The One Girl Read online

  If looks could kill I would have been dead right then. For sure. She was not happy that I was going against her. I had suspected that would be the case, and the image in that crystal ball had been spot on.

  “Talie. Just trust me. You trust me, right?”

  It was a dirty play, but one that I had to make because it disarmed her and made her feel guilty. I felt a little bad using her guilt against her, but not bad enough not to do it.

  She huffed, but gave in. “Fine. She can go out.”

  Ruthie clapped her hands excitedly, focused on the fact that she had just gained another gal pal, and Jace looked at me with awe in his eyes.

  He knew enough not to say anything right now, but I could tell he wanted to get a few pointers from me in a one on one version of Manipulating a Woman 101.

  All men use manipulation on women. The distinction comes in whether that man uses his powers for good or evil.

  And, hey, women do it too. I personally liked it when Talie did it. Especially when she used sex as her weapon. Oh yeah, especially then. It’s human nature to want things to go the way you want them to, and one of the best ways to do that is through some skilled influencing.

  After years of testing the theory, I discovered that the number one rule of manipulating a woman, or at least the one that pertained to this specific situation, was easy but crucial. Once you get a woman to cave, you have to move on quickly. They always rethink things if you give them enough time.

  Thus, in accordance with section B of this rule, it was time to move this discussion along.

  Besides, I was fucking hungry.

  “Ok. Now, that we settled that, let’s go eat. I’m starvin’.”

  I could tell Talie noticed that I cut what probably would have been a long-winded conversation short, but I made sure I didn’t acknowledge it. That was the followup rule to the aforementioned number one rule. Never acknowledge your manipulative actions.

  Instead, I played dumb and shuffled the group toward the door.

  ********

  We figured it might be fun to rub two of John’s waitresses in his face while he was swamped, so we went to the diner.

  That might make us assholes, but John would have done the same thing to us.

  I decided to kill two birds with one stone by harping on it and getting the introductions out of the way immediately and simultaneously. “Hey Johnny. We need a table to accommodate the five of us.” I turned to my right, reached back, grabbed Kayla’s shoulder, and pulled her forward. Inclining my head in her direction I said, “This is Kayla. Talie’s sister.” I only spoke those five words, but my meaning was a lot more complex. John, thankfully, read my intentions and understood that he was to watch out for her both personally and by spreading the word.

  He gave me a chin lift, and then responded, “You got it, man.”

  He then turned to Kayla and stuck out his hand. “Hey there. Nice to meet you. You’re hot just like your sister. You want a job?”

  Kayla was shocked. The rest of us, not so much. That sounded like exactly what we expected from him.

  Realizing she wasn’t imagining it and that he had, in fact, just said those things to her, she managed to squeak out, “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Don’t know anything about your sister either. ‘Cept she’s hot. So are you. Want a job?”

  His intentions may not have been obvious to everyone else, but they were to me.

  Johnny was a good guy. He loved hot women; That much was obvious. But this was more about doing a favor for me. He knew he could watch out for her better if she spent a lot of her time working here.

  “You should take it! You’ll get to spend a lot of time with me and Nattie if you do!”

  I had been all ready to push her, but Ruthie had done it for me.

  Kayla looked at Talie, moved her eyes to me, completed the circuit by looking back to John, and then shrugged her shoulders. “Uh, sure. I guess if I’m going to be around I could make some money while I’m here. When do you want me to start?”

  John shook his head and responded, “Just come in with your sister whenever she decides she’s gonna work again.”

  He threw a wink at Talie to lessen the impact of the insinuation that she didn’t work a lot, which was good because, in reality, she worked her ass off. Since she had come to Joplin, most days, she worked all three shifts.

  I did a scan of the restaurant, something I undoubtedly should have done sooner but had gotten distracted, and took in the details of the people surrounding me. I was looking for one face, and luckily, I didn’t find it. I knew the rest of them would never relax if he was here and watching.

