Whiskey, You're The Devil: An Addison Holmes Mystery (Addison Holmes Mysteries Book 4) (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Thursday

T
O SAY THAT
things were awkward between Nick and me would be an understatement of epic proportions. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint where things had started to go wrong between lamp breaking sex the other morning and last night, but the churning in my gut told me it had a lot to do with Savage coming back to town.

Nick woke early and headed straight into the shower without so much as a grunt of acknowledgment, so I got up and padded downstairs to put on the coffee. The swelling in my knee had gone down quite a bit, and I could mostly walk on it without limping. I was also feeling a little more in control of my emotions, so I figured if I could get the squishy feeling to leave my stomach over whatever was bothering Nick then it would probably shape up to be a pretty good day.

I put on the coffee and then started taking out things to make pancakes. My mother had always said that the way to get a man to see reason was to feed him. But considering what a terrible cook she was that only proved to me how much my dad really did love my mother. Because he ate every blessed meal she ever put in front of his face.

I heard Nick’s footsteps padding around upstairs and I turned on the griddle. I’d watched him get dressed enough in the mornings to know his routine—undershirt, socks, and underwear from the top drawer. Then dress shirt from the closet and buttoned all the way up. Trousers pulled on and zipped. Utility belt and duty rig next. And then right before he left the bedroom he’d grab a tie from the closet and leave it loose around his neck. Every time I saw that tie I lost my mind and wanted to tackle him to the floor so I could have my wicked way with him.

I looked at the clock on the microwave and frowned. He was taking longer than normal and I didn’t hear him moving around anymore. He was avoiding me, which meant he was really pissed. And I wasn’t going to stand for it. We were going to get to the root of the problem if I had to lay down in the middle of the driveway to keep him from leaving for work.

I turned off the griddle and headed back toward the stairs, but Nick was already halfway down them. He took the last couple at once and skidded to a stop in his socked feet. I’d never seen him look like he was—his face dark with anger and his eyes cold as ice chips.

I stopped in my tracks and gripped the back of the sofa for support. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

And then I saw it. The white plastic applicator he held in his hand.

“What the hell is this? It’s positive. Are you pregnant? Jesus, Addison.”

A couple of months back Kate had thought she might be pregnant, so in a show of solidarity I’d picked up two pregnancy tests and taken one with her so she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

We peed on the strips and then put them back in the brown paper bag they’d come in because neither of us had had the courage to look, and we decided maybe drinking a margarita or two first was the best way to build up that courage.

Kate had taken the paper bag back home with her and she said she’d call me when she was ready to see the results. I’d honestly forgotten about the whole darned thing until she’d called and flipped my entire life upside down.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she’d said.

“Which do you want first?”

“The good news.”

“I’m not pregnant. I got my period this morning and my test was negative when I looked in the bag. I think the stress of the job is messing with my hormones.”

“That’s good news?”

“I think so. I talked it over with Mike and we’re going to wait another year or so before starting a family. This was a timely event. We’ll be a little more careful with the birth control from now on.”

“So what’s the bad news?” I asked.

“Your test was positive.”

I can’t even describe how I’d felt as that little bomb was dropped in my lap. Terror was the first thought. I didn’t know anything about being a mother. I didn’t know how to grow a small person inside my body and then make sure they survived once they got out. I didn’t even have a pet.

My second thought was embarrassment because I lived in a small town in the south. And pregnant unmarried women were still whispered about like they were the devil’s candy, hell bent on enticing all the men they encountered with their wicked ways.

My third thought was the one that was most confusing. Somewhere deep inside of me was excitement. I don’t know if it was because I was past thirty and it turned out my ovaries weren’t dried up like prunes after all. Or just because I was a woman and there was some sense of accomplishment and thrill at the idea of being able to carry another human inside me. But that excitement had been there no matter how hard I’d tried to quash it.

