Danger, Sweetheart

  “If he knew,” Natalie replied, absently wondering where Blake even was, “we’d know.”

  “He knows the town’s going belly-up, right? So why hang around?”

  “To help it maybe not go belly-up?”

  “How the hell’s he gonna do that between mucking stalls?”

  Natalie said nothing. Blake’s wealth was a well-kept secret in town. She only knew because she’d seen the property paperwork in Shannah’s name and the foreclosure paperwork with Blake’s name. It was making Natalie nuts, knowing Blake could write a check at any time and … and—

  Go on. Say it. Even if you know saying it out loud would taste like shit in your mouth.

  —save them. But Vegas Douche saving them only solved the immediate problem. One or two checks couldn’t fix two decades of an economic crapshoot. It was likely too late to stop Garrett’s land deal, but even if they could somehow put the brakes on it, the original problem remained: What next?

  So what? What?

  “They giving you shit down at the bank?” Harry asked. “Heard the boss is a real bitch.”

  She snorted. She was the boss at Sweetheart Trust, which he well knew. Everyone but Blake knew. “Fun-nee.”

  “All this because Shannah inherited those farms?” Larry asked. “She shows up; then a few weeks later Vegas Douche comes calling. And neither of them have left.”

  “Weird,” Harry agreed. “Like the plot of a book or something, where at the end all the seemingly unrelated incidents end up being totally related.”

  “A stupid book,” Natalie grumped. This wasn’t fiction, dammit. It was her life. All their lives.

  “It’d almost be interesting,” Larry allowed with a nod, “if interesting things happened in Sweetheart.”

  Harry fiddled with his phone, indicating he needed two more cards from his online opponents. “This is all Jonathan Banaan’s fault. He built Heartbreak, didn’t quit, then had more Banaans. What a bastard!”

  “He was a bastard, remember? His mom was the town librarian and she never got married after the Sam’s Delicious Meats guy knocked her up.”

  “Starting Heartbreak’s long tradition of hot slutty librarians.”

  It was true. Employees of the Heartbreak Public Library were absurdly hot. You practically had to clip a head shot to your résumé to get an interview over there.

  “We’re lucky we’re not hip deep in Banaans,” Harry continued. “Raise. So there’s that to be thankful for, I guess.”

  Not being hip deep in them, it could be argued, is a huuuge part of the problem. But no point in discussing it at this late date.

  “Guess so,” Larry agreed while Natalie nodded. If only Shannah’s family had died, none of this would be happening. But they hadn’t died. It was a lot worse than that.

  “Call,” Harry said.

  “Ha!” Larry was squeezing his phone so hard his knuckles were white. “Got this guy on the run.” Natalie glanced at his hand, then walked around the table to check Gary’s.

  “Um…”

  “What?” Harry snapped.

  “Guys, I think—”

  “Go away, Nat,” Larry ordered. “I’m about to sink this jagoff for trying to buy the pot.”

  “I am not!” Gary snapped back. “I don’t— Wait.”

  Natalie started for the back door. She hadn’t been present for the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013, but it had become legend within hours. She had no interest in witnessing the next iteration.

  “Wait, what’s your hand?”

  “Three threes.”

  “Goddammit! I’m playing you online, aren’t I?”

  “Are you CowboyBaby Number One? Because if you are, then yeah.”

  “My sister is CowboyBaby Number One and you know damned well I’m playing for her while she gets over the C-section for the twins! She’s had a really tough time since the sheriff got amnesia!”

  “It’s retrograde amnesia, not anterograde! He’ll be fine! And I knew you were playing, but how the hell would I know her online poker handle? Sweetheart isn’t that small.”

  “Sweetheart is incredibly small and you know it, you fourth-generation son of a bitch!”

  She let the screen door swing shut, relieved to be on the other side. Let Gary and Larry work out (or not) their weird online poker flirting thing that everyone knew meant they wanted to bang but needed to fight the urge for at least eighteen more months, because Brokeback Mountain. She could not would not get involved; she had a nonexistent love life to fret over and a city guy to find.

