Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2 (7 page)

“Miss Nixon! Miss Nixon!”

She paused, hearing about ten people call her name at once. Cody watched her, telling himself he had chores to see to, but he was fascinated by one tiny woman controlling an entire room of anxious people. She’s good at what she does, he thought begrudgingly.

“Can you tell us what kind of film you’re doing?”

“Certainly.” She gave the room her brightest smile. “We’re making a horror film called
The Devil’s Own
.”

Excitement erupted in the room. “A horror film!” Annie whispered behind him. “I didn’t know that.”

“Now I know I won’t get to audition,” Mary griped.

“You sure as shooting won’t.” Cody stepped forward. “How come you never mentioned before that it was a horror film?” he called to Stormy.

She frowned at him. “I’m sure I said it was. Anyway, what difference does it make?”

Apparently, lots of other folks agreed with her assessment, because several surged forward to ask more questions, and to beg for auditions.

“Oh, no,” Mary moaned. “Now everyone’s heard about the movie, and they’re all going to want to try out.”

“It doesn’t matter, ladybug.” Cody steered Annie and Mary from the crowded lobby.

“But I want to be an actress!” she cried.

“Maybe. But horror films are not for thirteen-year-old eyes.” He was adamant.

Sulking, Mary went and got into her mother’s car, slamming the door.

“Do you really think that’s a problem?” Annie eyed Cody pensively. “I don’t think a horror film would be that bad. She’d have a bit part—if she got it. And I’m of a mind to let her see that trying out for something isn’t easy.”

“What if she got the part?”

Annie shrugged. “So let her see that making a movie is hard work.”

“Hard work?” He stared at the woman he held above all others. “Cattle driving is hard work. Seeding a field and praying that bugs, birds, and the bad side of Mother Nature don’t destroy your livelihood is hard work. Pretending is not.”

Annie looked at him. “Well, you’re working awfully hard at it.”

He squinted at her. “What’s your meaning?”

“You know exactly.” She got in the car. “Thanks for looking out for Mary last night.”

“My pleasure.” He couldn’t help the sarcasm. “Be more of a pleasure if she’d be a good girl for her Uncle Cody from now on.”

Mary stuck out her tongue at him. Annie gave him a sage nod. “We’ll see how good Mary is for you next week when Zach and I go on our second honeymoon.”

“Oh…I forgot.” Cody grimaced. “I did say Ma and me would be happy to take care of ladybug, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” Annie smiled at him sweetly. “And it’s too late to back out on your offer.”

“Speaking of offers, what are you going to do about Stormy’s?”

Annie shrugged. “Zach and I haven’t decided.”

“Oh, Mom!”

“Sh, Mary. There’s a lot we’d have to change to be able to do it. And I’m not sure what all’s entailed in a horror film. I was picturing something cute.”

“We have to talk about it, Annie.” Cody’s tone was flat and serious. “You and Zach have to talk about it. In a horror film, there’s likely going to be…”

“Blood. I’ve already thought about that, Uncle Cody.” Mary looked at him, and then her mother. “It’s not the same as when Dad died. I’d know it was pretend.”

Maybe. Cody met Annie’s eyes in a moment where both clearly remembered the past. As Annie had pointed out, pretending was difficult. She knew it; he knew it. Mary, caught between wistful childhood and teenage drama, thought make-believe could always be separated from reality.

There had been nothing make-believe about Carlos’s bloody tractor death. It was the root of many of the problems Mary was having now. And blood stained everything it touched.

Chapter Five

Stormy felt that something was wrong the instant Cody took his disapproving glare out of the Stagecoach Inn. But people crowded around her, pressing against her with voices that demanded she stay and answer their questions. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t follow Cody and find out if her instincts were right.

Reluctantly, she turned her attention to Mayor Higgins. “Thank you for coming by to pick me up.” She wasn’t fond of the tall man with the well-tended handlebar mustache. Cowboys were cowboys, she supposed, and she needed a location to film fast, but she sure wished Cody left more room to negotiate with than a flat “no”. As difficult as he was, she still felt she could trust him. And Annie.

