She Drives Me Crazy

Which made it difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe the rumors that she’d been off making dirty movies since she’d left here ten years ago. He hadn’t had time to wrap his mind around the whole gossipy rumor, but his first instinct was to suspect the Joyful grapevine had this particular story totally screwed up, particularly given the way she’d joked about porn movies during their drive.

“I haven’t been inside the house in a very long time and I do appreciate your efforts,” Emma continued.

Mrs. Dillon looked as if she didn’t know whether to take Emma’s words as a compliment or not, so she just grunted and turned toward the door. “I’ll wait for Mr. Boyd inside,” she told Daneen, who still appeared too shocked to protest. Then Cora entered the building, leaving the three of them alone.

“So, why are you back, Emma Jean?” Daneen asked. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”

Emma, apparently not as easily cowed, or, at least, as polite, as she’d been in high school, raised a brow. “Funny. Seems to me you were the one who skipped out of town first, Daneen. Speaking of which, how is Nick?”

Nick. Nick Walker. His younger brother, and once upon a time the object of affection of a number of teenage girls in the township of Joyful, Georgia. He’d have to include Emma Jean Frasier and Daneen Brady in that list.

Daneen Brady—now Walker. His former sister-in-law.

“Emma, maybe we should leave now,” Johnny said, trying to turn her back toward the car. The last thing he wanted was to get Daneen started on the subject of his brother.

Too late.

“Probably burning in hell, for all I care,” Daneen said, her voice hard, as it always was when Nick’s name came up. “Wherever he is, he’s certainly not here, so if Nick’s the reason you came back to Joyful, you might just as well turn around and go back up north.” Her tone turned sugary sweet, though her green eyes remained cool and assessing. “Gracious, it’s been ten years, Emma Jean. Haven’t you gotten over Nick yet?”

Yep. Daneen was sharpening up her claws. When she got around to remembering the rumors of what had happened between him and Emma Jean on prom night, they’d become even more cutting. Though there had never been any romantic involvement between him and his ex-sister-in-law—and never would be—she did seem to think her family status gave her the right to tell him how to run his life. The only reason he gave her a tiny bit of leeway on that was because she was, truly, family. Once a Walker, always a Walker, no matter how much Daneen hated to claim the name.

“Let’s go, Emma.”

Emma wouldn’t be moved. Instead, smiling as she tapped the tips of her perfectly manicured pink nails on her collarbone, she stared at Daneen. “Oh, you sweet thing, to be worried about me,” she said, lacing her voice with a sugary hint of Southern cordiality. “But, no, Nick was only a boy. A sweet, innocent teenage crush. Obviously our relationship wasn’t anything like yours—since you were the one he had to run away with and marry so your daddy wouldn’t kill him and all.”

Johnny lowered his head so his ex-sister-in-law wouldn’t see his grin. Not too many women could pull off that perfect blend of sweetness and cutting sarcasm. Emma’s grandmother had had it down to an art form. Emma had apparently learned one or two things during her time in the South.

He had no idea where she could have learned anything about the adult film business.

As steam almost began rolling out of Daneen’s ears, Emma gave a little smile and leaned heavier against Johnny’s side. “I am really hurting now. You will help me back to the car, won’t you? I’ll speak to Mr. Boyd tomorrow.” She gave him a wide-eyed, limpid look which, he supposed, probably appeared helpless and intimate to Daneen, as Emma had likely intended.

For an instant, he was tempted to let her fall on her ass again, leaving her lying on the ground outside Boyd Realty. She deserved it. Damned if he was going to let Emma Jean Frasier use him to salve her ego or bolster her pride one more time. Been there, done that. Pick another sucker, lady. Once in a lifetime was enough for anyone.

But there was something else in those golden-brown eyes of hers, something beyond flirtation or teasing. Her lashes flickered as she blinked rapidly, appearing on the verge of tears.

She seemed tired and hurting. In pain, both emotionally and physically. His heart twisted in his chest at the sleepless circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin accentuated by a light dusting of freckles.

“Please, Johnny?” she whispered, this time not sounding cajoling but instead nearly desperate.

