Place Your Betts (The Marilyns) (11 page)

“Jealous much? It’s not my fault you can still wear the bikini top that I bought you in second grade—”

“Small-busted women have big hearts.” Betts glanced down at her respectable B cups. To enhance or not to enhance had been the question most of her professional life, but in the end, she just couldn’t do it. While silicon water balloons no doubt made great floatation devices, they weren’t the right look for her.

“And large-busted women break hearts. Back to The Double D. I think it’s a perfect name. Your brand could be two triangles like a bra with the letter D in the middle of each.”

“Classy. I’m hanging up now.” Betts ended the call.

An hour later, Mama parked the Mercedes, top down, behind the Mustang. She eased her cat-eye glasses on the top of her head, opened the door, stepped out onto the asphalt, and yanked her red Lycra hot pants out of her butt crack. The white sequin tube top fit around her breasts like a sparkly rubber band ready to pop. A robe of rhinestones looped around her neck, swept down her chest, and rounded her hips. “You look like a candy cane in bondage.”

“Oooo. Candy cane in bondage. I like that.” Mama did a three-sixty. “Isn’t it fantastic? This is my own creation. I’m thinking about going into clothing design.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? The over-fifty stripper demographic is a pretty niche market.” Betts looked away before the sunlight shining off the rhinestones burned her retinas. “Think about it. When your nipple rings get caught in your belly button ring, it’s time to hang up your hooker heels.”

“I beg your pardon, my nipples are in exactly the same place they were when I graduated from high school twenty years ago.” Mama adjusted the girls for emphasis.

“That would make you thirty-eight…so you had me when you were six?”

“Miracles happen everyday.” Mama reached into the back seat and pulled out a gas-powered chainsaw and a small red plastic gas can.

“So do lies.” Betts said.

Mama stuck out her tongue and then said, “Wine’s in the trunk.”

Expertly, she unscrewed the chainsaw’s gas cap and filled it with fuel. “If a woman had designed this, there’d be a nice big start button instead of a rip cord. Point me in the direction of the mayhem.”

“See those saplings to the left of the gate?”

Mama squinted, getting a better look, and shook her head. “I don’t think I can cut them close enough to the ground so they won’t scrape the undercarriage of the car.” She gestured with the chainsaw at three scrubs on the right of the gate. “How about those scraggly Charlie-Brown-Christmas-tree-looking things over there? I can cut them short enough.”

“What about the barbed wire? On that side, it runs from the gate to the fence posts.”

“Check your grandmother’s trunk. She always had a length of heavy-duty chain, some duct tape, and wire snips in her trunk.” Mama nodded to the Mustang.

“Jesus, why?” Using the car key, Betts popped open the trunk, and sure enough, there was a length of chain, three rolls of duct tape, and some bolt cutters.

“My guess, it was her murder kit. I always thought she was the real Son of Sam,” Mama said.

“You also thought she was the Unibomber.” Betts nodded toward the scrubs. “Take them out.” Even if they caused damage, it was worth it to show Gabe that he couldn’t keep her away.

Mama flicked her head forward, and her cat-eye glasses fell into place. On one jerky pull of the starter cord, the chainsaw roared to life.

She sauntered over to the shrubs, bent down, and in one broad stroke, sawed through them like a hot knife through butter. With a release of the lever, the chainsaw shut off.

“I didn’t know you knew how to use a chainsaw. Impressive.” Betts picked up the bolt cutters from Gigi’s trunk.

“I’m a woman of many talents.” Mama flipped her sunglasses on top of her head.

Her mother had many flaws and got on Betts’s nerves, but Mama Cherie was the most independent and resourceful person in the world. Nothing was out of her league, out of her depth, or off-limits. That was both good and bad.

Betts stepped up and snipped through the wire. Carefully, she rolled the pointy wire back.

“I guess Gabe’s not the sharpest barb on the wire if he thinks something like a lock will deter the Dittmeyer women.” Mama curled the wire around the closest cedar fence post. “Why are the hot ones always stupid?”

“He’s not stupid.” At least he hadn’t been. “And he’s not hot.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it.

Mama propped one fist on her hip and eyed her only child. “He’s the enemy, but he has a great ass. There’s no law against admiring it while we kick it.”

Betts shrugged. “Suit yourself. I plan on admiring it from afar.”

