But Roxie knew what a vicious gaggle of griping, sniping geese the Raleigh Wives could be. After Brian’s defection, far from rallying around her, they had collectively ignored her, all the while continuing to invite Brian to their houses, where, she was sure, they’d cooed over him and offered their “support.” She shouldn’t have been surprised; they went with the money, and despite the generous settlement, in the long run that would mean Brian.
The doorbell annoyingly rang again. “Go away!” Roxie snuggled deeper into the womb she’d treated with 600-thread-count sheets, an embroidered silk comforter, and her wall of chips.
But the doorbell didn’t stop. It got more insistent, then more insistent. Roxie glared at the ceiling. Didn’t anyone respect anyone’s privacy anymore? Didn’t people know she had A Situation on her hands that required complete and total despair?
If she left the house from the terrace door, she could drive into town and buy a gun. It was only a fifteen-minute drive. Then she could put a final end to the annoyance.
There was a long silence, then she heard the click of a key in the lock and then her brother’s voice, calling from the foyer, “Roxie, I saw your car in the drive! Are you here?”
Damn it, Mark must have heard about the divorce. She hadn’t told anyone—not Mark and certainly not Mother. Mark might get angry at Brian, but Mother would have a cow. Treymaynes did not get divorced. Why, when Arlene left Mark, Mother had almost disowned him, saying that if he didn’t find Arlene and patch things up, the family name would be “smirched.” Though, if anyone had besmirched the family name it was Arlene, who’d ridden off into the sunset with a rodeo rider.
“Roxie?” Mark’s voice was on the stairway now.
She struggled to sit up and yelled, “I’m up here. What do you want?”
She should have left straight for Paris yesterday and had a passionate rendezvous with a mysterious Frenchman in a dark café. Or perhaps found a bedroom-eyed Italian to sip wine with in a trattoria in Florence.
Mark appeared in her bedroom doorway, his clothes rumpled, his hair mussed, his tie askew.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his gaze locked onto her hair. He just stood there, mouth ajar.
She frowned. “What?”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You’re blonde.”
“Did you come to compliment my new ’do, or did you want something?” She dug through the bags of chips, opened a fresh one, and munched a handful. “I suppose you’ve heard about what’s happened?”
He ripped his gaze from her hair with obvious difficulty, coming further into the room, looking relieved. “You already know? That’s good.”
“Of course I know. How could I not?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to call you since I found out, but no one answered.” He frowned. “You seem very calm.”
“I am. I’m glad it’s over.”
He paled. “Over? Mother didn’t—”
“Please don’t bring Mother into this! It was hard enough going through a divorce without knowing how Mother was going to take it and—”
“Divorce?” Mark gaped at her. “But … why? You and Brian were the perfect couple!”
“Someone forgot to tell Brian.” Roxie forced the words from her stiff lips. “He fell in love with someone else.”
Mark winced and suddenly looked exhausted. “Jeez, Roxie. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s OK.” Though nothing was OK anymore. She rubbed her forehead with a weary hand. I should miss Brian, but I don’t. She frowned. Is that normal? Maybe I don’t miss him because I was already sad and lonely when I lived with him. Now I feel angry and betrayed, but that beats sad and lonely by a huge, scary margin. She cleared her throat. “Since you didn’t know about the divorce, why did you come?”
Mark rubbed his eyes. “Oh, God. You don’t need to hear this, but—Roxie, it’s Mother.”
Time shuddered to a halt. Roxie clutched her bag of chips like a shield. “What happened?”
“She had a heart attack, but Doc Wilson says she’ll be fine.”
Roxie breathed a relieved sigh. “Thank God!”
“No kidding. It happened yesterday.”
“Why didn’t someone call me?”
“I tried! Your phone just rang and rang.”
She looked at the cord, where it hung over a chair in the corner of the room. “Oh, yeah. I never thought something might happen.”
“None of us did. Doc said it was a very mild attack, but you know how Mother is.” Mark sent her a grim look. “Rox, we have to go home to Glory and get her back on track.”
