The Big Heat Read online

One month later…

  “How are you?” Sheila asked as Sunny settled opposite her onto the familiar hard laminate seat at Melvina’s Soul Food.

  “I’m starving. How about you?” Sunny inhaled the aroma of collard greens, corn bread and candied yams, ignoring the deeper implication of whether or not she had fully recovered from the debacle following her election loss.

  Melvina’s soothed her with its juxtaposition of stark but clean concrete floors, laminate seats, bars over the windows and rich comfort food. After the last four weeks of hell—and without being a whiner, it had truly been hellacious—she was getting back on her feet, but her soul could use a healthy dose of culinary comfort.

  “I didn’t think I was hungry until I smelled the food and now…yeah,” Sheila said, leaning across the table a bit to be heard. “And I’ll let you slide now, but we’re going to talk before lunch is over.”

  Melvina’s was always noisy and today was no exception, with conversation vying with a blues Christmas CD playing over the loudspeaker—Sunny was pretty sure that was Memphis’s own Koko Taylor belting out “Have You Heard the News.” A thirty-year collection of baby Jesus ornaments adorned a Christmas tree in the middle of the small restaurant. According to Melvina, Jesus was the reason for the season and there wasn’t room on her tree for anything else except the star on top.

  Melvina herself delivered two sweet teas to the table. “Look at what the cat done drug in,” she said with a wide smile. “We sure have missed you.”

  “Not nearly as much as I’ve missed y’all.” Melvina, her son, TJ, and his wife, Charity, were old friends. She’d known them all since she’d “discovered” Melvina’s when she was a University of Memphis student along with TJ and Charity ten years ago.

  The older woman gave Sunny a bone-crushing hug—who’d have thought such a small, seemingly frail woman could hug so hard—and Sunny squeezed back.

  Melvina and Sheila exchanged greetings and Melvina crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth settling into a disapproving frown. “That was just wrong what that man did to you and wrong what them news folk did after that.”

  Sunny smiled and shrugged, determined to put it behind her. “It seems to be over now.” It wasn’t good when the flyers had been spread around town but she’d never dreamed it would explode the way it had. In one of those weird, totally unwelcome quirks of fate, the election and flyer had been picked up by the AP and Reuters and mushroomed into a gargantuan tabloid/Internet nightmare of humiliation. Sunny clad in a bikini had become the election flyer seen around the world. And she’d learned an important lesson. No one ever actually died from humiliation or harassment. She was still-living proof.

  Melvina’s lips thinned to a hard line. “TJ saw your picture on a late-night TV show.” Who in the world hadn’t would be a shorter list. Sunny, or rather her attendant flyer, had made number three on the Top Ten Stupid Things To Do When You’re Running for Public Office list. “And Charity saw some stuff on the Internet.”

  Not hard to imagine since Sunny had been the butt of innumerable jokes circulating on the blogo-sphere. She’d tried to avoid them, but couldn’t help reading each and every one. It was like watching a train wreck—the train wreck that had become her life. She’d thought after a few days of infamy it would die down. That was the way those things worked, right? Wrong. Just when it looked as if things were dying down, it flared back up. But now…four weeks and counting, it finally seemed over. Sunny considered it a minor miracle she’d managed to maintain her dignity and her temper through it all.

  “I think it’s finally over.” No one had pointed or stared at her in at least two days since she’d ventured out of her house once again. No one cheered, jeered or tried to take her picture. No more Web design contracts had cancelled on her except the one. And since she’d disconnected her home phone after changing the number three times in as many weeks, the harassing phone calls had ceased. Her cell number was only available to a select few.

  “That Meeks ought to be horse-whipped for starting all this,” Melvina declared.

  “Too good for him,” Sheila opined.

  “He’ll get his one day,” Sunny said. She wasn’t sure how or when, but he would. She was ready to get on with her life, but that included settling with Meeks. Revenge would be hers.

  Melvina glanced around and lowered her voice. “Me and TJ, we know people. You want Meeks taken care of, whatever you want, we know people.”

