Divorced, Desperate and Delicious

Everything happened so fast, all Lacy could do was grip her toilet plunger and try to keep up. Guns were drawn, pointed. Words were spoken, then Chase yelled out and she saw him lunge forward.

  A loud pop sounded at the same time she heard the familiar metallic bing of the White Elephant taking another bullet. Then came the grunt of two bodies colliding. Chase and Zeke fell to the street, their legs and arms swinging.

  They rolled right, then left. Chase ended on top. Zeke held his arm up in the air, gun clasped tight. Chase gripped his wrist with one hand while his other hand pounded Zeke’s face. Zeke punched back.

  The two men rolled. Zeke ended on top this time. His gun hand was extended, held there by Chase’s strong grip.

  Lacy’s gaze zipped to Jason, who was standing only five feet away, scowling. His gun was aimed, but it moved a half-inch this way, then a half-inch that way.

  “Do something!” Lacy screamed, but even as she said it, she knew why he didn’t fire. The risk of hitting Chase was too great.

  Her gaze flew back to Zeke and Chase. As if in slow motion, Zeke’s arm lowered, the barrel slowly moving down. Down. Down toward Chase.

  Lacy rushed forward. Her first swing brought the plunger down across Zeke’s head; the second hit smack dab on his balding forehead. That blow must have momentarily stunned him, because Chase gained control and twisted on top.

  Too bad Lacy couldn’t stop mid-swing. The plunger’s third strike bounced off Chase’s face.

  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Jason Dodd was in the middle of the scuffle. Lacy danced from one foot to the other, plunger held up like a bat, trying to find her target, the snake-eyed Zeke, in the middle of the three-man scuffle.

  She swung, heard a grunt. She wasn’t sure who she’d hit, but Jason Dodd cursed. She swung again and got Zeke on the ear.

  The clink sounded of a gun being dropped onto the pavement just as more sirens and screeching tires echoed around them.

  Chase, blood oozing from his lip, lunged up and grabbed Lacy by the shoulders. He gripped her tightly as his gaze flew up and down her body. “You weren’t hit. You weren’t hit,” he repeated, as if talking to himself.

  Lacy waited for him to pull her against him; instead he let her go, held out his hands, and clutched his fist in front of her. “Do you fucking see why I told you to stay in the van? He could have killed you.”

  “He didn’t,” Lacy said, and swallowed her need to cry.

  Jason Dodd’s voice rang out. “We’ve got him,” he yelled to the officers getting out their patrol cars.

  • • •

  Chase watched Lacy pull the plunger to her chest and hug it as if it were a damn teddy bear. Then he swung around and watched Jason handcuff Zeke. Chase’s hands shook as he fought the need to crush his fists into Zeke’s face.

  Jason, his knee pressed into Zeke’s back, looked up at Chase. “Stokes regained consciousness,” he said. “He gave this asshole up.”

  Zeke jerked his head back. “He must be in on it, too! He—” Zeke spluttered to a stop when Jason gave his face a shove into the pavement.

  Only when Jason stood up and two officers hauled the red-faced and furious Zeke off to their patrol car, did Chase really believe. He drew in a shaky breath and wiped the blood from his mouth. Remembering what had brought on the injury, he spat the taste of blood, rubber and toilet water from his tongue.

  Then his gaze went back to Lacy. She stood by the van door, that damn plunger still clutched to her chest. He shook his head, furious at her for not listening—more furious at himself for allowing her to be put in harm’s way.

  He marched over, now within an arm’s reach of her, and noticed the chalky color of her skin. With her face washed white, her blue eyes spoke volumes on what she’d been through. She dropped the plunger, and he saw her chin quiver. His heart seemed to follow suit

  “You are the most stubborn, hardheaded woman I’ve ever met,” he growled; then he wrapped his arms around her.

  She leaned into him, circled her arms around his waist and held on like a woman who never intended to let go. Chase closed his eyes and let his hard body absorb the soft feel of hers. He was certain nothing in the world had ever felt so good. “It’s over,” he whispered.

  • • •

  Lacy sat in the small room, turning the half-filled coffee cup in her hands. Every few minutes she’d look at the four walls and wonder who watched her. Every cop show she’d ever seen had either two-way mirrors or some way of watching the person squirming in this type of room.

  For the last hour, she’d done her share of squirming. She’d spoken to two different men and given them a blow-by-blow account of how she’d ended up with Chase Kelly. Of course, she didn’t tell them everything. She didn’t want to cause trouble for Chase, so she’d altered her story a little, omitting the fact that she’d resisted helping him in the beginning, and leaving out that she hadn’t been able to resist him later on.

