heart twisted in his chest at the sleepless circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin accentuated by a light dusting of freckles.
“Please, Johnny?” she whispered, this time not sounding cajoling but instead nearly desperate.
He sighed. Just like old times. The town had always known him as a rebel, but those closest to him had always realized he was a soft touch, always stupid and sappy enough to step in and take care of people who needed help. Which she did.
Besides which, to his eternal consternation, he never could resist Emma Jean Frasier when she said please.
EMMA DIDN’T MEAN to use Johnny out of spite by asking him to help her to the truck. In fact, when she saw his hesitation, she regretted having to rely on him at all. But she did. She needed to get away and he was the only one who could help her do it.
“What’s the matter with her?” Daneen asked, sounding falsely solicitous. “Shouldn’t she come inside and sit for a while?”
Before Emma could nix that idea, Johnny hurried to thank Daneen and refuse her offer. He went on to briefly tell the other woman what had happened at the store.
Emma barely listened, wondering why she’d let Daneen get to her. Heavens, she was no longer the new kid in school being baited by the most popular girl, like she’d been during her senior year at Joyful High.
God, it seemed another lifetime. Who cared what had happened back then? Teenage dramas had nothing on Emma’s adult life. High school certainly hadn’t prepared her for men like her former boss, Wes Sharpton. Or for women like her former best friend in accounting, Lydia Bailey.
She idly wondered if Wes and Lydia were enjoying their South American honeymoon. And if the last remnants of the money they’d embezzled from the firm—which had put dozens of people out of work and landed them in the middle of an SEC investigation—was all spent yet.
Their money couldn’t have disappeared any faster than Emma’s life savings. Since her last few paychecks had bounced, and her mutual fund investments with the firm had become worthless, her balances had hit zero dollars and zero cents before she and the rest of the staff even knew what had happened.
Her checking account had gone even lower. The resounding boing of the checks she’d bounced all over Manhattan still rang in her ears at night. It was almost as loud as she imagined the metallic clang of the cell doors would have been if she hadn’t immediately covered those checks through the sale of her furniture and jewelry back in the city.
She’d never imagined when she finally settled into brokering and finance—thinking she’d finally found her niche after she’d sampled so many other interesting creative outlets—that she’d end up losing all her money because of her job!
She’d have been better off sticking to archeology. Or art—the show she’d helped fund for an erotic artist a few years ago sure had been fun, though it’d shocked Grandma Emmajean when she’d sent her one of the brochures.
Grandma Emmajean. Her savior. Because coming to Joyful hadn’t been a mere pleasure trip to lick her wounds and wait out the controversy. It’d been a downright necessity, if she wanted a roof over her head…without having to go to her parents for help. It still might come to that. But it hadn’t yet, thank heaven.
“Well?” Johnny asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you ready to go, Emma?”
“Absolutely. It was so nice to see you,” she told Daneen over her shoulder as Johnny helped her down the sidewalk. She leaned against him, almost not even noticing the steadiness of his hand on her arm, the steely strength of his chest against her side and the warm, musky scent of his cologne.
Well, that was a bald-faced lie. She could no more fail to notice those things than a person could pretend not to notice the color of the sky or the metallic way the air tasted right before a wicked thunderstorm. Some things were so elemental they simply couldn’t be ignored. Like him.
Emma suddenly wondered if she’d made a big mistake. Maybe bickering with Daneen would have been a better way to spend her evening. Because after only an hour back in his company, she began to wonder if she would have the strength of will to resist those crazy old feelings she’d always had for Johnny Walker.
Somehow, she feared she wouldn’t.
CHAPTER FOUR
CORA HADN’T HESITATED a moment once she’d gotten inside the waiting room of Boyd Realty. She’d turned right around, made herself a nice peeky-hole between two slats of the miniblinds—which were shamefully dusty, no surprise there—and watched what was going on outside.
The trio continued their chit-chatty conversation for a few minutes. It didn’t take an expert in body language, however, to know there was no friendliness between the two younger women. They were like two cats in a box, trying to stay away from one another until it was safe to swipe, drawing first blood.
She smirked. Daneen Walker was way too uppity, to Cora’s mind, and always had been. It hadn’t helped that her daddy, Sheriff Brady, had spoiled the girl to bits when her mother had passed on fifteen years ago. Lately, she’d been darn near impossible with her claims. She’d been hinting that since Johnny was single, and she was kin, she was gonna serve as his first lady when he got elected mayor after Jimbo Boyd retired.
“Maybe cows’ll fly down Market Street one of these days, too,” she whispered sourly. Because that’d be just about the day any of those white trash Walkers got elected mayor of Joyful.
Prosecuting attorney was bad enough. But since there weren’t lawyers lining up for the low-paying job, she supposed he was the best they could do. She knew it darn near killed Sheriff Brady to have to work with the brother of his ex-son-in-law. Especially with Johnny’s reputation for going easy on the criminal element.
Cora gulped down a bit of guilt. As much as she hated to admit it, Johnny had done a good turn by her grandson, Matthew. The sheriff probably would have seen the boy sent up to juvie hall for tipping over one of the Port-o-lets at the county fair last fall. It might not have been such a fuss and bother if Deputy Willis hadn’t been inside the doggone thing at the time. Johnny Walker had worked things out with the public defender, so the boy had done some community service, but no time in jail.
Anyway, it wasn’t like the portable piss-pot had been damaged. Much. And the township should have paid little Matty and his buddies for the spectacle. Deputy Fred had put on quite an entertaining—if a bit smelly—screaming performance once he’d been rescued. It had been a darn sight more exciting than the sideshows, like the two-headed chicken—obviously a rubber toy with an extra beak super-glued to its butt. Or the hootchie-cootchie girls wagging their saggy fannies all over the midway.
“Mealy-mouthed Fred Willis probably liked getting the attention, anyway,” she muttered, remembering how quiet and whiny he’d been as a child.
Outside, she saw Daneen’s body was stiff with indignation. The snooty Frasier girl with the tattered reputation had a confident look on her face as she and Johnny turned away. Looked like the blond chippie had won this round. Cora had no love for city girls who sold dirty pictures, but it did a body good to see Daneen Walker set back on her round heels once in a while.
Sensing the scene out front was almost over, Cora let go of the blinds. She took a moment to examine the office, even peeking into the small bathroom. When she saw a telltale red wrapper floating in the toilet, she smirked.
Just as she’d suspected…Jimbo Boyd was sticking more than For Sale signs into some of the cheap real estate in Joyful. She sure didn’t suppose Daneen had been filling up rubbers and using them for water balloons.
Filing the information away into the back of her brain for future use, she stepped over to the closed door of Jimbo’s office. She heard his voice, but no one else’s, and assumed he was on the phone, arguing with someone.
Cora smiled. Lucky for her, when Mayor Jimbo argued he did so the same way he did everything else.