Laurant opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She shot Nick a pleading look.

“Get to the point, Bessie Jean,” Viola urged as she folded her napkin neatly on the table and stood.

“All right then, I will,” she said, delicately dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Safe sex, Nicholas.”

“Yes, dear,” Viola agreed. She circled the table, collecting the plates. “We want you to practice safe sex . . . shall we have dessert?”

CHAPTER 18

Steve Brenner was in a cold rage. The bitch had gone too far this time. No one, man or woman, was going to make a fool out of him. It was high time Laurant was taught a lesson, and he was just the man to inflict it. Who the hell did she think she was to humiliate him in front of his associates and his friends by bringing another man home?

How could anyone fall in love in the space of one weekend?

Infuriated over the news Sheriff Lloyd had just given him, he picked up a chair and hurled it across the room, knocking a desk lamp to the floor. He watched it shatter, and then, still enraged, he slammed his fist into the wall. Fresh paint splattered in every direction, spraying white mist on his freshly laundered, bloodred, Polo shirt. The drywall crumbled under his hand, and the skin on his callused knuckles ripped wide open when he struck the cement block behind the wall. Oblivious to the pain or the mess he’d just made, he jerked his hand back, then shook himself like a wet dog ridding itself of excess water.

He couldn’t think when he was this angry, and he knew he needed to be clearheaded so that he could figure out his options. He was the master of the game, after all. The bitch didn’t understand that yet, but she soon would. Yes, indeed.

Sheriff Lloyd was sprawled in a chair behind an empty desk. He appeared to be relaxed, but inside he was as nervous and tense as a cornered possum because he knew firsthand what Steve was capable of when he was riled. God help him, he never wanted to see that side of his new associate again.

Lloyd’s brand new, silver, mustang belt buckle was digging painfully into his gut, but he was afraid to move. He didn’t want to do anything that would draw attention to himself until Steve had gotten his temper under control.

Fat red drops of blood were steadily dripping down on Steve’s pressed khaki pants and turning into black streaks all the way down to his knee. Lloyd thought about telling Steve—he knew how important his appearance was to him—but he decided to keep quiet instead and pretend he didn’t notice.

Most of the women in town thought Steve was a handsome man, and the sheriff supposed he was, with his wavy brown hair and good bone structure. His face was a little long, but when he smiled, the women didn’t see anything but charisma. He wasn’t smiling now though, and if those same women could see the frost in his eyes, they wouldn’t think he was handsome at all. They might even be as afraid of him as Lloyd was.

Steve clenched and unclenched his fists as he stood at the window, looking out at the square with his back to the sheriff. Three teenagers were riding their skateboards along the sidewalks, ignoring the posted signs prohibiting bicycles and skateboards as they sped along. The pharmacist, Conrad Kellogg, came running outside waving his hands when one of the freaks with dyed-orange, long, straggly hair accidentally rammed into his window.

Directly across the square, the door opened to Laurant’s store, and the Winston twins, dressed in bib overalls, came outside. They were working late tonight. The streetlights were already on, which meant it was after seven. All the stores but the pharmacy closed at six. The twins were working overtime to get the store ready. Steve watched as they adjusted the seals around the window they’d just installed in her storefront.

“A damn waste of money,” he muttered.

“What’d you say, Steve?”

He didn’t answer. Since the brooding man wasn’t paying any attention to him now, Lloyd decided it was safe to get comfortable. He eased his belt down below his extended belly, unbuttoned his pants to give him a little more room, and then dug his pocketknife out of his pocket. Flipping the rusty blade open, he began to dig the dirt out from under his ragged nails.

“I take off for a couple of days to get in a little fishing, and what happens? She falls in love with another man. Son of a bitch. If she had only given me a chance . . . if she had let herself get to know me, she would have fallen in love with me. No question about that. I can be fu**ing charming when I want to,” Steve snapped.

Lloyd didn’t know if he should try to placate him now or commiserate with him on this latest development. Saying the wrong thing could be worse than saying nothing at all, and so he settled on a loud grunt, leaving it to Steve to interpret.