  Wiggling my way through the wall that Kayla, John, Ruthie, and Jace had formed, I grabbed Talie’s hand, laced my fingers with hers, and pulled her towards a table near the back. We couldn’t sit at our usual table because we had too many people, but we could sit somewhere close. I pulled the back of her hand to my lips as I walked and gave it a soft, lingering kiss.

  She looked up at me with warmth and love on her face, and I felt a squeeze in my chest. I leaned down and brushed my lips through her hair and down to her ear.

  “Love you, Babe.”

  I was going to make sure she knew she was my world. But I was also going to make sure she knew I was the same man she met a few months ago.

  “Really love your boobs in that shirt.”

  Her face had started to form a smile after my first remark, but after my second, it turned into an eye roll.

  Jace, Ruthie, and Kayla caught up to us, and I watched as Jace motioned for Ruth to scoot in the booth ahead of him and she listened. Oh yeah, she had definitely softened.

  Talie saw it at the same time that I did and bugged her eyes out at me. I shrugged one shoulder and shook my head slightly in response. I didn’t know the answers to her questions, but I had suspected it would go this direction with time.

  As we slid into the other side of the booth, Jace reached up and stretched his arm across the back of the seat and, consequently, Ruth’s shoulders. That was a bold move, and I was expecting her to react harshly, slap him, or at least scoot away- throw some sort of a shit fit like only women can. But I was wrong. If anything, it seemed like she leaned into him.

  Impressive. Up the score total to one for Jace.

  I wasn’t going to ruin this for him, so I didn’t mention anything. And I made sure Talie got that message too by giving her a meaningful thigh squeeze and minute head shake. She sighed, but kept her mouth shut. She wanted them together too. In fact, she was the little matchmaker who had set this whole thing in motion.

  I had never noticed that Jace had a thing for Ruth, but I guess I had been stuck pretty deep inside my own head until the day that Talie got here.

  Talie was in her own head too, but in a different way. She noticed things about other people before she noticed things about herself, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she didn’t miss it when I did.

  Kayla, however, didn’t get the memo about being discreet in order to let Jace bask in his glory. “You two look awful cozy? Decide maybe you don’t mind living with him, Ruthie?”

  Pink hit Ruth’s cheeks, and as a result of her embarrassment, she moved to scoot away from Jace a little bit. His jaw got tight, a muscle in his cheek ticked, and I knew the words ‘Never hit a woman’ were running on repeat in his head. He had been five steps in, and I’m sure he had worked very hard for every single one of them. After Kayla’s comment, he was essentially going to have to start over.

  Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars.

  Men don’t like to have to start over. That puts us further away from the loving feelings, and loving feelings are what gets us close to loving actions. We like the feelings too, but we really love the actions.

  Don’t blame me, blame biology.

  Once again, as is typical male versus female behavior, my brain went to sex while Talie’s went to solving the problem.

  Her eyes cut to Kayla,
but she verbally addressed Ruthie. “Hey, who wouldn’t like hanging out with Jace? He’s fun and not bad to look at. And besides all of Jace’s positive qualities, I feel better with you there. I appreciate you making the sacrifice so that I can know you’re safe.” She tilted her head and the corners of her mouth just barely tipped up. “Did you get everything you need moved over there? We can always help if you need us to.”

  Ruthie’s face warmed, and her body settled back into her seat, her embarrassment mostly forgotten. “Thanks Nattie, but Jace already helped me get everything, I think.” She paused for a second, her pupils shifting upward while a thought crossed her mind, and then continued, “In fact, I’m pretty sure I have way more than I’ll ever need.”

  A grin descended back on my face as I glanced at Jace.

  Obviously, Ruth wasn’t moving back out now that she was in. She just didn’t know it yet.

  When Ruth spoke again, she had moved on from the awkwardness, and her tone was a little whiney but in a cute way. “Can we please go to Zumba sometime soon?”

  Before Talie could answer, Kayla piped in. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Aren’t we going to talk about what’s important here? About the trip I just took?”