  “You’re a good friend, Melvina. I’ll keep that in mind.” Having him beat up wasn’t what she intended but it was good to know your friends had your back. In a darker, less lucid, PMS moment she had fantasized that Meeks’s penis would fall off in a very public place and then a group of rogue rabid squirrels would attack him and gnaw his nuts off. However, chocolate had helped and she’d moved on. Now she just wanted the dirt on him she knew was somewhere to be found. She’d been working some contacts, asking around. Patience and perseverance would yield results in the end.

  “You just say the word,” Melvina said, nodding. “I better get back to the kitchen.” She turned, wiping her hands on the ever-present apron knotted around her waist. “I’ll send TJ out with corn bread and two vegetable plates.”

  Melvina hurried off, yelling for her son along the way.

  Sunny took a long swallow of the sweet tea. Sheila scraped her nail down the condensation gathered on the outside of her glass. “So things are back to normal?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it normal, but it’s not what it has been for the past few weeks.”

  TJ dropped off a plate of Melvina’s corn bread, which was actually fried like a big corn bread pancake, and two pale-aqua melamine plates piled high with collards, candied yams and fried okra. “Enjoy, ladies,” he said. “This is on the house.”

  “But—” Sunny protested.

  TJ cut her off. “Hey, I’m the finance whiz with the college degree, remember?” He winked at her. “I say Melvina’s can afford to comp a couple of friends now and then.”

  The last month had severely frazzled her nerves and pushed her to the edge, but TJ’s offer made her teary-eyed. She sucked it up. If she hadn’t cried then, she darn sure wasn’t going to lose it now. “Thanks, TJ.”

  He smiled, “Just enjoy it, okay?” He moved on to the next table with his laden tray.

  “That was nice,” Sheila said.

  “Very.” Her mouth watering in anticipation, Sunny broke off a crispy edge of the corn bread and popped it into her mouth. Heavenly.

  “I wanted to wait until the dust settled but have you given any thought to what you’re going to do next? You aren’t going to just go to ground, are you?”

  “No. I’ll continue my committee work.” She’d thought about it a lot. It’d be easy to just toss in the towel but the easy thing to do wasn’t necessarily the right thing to do. Even though it meant working with Cecil, she wasn’t giving up her committee work. “If I quit altogether then Cecil’s really won.”

  “Atta girl,” Sheila said with an encouraging smile.

  And honestly she was sick and tired of Cecil Meeks and his fiasco consuming her life. The worst of it was that Cecil hadn’t won because he was the better candidate. If she believed he’d do his job properly, all of this wouldn’t really matter. Well, that was a lie. It’d matter but she’d feel better about him being in office.

  She took a deep breath. She wanted to talk about something else, think about something else. She’d much rather talk about Sheila and Dan’s twentieth-anniversary trip to Key West. They were flying out as soon as Dan finished work today. Monday struck her as an odd time to leave but apparently the hotel offered a discounted Monday to Monday package. “You all packed for Florida?”

  “I’ve been packed. I can’t wait. One glorious week of sun, snorkeling and boinking my husband senseless. And not necessarily in that order.”

  As far as Sunny could tell, Sheila and Dan, both in their mid-forties, had their moments like any other couple, but unlike many
others, they still seemed to genuinely enjoy one another’s company in and out of the bedroom. It was the kind of relationship she’d like to have one day, if she ever stumbled across Mr. Right.

  Sunny laughed. “I’d opt for nearly senseless. He’ll be useless if he’s senseless.”

  “Nah. He’s a man. The two brains operate independently.” Sheila smiled like the cat with the canary. “At least I hope so because he’s guaranteed to lose his mind.” She leaned across the table and dropped her voice, even though none of the other customers were paying them any attention. “Did I tell you about the package I shipped ahead?”

  “Honestly, if you did, I don’t remember with everything that’s been going on. Do tell.”

  “I wasn’t sure about getting it through security at the airport, so I shipped a toy box to the hotel.”

  “A toy box?” Sunny was pretty sure she knew where Sheila was going.

  Sheila leaned farther across the table, barely avoiding sticking her boob into her yams, and lowered her voice. “I ordered a selection of sex toys online. A couple of outfits for me. A couple for him. Some gels, some lotions, a collection of body jewelry and a couple of other inventive things.” She sat back with a wicked smile.