“But she wouldn’t give me the time of day,” Steve railed. “All I wanted was a chance. I figured I’d give her some time to get used to the idea, then maybe send her some more flowers and ask her out again. Did you see the way she ignored me at the fish fry last month? No matter what I did, she wouldn’t let me get near her. She acted like I was a pesky fly. That’s how much attention she gave me. People noticed too. I saw the way they were watching me.”

“Now, Steve, it ain’t like that at all. Everyone in Holy Oaks knows you’re going to marry Lauren. She’s got to know it too. Maybe she’s just sowing some wild oats before she settles down.”

“Men sow wild oats, not women.”

“Then maybe she’s just playing hard to get.” He winced when he poked tender skin under his thumbnail with the pocketknife. “You’re going to be the richest man in the valley and she knows it. Yeah, that’s what she’s doing. Playing hard to get.”

“I thought she was . . . better than that.”

“Than what?”

“If he’s staying there with her, then she’s letting him touch her.”

Rage was back in his voice, and Lloyd tried to deflect it. “I think she’s just testing you. Women like men to chase them. Everybody knows that.”

“Who were those men at the house?” He whirled around and regarded the sheriff malevolently while he waited for an explanation. He got an excuse instead.

“I was in a hurry to tell you about Lauren bringing home another man. I didn’t think to ask their names. They told me they were friends and they were there to fix her sink. They had tools and I figured they were probably on their way to the abbey.”

“But you didn’t bother to get their names or see some identification.”

“I was in a hurry,” Lloyd whined. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“For God’s sake, you’re the sheriff in this two-bit, shantytown. Don’t you know how to do your job?”

Lloyd dropped the knife and put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Don’t take your anger out on me. I’m just the messenger. If you want, I’ll go right on back there and get all the information you want.”

“Forget it,” Steve muttered before turning his back on the sheriff again. “Maybe that old, dried-up biddy next door was right. Maybe they were robbing Laurant’s house.”

“Now, Steve, you know she doesn’t have nothing worth stealing. I’m telling you they’re just friends.”

Steve couldn’t get his anger under control. Laurant sharing her bed with another man. It was unforgivable. Maybe she was just trying to assert her independence . . . playing a little game with him. Oh, yes, she needed to be taught a lesson all right. He’d let her rudeness go unpunished in the past, and so he could only blame himself for this latest insult. The first time she had given him the cold shoulder he should have put the fear of God into her then and there. Some women required a heavy hand until they learned where their place was. His first wife had been like that, but he’d believed Laurant was different. She’d seemed delicate and almost perfect, but he realized now he’d used the wrong approach. He’d been too damned polite and nice, but that was going to change.

“No one falls in love in a single weekend.”

“According to her friends, she’s real taken with this Nick Buchanan,” Lloyd remarked. His head was down, his concentration on getting the dirty paste out from under his pinky nail. “These friends . . . they told me Nick and Lauren were gonna get married.”

After blurting out the last bit of information, Lloyd glanced up to see how Steve was reacting.

“Bullshit,” Steve muttered. “That isn’t going to happen.”

Lloyd nodded. “But you know . . . if they should get married, they’d probably move away . . . what with his job and all . . . I didn’t think to ask what it was this Nick fellow does for a living . . . but then don’t you see? She’d have to sell her store.”

Steve’s gaze turned glacial as he watched Lloyd. The fat man reminded him of a monkey in the zoo, grooming himself in public without a care in the world. He was disgusting, but he was useful, and for that reason, Steve put up with him.

Lloyd put his penknife away, noticed all the dirt on the white desk pad, and brushed it to the floor. Glancing out the window he remarked, “Looks like Lauren’s store is going to open real soon.”

“That isn’t going to happen either,” Steve said. His face was contorted with anger, and he took a threatening step toward the sheriff. “Do you have any notion in that pea brain of yours how much money we stand to lose if she gets her way and convinces the other shop owners not to sell? I’m not letting anyone screw this deal.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Are you talking about breaking the law?”

