Pretty Shameless, page 4
part #2 of Deputy Laney Briggs Series
I was in the middle of a conversation with the high school principal about my presence being needed at the school when Luke’s gruff voice jarred me back to the discussion at hand. “And neither of you knows where he is,” Luke said.
Abruptly I tapped my phone off and looked up.
“Am I keeping you, Deputy Briggs?”
“Nope,” I shoved my phone deep down into my pocket. “Do you know where Wyatt is?”
“Sorry, but you know I don’t associate with losers.” He cocked his hat, dropped his eyes for a quickie shot at my tits, and headed toward the gas-station entrance. “It was good seeing you, Laney,” he hollered over his shoulder before pulling open the front door. “Don’t be a stranger next time you see me.”
And then Luke swaggered inside the gas station. And I was left standing next to the gas pumps wondering how in the hell I could put a lid on this ticking time bomb of a case.
Chapter Three
Bluebonnet Elementary happened to be where hell resided on earth. Thankfully, I’d been given the boot due to a little run-in with a shotgun and one tight-ass-hugging Wrangler butt. Officially, budget cuts had ripped me of my teacher’s certificate. Although everyone in town knew the real truth: my ongoing relationship with one bullheaded Texas Ranger hit rock bottom, and instead of using rational thought I’d pulled a gun on him. At any rate, being the only female deputy of Pistol Rock and having a lame-ass cousin up to his eyeballs in shit and taking threats on my life from guys like Manny Sanchez was way better than spending one more day working inside that hellhole.
I chugged the cruiser up next to the curb and glared at the place, chills running down my spine as I thought about those miserable workdays that never seemed to end. The sun-scorched, butternut brick facade was hidden behind scraggly rows of mesquite trees, the best landscaping a public school could afford. The long row of cracked and dirty windows running down each side of the building betrayed the years of neglect the city’s education budget had endured.
Principal Johnson was on a tirade, etching his way up and down the sidewalk in his rubber soles. His typical panicky reaction to every situation from a broken copy machine to a toilet-papered boy’s locker room. If I had to watch that bobblebutt pace any longer I was going to get a migraine. I threw the cruiser in park and begrudgingly stepped on out. I glanced over at the vultures waiting for the parade to start, then darted my gaze back to Principal Johnson, the poor bastard, bouncing about like he’d sat in an ant bed.
I shoved my left hand down my front pocket and moseyed on over. “Where is he?” I asked. “And really, couldn’t you have just talked Boomer down instead of making such a damn scene?”
The heel drilling took a moment’s rest. Principal Johnson whipped around, sweat lingering on his upper lip. He haphazardly wiped his brow and replied, “Well, hello, Ms. Briggs. I’m glad you could finally show up and whip this ordeal into shape. After all, you and that drunk in there are such bosom buddies, I thought you would do better at handling this one.”
I shifted my weight, scowling. “I know you can’t grow an erection, but how about growing a backbone every now and then.”
Johnson choked on his own spit. Back when I’d taught he’d made more than one attempt at trying to get inside my pants, especially after everything had gone south with Gunner. But when his personal secretary let it slip at a Friday afternoon happy hour that he popped boner pills, us girls at school didn’t take him and his pecker any more serious than a stripper does an old man with gropey hands and money to burn. He shuffled in his boots and caught his breath long enough to speak up. “Well shit, Laney. Somebody’s got to handle the PR side of this. And with my heart complications, I just think it’d be better if you went in there to take care of Boomer.”
Waving him off, I stalked across the schoolyard. Heart complications my ass. More like a case of his hoo-ha outgrowing his balls. As I shoved through the sea of gawkers and into the building, I eye-cornered the school security guard, Armie Mason, who, shoulders squared, hunkered down by some lockers. He looked no more ready to handle this situation than a house cat is ready to kill a sewer rat. The school day had ended abruptly, leaving behind littered hallways of forgotten homework and the occasional number-two pencil. There wasn’t much left to do but sniff out the drunken louse. I passed by crayon-colored, stick-figured families Scotch-taped to the white brick walls. My boots stopped on the crusted, dingy checkerboard tile floor. Halfway down the hall was a door left wide open. I pressed my back up against the monstrous wooden door. The ricocheting sounds of hiccups were deafening. There was nothing like a quick bag and tag. At least I’d accomplish something today.