  Sunny laughed, her imagination running with that scenario, casting herself and her billboard man in the starring roles. At this point, the only way to get over her thing for Cade Stone required either professional help or to seriously get laid. Sure he had that I-can-rock-your-world-baby look, but he also had that I’m-in-charge look and after growing up with her overbearing parents, Sunny didn’t need anyone else in charge of her. Ever.

  “I want him to know that twenty years doesn’t mean things have to be boring.”

  “Have things gotten boring?” she asked as Sheila munched corn bread. Sheila gave her the wait-a-minute-while-I-chew-and-swallow-my-food sign, so Sunny sampled the yams.

  She’d been there, done that, got the T-shirt for boring sex. Maybe it’s because you always pick men you can push around, an annoying little voice whispered inside her.

  Sheila took a sip of tea. “Not exactly boring. Maybe a little routine. Proactive is better than reactive.”

  “I’m sure Dan will enjoy your proactive stance. You don’t need for me to look after your plants while you’re gone or check the mail or anything?” Sheila had done so much for her, giving advice and time freely, Sunny wanted to do something in return.

  “Dan’s cousin’s got it covered.” Dan’s cousin would spend the next week refinishing the hardwood floors in their house and remodeling the bathroom while they were gone. “The only thing you need to look after is yourself. Are you sure you’re okay? I’ve been worried about you.” Sheila shot her an admonishing look. “And you know I would’ve dragged you to the Kincaids’ with us last week if I’d known you were staying home alone on Thanksgiving.”

  Sunny grinned. “Which is precisely why I didn’t mention it. I was infinitely happier at home working on my wolf than enduring another round of disapproval and I-told-you-so’s at the Templeton family table.”

  Actually, working on her stained-glass wolf had kept her sane and grounded in the last month. It had given her a creative outlet to focus on and lose herself in. She smiled to herself. Her wolf had stood guard for her, against the rest of the world. Her, her semiconstructed stained-glass wolf, and a take-out dinner from her grocer’s deli had suited her Thanksgiving just fine. Traipsing along to Shelia’s in-laws’ during a family holiday or intruding on any of her other friends hadn’t felt right.

  “I just don’t get your family. They drive me crazy.” Poor Sheila. They did drive her crazy. It frustrated Sheila that Sunny’s parents and her sister, Nadine, weren’t more supportive. It didn’t particularly bother Sunny anymore. She’d moved beyond needing their approval years ago, which was a damn good thing, all things considered.

  They disapproved of her job as a Web designer—no stability in computer-related self-employment, according to her dad. They disdained the row house she’d bought as an investment in a rundown section of the city on the edge of revitalization. According to them, a new cookie-cutter house in a cookie-cutter subdivision was what she should’ve bought as a surer return on her money. Actually, in their book, marrying an accountant the way her sister, Nadine, had was the real bankable investment. They considered Sunny’s volunteer work a waste of time. And they’d never understood her running for city council since they’d been sure she’d lose to Cecil Meeks.

  “Please tell me they’ve risen to the occasion during all of this,” Sheila said.

  Sunny shrugged. “They’ve been embarrassed.”

  “I can read between those lines.”

  Growing up, she’d been the odd man out, determined even as a child to walk her own path. Her overbearing parents, however, had never embraced her independence, spontaneity or free thinking. “Remember the Pearls of Wisdom. It is what it is.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m letting it go based on the Pearls of Wisdom.”

  The summer she’d been ten, they’d moved and her life had changed. Despite their disparate ages, she’d found a kindred spirit in an elderly widow next door. Mrs. Pearl had spent a lifetime studying Native Americans and particularly the Chickasaw of western Tennessee.

  Sunny had spent hours in Mrs. Pearl’s backyard and at her kitchen table absorbing Native American culture and developing a deep and abiding love for nature and community.

  Sunny had been particularly fascinated by and seemed to have a gift for understanding and identifying animal totems, her own and others. On Sunny’s twelfth birthday, Mrs. Pearl had given her a hummingbird ring—the hummingbird being Sunny’s animal totem. Sunny treasured the simple sterling-silver design of a hummingbird drinking from a flower. Her long-standing favorite piece of jewelry, she’d resized it twice as she’d grown and always wore it on her right hand.

