She managed to sniffle a little. “What are you saying? You’re going to tell Julian?”
“I’m just saying that a man like that would probably rather fire a problem than deal with it. I don’t think it would look too good for Leo and Wolf if I showed up on Julian’s doorstep. Or if I started talking to the papers. Tell me something, is that bitch still crazy?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Their momma. What kind of medication does Leo have her doped up on so she could meet with these people?”
“These people” all seemed to accept Cassidy for who she was. Maybe if Shelley had been around “these people,” she wouldn’t have stayed in a terrible marriage for as long as she had.
God, she had so much more in common with her almost mother-in-law than she’d dreamed of. And she owed her so much. She was just starting to realize that. She’d thought, in the beginning, that Cassidy was someone she had to put up with. Maybe Cassidy was someone she could learn a whole lot from.
“He doesn’t have her on any medication.”
Robert snorted, a wholly nasty sound. “Now I know you’re lying. She was crazy when I married her. And I still hear the rumors all over the county. Everyone still talks about her. She was lucky no one took those kids from her. Everyone knew how loony she was. She’s the biggest joke around.”
Shelley wanted to slap the son of a bitch, but she’d already decided on her plan of action. It required a little more acting. “What do you want from us?”
“To stop me from going to Lodge or from going to the newspapers and making you the laughingstock of the country? Wouldn’t that be a good story? Woman sleeps with two brothers. You don’t want everyone calling you a whore, do you?”
Once they got a look at her men, most women would just high-five her. And she really didn’t care who called her what, but she liked her privacy. “No, I don’t. What do you want to keep quiet?”
She could only imagine what Leo had threatened him with. And he was damn lucky he hadn’t gone to Wolf. Wolf wouldn’t have talked. Wolf would have shot first.
“I’m thinking ten thousand would keep me pretty quiet.”
Not for long, though, Shelley supposed. It wasn’t her first incident with blackmailers. Her first husband had used her decorating business to gain entry into high-powered officials’ homes so he could bug them and use what he found out to drain the politicians and businessmen dry.
So she was pretty sure Robert Meyer would take his ten grand, spend it, and show back up in Dallas looking for more.
Unless she proved to him that it just wasn’t worth his while. She sniffled again and placed her hand over her mouth as though she was trying not to cry.
“You can take care of this, Shelley,” he said, standing far too close to her. “You can just go and get me a check and then you don’t have to see me again.”
She managed to nod and step away. “I have a checkbook in my purse.”
She stepped around him, keeping her eyes on the floor so he didn’t see the burning hatred she was pretty sure was in her eyes. She stepped back into the house and immediately ran into Rachel Harper.
“Hey, I’m so sorry about the whole Cassidy thing. She’s really sweet. She just kind of has this thing about aliens. I promise to have tooth whitening mouthwash waiting for you.”
She wasn’t even thinking about that right now. She was only thinking about the fact that if she didn’t explain to that fucker what the real situation was, he might show up at her Beeting Ceremony, and apparently that meant a lot to Cassidy. She wasn’t about to allow her crazy, prove-you’re-not-an-alien-queen party to be interrupted by a douche lord. “Do you have a gun?”
Rachel’s eyes went wide and then her mouth turned down. “Of course not. That would probably be silly.”
“Because I need a gun and I don’t carry one.”
Rachel looked back up, her eyes assessing. “Is this one of those ‘make fun of the country people’ things?”
Shelley wasn’t sure what she meant so the truth was all she could offer. “No, this is one of those ‘I need to shoot someone’ things.”
Her mouth curled up in a happy smile. “Oh, thank god. Yeah, it’s in my purse. Do you know how to use it? Who are we shooting? Because I’ve got one in the car, too. If we can wait a couple of minutes, I can call Marie and we can get the whole crew out here.”
“Crew?”
Rachel nodded. “The ‘I Shot a Son of a Bitch’ club. We meet every second Tuesday. I do take it we’re shooting a son of a bitch. Wait. We’re not shooting Wolf, right? I don’t know the other one so I could probably shoot him.”