“Screw the law,” he roared. “You’re already in this up to your ass,” he added in a snarl. “So what if you have to go in a little deeper.”

“I haven’t broken the law.”

“Yeah? Tell that to old lady Broadmore. You’re the one who forged her name on that legal document.”

Lloyd began to sweat. “That was all your idea, and what was the harm? The old lady was already dead and her relatives will get the money, so they sure don’t care. Hell, they would have sold her store, but you said they’d hold us up for a lot more money if they knew about our deal with the development company. I don’t look at what we done as criminal.”

Steve’s laugh sounded like a nail going down a chalkboard. “It might have been my idea, but you’re the man who signed her name, and I noticed you couldn’t wait to spend your bonus money buying yourself a new car.”

“I only did what I was told to do.”

“That’s right, and you’re going to keep on doing what you’re told. You want to retire a rich man, don’t you?”

“Sure I do. I want to leave this town . . . get away from . . .”

“Lonnie?”

The sheriff averted his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re afraid of your own son, aren’t you, Lloyd? As mean and bad-tempered as you are, you’re still afraid of him.”

“Hell, no, I’m not,” he blustered.

Steve hooted with laughter, and the sound was even more grating than ten fingernails scratching at a chalkboard. Lloyd had to force himself not to cringe.

“You chicken shit. You’re scared of your boy.”

At the moment, what scared Lloyd more than his son was knowing that Steve could see through his “big man” veneer. “Lonnie’s going on nineteen years now, and I’m telling you, he ain’t never been right in his head, not even when he was little. He’s got a real mean attitude and a nasty temper to boot. I’ll admit I do want to get away from him, but not because I’m scared. I can still beat the crap out of him. It’s just that I’m sick and tired of the messes he’s always getting himself into. I’ve had to sneak him out of trouble more times than I can count. Lonnie’s going to kill someone one of these days. He came damn close with the Edmond girl. She ended up in the hospital, and I had to do some pretty fancy talking to get that doctor to keep quiet. I convinced him that Mary Jo would kill herself if folks heard she’d gotten herself raped. She’d never be able to hold her head up in this town again.”

Steve cocked his head. “You threatened him too, didn’t you? I’ll bet you told him you’d sic Lonnie on him or his wife if he said a word. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I did what I had to do to keep my boy out of jail.”

“You know what everyone in town calls you? Sheriff Lard Ass. They’re laughing at you behind your back. If you want things to change, keep your mouth shut and do what I tell you to do. Then you can leave Holy Oaks and Lonnie, and never look back.”

Lloyd was slowly tearing strips from the paper on the blotter. He kept his gaze averted when he asked, “You aren’t gonna tell Lonnie what I’m planning to do, are you? The boy thinks he’s gonna get a big cut of the money, and I want to be long gone before he figures out he ain’t getting a dime.”

“I won’t tell him anything as long as you continue to cooperate. Do we understand each other? Now about this Buchanan—”

Lloyd’s neck snapped back. “Who?”

Brenner’s hand clenched into a fist again with the intent of smashing it into Lloyd’s fat face, but he felt the sting in his knuckles this time, and glancing down, saw the bloodstains on his pant leg. Shit. He was going to have to change clothes again. Appearances had to be maintained, and he couldn’t stand to look the least bit imperfect.

“Never mind,” he muttered as he strode to the bathroom in the back of the office to wash his hand.

Lloyd finally remembered who Buchanan was. “I still wish you’d let me go on back to Lauren’s house and have a talk with those friends. They could still be there.”

Lloyd’s nasally whine was getting on Steve’s nerves. He didn’t have any patience for slow-witted people, and if the sheriff weren’t a necessary ingredient in his grand scheme, he would have taken great delight in beating the hell out of him. Better yet, he’d order Lonnie to do it for him while he watched. The boy would do whatever Steve told him to do because, like his father, he was motivated by greed and hate, and failure.

He finished washing, patted his hands dry with a paper towel, then folded it neatly into a perfect square before tossing it into the trash can. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out his comb and stood in front of the mirror, smoothing his hair back. “Where’s Lonnie now?” he called out.