Free Tangled Up in You by Rachel Gibson

next week.
    Fabulous . Thank you for your time.
    On the way home from the Potters, Maddie stopped off at the grocery store and bought a roasted deli chicken and some Excedrin. Carleen had been guarded and uncooperative and Jewel had been openly hostile. Her head pounded, she was frustrated by her lack of prog ress, and she had an urge to put someone in a headlock.
    With a blue basket hanging off one arm, she took her place in line at checkout number three. The next time she spoke to Carleen and Jewel, shed try a less businesslike tactic. Shed try the nice-as-pie, friendly approach. If that didnt work, shed go all Jerry Springer on their hillbilly asses.
    I saw you at Value Rite earlier, a woman in the next line over said.
    Maddie looked up from putting her basket on the conveyor belt. Are you talking to me?
    Yeah. The other woman had short dark hair and wore a T-shirt with a picture of her grandkids on the front. Carleen said you were askin about Rose and Loch Hennessy.
    Wow, word really did travel fast in small towns. Thats right.
    I grew up with Rose and she had a few problems, but she was a good person.
    A few problems. Is that what they all called pumping lead into two people? Maddie would call it a psychotic breakdown. Im sure she was.
    That little waitress got what she deserved for messing with a married man.
    Tired, frustrated, and now pissed off, Maddie said, So you think that every woman who gets involved with a married man deserves to die on a barroom floor?
    The woman tossed a bag of potatoes on the conveyor belt in front of her. Well, I just mean that if you mess around with another womans man, you might get hurt. Thats all.
    No, that wasnt all, but Maddie wisely held her tongue.

    M addie tossed her briefcase on the sofa and glanced at the photo of her mother sitting on the coffee table. Well, that was a waste of makeup. She kicked off her shoes and put the photograph face down. She couldnt look at her mothers cheery smile when her day had been a bust.
    Barefoot, she walked into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for the bottle of merlot shed opened the day before. She thought better of it and grabbed the Skyy vodka, diet tonic, and a lime. Sometimes a girl needed a drink, even if she was alone. While she poured vodka into a highball glass and added the tonic, the George Thorogood song I Drink Alone ran through her head. Shed never liked that song. Perhaps it was the writer in her, but the chorus was redundant. Of course when you drink alone you drink with nobody else.
    Just as she slid ice and a slice of lime into the glass, the doorbell rang. She grabbed her drink and raised it to her lips as she moved through the living room. She certainly wasnt expecting anyone, and the person on the other side of the door was the last person she expected.
    She looked through her peephole at Mick Hennessy, and she unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. The late afternoon sun cut across Micks cheek and one corner of his mouth. He wore a wife beater beneath a blue plaid shirt that hed hacked the sleeves off just above the bulge of his biceps. The pale blue in the plaids matched his eyes and set off his tan skin and black hair like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, selling sex and breaking hearts.
    Hello, Maddie, he said, his voice a low rumble. He held a business card between the fingers of one raised hand.
    Shit! The last thing she needed today was a confrontation with Mick. She took another fortifying drink and waited for him to start yelling. Instead he flashed her a killer grin.
    I told you Id give you the name of a good exterminator. He held the business card toward her. It was white, not black, and had a rat on it.
    She hadnt realized shed felt a little anxious un til relief curved the corners of her lips into a smile. She took the card from him. You didnt have to come all the way out here to give this to me.
    I know. He handed her an orange and yellow box. I thought you could use this until Ernies