Excerpt from
Southern Sweet Tarts
a Novel by Laura James
Chapter One
Nine-thirty in the morning and already the heat rose from the pavement in dizzying waves. August in East Texas. Ivy Reid expected no less. What she didn’t expect was the flash of lights from the police car as she pulled up to the curb outside the town’s only high school.
She got out of her car and glanced toward the sound of approaching footsteps. Crimony’s new chief deputy sheriff strode toward Ivy, ledger in hand, determined pace to his steps.
“Don’t even think about giving me a ticket,” she said, half-smiling. His chilly non-response didn’t encourage more.
“Beg pardon?” he asked
She lowered her sunglasses and squinted at him, just to log away the face of the new townie. Sure enough, the new chief deputy was about as her friend Jenna had described him. Only Jenna’s version seemed warmer, less law-upholding. “Jenna just called me all in a rush. Her car popped a belt and she needs a ride from her PTA meeting to the nail shop. I dropped everything and came over.”
“So that’s why you were going fifty in a thirty mile an hour zone?”
“Yep.” Ivy closed her car door and turned to face him, surprised to still see a scowl. Mirrored sunglasses kept his eyes shielded from Ivy’s view, but she sensed they weren’t full of sunshine either.
“I’m already later than I told her I’d be,” she said. “A missed appointment at Barb’s Nail Emporuim sets a gal back a month. Not to mention I was in the middle of painting my kitchen. I left my brush soaking in water.”
“Can I see your license and proof of insurance?”
“What?” she asked, seeing her reflection in his lenses. Her open-mouthed expression wasn’t her best and she should have moussed her hair into submission before leaving the house. She hated mirrored sunglasses. If she’d wanted to talk to herself, she would have stayed home and chatted with the mirror.
“You can ask Al,” she said, hoping her connection with the sheriff would loosen the deputy’s rigid backbone. “He’ll vouch for me. Jenna, my best friend, is his wife, you know.”
“Vouch for you how? You were breaking the law.” The side of his mustache twitched. Between his fair hair cast gold in the bright sunlight and his chiseled cheeks, the department had landed a looker. He lowered his glasses and looked over the silver rims at her with cutting blue eyes. Too bad his Sundance Kid image was squashed by a pressed uniform and prickly attitude.
“Not really ‘breaking the law’,” Ivy said. “Just helping out a friend in need.”
His scowl deepened, further needling her good mood. “Could I see your license and proof of insurance, ma’am?”
She sighed and pushed her sunglasses, hot pink and not mirrored, higher on her nose. A minute after digging in her purse, her head half inside the drawstring opening, she muttered, “I know it’s in here.”
The deputy cleared his throat and shifted his weight. The toe of one polished black shoe appeared within Ivy’s periphery. No wallet directly in sight though.
Ivy pulled out a book and shoved it at his chest without glancing his way. “Could you hold this?” She quickly topped the book with her day planner. And her son’s athletic cup had to go. The straps kept tangling in her hands. Thrusting four more items at the deputy, she spied the square tan wallet.
“Here it is!”
She looked up, her smile fading when she saw the load in his arms.
“Oh,” she said, opening her purse wide. “Just dump it all back in.”
Like a block of granite, he didn’t budge, so Ivy reached for her things. The backs of her hands slid against warm skin, drawing her gaze to corded forearms tapering into wide wrists. All marking him male without Ivy having to see more.
“Rough way to start the week, huh?”
“You might say that.” The only sign of life was the twitch in his jaw muscle which brought out a dimple in one cheek.
Impressive new chief deputy you hired there, Al.
She pried her license out of a slot in her wallet and handed it to him. After some time rummaging around in her car, she found the insurance papers wedged inside the car maintenance manual.
She set the papers on top of his clipboard and rocked back on her heels. “Thanks for helping with my purse.” Chief Charm kept writing, too occupied writing down the juicy details of her life on his ticket pad to even grunt a response.
Ivy glanced at the door of the administration building. Jenna had said she’d be waiting inside the front door. So where was she? Especially now when Jenna’s charm and connections could talk the deputy out of his folly. Had a crisis occurred at the PTA meeting and she was neck-deep in controversy? Lord, those women...
“No chance of cutting me a break, huh?” Ivy asked.
“‘Fraid not.”
“You know it’s funny, but Al would have laughed and reminded me to slow down. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“New or gullible?” He raised his head and held out a small rectangular piece of bad news.
Ivy’s jaw dropped before she remembered herself and signed the ticket. Jenna had mentioned Al’s new chief. A hot shot from the metroplex.