“No. We’re not shooting my men. We’re shooting their no-good, blackmailing, criminal, nasty-ass father who looked at my boobs the whole time he was threatening to ruin my life.”
Rachel got her purse from the bar. “Oh, we can totally shoot him. Should I call the crew to hide the body or are we going to go with self-defense?”
The strawberry blonde, who looked to be about four months pregnant, pulled a nice-sized revolver out of what looked to be her baby bag. She blushed a little as she wiped off the handle. “Sorry. Paige’s diaper rash cream comes open sometimes. Here you go.”
Luckily, Wolf had been taking her to the shooting range. She snapped the safety off, checked the bullets, and was ready to go. “And I’m not actually going to hit him. I just want to be sure he won’t come back.”
Rachel followed her to the door. “I’m just saying that killing is usually the way to go. They don’t normally come back no matter what Nell says about restless spirits and killing bringing about bad karma.”
Shelley took a deep breath. She really hoped she didn’t actually shoot the man. Something told her it would be bad to have to get married in the Bliss County jail, but she was willing to take that risk.
She threw open the door and he was still standing there, a smug smile on his face. He was deeply unhandsome, his character somehow showing through the lines and planes of his body.
“You got my money, girl?”
Shelley took great delight in aiming that revolver right at his head. “I got everything I’m ever going to give you right here.”
He gasped and backed up, his hands coming up. “Now, we should talk about this.”
“Oh, I am so done talking with you, but I will make a few things plain.”
He went an unnatural shade of red. “You don’t want your nice friend there to call the police on you, do you?” He pointed behind her, indicating Rachel.
“Oh, she’s just going to shoot you. I told her she should totally kill you and we could make up a really good story about it. Lexi’s in the back, isn’t she? She’s a writer. She can make something up really fast. And there are about a million places to bury your body up on my mountain.” She looked out over the yard. “Hey, Max! Rye! Come on over here, babies. We might need you to carry some shit for us!”
Robert Meyer was sweating, his feet shuffling. “You don’t want to shoot me.”
“Oh, I totally want to shoot you. And if you ever come near my family again, I will. And you should be glad I’m the one delivering this message and not Julian Lodge. I have no doubt in my mind that Julian knows more about you than my husbands do, and he won’t hesitate to take you out if you threaten any member of his family. And trust me, he considers my husbands family.”
“Hey.” One of the twin cowboys from the truck came walking up. He pointed to Robert. “You’re that motherfucker from Trio this morning. I thought for sure the shrink and I had scared you away.”
Rachel stared at her husband, one hand on her hip. “What the hell were you doing at Trio? I thought I smelled Zane’s wing sauce on you!”
The big cowboy shook his head, going a little pale. “No, baby. I was getting myself shrunk. I was talking to that Leo guy about all the things that are wrong with me. I know I have mental problems.”
“You liar.” Rachel held her hand out. “I’m going to need that gun back, Shelley.”
But she hadn’t made her point yet. “In a minute.”
She planted her feet the way Wolf had taught her, took careful aim at a place to his left, and fired.
There was a loud scream and Robert Meyer covered his faced and dropped to his knees, though not before Shelley saw the front of his pants suddenly stain and turn wet.
Yes, she’d made her point.
“You told me you had oatmeal at Stella’s.” The other twin didn’t seem at all bothered that she’d nearly killed a man. He was only concerned with yelling at his brother. “Goddamn it, Max.”
Max held his ground. “Well, it’s not fair that you get to eat fried foods and I don’t. I don’t understand why I got the bad cholesterol DNA. It should have been you.”
“Please don’t kill me.” For a man who had apparently spent a lot of time committing crimes, Robert Meyer seemed really scared of guns.
“That’s up to you.” Shelley took a couple of steps his way, standing over him. “If you come near me or mine again, I’ll shoot you and I won’t miss next time. Am I understood? The next time you threaten my life, I’ll take yours. And if you think you can go to the papers, think again. Julian will just buy them and shut the fuckers down. Now get out of here.”