Things Good Girls Don't Do (2 page)

One good thing about Jimmy leaving: no big, muddy work boots mucking up her clean floors. And she definitely had more room for her clothes and her craft corner. Her mother always said, “Idle hands are the devil’s tools.”

Katie parked her car in the carport and went to the end of her drive to get her mail. She pulled open the little white box decorated with trees and flowers, an impulsive buy from T.J. Maxx, but she loved it. Thumbing through the stack of bills, she found a large white envelope. Flipping it over, she opened the seal and pulled out the off-white invitation curiously. When Katie read the names in the perfect, swirly script, she felt like she’d been hit by a bus.

Mr. and Mrs. Harold Lenier

request the honor of your presence

to celebrate the marriage of their daughter,

Selena Marie Lenier

to

James Thomas Lawrence

How could he?
She couldn’t read anymore, her vision was so blurred by angry tears. Seven years and all she had was a couple of necklaces and a pair of emerald earrings. What had Selena done that had gotten her an engagement ring in just a few months? And
why
would he send her a wedding invitation? To hurt her? There was no reason why he would want to, at least none that she could think of. He had cheated on her, not the other way around, and the worst thing she had done was keep his favorite Toby Keith T-shirt before shredding it with a pair of scissors. What man in his right mind would think it was okay to humiliate her all over again by flaunting his happiness?

Katie stuffed the invitation back into the envelope and pulled out her cell phone.

Steph picked up on the second ring. “That low-down, no-good son of a bitch!”

Katie smiled at her best friend’s outrage and said dryly, “I take it you got one too?”

“I don’t know why in the hell he thought either Jared or I would want to go to his wedding. We only tolerated his no-good cheating butt because you thought you loved him! I tried to tell you he was shifty! Didn’t I tell you he was shifty?”

Katie rolled her eyes as she unlocked the door. “Yes, I heard shifty several times.”

“Want me to come over? I can bring a bottle of wine and some brownies from The Local Bean. We can get stuffed and wasted. Maybe even look up how to make a voodoo doll.”

Katie dropped the mail down on her table and sighed, “Thanks, but I think I’m just going to have some dinner, take a bath, and pop in a DVD.”

Katie could hear exasperation in Steph’s voice. “Katie, you cannot sit at home all the time and mope. You need to go out, have fun. Get your mind off Jimmy the Jerk-off! Maybe even meet someone new.”

Katie choked. “I don’t think I’m ready for anyone new yet. Still getting over the old one, and pretty sure I’m not going to meet anyone new in Rock Canyon.”

“So maybe you’ll meet the right one. Maybe you’ve been so blinded by Jimmy and his deceitful charm that you haven’t noticed him,” Steph suggested.

Maybe the right one doesn’t exist.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. It’s a good thing you met Jared in kindergarten, otherwise you’d be fishing in the same slim-pickins pool as the rest of us.”

Steph and Jared had known each other their whole lives, started dating freshman year of high school, and married right after graduation. They’d gone to college together and were the epitome of what Katie wanted: her better half. Her soul mate.

Instead she’d gotten Jimmy, and now she didn’t even have him anymore.

“Hey, if I was single, I would be making waves in that pool, let me tell you! Your problem is that you’re such a good girl, you just try to please everyone. Name one thing you’ve done wrong. One person you’ve pissed off besides me or your mother.”

“As much as I’d love to play let’s-make-Katie-feel-worse-on-the-third-crappiest-day-of-her-life, I’m going to go. Maybe drown myself in a bathtub,” Katie said, emotionally drained.

“Shut up, you will not. Seriously, if you’re feeling that bad, I’ll be there in five.”

Katie took a deep breath and counted to ten. She adored Steph, but she hovered sometimes. What Steph needed was a couple of kids to worry about; then maybe she wouldn’t worry so much about her love life. Or lack thereof.

“I’m just kidding! I love you, but I just want to be alone,” Katie said as she opened up her bare cupboard to reveal a lonely can of green beans and a box of cake mix.

“Okay, okay, but you know I love you, right? I just like to give you a hard time. After all, someone’s got to shake up that goody-goody thing you’ve got going on.”