Staying away from Gabe was the best plan—only plan—because his pheromones tended to excite her hormones whenever he got closer than five feet. So she’d keep a good ten-foot distance at all times. The image of her roadies holding the perimeter popped into her mind, and she giggled.

“What act of bodily harm has put that smile on your face?” Mama eased the chainsaw over the side of her car and onto the back seat.

“Nothing. Let’s hit the road. I can’t wait to get settled.” Betts squeezed into the Mustang and slammed the door then went off road. It was a little bumpy until she got back on the gravel driveway, but it was an adventure. That’s what her life needed—more adventure. She glanced in the rearview mirror. Then again, Mama was a rhinestone-studded adventure.

In her trailer, Betts and Mama quickly stowed Betts’s carload of things.

Mama’s phone belted out “Pour Some Sugar On Me” as her ringtone, and an image of a man Betts didn’t recognize popped up on Mama’s phone. Her mother smiled to herself and slipped the phone into her cleavage. “Since you’re settled, I’m gonna head out. I need to see a man about a thing. I’ll be back later.”

Because Betts had a highly developed sense of self-preservation and little control over her gross-out gag reflex, she knew better than to ask Mama about her man or his thing.

She kissed Betts on the cheek. “We should make Tom a real home-cooked meal tonight.”

Betts beamed and felt that tiny seed of maternal pride she’d carried around so long double in size. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“I can’t believe I’m a grandmother at the age of forty. That’s got to be a record.” Mama clomped down the steps.

“No, the record is you having me at the age of seven,” Betts called after her mother. The only answer was the door swishing closed.

Outside, the Mercedes engine fired up, and gravel crunched under the tires. Mama and her sequin-coated delusions of grandeur headed back into town.

Betts looked around. Her bus wasn’t an ideal place to live, but it was homey and one hundred percent hers. What it lacked in size, it made up for in style. Glancing at her watch, she found it was two thirty. Tom didn’t work at the feed store on Thursdays, so he’d be home from school soon. That called for something motherly.

Betts opened a kitchen cabinet with an idea to make him some cookies. When she’d been pregnant with him, she’d craved chocolate chip cookies and Creole Cream Cheese ice cream. Did his in-the-womb favorites carry on? Had the little boy loved chocolate chip cookies? She slumped against the counter. Mothers should know these things. Then again, she’d only been his birth mother. Gabe had taken care of all the love and attention…all the stuff that mattered. And he’d done a good job. Today, she’d begin to make up for her absence, and hopefully, someday Tom would forgive her. She assembled the dough for chocolate chip cookies, plopped spoonfuls on a small cookie sheet, and stuck them in the oven.

Someone pounded on her front door. Betts fixed a smile on her face and pushed the button that opened the door.

“You cut down my trees.” Gabe stared up at her.

Betts didn’t step down to greet him. Instead, she used the two-step height advantage to look down her nose at him.

“And?” Gabe propped one brown-booted foot on the first stair. He looked more resigned than mad. His jeans and blue tee shirt were coated in a layer of dirt, and sweat made the shirt cling to interesting peaks and valleys of pecs and abs. Were they as hard as they looked?

“And what?” Betts hunched her shoulders. “Was there a question in there?”

“You defaced my property. Your land,” he choked out the words, “doesn’t include my driveway.”

“It wasn’t me. It was Mama.” Betts plastered on her most charming media smile. “I don’t suppose you’d chop that wood and stack it neatly by my door?”

A bonfire might be fun. She and Tom could make s’mores.

Gabe blinked and then shook his head. “I don’t suppose it would start raining cold milk and warm chocolate chip cookies.”

The oven timer dinged.

“As a matter of fact.” Betts went to the oven and pulled out the cookies. They were gooey and golden-brown. Perfect. It dawned on her that they’d played this scene out before—one hot summer afternoon when her grandmother had talked Gabe into helping her mulch her front flowerbeds, Betts had made him chocolate chip cookies. While Gigi had run to Longview to get more mulch, Gabe had laid Betts down on the sofa, raised her shirt, and eaten a trail of chocolate chip cookies that started at her neck and ended at her navel. He’d spent a fair amount of time coating her nipples with melted chocolate. She fanned herself with a potholder. “I’d be happy to dump cold milk on you and complete the dream.”