“Crimony’s not like Dallas,” she said. Small town politics were all together different. He should learn the rules if he expected to stay.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said, his tone void of appreciation. “I hadn’t figured that out yet. The procedure for speeding is the same however.” He tore off the white copy and handed it to her. “Don’t forget to take care of this. It’s got an expiration date, kind of like manicure appointments.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and watched him walk away, his long legs and broad shoulders an incredible improvement to the beige uniform. He was heading toward the school administration office. Maybe he’d find Jenna there and ticket her for aiding and abetting in Ivy’s crime. A moment worth watching if he was that ballsy.
Ivy took a deep breath and followed after him. No help for it. She was going to have to uproot Jenna. Her stomach tightened at the thought of who all was at the meeting. She bet within thirty seconds one of them would mention either her divorce or Jimmy’s affair with Sharon. There was no secret as to why Ivy preferred sticking to her own little routine, conveniently away from the mainstream of town. Constant reminders of her failure didn’t sit well. Besides, Ivy needed space of mind to figure out the next stages of her life. All without nosy-poking comments.
Chief Charm held the front door open and waited, indicating he knew she was following him.
Now he’s chivalrous? Where were those stellar manners a minute ago?
Ivy avoided his steady regard and stepped around him, catching a subtle whiff of something clean and spicy. The hairs on the back of her neck contradicted her feigned nonchalance. How long had it been since she’d noticed the delicious way a man could smell? Longer than she wanted to admit. Her libido was so dusty and brittle, she could practically hear it creak back to life.
“Well, well,” Deputy Chris Meinke said when Ivy walked into the main office. He was leaning on the corner of the secretary’s desk, settled in for a long wait. “If it isn’t Ivy Reid, come to grace a PTA meeting. Jenna told me to send you in.”
Chris, Jenna’s younger brother, had the same red hair as Jenna, along with the same affability.
“Send me in where? I’m just the taxi service. She didn’t tell me you’d be here. I was in the middle of painting the kitchen when she called. Hell’s bells, you could have taken Jenna to the nail shop.”
“Blue this time?” Chris asked, his gaze on her shirt. “I think I like it better than the yellow.” He looked over at the new deputy. “Hey, Mitch. You met Ivy yet? Our homegrown beauty?”
“Why do I feel like a tomato with that description? And ‘Mitch’ and I’ve met, sort of,” Ivy said before her chilly acquaintance could answer. She thought of waving her fine at them but exercised restraint. A lot of exercising she was doing, too. Her restraint would be sore tomorrow.
“Deputy Farrell is bringing fresh air to our town,” Chris said, winking at the taller man standing just behind her.
“Nice to meet you.” Ivy tilted her head back to look at him. She tried to pull up the corners of her mouth, dropping all effort when his eyes flicked over her body. Ballsy man...
Was he smirking?
She looked down at her paint-spattered cut-offs and faded pink t-shirt. The splotches were dry, so what was his problem this time?
“The kitchen walls were butter chiffon actually, not yellow,” she said. Yellow sounded like a canary and her kitchen walls glowed soft and warm. A Southwest color scheme would soon replace it though. Something cooler to offset the summer heat. Ivy opened her mouth to explain color selection to the men when Jenna announced her presence.
“‘Bout time,” Jenna said, her head poking through a crack in a door off of the reception area. “Get in here, Ivy!”
Get in here? Ivy raised her eyebrows at Chris who only shrugged. She walked closer to Jenna and strained to see what was going on inside.
Jenna snagged her by the arm and pulled her fully into the room.
Meeting indeed.
Ivy took a step back from the ten or so people in the room, all whom she knew, all sitting around a conference table, and all watching her with too much interest. She raised her hand, wiggled two fingers and tightened the corners of her mouth, a sort of gumless smile she figured looked as insincere as it felt. Of course, she knew each and every pair of eyes there: Carla Mathers, an old classmate of hers, now married to the manager of the Piggly Wiggly, the only grocery store in town; Regina Walters, a teller at the Farmers’ Bank & Trust; two members from Ivy’s church; the town librarian; and a handful of others.
Ahhhh. The familiar faces of her hometown. Ivy’d had her chance to escape after college, but what did she do? Convinced her husband, Jimmy Crenshaw, to start his law practice in her hometown. She’d wanted a safe haven to raise their son.
And she’d certainly gotten that. Crimony had to stretch to claim a population of four thousand. Just two hours east of Dallas, the crime level barely existed. The town’s founder, slick rancher Junnell Crimony, could still be proud, two hundred years later.
“Just who we need,” Jenna announced to the group. She leaned toward Ivy and whispered, “I’m in a bind here, hon’. Just say ‘I agree’. I’ll make it up to you later.” Her soft, brown-eyed gaze cooled Ivy’s annoyance. Was Jenna fighting another one of the town socialite’s ploys for power?
What to do, what to do...God, Ivy hated getting involved. Carla and her pushy ideas though.