Roxie looked down. This certainly put a crimp in her budding plans to be bad, but that was what she got for hesitating. She shoved the chip bags aside and climbed from her bed. “It’ll just take me a few minutes to pack.”
Mark smiled tiredly. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this. Mother’ll want someone with her night and day, and—” He blinked. “Hey, do you think you could talk Tundy into helping us? She’s got more sand than any woman I know.”
Roxie paused with one hand on the closet door. “That just might work. Tundy’d do anything if you paid her enough, and she knows Mother from the times she came to visit.”
Mark fished his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll give her a call. What’s her number?”
Roxie let Mark make the call. Tundy was a sucker for a smooth man, and when Mark was on his game, no one was better.
Roxie threw clothes into a suitcase; sensible, sober clothes for “With Mother” and fun, playful clothes that showcased the new Roxie for times “Away From Mother.”
Frowning, she looked with distaste at a high-necked yellow dress suitable for an episode of Father Knows Best. She set her jaw, then pulled out every last sober and sensible thing she’d packed, leaving nothing but her flirty new clothes. Then, chin high, she zipped up her suitcase. Like it or not, Mother was just going to have to adjust.
It was time someone other than Roxanne Treymayne compromised on life.
Sheriff Nick Sheppard knew the little town of Glory better than any human should. He knew every car and pickup, every house and shed, and every last tree for a ten-mile radius. He could recite names, relationships, and even the birth dates for most of the citizens. He should have been able to—he’d been born and raised in Glory and, except for a twelve-year move to Atlanta, he’d never lived anywhere else.
Glory, North Carolina, was the exact opposite of his experience in Atlanta. Here, being sheriff was a personal sort of job. Just this morning, he’d had to personally unwedge the head of Mrs. Clinton’s fat pug from between the spindles of her front porch railing, then he’d personally investigated a report of a stolen lawn mower over on 5th and Elm, which had turned up in a neighbor’s garage, having been borrowed but forgotten. After that he’d very personally answered yet another emergency call from Deloris Fishbine, the city librarian, about a supposed noise she’d heard in her attic late last night.
That was the third call she’d made this week, and he’d already half-decided that the old woman had a thing for men in uniform when he’d caught her at the bottom of her attic ladder, shining a flashlight up at his ass. It didn’t get much more personal than that.
The distant sound of a car approaching fast made Nick lift his radar gun and look down the road.
A red-hot ’68 Mustang roared into view. Oh, yeah. That was a good one. He clicked the trigger and was rewarded with a rising squeal. Twelve miles over the limit.
He reached into his squad car and flipped on the lights, then waved the car over. The Mustang’s rear lights flashed on and the car whipped to the side of the road, spraying gravel. Nick caught a glimpse of the driver, a hot blonde wearing huge hater-blocker sunglasses that would look less out of place in L.A.
Well! That was a sight he hadn’t seen in his two-year tenure as town sheriff. And a good thing, too. If he knew anything, it was that women could be trouble, especially hot blondes who thum
bed their perfect noses at the law. He’d seen the damage a woman could do if a man got too mixed up and lost his objectivity. He’d sworn to never succumb to such dangerous temptation.
He approached the car, noted the Raleigh plates, and counted at least two other occupants besides the driver. To keep his hands free, he tucked his ticket book into his back pocket and walked to the open window. The driver was turned away from him as she dug through her wallet, obviously looking for a license. His gaze dropped to the space between the woman and the door, instinctively looking for a weapon—old training from when he’d worked somewhere far busier and far more violent.
As he expected, he didn’t find anything of interest. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. That long expanse of smooth, tanned thigh and, at the curve of her hip, the hint of a tattoo peeking from the edge of her white shorts were very interesting.
His gaze lingered appreciatively.
Whoever she was, she definitely wouldn’t fit in with the grayhairs and shiny domes who sat around Micki & Maud’s Diner, complaining about the weather.
Nick bent down to the open window. “Ma’am, I’m going to need to see your driver’s license and registra—”
The woman looked up and flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. In one blinding moment, Nick forgot everything he was going to say. Sitting before him was the reason he’d left the idyllic little town of Glory in the first place—Roxie Treymayne. “You changed your hair color!”