  She was right and wrong at the same time. It was important, but this wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have out here with gossip-prone ears listening. “Yeah, we are. But not here, we’re not. Save it. We’ll talk back at home after we eat. For now, just relax. Talk about Zumba or whatever other shit women talk about.”

  They all listened to me, but Kayla had killed the mood, so silence set in.

  After about a minute, I squeezed Talie’s thigh and waded into the breach.

  “We should go to the Lizard tomorrow night.”

  Three people gave me nods, while one gave me only a look of confusion.

  Kayla was new, but she would catch on eventually, once we hit all of our usual activities.

  “And this weekend Cade’s comin’ close. So I wanna go up to Nashville and see him. Thought everybody might have a good time if we went.”

  This time Jace and Talie knew what was going on, but the confusion table now held a party of two.

  Now that the number of confused had grown, I felt the need to explain. “My friend, Cade, is a professional bull rider. Comin’ close on the circuit and we’re gonna go see him.”

  Ruthie’s face split into a huge smile, she clapped her hands, and squeaked, “Yay! That sounds like a ton of fun!”

  Jace used her excitement as a cloak to hide the squeeze around the shoulders he gave her.

  At the same time, Kayla’s face split into a smile too. But hers seemed different, calculating almost. “A bull rider? Oh my.”

  Oh, yeah. It certainly looked like Cade already had that deal sealed. Should make for an entertaining evening for the rest of us. Her smile had obviously been from the detailed fantasy playing out in her head.

  Thankfully, Annabelle came over to our table right at that moment, so we didn’t have to hear any details of that fantasy.

  It had taken Annabelle a while to get to us because they were shorthanded, and it was so packed. When I saw how frazzled she was, I felt a little bad for rubbing two of their waitresses in her face, but I couldn’t take it back now.

  “Hey Annabelle. Sorry you’re shorthanded tonight.” That came from Talie, of course. She was probably really feeling bad, whereas I felt only a mild need for repentance.

  The rest of us put in our two cents with a chorus of ‘Yeah’ and ‘Yeah, Annabelle’ coming out of all of our mouths.

  She smiled, shrugged a shoulder, and answered, “No worries. This is like a breath of fresh air after bein’ at home wranglin’ my three kids.”

  You couldn’t help but smile back at the sound of her voice. It was so soft and sweet, but loud enough that you could hear her with no trouble even over the noise from the crush of patrons. I didn’t know how such a combination was possible, but it was. And it was awesome.

  We all placed our orders, and Annabelle left to put in the food and bring us our drinks. When I looked back across the booth, I noticed Ruthie had a strange look on her face. A mixture of fear, guilt, and something else. No one else had noticed so I discreetly glanced over my shoulder to see if I could find what was bothering her. My eyes did a quick scan and landed on Bobby. He wasn’t looking directly at her at the moment, but I had a feeling he had been a few seconds ago.

  I turned back to Ruth, and she met my eyes with determination in her green ones. She mouthed, “Please” and shook her head ever so slightly.

  She didn’t want me to mention it or make a big deal. I thought about it, and decided I could do that. It wasn’t like she wasn’t going to see him around. He lived here. She just had to get used to running into him, especially being that she was out with Jace. As long as he didn’t bother her or anyone else I cared about directly, I wouldn’t bother with him.

  ********

  Dinner was finished, we were back at the farm, and I was just shutting the front door to the view of Ruthie’s and Jace’s backs.

  We had gotten our food, finished it, and then come back to the house to discuss the safety deposit box, among other things, as planned.

  We had a detailed conversation about all of the possibilities of what had happened to the missing information and confusion was rampant, but after almost an hour of coming up with different scenarios, we all agreed on the events of what must have happened.

  The bank must have notified Drew about the safe deposit box after Natalie “died” and he must have been suspicious since it had Jenny’s and Talie’s names on it. Knowing what that might mean, he would have gone and gotten it.