He sighed. Just like old times. The town had always known him as a rebel, but those closest to him had always realized he was a soft touch, always stupid and sappy enough to step in and take care of people who needed help. Which she did.

Besides which, to his eternal consternation, he never could resist Emma Jean Frasier when she said please.

EMMA DIDN’T MEAN to use Johnny out of spite by asking him to help her to the truck. In fact, when she saw his hesitation, she regretted having to rely on him at all. But she did. She needed to get away and he was the only one who could help her do it.

“What’s the matter with her?” Daneen asked, sounding falsely solicitous. “Shouldn’t she come inside and sit for a while?”

Before Emma could nix that idea, Johnny hurried to thank Daneen and refuse her offer. He went on to briefly tell the other woman what had happened at the store.

Emma barely listened, wondering why she’d let Daneen get to her. Heavens, she was no longer the new kid in school being baited by the most popular girl, like she’d been during her senior year at Joyful High.

God, it seemed another lifetime. Who cared what had happened back then? Teenage dramas had nothing on Emma’s adult life. High school certainly hadn’t prepared her for men like her former boss, Wes Sharpton. Or for women like her former best friend in accounting, Lydia Bailey.

She idly wondered if Wes and Lydia were enjoying their South American honeymoon. And if the last remnants of the money they’d embezzled from the firm—which had put dozens of people out of work and landed them in the middle of an SEC investigation—was all spent yet.

Their money couldn’t have disappeared any faster than Emma’s life savings. Since her last few paychecks had bounced, and her mutual fund investments with the firm had become worthless, her balances had hit zero dollars and zero cents before she and the rest of the staff even knew what had happened.

Her checking account had gone even lower. The resounding boing of the checks she’d bounced all over Manhattan still rang in her ears at night. It was almost as loud as she imagined the metallic clang of the cell doors would have been if she hadn’t immediately covered those checks through the sale of her furniture and jewelry back in the city.

She’d never imagined when she finally settled into brokering and finance—thinking she’d finally found her niche after she’d sampled so many other interesting creative outlets—that she’d end up losing all her money because of her job!

She’d have been better off sticking to archeology. Or art—the show she’d helped fund for an erotic artist a few years ago sure had been fun, though it’d shocked Grandma Emmajean when she’d sent her one of the brochures.

Grandma Emmajean. Her savior. Because coming to Joyful hadn’t been a mere pleasure trip to lick her wounds and wait out the controversy. It’d been a downright necessity, if she wanted a roof over her head…without having to go to her parents for help. It still might come to that. But it hadn’t yet, thank heaven.

“Well?” Johnny asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you ready to go, Emma?”

“Absolutely. It was so nice to see you,” she told Daneen over her shoulder as Johnny helped her down the sidewalk. She leaned against him, almost not even noticing the steadiness of his hand on her arm, the steely strength of his chest against her side and the warm, musky scent of his cologne.

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. She could no more fail to notice those things than a person could pretend not to notice the color of the sky or the metallic way the air tasted right before a wicked thunderstorm. Some things were so elemental they simply couldn’t be ignored. Like him.

Emma suddenly wondered if she’d made a big mistake. Maybe bickering with Daneen would have been a better way to spend her evening. Because after only an hour back in his company, she began to wonder if she would have the strength of will to resist those crazy old feelings she’d always had for Johnny Walker.

Somehow, she feared she wouldn’t.

CHAPTER FOUR

CORA HADN’T HESITATED a moment once she’d gotten inside the waiting room of Boyd Realty. She’d turned right around, made herself a nice peeky-hole between two slats of the miniblinds—which were shamefully dusty, no surprise there—and watched what was going on outside.

The trio continued their chit-chatty conversation for a few minutes. It didn’t take an expert in body language, however, to know there was no friendliness between the two younger women. They were like two cats in a box, trying to stay away from one another until it was safe to swipe, drawing first blood.

She smirked. Daneen Walker was way too uppity, to Cora’s mind, and always had been. It hadn’t helped that her daddy, Sheriff Brady, had spoiled the girl to bits when her mother had passed on fifteen years ago. Lately, she’d been darn near impossible with her claims. She’d been hinting that since Johnny was single, and she was kin, she was gonna serve as his first lady when he got elected mayor after Jimbo Boyd retired.