It was a stupid thing to say and her reaction was immediate.
Hot color flooded her cheeks, but her chin immediately notched up a level as if ready for a fight. “You think?” she asked in a cool, faintly sarcastic way he immediately recognized.
Nick flicked a glance at the creamy blond hair lifting up into a ponytail, hair that had once been such a deep brown that it had bordered on black. He might not know that new hair, but he did know those wide, pale blue eyes, thick black lashes, and pouty, kissable mouth, just as he knew that too-stubborn chin. At one time, he’d showered them all with kisses. “Roxie Treymayne.”
“Nick Sheppard.” Her gaze flicked over him before she met his gaze, humor lurking in her expression. “A cop. I never saw that coming.”
“Yeah, well, neither did I. Though my mother’s glad I’m in charge of the jail rather than residing in it.” Though he tried not to, his gaze drifted, noting the low-cut halter top and … the twinkle of a navel ring above the waistband of her short shorts.
Once a too-good-for-anyone brunette ice queen, Roxie Treymayne had returned to town as a hot, sexy blonde. A hot, tattooed, navel-pierced blonde, at that.
Hot damn.
Nick’s mind reeled. Growing up, he’d watched little Roxie Treymayne prance about Glory, so pure and perfect that it had almost hurt to see her. He’d watched her grow from a leggy sprite wearing a Peter Pan collar to a supremely confident homecoming queen with a large blue satin bow on her shoulder. Just breathing, Roxie had kept every male for miles around panting. Except him.
He hadn’t panted. He’d dreamed, desired, longed for … and had had the good sense to make a run for it before he’d made even more of a fool of himself.
Now, he met her icy blue gaze and realized just how much things had changed. At one time, she’d been the town’s hottest and most unavailable virgin, while he’d been Senior Most Likely to Be in Jail During the Reunion. Now he was a by-the-book cop, while she, by all appearances, had returned a sultry scofflaw, the exact sort of woman he avoided like the plague.
“Well, Officer?” Roxie’s voice traced across his skin like warm fingers. “Am I getting a ticket?”
Nick shoved away his far-too-strong reactions and pulled his ticket book from his back pocket. “You were going twelve miles over the posted speed.”
A snicker from the other side of the car made Nick look across Roxie. In the passenger seat sat a rotund, squat woman dressed in a pink velour sweat suit that clashed with her short, curly red hair. She gripped an oversize bag of barbecue pork rinds in one hand, her fingers orange from the rind dust. She pulled her heart-shaped neon-pink glasses to the end of her freckled nose, and flashed an orange-tinted smile. “Well, hello there, Officer.”
Nick blinked. Had she just winked at him?
He grinned and tipped his hat, then glanced in the backseat and saw a familiar man with tousled dark hair and blue eyes; who was hiding a smile.
“Mark!” Nick exclaimed.
Mark grinned. “Nick! I haven’t seen you since … I don’t know when.”
“Your wedding.”
A shadow crossed Mark’s face.
Oh. So it was like that, was it? “What are you doing back in tow—oh, right.” Everyone knew Mrs. Treymayne had taken ill, and he should have realized what that would mean. “Sorry about your mother.”
“Me, too.” Mark glanced at Nick’s uniform. “I thought you were in Atlanta.”
Roxie glanced his way, but Nick kept his attention on Mark. “I came back here a couple of years ago.”
“Not paying enough?”
“Not enough peace.”
A question flickered through Mark’s eyes, but all he said was, “I suppose that’s as good a reason as any.”
Nick thought so, too. He was glad Mark didn’t ask any more questions; he wasn’t ready to talk about Atlanta. That was a time best forgotten, just like he should forget Roxanne Treymayne. Only … it wasn’t Treymayne now, but Parker.
Which was a good thing. He wanted to stay in Glory and make a life here. He didn’t want any trouble, and the new Roxie Treymayne looked like trouble with a capital T. But at least she was someone else’s Trouble.