Gabe inhaled deeply and vaulted the two stairs. “Warm, homemade chocolate chip cookies.” His tone and his face oozed boyish wonder.

She wondered if he remembered the last time she’d made him cookies.

One by one, Betts scooped them up and placed them on a paper towel to cool. Gabe eyed the cookies like a man sizing up a cold beer on a hot day. So he didn’t make cookies for Tom? She toyed with the locket, moving it back and forth on its thin gold chain. Maybe her son no longer liked cookies.

“Does…um…Tom like cookies?”

“Is that a trick question?” Gabe’s eyes never left the cookies. “Tom’s a teenaged boy. He eats everything that doesn’t eat him first.”

“Oh.” The only experience she’d had with a teenaged boy was standing right in front of her.

Gabe leaned in and looked around. His jaw set. “You’re not planning on eating all of them yourself.”

He licked his lips.

Gabe had a sweet tooth, and he still had on his hat.

Pressing her lips together, she hid her grin. Her chocolate chip cookies had distracted him so much that he’d forgotten his manners. That was saying a lot for a man who prided himself on being a gentleman.

Gabe’s eyes followed hers, and he looked up. He whipped off his straw cowboy hat, smoothed down his hair, and threw the hat on the nearest lounge chair. “Sorry.”

He grinned sheepishly.

The last time she’d seen that grin, they’d been in the back seat of his Camaro and he’d explained that kissing her “down there” was something she would really like. She’d wanted to make him happy and, oh boy, had it ever paid off.

Betts’s brain flooded her body with so many feel-good hormones there wasn’t a square-inch of skin that didn’t tingle.

Here was the boy she’d fallen in love with. She blew out a long, slow breath. She’d spent years convincing herself that boy didn’t exist, never had…just a figment of her sixteen-year-old romantic fantasies. Now, he was standing right in front of her.

Betts shook her head. She was losing ground fast. “On second thought, I don’t feel like sharing.”

“How about a trade? A dozen cookies for a week’s worth of driveway privileges?” Gabe looked at the cookies then Betts and back again. It was the same tone he’d used the first night she’d met him when he’d talked her into going out with him.

“I don’t know. This is my secret recipe.” She picked up a cookie and took a bite. Melted chocolate dripped down her chin. She flicked out enough tongue to make a porn star proud and made a show of enjoying her cookie. “Mmm. Good.”

“Is that how you want to play it?” Gabe stepped into her personal space and bent his head to her ear. “Secret recipe, huh?” His warm breath licked her earlobe. All she needed to do was lean a fraction of an inch and they’d be chest to chest. His mouth lingered right above one of her top-five erogenous zones, and her nipples went hard. Remembering to breathe was an effort. His arm snaked around her, and something plastic crinkled.

“Secrets have a way of getting out.” Gabe leaned back and wagged the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip bag in front of her face.

“Bite me.” Betts stuck out her tongue and would have stepped back but she was mashed between the counter and him.

“Any particular place you’d like me to start?” He brushed a knuckle from her earlobe down her neck.

From anger over his cut-down trees to seduction in a millisecond… Betts was having a hard time keeping up. “What’s wrong with you?”

The corners of his faded-denim eyes crinkled. “Nothing. Being around you makes me remember how good it was between us. You smell the same—like peaches warming in the late-summer sun. Do you taste the same? I wanted to find out last night, but I chickened out.”

“I never figured you for a coward.” Why did it feel so damn good to know that he’d wondered too?

“Not so much cowardice as self-preservation.” His stubbly jaw brushed against hers as he inhaled her scent. “I seem to remember you liked a nip right here.”

“What changed your mind?” Betts closed her eyes as the heat from his lips skittered down to her toes. She leaned into him.

“I’m feeling dangerous…and reckless. The last time I saw you this hot and bothered, you were flat on your back, and I was eating cookies off your chest.” His mouth followed the path of his knuckle, ending in a gentle bite where her collarbone met her neck. “Taste just as good as I remember.”

Betts’s whole body sighed. He’d remembered too. Liquid heat threatened to consume her, and there was nothing in the world except getting his lips on hers. Only the man was taking his own damn time. Gabe nibbled lightly across her cheek to the corner of her mouth. She opened it in expectation.

Something gooey and hot burned her lips. Her eyes flew open. Betts choked and sputtered, spewing melted chocolate and cookie bits all over the front of her tee shirt.