“Maybe cows’ll fly down Market Street one of these days, too,” she whispered sourly. Because that’d be just about the day any of those white trash Walkers got elected mayor of Joyful.

Prosecuting attorney was bad enough. But since there weren’t lawyers lining up for the low-paying job, she supposed he was the best they could do. She knew it darn near killed Sheriff Brady to have to work with the brother of his ex-son-in-law. Especially with Johnny’s reputation for going easy on the criminal element.

Cora gulped down a bit of guilt. As much as she hated to admit it, Johnny had done a good turn by her grandson, Matthew. The sheriff probably would have seen the boy sent up to juvie hall for tipping over one of the Port-o-lets at the county fair last fall. It might not have been such a fuss and bother if Deputy Willis hadn’t been inside the doggone thing at the time. Johnny Walker had worked things out with the public defender, so the boy had done some community service, but no time in jail.

Anyway, it wasn’t like the portable piss-pot had been damaged. Much. And the township should have paid little Matty and his buddies for the spectacle. Deputy Fred had put on quite an entertaining—if a bit smelly—screaming performance once he’d been rescued. It had been a darn sight more exciting than the sideshows, like the two-headed chicken—obviously a rubber toy with an extra beak super-glued to its butt. Or the hootchie-cootchie girls wagging their saggy fannies all over the midway.

“Mealy-mouthed Fred Willis probably liked getting the attention, anyway,” she muttered, remembering how quiet and whiny he’d been as a child.

Outside, she saw Daneen’s body was stiff with indignation. The snooty Frasier girl with the tattered reputation had a confident look on her face as she and Johnny turned away. Looked like the blond chippie had won this round. Cora had no love for city girls who sold dirty pictures, but it did a body good to see Daneen Walker set back on her round heels once in a while.

Sensing the scene out front was almost over, Cora let go of the blinds. She took a moment to examine the office, even peeking into the small bathroom. When she saw a telltale red wrapper floating in the toilet, she smirked.

Just as she’d suspected…Jimbo Boyd was sticking more than For Sale signs into some of the cheap real estate in Joyful. She sure didn’t suppose Daneen had been filling up rubbers and using them for water balloons.

Filing the information away into the back of her brain for future use, she stepped over to the closed door of Jimbo’s office. She heard his voice, but no one else’s, and assumed he was on the phone, arguing with someone.

Cora smiled. Lucky for her, when Mayor Jimbo argued he did so the same way he did everything else. Loudly. If she’d showed up a half hour earlier, she might of heard the mayor calling out for the lord while his fake-pearls-wearing secretary told him to be a good boy or else mama’d have to spank his bottom.

She snickered, then leaned closer to the door, listening. Catching a few words, she wondered who the mayor was talking to. And why he seemed so interested in that new strip club being advertised on the highway billboard…Joyful Interludes.

EMMA SHOULD have known better than to think Daneen would let her get away without one more shot at ruining her day.

“Wait,” the other woman called before they could step off the curb onto the street.

She gritted her teeth as Johnny paused.

Daneen sauntered down the sidewalk, like a woman who knew she looked good in her silky blouse and tight skirt, and grabbed Johnny’s arm. Tilting her head back, she gave him a welcoming smile. “Are you coming over to dinner tonight?”

Johnny appeared confused. “Was I supposed to?”

“Well, it’s Friday.”

Johnny raised a brow. “So?”

“You know. Little Johnny’s pizza and movie night.”

Little Johnny? Emma tensed. There was a little Johnny somewhere? Good grief, had she been so bloody distracted seeing her first lover in the flesh—and such fine flesh it was—that she’d never even cast a quick, surreptitious glance toward his left-hand ring finger? Emma Jean Frasier, usually a connoisseur of eligible bachelors, had slipped up big time.

She looked now. No ring. The rush of relief surprised her. She shouldn’t have been glad. After all, she hated the bastard, she really did. But something that felt suspiciously like happiness did ooze through her before she could stop it.

“Why do you call him that?” Johnny asked, shaking his head in obvious annoyance. “You know he hates it. The kid’s been called Jack for nine years. Why all of a sudden you’ve started calling him Johnny is beyond me.”

