I hear a muffled laugh and pull out of my mother’s arms just in time to see Leo come around to the front yard, giving the group of gossiping idiots a wave before coming up the steps to greet my mother.
“Ruby, you’re looking beautiful as always,” he tells her, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
My mother, one who has never been at a loss for words in all of her sixty-five years, blushes, giggles, pats the curlers on her head self-consciously, and needs three attempts before she can remember how to speak without stuttering.
“Oh, Leo, stop it!” she admonishes him with a wave of her hand. “Has my daughter been giving you trouble this morning? What on earth is going on?”
Leo’s eyes flash to mine, then quickly down to my neck before he shields whatever I just saw on his face and smiles at my mother. I immediately bring my hand up and place it against my neck, forgetting about the red mark on my throat and knowing the only reason my mother didn’t see it as soon as I pulled away from her was because she was distracted by the annoying hot guy standing next to us. That’s just what I need is for her to see it, start shouting, and give the neighbors something else to blather about. I caught Leo looking at my neck several times this morning, and I waited for him to ask me if I was okay or how I was feeling, and each time he quickly looked away like he did just now, not saying a word.
Again, is it too much to ask for a little compassion? I was almost choked to death last night, and now a guy I threatened to choke with his own balls not more than twelve hours ago is dead a few hundred yards away.
“Payton has been giving me trouble for a lot longer than just this morning, Mrs. Lambert,” Leo confides with a wink, which makes my mother go all aflutter once again, giggling and blushing and acting like a fool.
“Don’t you have something else you should be doing instead of flirting with my mother?” I ask him irritably, realizing as soon as the words leave my mouth that the something else is figuring out why there’s a dead man in Emma Jo’s backyard. That we probably poisoned. With toilet bowl cleaner pie.
Leo leans in closer to me and I suddenly get a faint whiff of the cologne he’s wearing – something light and woodsy and so delicious that I lick my lips and hold my breath when he drops his head close to mine. He veers his face to the side of mine, so close that I can feel his warm breath against my cheek until he stops right by my ear. My heart starts beating faster and I smile to myself, realizing that he’s finally going to ask me if I’m okay. I don’t care if my mother is standing right here, I don’t care if half the town is watching from the next yard over, I’m so happy he’s finally realized I could use a little of the concern he’s been showing Emma Jo that I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from throwing my arms around him.
You know, to thank him for being nice to me and maybe butter him up a little so he doesn’t arrest me for murder, not to sniff him again or anything.
“Don’t tell your mom anything right now, at least not until Billy Ray is finished and I have a little more information. Oh, and don’t leave town. I’m gonna need you to come down to the station later and answer a few questions,” Leo whispers in my ear.
He pulls back, gives me a terse nod then gives my mother another kiss on the cheek before excusing himself to return to the backyard.
“He is such a nice young man,” my mother muses as she blatantly stares at Leo’s ass when he walks down the porch steps, giving another wave to the crowd of people and reassuring them that everything is fine and he’d come back and talk to them as soon as he could.
“Stop scowling, you look like you want to murder someone. Have you had your coffee yet this morning?” my mother asks when she finally turns away from Leo’s backside. “How about we grab Emma Jo and go down to the Hungry Bear? We can have a nice long chat about what Billy Ray and Sheriff Hudson are doing here, and you can tell me why I’m the last one to know you’ve been in love with him all these years.”
She takes my hand and pulls me toward the front door, pausing right in front of it to look back over her shoulder and address the crowd.
“DON’T WORRY! I’LL FIND OUT ALL THE JUICY DETAILS AND GET BACK TO YOU! PAYTON NEEDS HER COFFEE FIRST. THIS CHILD WILL MURDER EVERYONE IF SHE DOESN’T HAVE HER MORNING COFFEE!”
Just like that, I remember why I haven’t been home in twelve years. And hope my mother doesn’t mind visiting me in prison instead of Chicago for the rest of my life since she just announced to the entire street that I’d kill someone over a cup of coffee. God only knows what they’d do if they knew about Jed, the ball choking comment I made, or the pie.