Free Danger, Sweetheart by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

correction.”
    â€œBlake.”
    â€œSometimes if you’re hit hard enough, a broken nose can even damage the bones in your neck. Isn’t that fascinating?” Blake asked Bill’s! nose, as the man refused eye contact.
    â€œBlake,” his mother said in fond exasperation. “Please don’t. It’ll be inconvenient to bail you out.”
    â€œWorth it,” he told Bill’s! nose. “My brother and I are the only ones allowed to contemplate Shannah Tarbell’s grisly murder. Finding our mother intensely annoying is a privilege, not a right.”
    â€œIf you get pinched, Rake would have a field day.”
    In an instant Blake abandoned Plan Deviated Septum, because she was right and he would never live it down, because Rake was terrible. “Very well, Mom. Shall we?” He stepped back to let his mother walk past and to let Bill! sidle around him to scuttle to the kitchen. Their waitress seized Shannah’s forearm and mouthed, Thank you, with a big smile, holding up the twenties for emphasis. Blake turned to follow, and felt a big smile of his own slide onto his face.
    She was there, the woman he had met outside the bed-and-breakfast, the one he had plunged from his Supertruck to assist. She was wearing the same suit she’d had on earlier, and the same brown wedges, and two older men were right behind her, also in suits (one with tan oxfords, one with brown loafers), waiting to be seated. All three were big eyed, but she was the only one grinning. It threw her gorgeous cheekbones into sharp relief, and he was absurdly happy she had caught him doing something clichéd and heroically masculine.
    â€œThe North Dakota Department of Labor, eh?” she teased as his mother walked past, intent on the street. “God help us all. The last thing this town needs.”
    â€œEvil must be stomped from existence by any means possible,” he replied, wishing he could linger and talk. Alas, he had a mother to soothe and a venomous text to prepare, because Rake was terrible. And if things went the way Blake’s mother planned—and as she had the nuclear option, that seemed to be the case—he would have plenty of time to strike up new conversations. Perhaps his exile to Sweetheart wouldn’t be entirely wretched. He wondered if the lovely blue-eyed creature tasted as good as she looked. “A pleasure to see you again.”
    â€œBack atcha,” she replied, which pleased him so much you’d think she had said, Jeepers, you’re dreamy! or the twenty-first-century equivalent.
    At the time he had no inkling, but it would be their last pleasant interaction.

 
    Nine
    Thus did Blake find himself back in his room at the UR A B and B, trying not to gulp his whiskey. Normally he took it with a splash of soda; tonight he needed it neat. And he needed a lot of it.
    There was only one bright spot. He would not be tortured solo. His mother had sworn it to be so, and she never lied.
    He took another sip, collapsed on the overstuffed bed, which instantly deposited him in the middle of a growing quilt crater
    (like a sinkhole! with quilts!),
    and fumbled in the bedside drawer for his laptop. He withdrew the dull silver rectangle, opened it, and was pleased to find the battery at 89 percent. He hit the Messages icon and gave silent thanks for iChat; it was the only way he could rage-text with accuracy and speed.
    Loathsome brother,
    I am being held hostage in our mother’s hometown and cannot escape the observation that this is ALL YOUR FAULT. She controls the keys to the kingdom, the money, and the nuclear option. Take a moment and think about what that means.
    Send. Off it went, winging its way to wherever Rake was holing up having ungodly amounts of casual intimacy with women he would never see again. Blake knew he was just as bad with his flings, but at least he took the trouble to learn their names.
    Now. The rest. He thought of the look on their