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She Drives Me Crazy
The reviews are rolling in for Leslie Kelly…
“Sexy, funny and little outrageous, Leslie Kelly is a must read!”
—New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips
“Leslie Kelly is a rising star of romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“Ms. Kelly never fails to deliver a captivating story.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Leslie Kelly writes with a matchless combination of sexiness and sassiness that makes every story a keeper.”
—Romance Junkies
“Leslie Kelly is a master of amusing contemporary romance!”
—Word Weaving
“You can always count on Leslie Kelly to keep readers laughing and entertained with dazzling characters and passionate romance.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“Leslie Kelly has the magnificent ability to create marvelous storylines with truly memorable characters.”
—Writers Unlimited
“Leslie Kelly writes hot, steamy stories with lots of humor and tons of romance thrown in.”
—Romance and Friends
On Killing Time…
“Delightful and entertaining from the first page to the last. I highly recommend Leslie Kelly’s Killing Time.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Sassy, flirty and oh so sexy, Killing Time makes for great summer reading.”
—Round Table Reviews
“A fun, sexy and unique story.”
—A Romance Review
“Kelly tells a high-energy story and delivers a satisfying read.”
—All About Romance
“Intrigue, passion, excitement and more are a given with Killing Time.”
—In the Library Reviews
“Leslie Kelly has written another amazing story.”
—Romance Junkies
“Leslie Kelly’s latest…is a deliciously madcap adventure filled with the sexy and the zany!”
—Romantic Times
“When you pick up Killing Time, and I strongly recommend that you do, make sure you have plenty of time to read because you will not want to put it down!”
—Fallen Angel Reviews
She Drives Me Crazy
Leslie Kelly
With sincere thanks to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg. Ethan, without your encouragement and support, this would never have been possible.
And to Bruce. You make it all worthwhile.
Thanks for making me truly believe in what I write.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
“JOHNNY, YOU GOTTA SEE THIS. There’s a giant set of hooties hangin’ over exit 23.”
County prosecutor Johnny Walker, named for his father’s favorite brand of fire in a bottle, barely looked up as he continued to pump gas into the tank of his SUV. It was too early in the morning to try to decipher Lester’s sexobabble.
Coming from anyone else, the pronouncement might have raised Johnny’s curiosity. But this was Lester, owner of one of the only two gas stations in Joyful, Georgia. Lester might not remember his nickname from high school, but Johnny—and most of the female population—still mentally referred to him as Lester the Lecher.
“Here you go, Les.” Johnny tugged a twenty out of his pocket and extended it toward the other man.
Lester paid no attention. He continued to stare skyward. A tinge of curiosity finally made Johnny turn around. Following Lester’s stare, he beheld what had so captivated the man.
The letch was right. A big giant set of hooties…er, woman’s breasts…was clearly visible on a billboard by the highway exit. “I’ll be damned,” Johnny muttered, not believing his eyes. He couldn’t help adding, “Nice rack.”
Now, wouldn’t that give the residents of this nasty town something to gossip about when they woke up this morning? Yessir, the townsfolk of this warm, syrupy burg—as falsely sweet as a sugarcoated lemon drop—would glance out the window while munching their corn flakes and behold a pair of snow-capped mountains standing over the interstate. Because from here, the white tassels barely covering the five-foot-in-diameter nipples did indeed resemble snow.
Lester continued to pay silent, drooling homage to the fleshy hills glistening in the morning sun. Finally, he whispered, “Whaddaya suppose it’s for?”
Johnny shrugged. “Haven’t you heard? Sex sells. It could be advertising anything from toothpaste to Viagra.”
“Nah, it wouldn’t work,” Les said with a snicker. “One look at that and a man’d realize he don’t need Viagra.”
Personally, Johnny hadn’t needed to be titillated by pinups, magazine centerfolds or Victoria’s Secret catalogues in oh, about forever. Nope, it had been the real thing or nothing since he was fourteen and a girl named Cherry Hilliard had lived up to every one of those “on top of Cherry Hill” jokes he’d heard whispered about her in the locker room.