Daneen cast a glance at Emma. “What boy wouldn’t want to be called the same thing as the man he considers his daddy?”

Growing visibly tense, Johnny didn’t answer right away. He stared directly at Daneen. The woman finally stopped giving Emma sly looks, and focused on Johnny’s unsmiling face.

“Jack is my nephew and I love him,” Johnny said, his tone tight. “But I’m not his father, I’m his uncle. He knows it. You know it. Everyone in town knows it. Changing his name isn’t going to do anything but make him resent you, Daneen.”

Emma at last understood. Little Johnny…Jack…had to be the baby Daneen had been pregnant with back in high school. The baby she’d conceived with Emma’s boyfriend, Nick Walker. The baby the whole town had been whispering about on the day of the senior prom, when word got out that the king—Nick—had deserted his queen—Emma—because he’d knocked up the daughter of the sheriff.

And that the sheriff was cleaning his gun.

Daneen didn’t say another word as Johnny helped Emma to the SUV and held her arm while she got in. Once he joined her, taking his place in the driver’s seat, she couldn’t help rolling down her window to face Daneen. Somehow, her face didn’t even crack as she forced a pleasant expression. “Nice seeing you, Daneen. I never got a chance to say goodbye all those years ago.” She managed a completely unconcerned laugh, still having enough of that old dumped-high-school-girl pride to act as if she didn’t care what had happened. “You sure missed one wild prom night.”

Daneen began to frown, then her mouth dropped open, as if she’d just remembered something. She looked ready to grab the door handle when Johnny revved the engine to life.

“Now you did it,” Johnny muttered as he pulled away from the curb, leaving a slack-jawed Daneen behind them.

“What’d I do?”

He shot her a frankly disbelieving look out the corner of his eye. “Wild prom night? Did you really have to remind her about what happened between you and me?”

It took her a second to process the accusation. He thought she’d intentionally set out to bait Daneen by making her jealous of her and Johnny? “Back up, big guy,” she said with a frown. “For your information, I was trying to blow off what happened between your jerk of a brother and that—person—back in high school. Why would she care…” Then she remembered the whole Daddy nonsense and groaned. “Oh, God, don’t tell me you’re following in Nick’s footsteps. You’re involved with Daneen?” She shuddered, not feigning her complete dismay. “Ewww. Two brothers. I didn’t think bad taste ran in families.”

He glanced over and raised a brow. “As opposed to what…good taste?”

She had to think for a moment before she caught his meaning. Then she got it. He and Nick had both gotten involved with her, hadn’t they? She almost punched his arm for putting her in the same category with Daneen, who’d been about as big a bitch as Emma had ever encountered during their high school days. But she didn’t want to cause an accident.

“Anyway,” he continued, “no, we’re not involved. Never have been, never will be.”

Emma blew out an impatient breath. Men. Such simple creatures. “Have you told her that?”

He gave her a pointed look as they stopped at a red light. “Yeah, I have. Nine years ago, right after she came back to Joyful, she made a play. I shot her down.”

The thought of Daneen trying anything with Johnny made Emma feel a sudden stab of annoyance she had no business feeling. She swallowed it away, asking, “Is she in love with you?”

Johnny shook his head. “Hell, no. She knows me too well.”

That was an interesting comment, considering how loveable he was. Correction. Had once been. “Oh?”

“She knows it’d be a waste of time since I don’t want anything to do with love, marriage or any of that garbage. Walker men just aren’t cut out for it. At least not the ones from my branch of the family tree.” He shrugged, probably realizing how heavy that had sounded. “Daneen and I are friends, that’s all.”

Emma remained silent for a moment, hearing a hint of resignation—though not bitterness—in Johnny’s voice. He obviously believed what he said about commitment. Little wonder, considering his background…his father. And apparently Nick. The only surprising thing was how his words had affected her—with a sudden flare of something almost painful in her belly.

“If you say so. But Daneen sure looked territorial.”

“There’s nothing else between us, and there never will be,” he added. “Daneen knows it as well as I do.”

He apparently believed that. Gullible as well as simple. “So what’s with the Daddy stuff?”