Those feelings were all short lived however. It turns out buying pregnancy tests out of the bargain bin isn’t always the best of ideas. I had no idea they could expire and give false results. But that’s just what had happened.

I’m not sure why I’d kept the test, but I’d tossed the paper bag into the corner shelf of the closet and had forgotten it existed.

My mouth went dry as Nick stared me down, waiting for an answer, and I licked my lips and decided to handle this the way I normally handle things. With a false sense of bravado and defensiveness.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, brow raised. “I don’t appreciate being spoken to that way.” The angrier I got the thicker the Georgia in my voice became. I was pretty damned angry. And holy cow did I sound like my mother.

I’d once heard a woman describe Nick Dempsey as being sexy enough to make her lady parts regenerate even though she’d had a full hysterectomy. I could sympathize. I had all my lady parts intact and every time Nick walked by I felt my ovaries clench with anticipation. My ovaries had gotten me into a lot of trouble lately.

“I asked you a question,” he said. “What the hell is this?” He held up the white plastic stick with a delicate grasp as if it were a grenade instead of a pregnancy test.

Sweat beaded on his brow and his white, button down shirt sat askew on his broad shoulders. His hair was mussed where he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly. I was only slightly concerned about the bilious pallor of his skin.

My eyes narrowed and I wouldn’t have been surprised if steam escaped my ears and the top of my head popped open like the whistle on a steam engine. So maybe he’d been taken a little off guard by finding the test hidden in a paper bag and shoved in the corner of the closet. What the hell was he doing snooping through my stuff anyway?

“Were you going to show me this or were you going to keep it a secret for the next nine months?”

“If I was going to show you I wouldn’t have hidden it in the closet,” I yelled. I refrained from rolling my eyes. But just barely.

The green tinge of his face disappeared and red flushed his cheeks. The little vein in his forehead bulged out and I took a step backward. I recognized the look. I was either about to get yelled at or have the best sex of my life. But because of my excellent proficiency in context clues, I was betting it wasn’t the latter.

I bit my bottom lip and felt tears well in my eyes. This was not good. No woman wanted to see a reaction like the one Nick currently had when faced with the possibility of bringing children into the world together. My anger was quickly elevating from steam engine mad to nuclear levels, and if I didn’t get out of the house no judge could possibly hold me responsible for what might happen.

“Answer the fucking question,” he said, each word slow and separated. “Are you pregnant?”

I sucked in a deep breath and felt it burn in my lungs. I don’t even remember my hand reaching out to grab the little crystal dish on the sofa table that held potpourri. But before I knew it the dish was sailing through the air, red tinged pieces of wood and cinnamon sticks flying in all directions. It hit Nick right in the middle of the forehead with a thunk that made me cringe. His eyes glazed and then rolled into the back of his head before he toppled to the floor.

What can I say? Hormones are a bitch.

I ran upstairs and put on my standard casualwear of yoga pants and an oversized sweater. I slid my feet into my sneakers and put on a black baseball cap, and then ran back downstairs as fast as my knee would let me.

Nick groaned on the floor. “What the hell?” He rubbed his forehead and I burst into tears.

“I’m not pregnant you big dummy. In case you haven’t noticed I’ve had PMS all week.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed.”

I hiccupped through another sob and turned on my heel out the door. I didn’t even stop to put on my coat. I just grabbed it and my purse and ran to the car. Oh, man, was I in trouble. I’d just assaulted a cop. Not that he didn’t deserve it. The idiot. But still—I did feel bad about it. I didn’t usually resort to violence.

I got on the phone before I could talk myself out of anything. Normally I’d call Kate in a situation like this. She was my best friend after all. But she was at work—like I should’ve been—and I knew she was swamped. She would’ve dropped everything if I’d asked her to, which was exactly why I didn’t.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Rosemarie warbled a little unsteadily.