Darn shame Cherry had found religion and married Reverend Smith. Cherry Smith just didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
“One way to find out.” Lester reached for the passenger side door handle of Johnny’s SUV. “Let’s go check ’er out.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to drive down to Bradenton for a meeting. Besides, you have another customer,” Johnny said as he watched Fred Willis, a local deputy who Johnny had gone to high school with, turn his squad car into the station.
Fred had apparently noticed the breasts, too. He was paying no attention to his driving, and almost clipped Johnny’s back fender as he pulled up a few inches from the pump. His ancient, dingy tan squad car gave a rusty belch as it shook, rattled and rolled to a stop. “You see that?” he yelled from the window.
“You bet…let’s go!” Lester dashed around to Fred’s passenger door and hopped in. The two drove off, not sparing Johnny a second glance.
That wasn’t too surprising, since Johnny couldn’t fairly call himself one of Fred Willis’s favorite people. Particularly because Johnny got such satisfaction in setting free the poor bumbling criminals Fred and his boss, Sheriff Brady, managed to round up in this relatively crime-free area.
Give him a real crime or criminal, and he might give a damn about doing his job. But, hell, here in Joyful? The jail cell doors might just as well stand open for all the effort Johnny took to keep their occasional occupants inside them. Course, that was probably more effort than Sheriff Brady made to ensure the innocent folks who had the misfortune of being from the wrong side of town were kept out.
In Joyful, the justice system was equally balanced. If you were rich and arrogant and committed a crime, the police took care of you. If you were poor and trashy…Johnny Walker did.
Still holding the twenty, Johnny walked into Lester’s grimy office and left it on the counter near the register. He gingerly picked up a half-squashed plastic water bottle and set it on top of the bill, so it wouldn’t blow away in the warm summer breeze already wafting through the open door.
Looking around, he grimaced in distaste. Hopefully no one else would come to the station and enter the office looking for Lester. The magazine photos plastered across the back of the door would probably make Virginia Davenport, president of the Daughters of the Confederacy, drop dead of sheer outrage.
And with his luck, the sheriff would call it murder and want Johnny to prosecute.
“Hooties over Joyful,” he mused aloud as he again glanced at the billboard and got into his car. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
As he drove out of town, Johnny was struck by the strong feeling that something interesting was about to happen.
He couldn’t wait to find out what it was.
CHAPTER ONE
“EMMA JEAN FRASIER’S coming back to Joyful.”
Cora Dillon wondered if the years of sleeping beside her husband Bob, who sawed logs louder than any lumberjack, had finally taken their toll. Her hearing, without doubt, had just failed her. She stared at fancy-pants Jimbo Boyd, whose round face was filled with self-importance. She didn’t know why, considering what a rotter he’d been as a boy. And leopards didn’t change their spots. Not in Joyful, Georgia, anyway.
“Emmajean Frasier,” Cora said, drawing out the name.
Jimbo nodded, then reached into his desk. He pulled out a bunch of keys stuck on a ring shaped like the hood ornament on the namby-pamby car he was so proud of. “I need you to get the house aired and cleaned today. And I want it done right.”
Cora straightened and narrowed her eyes. Imagine, snot-nosed, dirty-pants Jimbo Boyd telling her how to clean a house! Hadn’t she worked as a cleaning woman for him and half the town for the past ten years? Something was definitely wrong with him. Maybe the glue he used on his shoeshine-black toupee, which looked about as real as the one worn by that Captain Kirk on the TV, had seeped through his skin and affected his brain.
“Emmajean Frasier’s coming back to Joyful. Now there’s a trick I’d like to see,” Cora replied with stoic calm, “considering she’s been dead more’n a year.”
“Dead?” Jimbo began to sputter. “No, no, Cora. I don’t mean Emmajean…I mean Emma Jean…the granddaughter.”
“Granddaughter?”
Jimbo shook his head and huffed. “Yes. Her mama’s folks have money and raised the girl overseas. She spent a year here, though, her last year of high school. ’Bout ten years ago.”
