Nancy Bartholomew - Stand By Your Man

"Vernell," I said, "you wait one minute! We've gotta talk! You've got some explaining to do!"

Vernell looked back at me for one brief second, shoving his beer into my empty hand. "I'll find your car, and I'll wait for you there. Now, go get rid of him!"

Vernell was as scared as I've ever seen him, and for a man who spent most of his teenaged years tangling with the law, I was impressed. But then, Vernell knew Marshall Weathers, and he'd seen what he was capable of doing when he put his mind to it. We'd both seen that, and Vernell was divorced on account of it.

I gripped my plate in one hand and Vernell's beer in the other. The best thing I could do was find a spot at an empty table and try to blend in before Marshall saw me standing in the shadows looking guilty.

He was looking in Bess's direction when I sat down at the closest table. I didn't give so much as a second thought to my new tablemates, only noticing that they were two women about my age. I kept my head down and started in on the food.

My companions didn't seem to care that I'd joined them; in fact, they seemed oblivious. It didn't take long to follow that piece of information up with another one. The women across from me were knee-walking, about to be bowl-hugging drunk, and one was crying.

"I tole you thish was a bad idea," one girl said.

"I know, I know," the crier said, "but I just wanted to be near his spirit."

I looked up then. The crier was a large, dark-haired girl, her hair permed into long kinky curls that fell halfway down her back in a frizzy halo. She could've been anywhere between twenty-two and thirty, wearing fifty pounds of mascara that ran as she cried, leaving fat black trails down her cheeks.

Her companion was a frosted blonde, with the same frizzy hairstyle and thick pancake makeup that couldn't hide an accumulation of bad acne scars.

I put my head back down and concentrated on my plate. This was gonna be good.

"Oh, Nosmo," the black-haired girl said, the words coming out in a long moan of anguish.

"Shush up!" her friend said. "People will know."

"Who cares now? He's dead," she wailed, "and it's all her fault! She killed him! He would've left, he told me so, but she killed him!"

Her voice rose and her friend, drunk as she was, smelled trouble. "Shut up! We'll take care of this, but not now!"

There was a brief pause and I figured they'd noticed me and were nudging each other. Still I didn't move or look up.

"Will you look at that guy," the blonde said softly.

"What guy?"

I knew what guy. There was only one guy in the room that deserved that tone, in my opinion.

"Oh my God, he's gorgeous!"

"And he's coming right over here! Wipe your face!"

There was a mad scramble as the girls fumbled for lipstick and I tried to sink lower into my chair. I turned my head to the side and stared at the door that Vernell had gone through, wishing I could be anywhere else. Still, when he put his hand on my shoulder, a thrill went coursing through my stomach, and I couldn't quite work up the cold indifference I'd sworn to show him.

"Well," he said, "fancy this."

I looked up and tried to smile. He stared down at me, his eyes like lie detectors, looking right through me.

"This is right interesting," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting next to me. He looked across the table, saw the two women watching us, and smiled. "Ladies," he said.

They each raised a hand, wiggling their fingers and giggling. Weathers gave them the 200-watt treatment and turned back to me.

"This ain't like you, Maggie," he said, picking up Vernell's cup and staring into it.

"What? Drinking beer? I do it all the time."

Weathers smiled. "No you don't. And what are you doing here? I thought you didn't know Nosmo King?"

He spoke softly, so his words didn't carry across the table to his two admirers. I'm sure to them we seemed to be having an extremely intimate conversation.

I grabbed the half-full cup of beer, stared down into it. "Well, shucks," I said, "this beer's about gone. How's about filling it up when you get your plate?"

Weathers cocked an eyebrow. "Finish it," he said, "and I'll run right up there."

But he knew me. He knew I didn't drink beer. I hated it. In fact, I don't recall that Marshall Weathers had ever known me to drink anything. And other than a frozen strawberry margarita once or twice a year, I guess I didn't really drink. But this was a showdown. This was to protect Vernell's unworthy hide. So I picked up the cup, held my breath, and drank it down as quickly as I could.

"Go girl!" the drunken blonde said.

"Well," Marshall said, the smirk firmly in place. "Looks like you need another." And with that he got up and crossed the room to the keg.

In the minute he was gone, I tried to leave. But there's something about alcohol on an empty stomach that makes thinking and acting difficult to do at the same time. So, instead I wolfed down my brownie and wished I was walking out the back door.

"Here you go," he said, plopping the full cup down in front of me. "Enjoy!"

"Well, I just will," I said. "I love beer. Don't know why I never told you that before." I took a huge swallow and looked up at him. "What're you doing here?"

He looked right back at me. "I got business here. Question really is, what're you doing here? You don't know Nosmo King." He pushed the beer a little closer to my hand, daring me, and I wasted seconds taking a huge swig.

"My that is good," I said. "Nothing like a fresh keg." Across the table, my drinking buddies giggled.

"I'd need a drink too, if he was gonna look at me like that!" the blonde said.

Marshall Weathers put his hand down on the table, right next to mine. He leaned in closer, his eyes never leaving my face.

"I've been thinking about you," he whispered.

My entire body started to respond. My heart started racing, my stomach did a little flip, and every place he'd touched the day before remembered the feel of his fingers. But my brain was on override. I tried to picture him with Tracy the cadet, but when he was staring like that, all I could think of was him.

"I've been thinking about you too," I said, but it came out kind of squeaky and high-pitched.

Marshall leaned back a little and stared at me. "You're up to something, Maggie Reid."

"No, I'm not. I'm just, um, glad to see you, surprised, that's all."

"Drink a little more of that beer, Maggie. You don't want it to go flat on you."

I picked up the cup, never broke eye contact, and drained it dry. It was all I could do not to spit it out. That's when I remembered Tracy.

"Don't you have a job to do?" I straightened up in my chair and frowned at him. Truth of the matter was, if he stuck around much longer, I was going to melt into a little puddle of desire, right at his feet.

"Yeah, way I see it, you're part of my job. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have something up your sleeve. After last night, I'd think you'd get a clue that this is dangerous business, but no, here you are in the thick of it. A good detective oughta be asking himself why."

"Way I see it," I said, "is I've gotta go." I started to get up, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down into my seat.

"I'd have to arrest you if you did that," he murmured.

"Arrest me! Why?"

My drinking buddies giggled.

"On account of drinking and driving being against the law and dangerous." He smiled, but it was a dangerous smile. He was licking his lips, enjoying the bind he now had me in, knowing he owned this particular situation.

"Way I see it, I'm gonna have to take you home." One of the girls sighed and he smiled over at her, then looked back at me. "You stay right here. I've gotta talk to a couple of people, then I'll be back and we can go."