“Good night,” Katie said.

“’Night! And don’t . . .”

Katie hung up the phone without waiting for Steph to finish, but she already knew what she was going to say: don’t mope.

“I don’t mope,” she muttered to herself as she searched through her fridge for anything edible. There was something green and fuzzy growing on the fajitas from three days ago. Ick.

She grabbed her notepad off the counter, a pen from her pink poodle mug, and started a grocery list. She hated having to go out again this late, especially after being on her feet all day at the salon and then dealing with Mrs. Andrews, but she was starving and the occasion called for alcohol. Quite a bit of alcohol.

Suddenly, a better idea struck her. Dropping the pad on the counter, she grabbed her purse and headed back out to drown her sorrows in mojitos and fries at Buck’s Shot Bar. Drinking alone at a bar on a Monday was better than grocery shopping. The grocery store held sympathetic looks and well-meaning advice. At least at Buck’s she’d be left alone to dwell on her future of twelve cats and spinsterhood.

C
HASE
T
REPASSO HAD
thought a city of 19,000 people was small, but the culture shock of Rock Canyon’s barely 4,000 citizens was crazy. It was like Mayberry married the NRA and they had a baby: that would be Rock Canyon. He’d laughed the first time he’d walked into the liquor store and saw that you could buy a gun with your beer.

Moving here had been on a whim. He’d been looking to sell his tattoo parlor in Elko, Nevada, and relocate, so he’d grabbed his map and started searching. When his finger had fallen on Rock Canyon, he’d checked out the real estate and the town, figuring a little small-town charm was just what he needed. That first month of getting everything set up had been hectic, but it was worth it for the peace. Now he was able to work on the next issue of
Destructo Boy
, the comic book series he’d started when he was eighteen, which was due to his editor later that month.

It was a benefit and a curse, that peace.

He’d spent a lot of time at the parlor, or at one of the local haunts, Buck’s Shot Bar, networking and making a few friends, but he was finding it hard to break into a new town. Especially one as close-knit as Rock Canyon.

Despite the size of it, the people who lived there were the same as every other town he’d lived in. The same narrow-minded older generation, same tough college kids wanting something “cool” on their biceps, and the same women looking for a man to take care of them.

He’d tried to avoid those types by going out with a few bad girls, or as bad as they got in a town like this, but all of them had been the same. Girls who drank too much, dressed a little wild, and were up for anything. But in the end they’d all wanted the one thing he had no desire to give: commitment. He just didn’t seem to have it in him. He couldn’t even believe he’d actually bought a house in Rock Canyon. He’d always rented, but something about the old farmhouse had spoken to him. Still, just because he was thinking about settling for a while didn’t mean he wanted to settle down for good. Especially not with any of the girls he’d dated so far.

Chase tried to stop thinking about his love life and take his pool shot, but then Katie Connors walked into Buck’s Shot Bar, her honey-blond hair curling over the shoulders of her red short-sleeved top.

She smiled at Grant Henderson, the bartender, and said something to him before moving on to one of the booths. Katie was put together real nice: just enough up top to balance out her bottom half, and with hair so thick and long Chase couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to have his hands buried in it.

The first time he’d met her, he’d been very attracted to her, but he knew her type. An angelic good girl on the outside but nasty and self-righteous on the inside. He avoided girls like her for a reason, and so, after handing her his card, he’d moved on.

Not for very long, though. In a small town like Rock Canyon, it was hard to avoid someone, and Chase found himself bumping into Katie everywhere: at the grocery store, the gas station, the coffee shop, and especially at Buck’s. It also hadn’t taken him long to learn that whatever his preconceived notions had been, there wasn’t a mean bone in Katie’s body. He’d watched her help an older lady out with her groceries, just to be nice, and when someone’s dog had been running down the middle of Main Street, Katie had rescued it. He only knew that because he’d watched her crouch in the middle of the road, pat her legs and call the mutt to her. After that, he had doubled his efforts to stay clear of her. A good girl with a kind heart? Both were too easy to break.