  Why d’you even care, Nat? You’re not his keeper. He’s probably sleeping or went to town or done any one of half a dozen things that aren’t your concern.

  She told her inner self to get bent, and pretended she wasn’t getting a little worried about Vegas Douche.

  Twenty-two

  She found him absentmindedly slapping mosquitoes while reading to Margaret of Anjou. Warm light spilled from Main One, lending dim light to the corral. It was cloudless and the moon was nearly full, and distracted as she was, Natalie once again thanked God for the sight. There were places where you couldn’t see the stars for all the artificial light. Blake had spent every night his first week walking around and gaping up at the sky. Twice she’d found him snoring in the tall grass near the tree line. Was that when she’d started finding him almost adorable?

  He was leaning on one of the posts, reading something from his tablet the bugs found mighty interesting (though it could have been just the light). Margaret of Anjou was a dim, puffy shape at the far end of the corral.

  “‘We are unique individuals with unique experiences,’* that’s what it says here. “God knows you’re unique, I’m reasonably certain, though you are my first pony. According to Gary, who can be helpful when he isn’t tripping me with a rake handle or washing my Supertruck with the windows open, you are one of the most unpleasant creatures he has ever encountered. And a rather unpleasant creature like Gary would know.”

  Natalie wanted to say something while hating to intrude, so hovered just out of his sight line, waiting for her moment.

  “Which makes you a unique individual, to be sure. I wonder what happened to you? Were you made evil, or born evil? It raises the inevitable question of nature or nurture.” He paused to bat bugs away from the small glowing screen. “And I have to say, as unscientific as my opinion is, it must be nature. Because I am who I am, and Rake is who he is. If it were nurture, we would both be terrible. But it’s nature, because only Rake is terrible.”

  “What are you doing?” She blurted it without thinking and, startled, he dropped his tablet. Oh, boy. It was so dark out, she really hoped he hadn’t dropped it in a pile of—

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe it’s just mud?”

  Blake groaned and stooped to pick up his tablet. “It hasn’t rained for a week.”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “And I didn’t mean to be startled.” He sighed and used part of his shirtsleeve to rub it-wasn’t-mud off the screen, which had of course fallen screen-side down.

  “We were wondering where you were.”

  “No.” He had turned his back on Margaret of Anjou to give Natalie his full attention, which was startling and far too thrilling. “You wondered. Why?”

  Because I think of you all the time. And not like how I used to think about running you down with the tractor. I mean, I still think that, but lately you’ve been naked in that fantasy.

  She ignored the question. “Come into the house. Harry made that thing you like.”

  “Haricots verts with poached eggs and tarragon vinaigrette?”

  “The other thing you like.”

  “Bacon and Swiss chard pasta?”

  “No, the other—for God’s sake,” she said, laughing a little. “Of course you’re a foodie.”

  “Harry,” he replied, putting a hand over his heart while looking reverent, which made her laugh harder, “is a phenomenal cook. He told
me he wept when they quit publishing Gourmet. And I believed him.”

  “Yep. He did. On and off for a week.” She smirked, remembering. “His wife was confused and pissed, which is why she’s now his ex-wife.”

  “And you have a wonderful laugh.”

  Pleased, she thanked him.

  “It comes perilously close to being shrill, but it’s redeemed by how your eyes get crinkly when you giggle.”

  “Dammit! You just can’t let a compliment be a compliment, can you?”

  “You and my mother,” he sighed, “are of like mind.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Weird. The thought of having something in common with Shannah Banaan. Disturbing. “Time to quit. Let’s go in.”

  He’d been squinting at Natalie in the low light but nodded and came with her willingly enough. Halfway back to the house he cleared his throat.

  “I am aware that on short acquaintance you dislike me,” he began, then paused. “Ah. Thank you for not disagreeing.”