After a stretched second, Jenna elbowed her and she coughed out “I agree.”
“Good,” Bonnie Clarke said.
Ivy blinked at the older woman. Or the older woman’s hair rather. Usually frothed and lacquered around her head, Bonnie now wore a soft perm of gray curls. When had the diehard changed her look? Ivy’s year of dealing with single parenthood had kept her more occupied than she’d realized.
“You can step out of the room now, Ivy,” Bonnie said, her voice soft with affection. Many years ago, Bonnie, in her late teens, had babysat Ivy. The woman’s firm hand naturally extended to running the school now.
Ivy closed the conference room door behind her. The self-important air of meetings…yeesh!
Jenna, Jenna...why did she waste her time with such folderol. Ivy longed to be anywhere but standing on the springy industrial gray carpet of the school office. Ivy had plenty to do: work in her yard, practice new recipes out on her son Zack, help her mother with the summer garden, figure out her life’s path since her husband dumped her for the stereotypical divorcee on a manhunt. Ivy didn’t need to control the school when her own life wasn’t exactly taped together.
No, siree.
Ivy hustled toward the front door, realizing she should wait in the car for Jenna. Meetings had a way of sucking the nearby living into their plans.
Rounding the corner of Bonnie’s desk, Ivy breathed in the nostalgic air of the school, a mix of institutional cleaners laced with cinnamon from the candle burning on Bonnie’s bookshelf. An early nineties’ mauve and dusty blue country theme overwhelmed the room, complete with a pair of geese glued to the front of Bonnie’s wood-paneled desk. At least the 1970's psychedelics and paisleys of Ivy’s day were gone.
Ivy stopped short at seeing Chris and Mitch, still loitering in the reception area of the office and visiting about something humorous enough to make the newbie smile. At Ivy’s approach, they looked her way. Once she glanced at Mitch, it was all over. His lips curved in a smile, his dimple more prominent, his blue eyes crinkled in amusement, he was an arresting site. His expression turned quizzical and she realized it was because she was staring like a dope.
Zing, zing, zing! A red light flashed in her mind. What’s wrong with you? He just cost you a good seventy-five dollars!
Hey! Men like that don’t move to town everyday. In a week or two, he’d blend in like all the rest. It was normal to enjoy the view. She thought of all the single women in Crimony, well, not all, she mostly thought of opportunist Sharon and this new six-two opportunity whose smile turned even sexless Ivy to mush. Then Ivy thought of her expertise when it came to men, a stellar batting average of zed, and she clipped toward the door.
“Chris,” she said sharply, her irritation blooming anew at having so many… interruptions in her schedule, “please take Jenna over to Barb’s. I’m going to finish painting before I have to get Zack from soccer practice.”
“Sure, I guess. But aren’t you--”
“You can come back in now, Ivy,” Jenna called out from the doorway of the conference room again.
Damn!
“That’s all right, Jenna. Chris just offered to give you a lift.”
Jenna laughed, then shook her head and motioned Ivy over. “Get in here!”
Ivy exchanged glances with Chris. The spark in his eyes sent Ivy’s heart into a heavy beat. “Chris, why does your sister want to see me in a room full of PTA people?”
Chris winked and laughed, a lower imitation of Jenna’s chuckle and not the answer Ivy wanted to hear. Mitch Farrell, on the other hand, shifted in his seat, his eyes dancing from Ivy to Chris to Jenna, his face as unreadable as Chris’s was foreboding.
“Oh, Jennnnaaaa May-yay...” Ivy said in a singsong voice.
“Come on in, Madam President!” Bonnie called from the conference room, her high-pitched voice easily carrying across the room.
Ivy felt a cold rush tingling her skin and freezing the air in her lungs. She moved to within whispering distance of Jenna and pushed words through clenched teeth. “Say this isn’t what it sounds like.”
Jenna whispered back, “Oh, but we need you. In fact, you’re just what we need.”
“I thought I was giving you a show of support, not a noose to slip over my head!”
Jenna rolled her eyes and grinned, then pushed Ivy across the threshold. “A round of applause for Ivy’s offer of leadership. We certainly can benefit from her excellent organizational skills.”
Ivy closed her eyes to the sound of clapping and held tight to her desire to strangle Jenna. Somewhere in the basement of her mind, she heard Jenna tell Mitch and Chris they could come in because the meeting was about to start.
Ivy locked her hand on Jenna’s arm and pulled her closer. “I’m painting my kitchen right now, Jenna,” Ivy growled in Jenna’s ear. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Good,” Jenna said, full of perk, “it’ll be a short meeting then. Nice color, by the way.” She pointed to a paint stain on Ivy’s sleeve. “Although I did like that lemon color. Made me hungry for meringue pie.”
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