It was harder to trust a man with the nickname of Wrong-Way.

“It’s a pleasure, Miss Nixon,” Tate said with a charming grin. “Let the lady by, folks. We’ve got important places to be.”

Sighing, Stormy got in the truck when he opened the door for her, hoping that Shiloh, the honorable city where folks had been down-home good for hundreds of years, had a reason to put its trust in this too-agreeable mayor. He got in the truck and grinned at her to make her feel at ease, but Stormy suddenly had a sense of being the egg the weasel dragged off.

Cody ignored the jealousy and anger at seeing Stormy get into Tate’s truck. He wouldn’t allow his worst enemy to go anywhere with Wrong-Way. But he didn’t have any say where Stormy was concerned, and it was her right to look for a location wherever she could, so he’d just have to mind his own business.

And try not to think about what methods that sidewinder would employ to get the cards dealt his way.

It would be better if she did take her business to Shiloh. They sure as hell weren’t going to use his prime land, and Annie was going to think twice now that she knew a horror movie was in the works.
The Devil’s Own,
he snorted to himself. Stormy was the devil’s own and any man ought to think twice before getting himself twisted up with her.

“That sum’bitch Higgins done dragged off our golden goose.” Curvy slumped on the bench outside the post office, confiding his woes to Pick. “Sure as shooting he’ll find her the place she wants. Wham! There goes our place on the map.”

“Did Annie say no?” Pick asked.

“Not yet. But she will, ’cause she knows Cody ain’t fond of the idea. Soon as that Nixon gal said horror movie, Cody took his boots outta there. You’da thought she was suggesting we begin ritual sacrifices and start with his heart.”

“Well, hell.” Pick pulled out a matchbook and inserted it between his teeth. “Gotta apply some other kind of pressure.”

“Like what?” He was so put out he wasn’t sure he could think. Tate had been grinning like a possum and it had Curvy’s brain short-circuited. He hated to be beat at anything.

“I dunno. Cody’s hard to wrestle down. Better focus on Annie. Or someone else who might do it. Anybody reply to your ad?”

“Hell, no,” Curvy said glumly. “They don’t want their land torn up.”

“Well, then. It’s gotta be Annie. But she’s having a baby, and it ain’t right to pick on an expectin’ woman.”

“No.” Curvy sighed. “Maybe it’ll all come out in the wash. Annie’s got that restaurant she’s gonna open up here in Desperado, and we’ll just lure all the Shiloh folks up this way to eat her delicious cooking. They’ll leave their money in this town, and we’ll have the last laugh on Tate. They might think they’re the only honest folk around, but they lie like dogs when they say they can cook.”

“Garbage so foul I wouldn’t feed it to my pigs.” Pick furrowed his brow. “Did Annie ever get her permit for the restaurant?”

“Don’t think so. Think the city is still looking it over.” Curvy looked at him. “Why?”

“You’re the mayor. Seems to me you could hold something up if you didn’t think it was for the good of the city.”

“That’s blackmail, Pick.”

“It’s business, Curvy. She who wants to receive from the town oughta give to the town.”

“Wait just a minute.” He shook his head. “Annie’s damn generous with her time and her resources. We wouldn’t have half of what we got if it wasn’t for Annie Aguillar Rayez.” He waved Pick’s idea off. “Remember when lumber was so scarce, and she let us cut trees off her property to make desks for the elementary school? Nope. Can’t hurt a woman who’s done so much for Desperado.”

“Then Desperado stays a place where folks stop to pee on the way to Shiloh to see the statue of the general, eat that stuff they call food, and pay to see the places where the famous actors stayed. Yep.” Pick leaned back against the bench, sighing as if satisfied with the outcome. “That’s what we are. A pee stop.”

“Pick, we’d be putting ourselves on a par with that dishonest Higgins if we stooped to such trickery.”

“I ain’t arguing with ya. You’re the mayor, and I’m proud to be a citizen of the town with the finest potty stops in Texas.”