I frowned into the phone and double-checked to make sure I’d dialed the right number.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Right as rain. I’ve decided to make lemonade with these prison lemons. I’m going to keep positive and be happy if I have to draw a smile on like the Joker.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I might’ve poured a little vodka in my cornflakes this morning. It turns out I didn’t have any lemons for my lemonade.” She hiccupped once and I burst into laughter. What a sad and bizarre pair we were.

“I was thinking it might be a good morning for some retail therapy.”

“Amen, sister. I can find some accessories to go with my orange jumpsuit.”

“I’m headed your way now. Don’t eat any more cereal.”

Chapter Eighteen

“D
ON’T THINK THAT
because I’m a little tipsy that I didn’t notice your eyes were swollen and your nose was red as Rudolph,” Rosemarie said a short time later.

We’d decided to walk up and down Broughton Street and just return the packages to the car whenever our hands got too full. It turns out both of us were able to do quite a bit of retail damage in an hour, because the circulation was getting cut off in my fingers from all the bags. I was a champ at releasing stress through shopping.

“Nick and I had a fight this morning. I’m mostly over it now. And it’s not nice to bring up my swollen face. Not everyone can be a pretty crier.”

“I hear ya, girl. And maybe we should stop by Elizabeth Arden so they can put some cream on your eyes and touch up your makeup. The sales girl at Chico’s kept watching to see if you were going to start stuffing scarves down the front of your blouse. Speaking of blouses, you know I’d cut off my leg before I ever criticized anyone, but have you seen what you’re wearing today?”

I grimaced and looked down at my clothes. I was wearing red and green fleece pants tucked into my Uggs and an Atlanta Braves hooded sweatshirt that had a mustard stain right down the middle from a hotdog mishap. My hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, but I had a black beanie cap pulled down low over my ears.

My mom always used to say when we were kids that we looked like we’d just rolled out of the missionary barrel. Mostly she said that to Phoebe because she did actually get a lot of her clothes from the lost and found at church. I was just glad my mother couldn’t see me now. I’d never hear the end of it.

“It was a bad fight.” I sighed and adjusted my bags as we made our way through sidewalk traffic back to the car. “I don’t know what’s going on. We’ve been having some problems, but I can’t really pinpoint the reason. Other than his job is stressful and it stresses me out to know how much he hates my job.”

“The way I see it, it’s not stress that’s the problem. The problem is that you’ve got one too many fish in your relationship frying pan. Nick is threatened by Savage. He’ll never come out and say so because that wouldn’t be manly. And we all know men are idiots when it comes to just saying what they really feel. What you’ve gotta do is reassure Nick that Savage is nothing more than a friend. He needs to know you’re committed a hundred percent.”

The thing about Rosemarie was that I was used to her being a train wreck, so it always took me a little off guard when she opened her mouth and good advice came out.

“Maybe you’re right.” I’d already made my choice. Nick was the one I loved, and Savage had just momentarily clouded my judgment.

“There’s no maybe about it. A woman staring down her last days of freedom doesn’t lie.”

“Good point.”

We were at the corner of Broughton and Abercorn, waiting for the signal to walk when a black Tahoe swerved in front of us and the doors opened. At first I thought it was a police unit, but then the men holding guns on us penetrated the fog in my brain and I realized we might be in trouble.

I barely had time to blink before and man tossed me into the Tahoe. All the seats had been removed, I guess because it made it more convenient to abduct people. I kicked out with my legs and did every self-defense move I’d ever been taught over the years, but sometimes the bad guys were just stronger.

I heard a couple of grunts and a stream of inventive swear words from Rosemarie as two guys tried to get her into the van. It would’ve almost been comical except for the fact that I was probably going to die. My hands were jerked together and tied with zip ties, and a bag was pulled down over my head.

I felt the Tahoe dip and heard a grunt as Rosemarie was tossed in and then we were speeding off through traffic. It seemed like we’d been there forever—surely long enough for someone to get a license plate number and call it in. But in reality it had only taken seconds for us to be abducted.