A couple weeks ago, he’d joined Katie for a game of pool with her friends Steph and Jared, telling himself that no one else was playing, but when she’d missed her shot, he’d been an idiot and offered to show her how to make it. The smell of her hair and the way her butt had fit back against him had given him an hour-long stiffy and an even longer conversation in his head about why getting involved with Katie Connors was a really bad idea.

Despite his resolve to ignore her, he’d caught himself studying her today when he’d dropped his check off. The way she bit her lip when she’d obviously had something to say to the cranky old hag, Mrs. Andrews, but held it back, even when she was irritated. He’d seen her do it before with others and wondered why she kept it in. She was never obvious with her annoyance, but it was there, just a slight tightening in her smile. Did she keep quiet because she wanted everyone to like her? Because they did. People in Rock Canyon might walk all over her, but they held Katie Connors up as all that was goodness and kindness.

He’d bet his chopper, though, that Katie might be all cool sweetness on the outside, but she was a firecracker on the inside.

And boy, had he fantasized about Katie Connors letting that sharp tongue loose and maybe using it on him. In some real fun ways.

She sat down out of his view and he took his pool shot, wondering why he was so fascinated by a small-town hairdresser who bottled up her emotions like a shaken soda pop.

’Cause she’s out of your league, and that makes it all the more interesting. You always want what you can’t have.

When the game ended, Chase headed back up to the bar and noticed her doodling on a napkin while she munched on some chili cheese fries. The way her eyebrows knit together in concentration made him want to read what was on that scrap of paper. Something told him it wouldn’t be her grocery list. He leaned over the bar and asked Grant, “Hey, what’s Katie drinking?”

“Sorry, dude, but there’s no way in hell you’re making it with Katie Connors,” Grant said.

“Maybe I just want to talk,” Chase offered.

Grant snorted and made a clear drink with a lime wedge and some leaves, then handed it to him. “Uh-huh. Well, whatever floats your boat, dude, but if I was buying Katie a drink, it wouldn’t be because I was looking for conversation.”

“Thanks, man,” Chase said, taking the glass. “Can I get a beer too?”

Grant handed him the beer. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

T
HE MOJITO HAD
not improved Katie’s mood. She shoved another chili fry in her mouth and thought of how bleak her life looked. It wasn’t like Rock Canyon was swimming with eligible men who had steady incomes and nice manners. Her mother had always put a lot of stock in a man with manners. Jimmy had always been polite to her mother, and she had never said an unkind word against him, except that he was
charming.
Her mother’s tone had been less than complimentary when she’d said it and, looking back, she had probably been trying to tell her something. Even Ted Bundy had been charming.

She doodled on her napkin, her thoughts dwelling on her mother. Her strong, capable mother, who had raised her by herself after her dad had left when she was two. As far as she knew, they had never divorced, and her mother had never considered remarrying. She’d seemed fine alone, holding on to her manners and her morals like a security blanket.

Katie wondered what her mother would say about everything that had been happening the last few years. When she’d lost her to breast cancer three years ago, Katie had felt broken and lost. Her mother had been her rock. Her cheerleader. Her conscience.

Had her mother ever gotten tired of being good, tired of doing the right thing? If Katie could do anything she wanted, without repercussions . . .

Struck by an inspiring idea, she put the pen to her napkin and started making a list of the things she had always wanted to try or had always been told she shouldn’t do.

• One. Get purple streaks in my hair.
  

When she was sixteen, she’d wanted to dye her hair purple. Her mother had told her no, that it was vulgar and a fad.

She bit the end of the pen and remembered the night after graduation, when she’d gone with all of her friends to Twin Falls and everyone had gotten a tattoo but her because she was terrified her mom would see it.

• Two. Get a tattoo.
  

In ninth grade, when her friend Brittney Richards had stolen a pair of cheap sunglasses from Hall’s Market and been caught, her mother had told her she couldn’t hang out with Brittney anymore. Katie had tried to explain that Brittney had only taken the glasses because she and Steph had dared her to, but her mother hadn’t relented.

• Three. Steal something.
  

On and on the list went, her mother’s voice ringing in her head with “Ladies don’t do this” or “Good girls don’t do that.” She had to unfold the napkin just to make more room.