I gradually pushed through the door and scooted inside the lifeless science room. In the far corner laid Boomer Copley, beer gut shining in all its glory, sprawled out spread-eagle on the floor. He had an arm slung over his eyes and a bottle of Jack hanging on for dear life in his other hand. Apparently, he was more than a little toasted.
I toed him. “Boomer,” I scolded, looking down at his pathetic state. “Up and at ’em.” I gave him another kick just for the heck of it.
Boomer burped and rolled over on his side. “Do you mind, Laney? I’m in the middle of a catnap.” His eyelids fluttered closed while he rocked himself back to sleep.
Had I not just come up for air from all of life’s shit-ass moments, I’d have gone all warm and gooey in the center like s’mores at a campsite bonfire. I slung a leg over his incapacitated body, kneeling down a finger length away from his red, piss-poor face. “Now listen up.” I tried to sound demanding but found myself getting sucked into his empty, dead-as-the-night-sky eyes. “Getting drunk inside an elementary is no way to win a girl’s heart, Boomer Copley.”
He wobbled up to his butt. “I came to talk to Gale,” he slurred.
I offered him a hand. “How’d that work out for you, coming in here drunk?”
Boomer latched on and pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled backward, crashing into a desk. “Can you believe she wanted nothing to do with me?”
“They had to shut the school down because of you, Boomer. Why would she want anything to do with you?”
I didn’t enjoy breaking the man’s spirit. I just thought by now he would’ve caught on to the fact that Gale wasn’t coming home anytime soon, seeing that the divorce had been settled over two years ago. But I guess when a person is constantly in a drunken stupor, time and reality sort of become irrelevant.
In a habitual movement, he tipped the bottle of Jack back toward his liquor-thirsty lips, his mouth open, welcoming the last drop of forgetfulness. I couldn’t stand it anymore, watching the pitiful drunk try without success to quench his parched mouth. I slapped the now empty bottle from his hand. It tumbled to the ground, rolling and rocking to a stop behind the classroom fern.
“It’s time to go, Boomer, before I lose my patience.”
His feverish fingers interlocked with mine. Then he leaned in, baring every ounce of fat he had against my side. He was breathing heavily, and every deep breath he exhaled landed smack in my face. I tried the best I could to hold my breath through my nose while dragging him toward the front doors.
The walk back to cruiser felt more like a walk down the plank. All eyes were on us as Boomer flopped about and stumbled, crashing into lockers and dragging me with him all along the way. The alcohol was clearly wearing thin. I led his drunken ass to the front door and kicked it open. The afternoon sunlight had turned bitter and accusing. I ushered him over to the parked cruiser and wrenched open the back door, placed a hand on his head, and tucked him into a plush bed of ripped terry-cloth seats and empty soda cans. Then I scooted behind the wheel and switched on the radio. “White Liar” by Miranda Lambert spilled out of the scratchy speakers. Ain’t my luck grand? I sucked down the bile barreling up my throat and turned around. Boomer had to be more down on his luck than me. No one’s biggest dream was to be known as the town drunk and having a deputy as a babysitter. He looked so pathetic and sad, curled up like a cat on my backseat. I thumped his head. His heavy shades mechanically flapped wide open, and his dilated pupils bloodshot with liquor stared back at me.
Boomer snorted, making damn sure I knew he was pretty put off that I had thrown a wrench in his slumber party. “You really think Gale won’t forgive me, Laney?” He hiccupped.
I looked him in the eye. “You cleared an elementary school.”
“Yep, solid point there,” he agreed.
“Glad we got that problem worked out,” I said, backing away from the school grounds.