Cora thought on it. “Possible, if it was exactly ten years ago. That’s the year my youngest girl lost her husband and me’n Bob went out to be with her. Always told her the rotten sum-a-gun she married was a brainless fool.”
Jimbo pasted a look of false sympathy on his face, managing to look more concerned than annoyed, though Cora knew better. “I hadn’t realized your girl had been widowed.”
Cora snorted. “Widowed? He didn’t die. I just toldja he got lost. Got drunk in the woods and wandered around for days rantin’ about giant beavers. Ended up in the nuthouse in Terre Haute. We stayed a while to take care of Cora Jr. and the kids.”
Jimbo made a rude sound and Cora’s fingers itched to give his ears a good boxing. She didn’t, though. Jimbo Boyd did own the only real estate office in Joyful, and sent a lot of work her way. Not to mention he was the blasted mayor.
“She’ll be here late today, so I need this done now.”
She scowled. “I didn’t see a granddaughter at the funeral.”
“She wasn’t there. She was sick or busy or something.”
That made Cora pause. Too busy to come to her grandma’s funeral? Disgraceful. She harrumphed as she took the keys from Jimbo. Then she paused, remembering a wicked old scandal. “Wait, the Frasier girl…is she the one…”
Jimbo nodded, his own eyes glowing with speculation.
Cora smirked, no longer surprised Emmajean’s grandchild hadn’t had the nerve to show up in Joyful again. Not given the way she’d left it. “I suppose I can have the house cleaned to Miss High-and-Mighty’s satisfaction.”
THOUGH IT GALLED HER, Cora spent the morning getting Emmajean Frasier’s two-story Victorian-style house sparkling. She was determined no spoiled long-lost grandchild would come to Joyful and turn up her nose at the life her grandma had lived.
Cora talked to herself while she worked. She talked to Emmajean, too, though they hadn’t been very friendly in life, what with Emmajean holding the title of “Champion Pie Maker” five years running, and Cora feeling more entitled to it.
Though Cora didn’t really believe in haunts, she figured she’d best be sure Emmajean didn’t take offense to Cora being in her house. Particularly when she started looking through her recipe box.
“Drat,” she muttered, realizing the other woman must have hidden her best recipes, or memorized then burned them.
Cora had tried that once, when she was having chest pains and thought she was dying. When the doctor’d said it was just gas, and she realized she’d forgotten to memorize her red slaw recipe before she’d burned it, Cora had fumed. She’d tried for days to re-create it until Bob swore the next time she put a helping of red slaw in front of him, she’d be wearing it atop her head.
Wanting to take one more peek around for Emmajean’s recipes, Cora opened a drawer in the old-style rolltop desk in Emmajean’s bedroom. Funny, everything in there was all jumbled up, not neat like the rest of the house. Like someone had looked through it.
Cora shrugged off the thought and began to dig through the drawer, which was full of memories. Photos. Letters. Pictures of a little girl, probably the scandalous brat who hadn’t bothered coming to her grandma’s funeral. There were postcards, newspaper clippings and flyers with Emma Jean Frasier’s name on them. And, near the very bottom, a glossy color brochure.
Cora Dillon sucked in a shocked breath and stared at the brochure in her hand. “Dirty pictures,” she muttered.
Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter had peddled nasty pictures of naked people, and statues of even more naked people, at some New York gallery that pretended the pornography was art.
“Well, wait until the town of Joyful learns Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter went off to sell dirty pictures.” Considering the scandal, the details of which she’d finally remembered, they’d likely not be too surprised.
She wasted no time in spreading the word, and the game of “whisper down the lane” was well underway by lunchtime.
By 1:00 p.m., the women at Sylvie Stottlemyer’s bridge club were tittering over it. They gleefully repeated the scandal of May 1995 involving Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter as they trumped and made their rubbers.
By two, the guys working on the line at the machine parts factory north of town were speculating on precisely what kind of pictures had been involved. Whether they were X-rated or triple-X. And whether they might still be available on the Internet.
By three, the two different rumors about Emma Jean and the billboard had caught up with one another and been mixed together in the great seething cauldron of gossip. Now things began to make sense…because the club advertised on the billboard was being built on old Emmajean’s land.