Nick opened the ticket book. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to issue you a warning.”
“Roxie, how fast were you going?” Mark asked.
“Oh, she was flyin’,” the redhead in the front seat said. “Just flyin’! I warned her, too, but she wouldn’t have none of it. No, sir, she told me she knew the speed limit and—”
“Thanks, Tundy,” Roxie said through clenched teeth.
Nick raised his brows. “Tundy?”
Roxie showed him her teeth in a saccharine-sweet smile. “Nick, this is Tundy Spillers. Tundy, this is Nick Sheppard. He used to be one of Mark’s friends back in high school.”
He’d been Roxie’s “friend,” too, if four weeks of mindless, all-absorbing passion warranted the term. But Roxie hadn’t been willing to publicly claim him as such, of course.
To his surprise, the old hurt returned and, jaw tight, he touched the brim of his hat. “Nice to meet you, Miss Tundy.”
The redhead grinned. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m Miz Parker’s maid.”
Nick sent a quick glance at Roxie. Who in the hell would come to Glory with a maid?
“Tundy’s come to take care of Mother,” Roxie said impatiently, her blue gaze pinning him in place, as if she’d been able to read his thoughts. “She has a lot of experience tending older folks.”
Tundy leaned forward to tell Nick in a confidential voice, “I make corn bread and soup beans, and they like that. Keeps ’em regular and—”
“Tundy,” Roxie interrupted, “Nick’s not here to hear about your recipe for staying regular.”
“No,” Tundy said, crunching on another pork rind. “He’s here ’cause you were drivin’ like a bat outta hell.”
Roxie sent an accusing look at Nick. “Someone changed the speed limit.”
“The city council did it last month because we’ve been getting a lot of vacation traffic whizzing through here on weekends. I’ve been giving out warnings ever since.”
“Lovely. Just give me that warning and we’ll be on our way. We’ve things to do.” With that, Roxie settled her hater-blocker glasses back onto the bridge of her patrician nose and effectively relegated him to the level of security guard at Costco.
Nick took his time finding his pen. “I’ll be glad to give you the warning, Mrs. Parker.”
“I prefer Treymayne,” she said ters
ely.
Nick lifted his brows, but before he could speak, Mark sighed. “Rox, just pay attention to the signs next time, will you?”
Tundy snorted. “I tried to tell her, but you know how stubborn she can be. How completely pigheaded and—”
“Thank you, Tundy,” Roxie said abruptly before saying to Nick in a voice most people reserved for repelling telemarketers, “Can you hurry, please? Mother’s expecting us.”
Heaven forbid anyone keep Lilah Treymayne waiting. If there was one thing Nick disliked about Glory, it was the fact that Roxie’s mother, the widow of and mother to the sole descendents of the town’s founding father, General LeeRoy Treymayne, thought she owned the whole place. And Lilah wasn’t shy about invoking the spirit of her long-dead husband whenever she felt she wasn’t being treated with enough deference.
Nick refused to treat Lilah Treymayne any differently than he did anyone else, which was one of the many reasons she couldn’t stand him. “I’ll need your license and registration, and then you can be on your way.”
Nick filled out the warning while he tried not to stare at Roxie’s smooth, tanned thighs and remember the time when he’d kissed his way up them to— He blinked at the ticket and scowled. He’d written his name in the date slot, and he’d be damned if he’d let her see it. He flipped the page over and started a new one, hoping she didn’t notice. It took all of his concentration, but he filled it out correctly. “Here you are.”
She reached for it and their fingers met. For a long moment, they stared at each other, their fingers clenched over the same paper. Nick’s heart gave an odd gallop, and then, with a wince, as if she’d burnt her fingers, Roxie snatched the paper from his hand, almost tearing it in two.
Nick stepped away from the car. “Watch the signs from now on,” he said in a voice that matched hers for terseness.
She threw the car into gear.
“See you around, Nick!” Mark called as Roxie hit the gas and wheeled onto the road.
“Bye, Officer!” Tundy yelled out the window, waving a pudgy, orange-fingered hand.