“All right!” Curvy jumped to his feet and glared down at Pick. “I’ll do it.”

“Better a man’s pride than his conscience.” Pick grinned up at him. “I’ll walk over with ya.”

“I hope to hell I’m never the parent of a teenager.” Cody examined the heel of his boot. He sat in Sloan’s sheriff’s office, hot and airless except for the small fan in the corner, but his mood was already foul and air-conditioning wouldn’t have made any difference.

“Me, neither. Heck, I hope I’m never a parent at all.” Sloan nodded his empathy. “Bachelorhood is nearly as good as sainthood, if you think about it.”

Cody gave him a thin look. “Why?”

“Either way, you get respect. Any man who gets to our age without getting tied down deserves respect.”

“All I know is that Stormy Nixon needs to finish up her business and get out of here. She’s causing trouble.”

“Well.” Sloan leaned back, and the chair squeaked loudly. “Reckon she couldn’t stir up anything that wasn’t already a problem.”

“My Mary isn’t a problem, Sloan, and I don’t like to hear you insinuating it.”

The sheriff gave him a thorough stare. “Hate to differ with you, friend, but the only reason little Mary hasn’t spent a night in lockup is because I let her off easy—one time only. Just as a gesture to the respect I have for you, friend, but not to be abused.”

Cody’s jaw dropped at the warning.
“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Well, this is confidential between me and you. ’Cause Mary made me a promise she was gonna stay outta trouble from then on. I believe she’s kept her word.”

Cody nodded abruptly.

Sloan took a hunting knife out of his drawer and began shaving the corner of the desk. “I found her and three little buddies punch-drunk one day down on my property.”

“When?” Cody’s eyes narrowed. Annie kept a good eye on Mary. The child wasn’t allowed to run wild.

“One day when they were cutting school. They’d gotten ahold of some disgusting mint liquor—and to this day they won’t tell me where they got it—and they were throwing rocks through the apple trees at my horses. Too drunk to hit ’em, but still, I don’t know that would have continued to be the case if I hadn’t discovered what they were up to.”

“Damn it! I’ll thrash her myself!” Cody jumped to his feet, his temper soaring to the red line.

“Hold on, man. Take your seat back.” Sloan stood to shove him back down in his chair, something Cody wouldn’t have tolerated if he wasn’t practically blind in one eye from rage and quite aware that this man had done him and his family a hell of a favor. “You ain’t thrashing no one, because this is between me and those little ladies. To be honest, I believe they were more than sorry once they started puking their guts.” Sloan pointed the wide-edged knife at him for emphasis. “You don’t know sorry until you’ve sat with four wailing little girls whose stomachs won’t stay down. Gawd almighty. If I hadn’t served in the military, I mighta been throwing up with ’em.”

Cody sat stone-still, though his hands trembled. “You shouldn’t have let her off.”

“It’s my business, Cody, not yours.”

“Still. I owe you.”

Sloan sent him a sardonic look. “Shut the hell up, Cody, and get your ass off that chair. Somebody else needs to bend my ear.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw elderly Widow Baker hovering outside. Getting up stiffly, he said, “Mary will pay you back for the harm she has caused you.”

Sloan stood. “She has. She’s done what I asked. My only reason in telling you is so that you understand what I mean about Stormy Nixon. She couldn’t have stirred up trouble if it wasn’t already a problem. And I have your word that this will be kept between the three of us.” He jerked his head once toward the door. “Be seeing ya.”

Cody tipped his hat to Widow Baker, but strode to his truck feeling as if he was going to be ill. His little ladybug, punch-drunk and throwing rocks. Crossing highways and running away. When had everything started changing—and why hadn’t he noticed?

It occurred to him, though he didn’t like it a bit, that maybe it was damn fortunate that Stormy Nixon had blown into town. Otherwise, who knew where Mary might have run to?

Zach and Annie gazed at Mary, who looked down at her shoes. They were her parents, but they had no idea what she was going through. She barely had any friends, and to make matters worse, her mom was having a baby. It would be too humiliating for her mother to come pick her up at school holding a baby carrier.