  “I’m warming up to you a bit,” she couldn’t help pointing out. “I don’t spit on your shadow anymore.”

  He looked wry. “From such small things dynasties spring. Regardless, I’d like to take you out to dinner.”

  “Why?”

  He nodded as if expecting her question. Like tall, broad-shouldered rich studs asked her to dinner all the time and what made him so special? She had to swallow a snort; what a world that would be. “So we can discuss—”

  “Because you’re in it every day, I gotta give it to you. We were just talking about it. But it’s only been— What? Two and a half weeks?”

  “Seventeen days, thirteen hours.”

  She groaned. “See, that’s the sort of thing that pisses me off. This isn’t a prison sentence, you big goober.” When he didn’t reply, she added, “It’s not! Okay, maybe you can’t help thinking of it like that. But that’s the thinking that got you stuck here in the first place, right? So what’s there to discuss?”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  Flattery was being replaced by glum anger. Slumming. That’s what this was. He knew he wouldn’t be here forever. He knew she knew that. But hey, make time with a local, maybe get some NoDak nooky, while away the hours until it was time to run back to Vegas.

  “We can discuss anything you like,” he was saying, and then she lost it.

  “Discuss what?” She was dumb enough to again be warmed by his interest, and stomped the warmth until it went away. “Your big plans for the farm you don’t give a shit about? How you don’t want to be here, but Mommy’s making you? How the second you and your mom make up you’re on the next flight to Vegas?”

  “Actually, I’d take the train again; it was quite nice,” he replied absently. Then: “I’m confused.”

  She snorted. “Got that right.”

  “Are you angry because—”

  “Oh, boy, I hope you cleared your afternoon. Because I’ve got a list.”

  He shuddered a little. “No doubt.” They were at the kitchen door. The windows were open; it had been a mild day in the low seventies, no need for the air conditioner. The relative silence made for an excellent warning system: they could hear shouting and chairs being shoved around.

  “Deuces aren’t wild! They’re never wild! I made that rule in 2009, for God’s sake!”

  “Except when we’re doing Texas Hold ’Em! I made that rule in 2007!”

  “Dear God, no,” Blake gasped, freezing in place even as he reached for the screen door handle. “Not the addendum to the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013?”

  “They were playing each other online,” she sighed, “and only realized it about five minutes ago.”

  He nodded once, decisive. “We’ll flee.” Without discussing it, they started to circle around to the front porch. “We were discussing the reason for your dislike.”

  “We were discussing the fact that it’s a huge long list and you’re not the only one on it.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it.” He chuckled. “Though how anyone besides me would be foolish enough to get on your bad side I cannot comprehend.”

  “Aww. That’s sweet.” It was!

  “You could so easily end any of us where we stand. If you were a boa constrictor, your jaw would already be unhinged in preparation.”

  She swallowed a groan. “Did you really just compare me to a goddamn snake?”

  “It’s an apex predator,” he replied, sounding wounded of all things. She squashed the urge to apologize, and was beginning to realize that was his thing. He’d make an absent comment that was the nicest thing ever, then immediately follow it up with something annoying.

  “Do you dislike me because I’m not from here—”

  “Maybe I dislike you because you compare me to predatory snakes!”

  “No, I only just did that, and your animosity has been directed toward me for several days. So is it because I’m not from Sweetheart? Or North Dakota?”

  “Naw. The gal who runs the bait shop/singles center—”

  “Bait Mate?”

  “That’s the one.” Things that worked in other places weren’t always suited to Sweetheart singles. Wine tastings were considered a waste of time when both town bars had adequate selections. There wasn’t a sports bar, because the North Dakota Wizards left for Santa Cruz in 2012, they didn’t have a team in the NHL, and nobody gave a shit about curling. Movie dates? Nobody wanted to drive an hour and forty-five minutes to see the latest Transformers explode-a-thon. And Starbucks had been run out of town within six months, nine out of ten residents refusing to pay eight dollars for a cup of coffee, no matter how dramatically sweetened or mixed or whipped or frozen.