Two railroad track crossings and a dozen stray alley cats later, Pistol Rock’s boondocks shot over the bank of empty highways. I coasted down the ill-fated street and came to a stop in front of hell’s row. Squatted bowlegged on the front porch was Ms. Copley. Angry women could put the fear of God in me, which was probably something to do with my mother, and Ms. Copley looked hotter than the Fourth of July. I guess I am overdramatic. I blame that on my mother, too. Normally, I would have felt pity for my friend, living with only a single, paper-thin wall as protection against the storm. I wasn’t heartless. I was pragmatic. In the end, my life was problematic. I could only take in so many strays before the sinkhole gobbled me up whole.
I looked over my shoulder. “It’s time to go home, Boomer.”
His eyes lingered out the window, settling in on his mother’s knobby knuckles fisting a ratty old towel. He pushed open the car door. Cool, brisk breeze rustled through the stale, dead afternoon sky.
“Thanks again, Laney,” Boomer said, stretching out of the car and wobbling to his feet, “for not throwing me in the drunk tank tonight.” He stumbled back and smiled, closing the door.
I cranked down my window. “Figured nothing could be worse than home sweet home,” I called out to him.
He tapped the hood of the car, taking a breather. Still slightly unsteady from his drunken stupor earlier. “By the way, I forgot to mention I saw Wyatt a few days back.”
That piqued my interest. I leaned over the console and asked, “Wanna tell me where the two of y’all bumped elbows at?”
He gave me a smile that barely reached his liquor-glassed eyes. “Hmm…” He scratched his head. “Oh, yeah, I ran into him over at the Whistling Wind Café. He couldn’t stop talking about some chick he visited out at Horseshoe trailer park.”
I pushed my straw cowboy hat up, watching the tiredness take over his punch-drunk face. “Did you get the girl’s name?”
“Yep, Molly something.” He straightened to a stand and straggled up the sidewalk, tripping in his flip-flops all the way.
“Make sure to get some rest and lay off the booze, Boomer.”
He nodded his head, then pulled open the screen door, wandering aimlessly inside the house.
I sat behind the wheel a minute longer, knowing that eventually my friend would end up drinking himself to death. And there would come a time when my badge wouldn’t be able to rescue his ass.
After putting in a call to Elroy and getting the nod to knock off for the day—mostly I wanted to double-check that he’d found his way back to the station from Pearl’s—I hit FM 167. Five minutes later, my property line rolled into view. My farmhouse was a decrepit money pit I’d inherited from my aunt Faye when she’d died. Gravel crunched under the wheels of my cruiser as I winded up the narrow path of my long, dirt drive. The white clapboard house glimmered in the sunlight. Black shutters were dangling from all ten windows. The long wraparound front porch looked tired from the endless summers of being beaten down by the west Texas wind and heat. Last spring I’d slapped on a coat of paint, needing to occupy my idle hands, although now it looked like the home repairs were dead from the get-go. Apparently it was about time to mull around the attic for the Christmas decorations. Nothing like decking the halls with a bottle of Jack and a silver-tongued boyfriend.
I parked next to the barn and rounded the trash cans on my way up the porch steps. I unlocked the door and shoved it open. Home at last. I was en route to the kitchen when my phone vibrated against my butt cheek. Digging it out of my back pocket, I noticed two new voice messages so I hit play, and Wyatt’s frantic voice blared in my ear. The first message beeped dead before he got a single word out. And as I listened to the follow up I was awarded with his haphazard jabbering ordering me to check in on Mule, watch my back because some shit was going down in town, and then finishing the long-winded message by ranting about Gunner and how he hated the man because now his head was on Willie’s chopping block, and in a last-ditch plea mentioned being sorry for causing me so much trouble. I swear it could’ve made me go all Sybil if he hadn’t sputtered the word Redbud just as the line cut off.
My tight-lipped Texas Ranger had really gotten me into a pickle. Mostly, I knew Gunner Wilson was trouble, but it still hurt catching him in a lie, even though it wasn’t the first time he’d done so. I try not to dwell on the old bad blood between us from the nasty breakup, my engagement to another man, who, might I add, turned out to be a criminal who died by the hand of Gunner’s gun. Unfortunately, today that wound was as raw as sashimi. I went in search of the whiskey and found my dear old friend Jonny Walker exactly where I’d left him. I grabbed a glass and poured a two-finger shot, then slung it back. The burn felt good and eased the tension weighing down my shoulders. I ignored my better judgment and poured another. It didn’t settle right. My stomach was in knots, and my heart hurt like the dickens. I tossed back the last sip of whiskey and was about to call it a night when the screen door creaked open and boots clunked across the linoleum floor.
