Chapter Fourteen #2
He’d developed a deep curiosity about the woman who’d given birth to Belle.
He wondered how accurate his initial assessment of her had been, or if it had been unduly influenced by Benny.
While he didn’t discount Benny’s assessment of his only granddaughter, there was nothing about Benny—including his judgment—that could be considered one hundred percent sound.
But anyone who’d steal fifty thousand dollars from her family, then come back for more, acting as if nothing had happened, had a lot of shit going on.
He held his hand out to her and smiled his best female-fan-winning smile. “You must be Shanda. I hear we’re going to be working together.”
“That’s Miss Shanda to you,” Adam said.
Shanda held Beau’s hand and eyed him as if they shared an intimate secret. The look was unnerving, but nothing topped a thirteen-year-old hitting on him, so Beau shrugged it off.
“You look familiar. Have we met?” she asked.
Adam replied on Beau’s behalf, which was thoughtful of him. “This is Beau Jones. From the show Diss Cord. He won last year’s season.”
“Diss Cord,” Shanda exclaimed. “I love that show.”
“Yeah. We all do. The whole damn town.” Adam looked tired on top of his usual surly.
He’d spent the night on guard duty, making sure Shanda didn’t sneak out of Mavis’s house, and Beau almost felt sorry for him. But then he had to go and keep talking, which ruined the fleeting moment of pity.
“Pack up your things after church,” he said to Beau. “You’ll be moving into one of the rooms upstairs for the next two weeks.”
Two weeks.
Beau hadn’t thought ahead as to what his new role of watchdog would mean. In the beginning two months had felt like forever, but then, six weeks had flown by. Two more weeks would take him right up to the end of his sentence.
He hadn’t given enough thought as to what leaving this nuthouse would mean for him, either, because he’d gotten more used to living with Belle than he’d realized—and it had very little to do with them sleeping together.
He liked her. And he worried what kind of influence Benny and Mavis might have on the sweet, gentle person she was.
He knew firsthand how life’s curveballs changed people, and Belle’s curveballs kept coming.
Because it didn’t take more than a few minutes for Beau to realize that there was a serious mother and daughter competition about to take place.
Shanda wasn’t the type of woman who aged without a fight, and having a daughter who looked like the new and improved version of her was a reminder of passing years that she didn’t want.
Beau couldn’t warm up to her for that reason alone.
Belle, who was normal in a world filled with crazy, could have used one family member to love her, crazy or not.
He had serious misgivings as to whether she’d be a match for her mother.
Maybe he’d been wrong to encourage her to shake up the script.
“We’re going to be roommates.” Shanda smiled warmly at him, as if truly delighted, and Beau began to feel like one of those harlots everyone raved on about.
But he caught something more. She side-eyed Adam as she spoke, and his fingers tightened ever so slightly around the coffee spoon he clutched as if ready to stab someone with it.
She was trying to make Adam jealous.
At first, it didn’t track. Adam was older than her, and she might as well have cougar tattooed on her forehead.
But they obviously had history between them, and it made a weird sort of sense.
He wasn’t so very much older. A few years at most. They would have grown up in Burning Scrub around the same time, and even though Adam had taken the years creeping up on him in stride, Beau could see where he might have appealed to someone like Shanda when he was younger.
He wasn’t bad-looking, and he had that whole stone-cold-killer vibe working for him.
Teenaged girls loved that crap. Plus, he wouldn’t have had a whole lot of competition, what with the slim man pickings around here and all.
It also explained why Adam had taken such a fatherly interest in Belle.
She looked like her mother—even if they were nothing alike.
Beau figured he could annoy them both in one shot.
“I didn’t know I was expected to sleep here,” he said.
“I like where I am. Belle and I get along fine—if you know what I mean.” He winked at Adam, who looked ready to kill.
“But I bet Jayce would be happy to keep you company at night.” Because why not throw Jayce under the bus while he was at it.
“You’re Shanda’s box herder, not Jayce,” Adam said. “Besides, he’s got his own work to take care of on the Ride No More Ranch. He doesn’t get into town until it’s time to hang you.”
Beau reconciled himself to sneaking out of a window every night because no way was Belle sleeping alone for the two weeks they had left.
The building had an exterior balcony wrapped around the second floor.
Climbing it before daybreak would pose a bigger challenge. Maybe he could stow a ladder somewhere.
He locked eyes with Adam, curious how the offhand remark about Belle had been received, and met a familiar blaze of indigo blue. Beau recognized the shade because he’d seen it only a few hours ago. His whole body turned to slush, chilling his brain.
He was making something from nothing. Blue was the second most common eye color. His own eyes were blue. But his eyes didn’t have navy rings around the irises that deepened the color when emotions ran high.
He hoped he was mistaken. This would be another curveball for Belle that she wouldn’t see coming.
“Box herder. Got it,” he said.
He picked up his hat and tried not to look in too much of a hurry, but he had to get out. Thinking he saw Belle in Adam unnerved him.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Shanda. It’ll be a pleasure working with you. Right now, I’ve got to go grab my guitar. I promised to preview my playlist after church.”