Rachel Gibson - Tangled Up In You

A smile of pure male appreciation curved the corners of his mouth. Maddie Dupree stood in the middle of aisle six, a neon-yellow box in her hands. Her brown hair was in one of those claws and looked like someone had stuck a dark feather duster on the back of her head. His gaze moved down her smooth profile, past her throat and shoulder, and stopped dead on her black T-shirt. Last night, he hadn’t been able to get a good look at her. Today, the fluorescent lighting of Handy Man Hardware lit her up like a walking, talking, breathing centerfold. Like an old-school playmate before eating disorders and silicone. Desire stirred in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t even know her well enough to be feeling a thing. Didn’t know if she was married or single, had a man in her life and ten kids waiting at home. Apparently it didn’t matter, because she drew him down the aisle like a magnet.

“Looks like you got problems with some mice,” he said.

“What?” Her head snapped up and her gaze flew to his like he’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t. “Christ almighty.” Her lips parted and she sucked in a breath, drawing his attention to the mole at the corner of her mouth. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he really wasn’t. She looked good all wide-eyed and breathy and a little off balance. He glanced up and pointed with the PVC to the box in her hand. “Mice troubles?”

“One actually ran across my foot this morning while I was making coffee.” She crinkled her nose. “It slid under the pantry door and disappeared. It’s probably in there right now feasting on my granola bars.”

“Don’t worry.” Mick laughed. “He probably won’t eat much.”

“I don’t want him to eat anything at all. Except maybe some poison.” She turned her attention back to the box in her hand. Fine dark hairs clung to the side of her neck and Mick thought he smelled strawberries.

At the far end of the aisle, Travis turned the corner and stopped in his tracks. His mouth got a little slack as he stared at Maddie. Mick knew the feeling.

“It says here that odor problems can occur if rodents expire in inaccessible areas. I really don’t want to have to search for stinking mice.” She looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes. “I wonder if there isn’t something better I could use.”

“I wouldn’t recommend the tape.” He pointed to a box of glue boards. “Mice get stuck on it and squeak a lot.” There it was again. Strawberries, and he wondered if Handy’s had some scented feeders for hummingbirds. “You could use traps,” he suggested.

“Really? Aren’t traps kind of…violent?”

“They can snap a mouse in half,” Travis said as he came to stand beside Mick. He rocked back on his heels and grinned. “Sometimes their head pops off when they go for the cheese.”

“Good Lord, kid.” Maddie’s brows drew together as she lowered her gaze to Travis. “That’s gruesome.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mick stuck the pipe under his arm and placed his free hand on top of Travis’s head. “This gruesome guy is my nephew, Travis Hennessy. Travis, say hello to Maddie Dupree.”

Maddie stuck out her palm and shook Travis’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Travis.”

“Yeah. You too.”

“And thanks for telling me about the traps,” she continued and released him. “I’ll keep them in mind if I decide on decapitation.”

Travis’s smile grew to show off his missing front tooth. “Last year I killed tons of mice,” he boasted, employing his special brand of seven-year-old charm. “Call me.”

Mick glanced down at his nephew and wasn’t sure, but he thought Travis was puffing up his skinny chest. “The best way to get rid of mice,” he said, saving Travis from embarrassing himself further, “is to get a cat.”

Maddie shook her head and her brown eyes looked into his, all warm and soft and liquid. “Cats and I don’t get along.” His gaze slid to her mouth and he again wondered how long it had been since he’d kissed a mouth that good. “I’d rather have severed heads in my kitchen or hidden carcasses stinking up the place.”

She was talking about severed heads and stinking carcasses and he was getting turned on. Right there in Handy Man Hardware, like he was sixteen again and couldn’t control himself. He’d been with a lot of beautiful women and wasn’t a kid. He’d saved Travis from embarrassing himself, but who was going to save him?

“We’ve got some plumbing to do.” He held up the sealant and took a step back. “Good luck with those mice.”

“See you boys around.”

“Yeah,” Travis said and followed him to the checkout counter. “She was nice,” he whispered. “I like the color of her hair.”

Mick chuckled and set the PVC next to the register. The kid was only seven, but he was a Hennessy.

September 5, 1976

Dan said he was going to leave his wife for me!! He said he’d been sleeping on the couch since May. I just found out she got pregnant in June. I’ve been cheated and lied to!! When is it my turn for happiness? The only person who loves me is my baby girl. She’s three now and tells me every day that she loves me. She deserves a better life.

Why can’t Jesus drop-kick us somewhere nice?

Maddie closed her eyes and leaned her head back in her office chair. In reading the diaries, not only had Maddie discovered her mother’s passion for exclamation marks, but her fondness for other women’s husbands as well. Counting Loch Hennessy, she’d had three of them in her twenty-four years. Not counting Loch, each had vowed to leave his wife for her, but in the end, they’d all cheated and lied!!

Maddie tossed the diary on her desk and stretched her arms above her head. Besides the husbands, Alice had dated single men also. In the end, they’d all cheated and lied and left her for someone else. All except Loch. Although, if the affair hadn’t been cut short, Maddie was sure Loch would have cheated and lied like all the others. Single or married, her mother had chosen men who left her heartbroken.

Through the open windows, the noise from her neighbors’ barbeque carried on a slight breeze. It was the Fourth of July, and Truly was in full celebration mode. In town, buildings were decked out in red, white, and blue bunting, and that morning there’d been a parade down Main Street. Maddie had read in the local paper about the big celebration planned in Shaw Park and the town’s “impressive fireworks show” to begin “at full dark.”

Maddie stood and walked into the bathroom. Although really, how “impressive” could the show be in such a small town? Boise, the capital city, hadn’t had a decent show in years.

She plugged the drain in the deep jetted tub and turned on the water. As she undressed, her neighbors’ laughter carried though the small window above the toilet. Earlier in the day, Louie and Lisa Allegrezza had come over to invite her to their barbeque, but even at her best, she wasn’t very good at making polite conversation with people she didn’t know. And lately, Maddie had not been at her best. Finding the diaries had been a real mixed blessing. The diaries had answered some important questions for her. Questions that most people knew from birth. She’d learned that her father was from Madrid and that her mother had become pregnant with Maddie the summer after graduating from high school. Her father had been in the States visiting family, and they’d both fallen madly in “luv.” At the end of the summer, Alejandro had returned to Spain. Alice had written him several letters to tell him about her pregnancy, but she’d never heard from him. Apparently, their “luv” had been one-sided.