  The door squeaked on its hinges, and Jason Dodd walked into the room. “You okay?” he asked.

  Lacy stood and held up her cup. “Whoever made the coffee should be arrested.”

  “I’m sorry. Starbucks is just around the corner.” He smiled and hesitated. Then he gave his jaw a pass with his hand. “You know, I’ve never considered a toilet plunger a lethal weapon until now.”

  She forced a smile onto her face. “Sorry. I was aiming at Zeke.”

  He reared back on his heels. “I know.” There was a pregnant pause. “I had someone bring the van around front.” He dropped the keys into her hands and offered a good-bye smile that came with a nod. “You can go now.”

  “What about Chase?” She gripped the keys.

  “IA will have him here for hours. He said to tell you to go on home.”

  “Why are they keeping him?” She folded her arms over her middle, hoping to stop the nervous tickle in her stomach. “I thought Stokes cleared him.”

  “He did. But there’s still the question of the drugs they found at his place.”

  “But Zeke put those there,” Lacy insisted.

  “I know that and you know that, but they don’t.”

  “Then we’ll tell them. Where are they?” Lacy started for the door.

  Jason caught her by the arm. “They won’t listen to us, Lacy. Chase is just going to have to convince them. It will take a while, but he’ll come out of this. The best thing you can do for Chase right now is to go home. He told me to make sure you did just that.”

  Lacy sucked in her bottom lip, remembering Chase telling her it was over. Did he mean they were over? Oh, she didn’t want to believe it. “How long will they keep him?”

  “I wish I knew. They could drag this out for days if they decide to be jerks. They’ve got someone going over to the gym to see if Martinez left anything that could clear him.”

  “I’ll just wait then.” She started back to her chair.

  “You should leave. You can’t do anything sitting here. Chase has got to work this out himself.”

  She looked up, and a thousand questions formed, lined up in her mind like soldiers. She swallowed, afraid to ask, afraid she’d learn something she didn’t want to know. But she had to know. “When did his wife die?”

  Jason’s eyes widened. He hesitated, as if he questioned the wisdom of answering. “A little more than two years ago.”

  “How?” she asked.

  Lacy spotted a touch of grief in Jason’s eyes. That grief told her that he, too, had been close to Chase’s wife. “A brain tumor,” he said.

  “That must have been difficult.” She thought of what Chase must have felt, losing a wife after he’d already had to face the loss of his parents.

  “It’s been hard for him.” A frown pulled at Jason’s expression.

  “He must have really loved her.” She bit into her lip as her emotions began to swirl in another direction.

  “They were good together. They had . . . Sarah was a good person.”

  “How good?” She felt stupid bei
ng jealous of a dead woman, but that’s what she felt: jealousy, pure and simple. Okay, it wasn’t so pure.

  “You know, you probably should speak to Chase about this. He said he would call you.” Jason glanced at the door and plastered another smile on his face, but the expression didn’t hide the emotion in his eyes. Was it pity? Oh, God, it was. He pitied her because . . . because . . .

  He cleared his throat. “And tell your friend Sue I said hello.”

  Lacy blinked, feeling another dad-burn allergy attack coming on. “Is he really going to call me? Or do you think he’s just saying it to get me to leave?”

  Jason opened his mouth and then closed it.

  “Tell me,” she demanded. “I’m a big girl. I can take it. He still loves his wife, doesn’t he?”

  Jason reached out and gripped the back of her chair. “He’d be a fool not to call you. And if the way he—”

  “But is he a fool?” she asked. “Did he, like, swear or something to never care about someone else after his wife died? Is that why . . . why he dates women like Jessie?” Suddenly it made perfect sense. He dated women who could care less about him because he didn’t want to care about them. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she insisted.

  Jason didn’t answer. He didn’t have to; the look on his face told her what she didn’t want to know. She snatched her purse from the table and left before her allergy attack became Noah’s flood.

  She managed to hold back her tears as she walked through the police station. She didn’t shed one drop all the way down the front steps. But when she saw the White Elephant parked out front, the windshield cracked, its bumper drooping, bullet holes marking the freshly painted words, Kathy’s Florist, and dents running along both sides, the tears broke loose.

  Not one scratch. Lacy recalled Kathy’s words, and she cried harder.

  Now, the only decision left to make was if she wanted to be buried or cremated, because Kathy was going to kill her.

  Chapter Twenty-eight