  But there were lots of fishermen/women in town, and a lot of them hooked up at the bait shop (pardon le pun). You could pick up a bag of smelt and get a date for the fishing opener at the same place.

  “Yeah, her—she was from Atlanta and everyone liked her. Except Garrett Hobbes, but you know: Garrett.”

  “Then is it because I don’t wish to be here?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. Kevin Sumner showed up to survey the place when they were figuring out where the new highway would go, and he never did get around to leaving. And everyone liked him, too—you should have seen all the locals at his funeral!”

  Blake doggedly continued; she had to admire it. Or be terrified of it. “Or because my mother has frozen my assets?”

  “Leave your mother out— Wait, what?” This was news. “You’re not rich?”

  “No. Nor is my brother; our mother controls the family’s wealth.”

  “But … you … I heard your father—” Wait. Wait. Calm down. There’s an explanation. If he didn’t have money, he couldn’t have signed off on the paperwork I saw. Ergo, he has money.

  “Yes, the money is from my father’s side, but he died when my brother and I were minors.”

  “Sorry.” A knee-jerk social platitude, she knew, but it was true; she was sorry. She couldn’t imagine her life if her father had died when she was a kid. Her earliest memory was of helping her father with one of his many experiments; their kitchen had as many Erlenmeyer flasks as forks. He still lived in the house where she’d grown up, and there were pictures of her late mother in every room, including the bathroom and basement laundry room. “That must have sucked.” She instantly cursed herself for channeling a seventeen-year-old girl. Must have sucked? Really, Nat?

  “The sucking was not as encompassing as you might assume.” Blake shrugged. “I never knew the man, though I understand he’s a lot like Rake, so I don’t actually mind not knowing him, because Rake is terrible.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Blake was almost pathologically obsessed with his brother’s terribleness. It was at least as troubling as men who were obsessed with their mothers. Which Blake might also be. “Talk about the money more, please.”

  They had reached the front by then, and he held the door for her as they went inside. “My grandmother didn’t know about us until the reading of his will,
and sought us out to both make our acquaintance as well as inform my mother she would be the trustee of his estate.”

  “Okay.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. There’s money. Somewhere, anyway. “So. Then?”

  “Mom has always been generous until, ahem, recent events. She’d never tried to control how or what we spent, but legally she always had the option. She is now exercising it.” This last on a note so dry it could have smoked trout.

  Natalie rubbed her forehead, willing back the instant headache. Nothing. This had all been for nothing. She’d been trying to figure out how to make Vegas Douche save Heartbreak when she “should have been working on Shannah Banana.”

  “Shannah who?”

  Horrified, Natalie looked up into his dark blue eyes, now wide with stunned surprise. “Oh my God. That was out loud? I’m so sorry. I was thinking too hard.”

  “Nonsense, you were thinking just right.”

  She groaned and clutched at his forearm. He stiffened but didn’t pull away. “Please please don’t tell Ms. Banaan I ever ever called her that. She hates it; the whole family hates it; she put Garrett in the hospital over it; now let us never speak of this again.”

  “Nonsense!” He was as happy as she’d ever seen him, and it completely changed his face. God, what a smile. “It’s brilliant; you’re a genius. And henceforth Mom shall be known to me only as Shannah Banana.”

  “No!”

  “Don’t worry; it will remain our dirty secret.” His grin was getting downright predatory, which was doing delicious and unwelcome things to her midsection. Imagine him naked. Looking at you like that. Like he could eat … you … up … ummm …

  “If you do this,” she said, trying for stern but whining instead, “then you’re the terrible one. Not your brother.”

  The grin fell away as if slapped off. “Do not say something you can’t take back, Natalie,” he warned. And why was that hotter, for God’s sake? “Now where is my phone? The taunting must start at once.”

  No! What have I done? Time to leave town. Never thought I’d go unless someone stuck a shotgun barrel between my shoulder blades, but the alternative is a peeved Banaan.