out the door in five seconds.

  The Happy Mac bar sat just off the road in a grove of spindly pine trees. In the chic world of Paradise Springs, it was a beer-and-pretzels hangout where sweat-stained men threw their hard hats at each other and argued lustily about sports. But it was a homey place, and the time Millie had gone there to drink a beer with Charlie and Suds, she’d felt welcome and comfortable.

  Her heart pounding, Millie walked into the dimly lit bar and surveyed the wreckage of broken tables and smashed glasses. More than a dozen men lounged around, looking as if they’d just been royally entertained.

  Brig sat at one of the few unharmed tables, his booted feet extended in front of him and crossed at the ankles, his hands resting nonchalantly on his thighs. Killer Cretin, alias George Oliver, sat beside him.

  The bar’s owner stood behind them both, a pistol leveled at their heads.

  “Evenin’, Melisande,” Brig said cheerfully.

  “Don’t look so calm.” She heard her voice tremble with disappointment and despair. “Are you crazy? What in the world is wrong with you?”