The Big Heat

Marlene shot Martin a withering look. “It’s the way I’m made. Some of us aren’t emotionally or mentally built to indulge in casual sex.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room except for the ticking of the big wall clock. It had worked well enough for three of the four of them present.

Cade spoke up. “If you’re going to do this online dating thing, promise me you won’t go out with anyone until we approve them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. She hadn’t done such a good job with the first husband and there were some real pieces of crap out there. Someone had to make sure she didn’t strike out if she was determined to go round two. And Marlene might not be family, but she worked for him and no one screwed with anyone under his domain unless they wanted a serious ass-kicking.

Linc nodded. “Good plan. We can make sure you don’t hook up with any creeps.”

Marlene looked from him to Linc and back. “Fine. You boys can approve them.”

“And I’ll help you put together your Web page,” Martin announced.

“I don’t need any help putting it together.”

“Sure you do. You want to make sure you don’t put out any casual sex signals and I know all of those.” Martin crossed his arms over his chest in a perfect imitation of Cade. “I know what men your age are looking for.”

“But I don’t want a man like you,” Marlene shot back with a sweet smile.

Linc raised an eyebrow at Cade and Cade answered with a faint shrug. Martin’s scowl deepened. Was Martin’s scowl more territorial than protective? Cade hoped the hell not.

Martin and Marlene would be a disaster. Once Martin had pulled himself up by his bootstraps after Lucy’s death, he’d taken up serial dating. Martin liked women and he treated them with respect, but he made sure they never got too close.

Marlene wasn’t the kind of woman who’d go for the four-week wooing she’d get from Martin. Plus she was damn good at what she did and they didn’t need to lose her when things went south at week five.

Martin gritted his teeth. “Then I’ll put down the opposite of everything I’d look for in a woman.”

“That might work then,” Marlene shot back. She looked at the three of them, ringing her desk. “If I pass out from the overdose of testosterone in here, someone just drag me out to the sidewalk.”

Marlene promptly ignored them, returning to the computer screen, humming that old seventies tune “Love is in the Air.”

Cade headed for the door. He was getting the hell out before he caught whatever was going around. He’d rather face down hardened criminals than get caught up in this love business.

3

SUNNY SANG ALONG with Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” her radio set to classic jazz, on her way to the grocery store after lunch. The remainder of her meal was packed in a to-go box next to her but her kitchen at home was dismally empty. Taking advantage of being alone in the car, she sang louder. Sunny couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved to sing. Sometimes when she sang at home, the cat next door yowled.

She felt better than she had in days. No, make that weeks. She’d run a gamut of emotions—depressed, pissed, violated, humiliated. Yep, that about summed it up. But now she felt good. No, make that great.

Despite the rain clouds gathering overhead, she was setting her personal course for nothing but sunny skies from here on out.

She pulled up to the four-way stop at Jackson and Hull Streets. A man in a Santa suit stood on the corner, ringing a bell, holding a donation can for a local food bank. Blue car went. The car to her left should go next.

Her head whipped around in a double-take. No. Was she hallucinating? It couldn’t be. It was.

Cecil Meeks sat at the stop sign on her left in his shiny, black, chrome-trimmed, late-model Cadillac DeVille. All the emotions she thought she’d processed and worked through in the past four weeks swamped her.

She sucked in a deep breath aimed at calming. Problem was she didn’t feel calm. Hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, she silently chanted.

Meeks spotted her and the son of a bitch actually smirked. Full, in-your-face smirking, despite the fact that he was in one car and she in another. She sucked another lungful of air in on the one before, determined to be the bigger person but it didn’t seem to help.

His turn to drive.

Meeks accelerated and waved. And laughed.

He’d made an international laughingstock of her and now he was laughing in her face. One second she was sitting there, the next she just…floored it.

Bam. Her Mustang plowed into the rear door of his Caddie, the impact jerking her against the seat belt. She didn’t have an airbag to go off, but her horn did.

She sat there. She’d just rammed Meeks’s car…with hers.

He jumped out of his car, screaming and waving a cell phone but she couldn’t hear him over the blaring of her horn. Stunned by her own behavior, she sat and stared at him. Unfortunately, his penis didn’t fall off in the street and no rabid squirrels came running. She did, however, hear the approaching wail of a police siren.

Santa wrenched her door open, his beard askew, his bell still in his hand. “Are you okay? Are you trapped in your car?”

She unbuckled her seat belt, her hand amazingly steady even though she felt as if she were shaking all over. “I’m fine.”

She climbed out, her legs barely holding her upright.

“Hey, aren’t you the lady—” he looked over at Cecil jumping up and down like a maggot on a stick “—isn’t he—”

“I am. He is.”

Suddenly the clouds opened up and it started to pour. Not the soft gentle rain of a summer shower but a cold, driving, early-December deluge that stung.

Sunny tilted her face upward. Maybe she’d just drown before things got any worse. If she was lucky.

Luck, however, didn’t seem to be running her way.

“WHAT IN THE HELL was Sunny Templeton thinking?” Cade muttered to himself as he watched the five o’clock news’s lead story over Marlene’s shoulder on her computer monitor.

Meeks had a bandage wrapped around his head and a sling supported his right arm as he played to the camera. “It was terrifying. I didn’t recognize her until I drove past. It was the rage and hate filling her eyes that caught my attention and then the next thing I knew she attacked me with her vehicle. She clearly tried to kill me. I’m lucky I walked away with only the injuries I sustained.”

“Is this your first interaction with Ms. Templeton since the election?” the reporter asked.

“Mercifully, yes. And I hope my last. The woman’s definitely deranged.”

The female reporter quirked her eyebrow. “Some people believe you crossed the line when your campaign put out that flyer.”

Cecil adopted a sanctimonious demeanor. “Absolutely not. I considered that a public service. When you put yourself up for public office, there can be no distinction between public and private life. The public had a right to know what they were getting with Ms. Templeton.”

The reporter faced the camera. “Ms. Templeton is currently being held at the Memphis Police Department pending bail. We’ll bring you updates as available. Back to you now, Gretchen.”

The camera cut back to the in-studio news anchor and Cade filtered out the rest, his attention still focused on Sunny Templeton and Cecil Meeks.

“That man ought to be ashamed,” Marlene said, switching to another screen with one click of her mouse in evident disgust. “I’m sorry we had anything to do with him.”

Cade straightened. “That makes two of us. Meeks is a worm. It’d be kind of funny that she wrecked his new Cadillac, if it hadn’t landed her in jail.”

Marlene sighed. “I’d go over there and help her if I could.” Marlene had turned Sunny into a regular Joan of Arc in the last month. He’d be hard-pressed to believe Sunny Templeton had a more staunch supporter anywhere in Memphis than Marlene. “I’m sure True Blue will handle the bond.” She shot him a look that made the tiny hairs on the back of his neck quiver. “It’s a shame. I think she’s a nice girl. Pretty. Smart. Nice figure in a bikini.”