By four, the term “gone off to sell dirty pictures” had been replaced by the term “gone off to make dirty pictures.”
And by 5:00 p.m., the whole town of Joyful knew with titillated certainty that the person building the new club was Emma Jean Frasier—aka the porn star.
EMMA JEAN FRASIER hit Joyful late Friday afternoon, not sure whether to be glad her long trip had ended, or sorry she couldn’t just keep on driving.
Florida sounded good. West Palm. The Keys.
“Not happening,” she muttered. Joyful had been her destination, and Joyful was where she’d arrived.
At least no one pointed. Nobody ducked their heads together to whisper. She felt pretty sure she didn’t see any tar being boiled, feathers being plucked or big scarlet letters being cut out for prominent display on her chest. Not that they did that kind of thing anymore.
She hoped.
Glancing at herself in the rearview mirror, she smothered a groan. Sixteen solid hours of driving with the top down under the blazing sun, or the humid, cloud-filled night sky, played absolute hell on a three hundred dollar color job. Even if the color job had been done by Floyds on Fifth in New York.
“No more three hundred dollar color jobs for you, babe,” she told her sun-pinkened reflection. No more lunches at trendy New York restaurants. No expensive cooking classes she could try, but inevitably fail due to her notorious inability in the kitchen. No more trips upstate in the autumn, or wine-tasting clubs or sponsoring shows for promising young artists. No parties in her pretty Manhattan apartment, either.
Gone. Done. Finito. Over and out, with a single hour-long meeting with her attorney.
“Flat broke,” she whispered, unable to hear her own voice.
The summer air rushing over the windshield stung her eyes, bringing a harsh tear to them. It’s only the wind, she told herself. She certainly wasn’t crying over stolen money. Nor over lost jobs, SEC investigations or worthless stock.
Emma had received the invitation to return to Joyful two weeks ago, on the very day she’d found out. An interesting twist, being invited to come to Joyful for her high school reunion the same day she’d learned her only remaining asset was her grandmother’s house in that same town.
She didn’t know if she’d have ever returned if she’d had any other choice. Not for the silly teenage reasons that had driven her away—and kept her away for several years—but simply because there was no one to come home to anymore.
Grandma Emmajean was gone. Just the house remained, not the home.
Her grandmother’s death was a blow from which Emma was still recovering. She’d been unable to face the memories in the warm, sunny-yellow house the old woman had left to her. Her parents had handled all the legal paperwork surrounding Emmajean’s will, and had arranged for her property to be managed by a Realtor in town. Emma had tried not to think about it since.
“Better think about it now,” she mused as she saw more and more that looked familiar to her.
Her foot lifted slightly off the gas pedal as she spotted the old lumber mill on the outskirts of town. Just west of here, near the highway leading down to Atlanta, would be the old pecan orchard her grandmother had owned, the orchard that was now Emma’s. Her heart clenched. She wasn’t quite up to visiting the orchard yet.
She’d soon come to the Chat-n-Chew. The combination gas station and restaurant—where Emma and her high school friends used to try to buy beer—sat right on the main road. She decided to stop, needing to fuel up and grab a cold drink. She also needed to deal with the memories hitting her from every direction, some eliciting a gentle smile but most bringing a hint of sadness for their association with Emmajean.
The blaze of sunlight sent a shimmer of heat reflecting above the blacktop road, and Emma’s eyes grew a little hazy. The tears lurking behind her lids began to spill onto her cheeks.
She was home. In Joyful. But the one person who epitomized the meaning of the word “home” wasn’t here to welcome her.
She blinked rapidly. Fatigue from being behind the wheel for so long was making her overly emotional. Shrugging her shoulders, she ran a quick hand through the tangled mass of short curls surrounding her face and took a deep breath. The air was warm and thick, redolent with the smells she’d always acquaint with the South—earth, pine and a faint wisp of fruit from some nearby orchard. Her tears dried almost immediately.