  Mrs. Pearl had exerted the most influence in shaping Sunny’s life. She’d helped her move beyond her need for her parents’ approval, teaching her to embrace who and what she was, and likewise accepting her parents in the same vein. It was a gift Sunny had carried with her into adulthood even though the dear woman had died during Sunny’s junior year in college. She’d dubbed Mrs. Pearl’s life lessons Pearls of Wisdom, and she’d shared them with Sheila on several occasions.

  She sure didn’t want Shelia worrying about her on her anniversary trip. “Go. Have a good time. I’m fine.” She was done wallowing in this disaster. From here on she was employing positive thinking. “The worst is behind me, now it’s smooth sailing.”

  * * *

  “Any news yet?” Cade propped the phone against his shoulder as he leaned back in his near-ancient office chair.

  “I’ve had a couple of leads that wound up to be dead ends. Meeks is a slippery guy,” said Danny Jones, the private eye Cade had contacted the day Sunny Templeton’s flyer had hit. Every once in a while he and Linc needed a little private eye help, and Danny was their go-to man—one of the best in the business. If there was dirt, Danny’d dig it up. “It’s been a month. Want me to give it a rest?”

  “Nope. Stay on it. Sooner or later he’ll slip or something will turn up.”

  “You’re the boss. I’ll touch base with you next week.”

  “Good deal.”

  He hung up and found Linc leaning against his door frame. “Did you sic Jones on Meeks?”

  “He’s just doing a little digging.”

  Linc grinned. “You couldn’t stand it, could you?”

  Cade shrugged. “Just nosing around.” His brother knew him as well as anyone. And no, it was genetically impossible for him to sit around and do nothing to help Sunny Templeton when he felt responsible for aiding and abetting Meeks in defeating her. His guilt and sense of responsibility had escalated with every incident reported in the paper, on the Internet, and each damned late-night show.

  And honest to God, she was driving him crazy. She’d looked like trouble the first time he’d seen that damn flyer.
How he felt about her was…complicated…which was stupid considering he’d never met her, didn’t want to meet her. He’d found it impossible to toss that sheet of paper. Instead he’d stuck it in his desk. Every time he opened his drawer and saw it, something inside him shifted. He didn’t like things shifting inside him. He ought to just toss it but he couldn’t quite make himself do it. Sunny Templeton had become a phantom PITA—a real Pain In The Ass.

  The sooner Jones found something on Meeks, and his gut told him there was something to be found, the sooner he could turn it over to Sunny Templeton to use and then wash his hands of her. Then he’d toss the flyer.

  “By the way, Georgia wanted me to remind you that you need to stop by the formal wear shop to be fitted for the tux. My best man’s got to be jam up on the big day and she says we big boys are gonna require special orders.”

  Okay, once upon a time he and Linc had known one another well but his brother in love was something of a stranger at times. Linc was yet another cautionary tale in Cade’s life. This was what love reduced men to. He was tempted to ask Linc if he still actually had a dick but that would only piss him off. Instead Cade stood and stretched. “Yeah, I’ll get by there sometime this week.”

  “I’ll let Georgia know,” Linc said, wandering back to his office, doubtless to call Georgia.

  Cade supposed if Linc had to be an idiot in love at least he’d chosen well. Cade liked Georgia. He also liked Gracie’s fiancé well enough. He grabbed the paperwork on his latest FTA apprehension off his desk and walked it out to Marlene.

  “Thanks,” she said, without looking up from the computer monitor. “You know, I’m thinking about signing up for one of those online dating things.”

  Cade shook his head. That was random. Had he just heard her correctly? “Did you say online dating?”

  “Yeah. You know, one of those Internet matchmaking things.”

  He had heard right.

  “The hell you say!” Martin bellowed from his office. Apparently his father had heard, as well. Great. Martin stomped out to join them, a bottled Coke in his hand. At six foot six he stood two inches taller than Cade and still didn’t carry an ounce of spare flesh. “What’s wrong with you, woman?”