Linc was yet another cautionary tale in Cade’s life. This was what love reduced men to. He was tempted to ask Linc if he still actually had a dick but that would only piss him off. Instead Cade stood and stretched. “Yeah, I’ll get by there sometime this week.”
“I’ll let Georgia know,” Linc said, wandering back to his office, doubtless to call Georgia.
Cade supposed if Linc had to be an idiot in love at least he’d chosen well. Cade liked Georgia. He also liked Gracie’s fiancé well enough. He grabbed the paperwork on his latest FTA apprehension off his desk and walked it out to Marlene.
“Thanks,” she said, without looking up from the computer monitor. “You know, I’m thinking about signing up for one of those online dating things.”
Cade shook his head. That was random. Had he just heard her correctly? “Did you say online dating?”
“Yeah. You know, one of those Internet matchmaking things.”
He had heard right.
“The hell you say!” Martin bellowed from his office. Apparently his father had heard, as well. Great. Martin stomped out to join them, a bottled Coke in his hand. At six foot six he stood two inches taller than Cade and still didn’t carry an ounce of spare flesh. “What’s wrong with you, woman?”
Marlene merely quirked an eyebrow at Martin’s outburst. “I’m ready for some excitement. All my friends want to introduce me to boring men.”
Linc strolled out of his office. He didn’t like to miss out on anything.
Marlene eyed all of them. “What? We’re not exactly overrun with eligible men walking through the door here. Online dating seems a reasonable vetting process. I want excitement, romance.” Martin started to smirk. “I want to get remarried,” she tacked on the final installment. Cade’s cringe echoed Martin’s.
Had everyone lost their minds? Between Linc and Georgia and Gracie and Mark and all the wedding mumbo jumbo floating around the office, Marlene had got caught up in it.
Linc shook his head. “You got rid of one rat-bastard husband. What are you thinking, Marlene?”
Maybe Linc wasn’t as far gone as Cade had thought. He did still have an ounce of sense left.
“I’m not cut out for one-night stands. I’m not a love ’em and leave ’em kind of woman. But I have to tell you boys, I miss sex.”
Martin snorted his swallow of Coke through his nose, choking and coughing. “Now I know you’re one can shy of a six-pack if you want to get remarried so you can have sex.”
Cade disagreed with Martin more often than not. In fact, they’d coexisted in an uneasy truce the past twenty years since Cade’s mother died, but he had to throw his towel in with the old man on this one.
Marlene shot Martin a withering look. “It’s the way I’m made. Some of us aren’t emotionally or mentally built to indulge in casual sex.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room except for the ticking of the big wall clock. It had worked well enough for three of the four of them present.
Cade spoke up. “If you’re going to do this online dating thing, promise me you won’t go out with anyone until we approve them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. She hadn’t done such a good job with the first husband and there were some real pieces of crap out there. Someone had to make sure she didn’t strike out if she was determined to go round two. And Marlene might not be family, but she worked for him and no one screwed with anyone under his domain unless they wanted a serious ass-kicking.
Linc nodded. “Good plan. We can make sure you don’t hook up with any creeps.”
Marlene looked from him to Linc and back. “Fine. You boys can approve them.”
“And I’ll help you put together your Web page,” Martin announced.
“I don’t need any help putting it together.”
“Sure you do. You want to make sure you don’t put out any casual sex signals and I know all of those.” Martin crossed his arms over his chest in a perfect imitation of Cade. “I know what men your age are looking for.”
“But I don’t want a man like you,” Marlene shot back with a sweet smile.
Linc raised an eyebrow at Cade and Cade answered with a faint shrug. Martin’s scowl deepened. Was Martin’s scowl more territorial than protective? Cade hoped the hell not.
Martin and Marlene would be a disaster. Once Martin had pulled himself up by his bootstraps after Lucy’s death, he’d taken up serial dating. Martin liked women and he treated them with respect, but he made sure they never got too close.
Marlene wasn’t the kind of woman who’d go for the four-week wooing she’d get from Martin. Plus she was damn good at what she did and they didn’t need to lose her when things went south at week five.
Martin gritted his teeth. “Then I’ll put down the opposite of everything I’d look for in a woman.”
“That might work then,” Marlene shot back. She looked at the three of them, ringing her desk. “If I pass out from the overdose of testosterone in here, someone just drag me out to the sidewalk.”
Marlene promptly ignored them, returning to the computer screen, humming that old seventies tune “Love is in the Air.”
Cade headed for the door. He was getting the hell out before he caught whatever was going around. He’d rather face down hardened criminals than get caught up in this love business.
3
SUNNY SANG ALONG with Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” her radio set to classic jazz, on her way to the grocery store after lunch. The remainder of her meal was packed in a to-go box next to her but her kitchen at home was dismally empty. Taking advantage of being alone in the car, she sang louder. Sunny couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved to sing. Sometimes when she sang at home, the cat next door yowled.
She felt better than she had in days. No, make that weeks. She’d run a gamut of emotions—depressed, pissed, violated, humiliated. Yep, that about summed it up. But now she felt good. No, make that great.
Despite the rain clouds gathering overhead, she was setting her personal course for nothing but sunny skies from here on out.
She pulled up to the four-way stop at Jackson and Hull Streets. A man in a Santa suit stood on the corner, ringing a bell, holding a donation can for a local food bank. Blue car went. The car to her left should go next.
Her head whipped around in a double-take. No. Was she hallucinating? It couldn’t be. It was.
Cecil Meeks sat at the stop sign on her left in his shiny, black, chrome-trimmed, late-model Cadillac DeVille. All the emotions she thought she’d processed and worked through in the past four weeks swamped her.
She sucked in a deep breath aimed at calming. Problem was she didn’t feel calm. Hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, hold on to your temper, she silently chanted.
Meeks spotted