  We weren’t sure what was in there, not that I didn’t have a theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever it was led him back here. Otherwise, I couldn’t understand why he would come back.

  According to Talie, he was some big shot in New York. He went by a different last name, had his own company, and had a ton of cops and politicians in his pocket. If what I was assuming was a letter or something similar didn’t lead him here, I didn’t know why he had come or, better yet, why he would.

  I didn’t like the idea of some unknown factor sending him here, something other than the letter that is, and I couldn’t see him leaving New York, along with his whole empire, to come back to Joplin and the people he abandoned if he didn’t have a good reason.

  Talie had come here by accident, so I doubted what was in there told him her location, especially since Jenny had put it in the bank well before any of this happened. But if Jenny had alluded to or mentioned that this is where she was from in the letter and Natalie’s name was on the box, Drew might have thought Talie had seen it. Or something similar. It was actually pretty fucking confusing.

  It was hard to keep my thoughts from getting muddled when they’d been through so many circles.

  Bottom line, if Drew had it, it was as good as gone. And it didn’t really matter why Drew was here, since he already was.

  We would have to dig through the old investigation into my parents’ deaths and find somewhere to start there. It would definitely take more time this way, which was part of the reason I wanted to make sure we took time to enjoy ourselves and live fully in the meantime, but it was the only other way I could think of to prove he was involved. Now that we knew about him, we might be able to look at the old investigation from a different angle.

  I turned from the door and headed back to the living room, more than ready to go to bed with my woman and put all of this talk behind me. It was easy to get caught up in all of the technicalities, but we were still talking about the murders of my sister and parents and the subsequent consequences.

  When I got to the living room I saw that Talie was bent over the coffee table picking up everyone’s left over dishes, and her ass was in the air. Sweet Jesus, it was definitely time to go to bed.

  “Come on, Babe. Let’s go to bed.”

  At the sound of my voice, her head popped up and whi
pped around to look at me standing there. When she took in the carnal look on my face, the ends of her lips turned up into a smirk. “Okay, Tuck. I’m just going to finish-”

  I assumed she was going to say that she was going to finish cleaning up and then she’d be ready, but Kayla interrupted her. “Oh, you’ll finish alright. Can’t imagine that you won’t.”

  Talie widened her eyes at me in disbelief at the same time that she murmured, “Is it just me or do I talk a whole lot less now that this blabbermouth is around?” She started walking to head to the kitchen, and thus, toward me.

  Unable to stop myself, I chuckled and continued Kayla’s line of thoughts. “Oh, I’m about to give you plenty of opportunity to use your vocal cords. It’ll just be more for screamin’, moanin’, and callin’ me God than talkin’.”

  I had said it quietly as she got close to me, but apparently Kayla had still heard. I’m sure she had been putting in as much effort as a glass to the wall, so to speak.

  Talie snapped, “Are you sure you guys aren’t made for each other?” while gesturing between me and her sister. Kayla grinned and started to get up, but Talie turned and pinned her with a scowl. “Don’t move! I was joking. Sit down. Jesus.”

  I was pretty sure Kayla had been joking, but she looked pretty serious, so it was time to get out of there. I leaned over and pushed my lips to Talie’s jaw softly just before whispering, “Only one girl for me, Babe. You’re it.” I paused for a second to let it sink in and then smacked her ass. “Now get your ass in the kitchen with that stuff, and then get your ass in my bed.”

  She rolled her eyes but moved faster.

  I turned to Kayla once she was gone and whispered, “I know you’re jokin’, but you look fuckin’ serious. Maybe go a little easier on her.”

  She giggled and shook her head. “I was joking, so just relax. I get that y’all are in love and all that shit, but it’s fun to tease. Besides, you do it too.”

  She had me there. I teased Talie all the fucking time. Without mercy, actually. I was just overprotective when it came to other people, I guess.

  She continued, “Not to mention, the crisis was averted by Hotman. So, no worries.”