Turning the car onto Peach Grove Lane, he headed toward her grandmother’s neighborhood. “Jack doesn’t really have one. Nick bailed on her and joined the Marines before Jack was even born.” Johnny frowned, looking disgusted.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only seen him once since.”

That surprised her, knowing how close Johnny and Nick had been. But the tightness in his jaw warned her not to push.

He continued. “Daneen moved back here when Jack was a month old. My mom and I do what we can to help.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “Daneen has realized I’m never going to get married and have kids, so she pictures Jack as my heir or something—as if I’ve got a ton of money. Which I don’t.”

Never marry. Never have kids. Again that stab of something hit her in the stomach. Hunger. It’s just hunger from a long day of driving with no food. But deep in her heart, she knew she was lying to herself.

“She seems to think her status as my ‘sister’ gives her the right to interfere in my personal life,” he said. “Look, can we talk about something else?”

“Like?”

“How about we discuss how wild prom night was?”

The louse. She really couldn’t believe he wanted to have this conversation while she was trapped, practically crippled, and at his mercy. “Let’s not. Ever.”

“Still feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Still mad at the world?” she snapped right back.

“Nope.” He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Just you.”

She sagged back into the seat. He was mad at her? What a laugh, considering he was the one who’d gotten into his truck and taken off after they’d been caught at the gazebo.

The mention of their prom night brought up lots of emotions. Humiliation, of course. Embarrassment. Sadness at the white-hot anger that had made them both say some pretty ugly things.

Enough.

“Let’s not talk at all,” she said, fighting for emotional distance from Johnny, in spite of their close proximity.

“Suits me fine,” he muttered as he fell silent.

Closing her eyes, she battled to think of something else. But the thought of their final confrontation reminded her of everything else that happened that night.

Prom. Ten years ago. It should have been a disaster. The town had spent the day whispering about Nick and Daneen’s elopement. Emma had spent the day crying about having no date for the most important event in high school.

Then Johnny had been there. He’d knocked on her grandma’s door, wearing the tux Nick had rented. It was a little tight across the shoulders and the sleeves were a bit short, but he’d still been heart-stoppingly handsome. Smiling that wicked Walker smile of his, he’d handed her a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers. Ordering her to dry her tears and put on her dress, he’d informed her he was taking her to the dance. Whether she liked it or not.

She’d liked it. As a matter of fact, considering she was already crazy for him—and had been since the day the previous summer when he’d kissed her in her car—she’d loved it.

And for a few hours, she’d truly loved him.

“You’re thinking of that night,” he said softly.

His whisper didn’t startle her out of her reverie, and she could only nod, her wisp of a smile probably telling him she was recalling the early part of the evening. The nice part. “Remember the look on their faces when we walked in?”

He chuckled, obviously picturing—as she was—the gaping upperclassmen gathered beneath the twinkling lights and clumps of fresh magnolias decorating the VFW hall. “They expected you to stay home crying and instead you came in on the arm of the wickedest of the Walker boys.”

The scent of magnolia always took her back to that place. Always made her feel the heady thrill she’d felt when she’d walked in with him. Not because of how her classmates had reacted, but because of the way his hand had felt on the small of her back. His fingers had dipped low on her spine, touching her with a kind of intimate possession his brother had known better than to even try.

For all his talk and swagger, Nick Walker had been a boy, contained by the boundaries she set.

Not Johnny. He’d already been a man. A man who’d completely intoxicated her, physically, and emotionally. A man to whom boundaries meant absolutely nothing.

“You said something sweet to make me smile for the picture,” she murmured.

“I told you I had your ankle bracelet hanging on my bedpost in my dorm room.”

Yes, that was it. She idly wondered what had ever happened to the anklet but didn’t have the nerve to ask.

“We danced every dance,” she added, still looking out the window, not at him. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to know if this unexpected stroll down memory lane was as confusing for Johnny as it was for her. She’d been angry about how the night had ended for so long, she’d almost allowed herself to forget how magical most of it had really been.

They’d stayed in each other’s arms, swaying to the music—even the rock songs—for ages. He’d flirted with her shamelessly. He’d acted as if he had eyes for no one else. Then he’d whisked her out the door. But not before giving her a bone-meltingly romantic kiss under the slowly spinning mirror ball, right in the middle of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”