Before reaching the Chat-n-Chew, Emma suddenly remembered the little park, down a gravel road that cut back to the local grange building. Almost holding her breath, she slowed as she drove by, peeking down the road, unable to see much, other than a tangle of woods and the roof of the grange rising above it.
But she knew what was hidden behind those woods. The park. The gazebo. Emma’s breath came faster as a different memory overcame her, and a new face intruded on the images of the past.
“Johnny,” she said, his name tasting unfamiliar on her tongue.
She hadn’t thought of him in ages. Well, at least not in weeks. His wide, heartbreaking grin and the spark of devilment in his eyes had never been too far from her thoughts, even though the rest of Joyful had been.
Johnny Walker had been her savior and her downfall, all in the very same night. He’d given Emma her first lesson in raw, hot passion. A lesson she’d never forgotten—and had never come close to repeating.
Then he’d given her a lesson in betrayal.
“The bastard.”
Could he still be here?
No. He’d hated this town. He’d wanted nothing more than to shake its dust off his boots and get out even then. Johnny would be long gone from Joyful. No question about it.
And Emma Jean Frasier wouldn’t have it any other way.
“THE PORN STAR’S pulling up outside!”
Johnny paused, his fingers resting lightly on the can of spaghetti sauce he’d picked up off the grocery store shelf. Porn star? Now, there was something you didn’t hear mentioned often in Joyful, Georgia. Livestock auctions, yes. Dances at the VFW hall, storm warnings, gossip about whose husband was spotted with a female impersonator down in Atlanta…yes.
But porn stars in Joyful? Nossir, he didn’t think he’d heard that one before. Though, given the controversy of a proposed new twenty-four-hour strip club on the outskirts of town, he couldn’t claim too much shock.
Wouldn’t that give the biddies something to chew on? As if they all weren’t already in the middle of a frenzy over the billboard advertising Joyful Interludes, the new club, which had shown up this morning. Now they were likely planning pickets, boycotts, religious protests. Soon they’d be talking legal action. Then they’d be knocking on his door.
Add a porn star to the mix and Joyful might just erupt of sheer titillation.
“Didja hear me?” the voice continued. “Joe Crocker down at the Chat-n-Chew says the porn star who’s opening up that new strip club is heading into town, right here to this very store!”
The words hung in the sunny, late-afternoon air of the Joyful Grocery Store. Johnny thought even the dust motes stopped swirling at the announcement made by the teen who’d burst in off the street, his face red, eyes wide with excitement. The kids buying penny—now dime—candy, dropped their loot and froze. The cashiers at the two front checkout lanes, who’d been exchanging man-tales and smacking bubblegum as they rang up the purchases of the handful of customers in the store, also paused.
Then, as if they were all puppets on the same string, they turned and gawked out the huge front window of the store. Eighty-year-old Tom Terry, who used to own the town’s only barbershop, hitched his pants up and tucked his shirttail in.
The expectant silence, as charged as the air in the bingo parlor before each ball was drawn, was suddenly interrupted by a demanding voice. As demanding as only the voice of a three-or or four-year-old little girl could be. “I spilled my juice, Mama!”
Johnny cast a quick glance at the child, whose lower lip was stuck out in a belligerent pout. She tugged on her mother’s dress. The mother—Claire Deveaux, former newspaper reporter turned chubby housewife—ignored the kid. Claire was just as focused on the front door as everyone else in the place.
“Mama…”
“Not now, Eve,” Claire whispered with a shushing motion. “Somebody important’s coming, baby.”
Somebody important. Miss Fanny Tail? Miss Venus Triple-D’Milo? He almost snickered. Why in God’s name would a porn star be opening up a club here in Nowhereville, Georgia? And why was he the only one who seemed surprised by this news?
Johnny shook his head. Apparently he’d once again been completely oblivious to some juicy bit of fodder on the town from Joyful’s infamous grapevine. That’s the way he preferred it. Growing up in a family that was usually the target of such gossip had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he generally shut down his ears when people were whispering nearby.
This time he’d apparently missed some very serious gossip, which had probably started thirty seconds after the billboard had gone up this morning. He almost wished he’d detoured past it to read it for himself.