“Got started early tonight, huh?” Gunner’s rough, dark, and oh-so-yummy seductive voice filled my galley-style kitchen.
He had it coming. And hell, I’d never been much of a tongue biter.
“You bastard,” I said, slamming the whiskey glass down on the countertop and turning around, coming face-to-face with my bullheaded Texas Ranger.
So much for being the levelheaded one in this relationship.
He was holding a bundle of daises, my favorite flowers, and a bottle of wine. Well, crap. I’d counted on my mother shucking her daily Marlboro habit before I’d place a dollar on a bet that Gunner’d show up on my doorstep with flowers and wine. The truth of the matter was he owned my heart. Back in high school, Gunner had offered me the one thing missing in my life…love. And I’d hung on for dear life. Although the rotten bad boy still deserved to be put in his place every now and then.
One corner of his mouth slid up, and those brown eyes darkened when they zeroed in on my pissed-off state. “Good to see you, too, honey,” he said, his voice tight and flatter than a gymnast’s chest. He walked farther inside, dropped the daises on the table, and put himself smack-dab in the way of my exit. “You mind telling me what the hell I did this time to get you all riled up?” he asked, mildly. “I’m starting to have trouble keeping track with all the ways I seem to piss you off, lately.”
Okay, my boyfriend wanted a showdown.
“How about we start with what Manny Sanchez had to say?” I sucked in a breath, all the while smiling at the image of burying the treacherous liar six feet in the ground. “I think you’d find it pretty damn interesting stuff.”
He pulled off his hat, leaning hipshot against the doorway, and then gave me that I’d-rather-have-a-blow-job-than-screw-you-tonight look. “Well,” Gunner grunted. “Are you going to keep me on my toes all night, because as much as I’d like to chat, I was sort of hoping to eat some dinner, kick it in the sheets a little bit, then watch the Cowboys game I DVR’d.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out about how you tricked Wyatt into working with you on the Willie King case, all in an attempt to make yourself a name at the office?” I shouted.
Well, that remark was met with a silence even more awkward than that time my mother backed over the neighbor’s cat.
“I can explain, sweetheart,” he finally offered. Then he cocked his head, gesturing toward the fridge. “Why don’t we discuss what you think I did or didn’t do over some dinner and wine?” He tossed me one of his infamous puppy-dog-eyed winks. “I really do have some stuff I’d like to chat about.”
Like I was in the mood for a chitchat.
“How could you, Gunner?” I said, dismissing him with a wave of a hand. “You know better than most that Wyatt’s whip doesn’t crack as loud as the others. That idiot’s toast, and all the blame is going to be on your shoulders.”
The last place I wanted to be was parking my ass at my kitchen table, butted up next to Gunner. No one had ever been able to stronghold my heart like this man. With an impending charley horse on the horizon from clenching and unclenching my calves, I stared across the tiny room, getting caught up in the way the irises of his brown eyes simmered to molten chocolate. He understood exactly the reaction he could muster out of me. Damn Southern boy charm. Moistening my lips, I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt. There was no way in hell I was ready to wave my white flag. Not by a long shot.
Yet the willpower to stay clear of his tight ass proved to be harder by the passing minutes. I was swimming in the deep golden brown pools of his assessment.
He was kicked back against the wall with his legs crossed at the ankles and his long, muscular arms draped across his broad chest, giving my whole body a slow appreciative once-over from head to toe before riveting me with that wicked stare, again. A sigh slipped from my parched lips at the sight of that pretty-boy smile working into the corners of his sexy mouth. I craved that fierce fascination he held me in. Craved. Probably more than I wanted to accept.
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I concluded I might’ve bitten off more than I could chew going head-to-head with Gunner Wilson. Every freaking inch of him oozed sex appeal. Wildly addictive. “Stop it.” I flashed him a look of disdain.
