Crazy on You

about it.” He’d been in a enough “hot” places to last him a lifetime.

Neal peeled off his vest. “Did you find a place to live?”

Tucker nodded and shut his locker. “I took your advice and found a house in Lovett. On Winchester. Not far from the high school over there.”

“Winchester?” Neal frowned in thought. Both deputies had been born and raised in Lovett and still lived there with their families. “Do we know anyone who lives on Winchester?” he asked Marty.

“Now?” Marty shrugged and shook his head. “When we were in school, the Larkins . . . Cutters . . . and the Brooks girls.”

“That’s why it sounds familiar.” Neal set his vest inside his locker. “Lily Darlington lives on Winchester. She bought the house right next door to her mama.”

Marty laughed. “Crazy Lily?”

Crazy Lily?

“Some of my earliest wet dreams involved Crazy Lily.” Both men laughed and Tucker might have appreciated the humor if he hadn’t recently had his own sex dream about Lily Darlington.

“She’s my neighbor.” Tucker shoved his arms into his jacket. “Why do you call her crazy?” She hadn’t acted crazy around him. More like she’d driven him crazy in that white sweater yesterday. He’d taken one look at her tits in that sweater and all the blood in his head had drained to his pants.

“I don’t think she’s crazy these days,” Neal said. “Not like when she used to dance on tables.”

Lily danced on tables? “Professionally?”

“No. At parties in high school.” Marty laughed. “Those long legs in a pair of tiny shorts and Justin’s were something to see.”

Jesus.

“She’s not like that anymore,” Neal defended her. “I think that concussion she got driving her car into Ronnie’s front room back in ’04 knocked some sense into her.”

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. “Who’s Ronnie?”

“Her ex.”

“And she drove her car into his front room? On purpose?”

“She always said her foot slipped on account of a migraine,” Neal answered. Both men laughed and Neal continued: “She was never charged with anything, but everyone knows Crazy Lily Darlington drove her car into that house on purpose. She came real close to being 5150’d.” Neal shrugged. “But she was already in the hospital for few days, so it didn’t make sense.”

5150? Tucker had picked up a 5150 last year in South Houston. The schizophrenic woman had locked herself in her bedroom for three days and had been eating her mattress.

“It was just a good thing Ronnie was off with his latest,” Marty added.

Holy Jesus. He was having crazy sex dreams and lusting after a crazy woman. A woman who’d possibly tried to kill her ex by running her car into his house and had almost been locked up on a 5150 hold. That piece of info should be enough to shrivel his nuts, but it didn’t. He thought of her and Pippen and her fierceness. He thought of her hands on his own chest, and his hands running up long legs, and he didn’t know who was crazier. Him or Crazy Lily Darlington.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lily pulled the Jeep into her garage and left the door up. She’d dropped Pippen off at school and gone to Albertson’s for a few groceries. She had a lot to do before Pippen got home from school.

She got out of the car and walked toward the curb. Pippen had been so excited after talking to Ronnie yesterday. The thought of going to Odessa with his daddy kept him wired all day and night, and he’d had a hard time falling asleep.

A big beige garbage can sat at the curb and she grabbed the handle to pull it into the garage. The cold plastic chilled her palm and she glanced up as Tucker’s silver Tundra pulled into the drive next door. She quickly returned his wave and ducked her head as she tugged the big can into her garage. Pippen had gone on and on about Tucker too. Tucker was going to teach him to dunk and free throw, and juke. Whatever that meant.

She pushed the garbage can against the wall, moved to her Jeep, and opened the back. She’d listened to Pip until she hadn’t been able to take it another minute. She’d spread her arms and said, “What am I? A stump full of spiders?”

Pip had rolled his eyes. “You’re just my momma.”

Yeah, just his momma, and he thought the sun rose and set on Ronnie’s deadbeat ass. Lily grabbed the handles of two grocery bags and heard Tucker’s boot heels just before his shadow fell across the threshold of the garage.

“I’ll get those,” he said.

She glanced across her shoulder at him as he stopped next to her in his brown jacket and tragic pants. Then she put her chin to her shoulder and glanced behind her. Tucker playing basketball in her driveway with Pippen was one thing—but carrying her groceries inside was another. She was a single mom in a small town that would never completely forget her wild past. None of the neighbors seemed to be home. “You can get the others,” she said and hurried to the back door. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He grabbed the remaining four bags and shut the back of the Jeep.

“Pip says you’re going to teach him to dunk.” She pushed a big button by the back step and the garage door slid closed.

“I’ll try.” He followed her into the kitchen and set the bags on the counter next to her. “He needs to work on his dribbling first.”

Lily unbuttoned her navy pea coat and hung it on a hook by the door. That morning she’d dressed in her pink yoga pants, white sports bra, and Spandex tank. Later, she planned to drag out her mat, pop in her Rodney Yee DVD, and do a little downward facing dog in her living room. She looked back at Tucker’s profile. At his chin and mouth and wide shoulders. Besides her brother-in-law and nephew, Pippen was the only male who’d ever been in her house. It felt weird to have Tucker there. “Thanks again.”

“Thank me with coffee.” He turned to face her and reached for the zipper of his dark brown jacket. His long fingers pulled the tab downward. One slow inch at a time as his eyes took a languid journey down her body, blatantly checking her out.

She should say something clever and witty or indignant, but as always with him, she couldn’t think. Clearly his testosterone was throwing off the balance in the house. Throwing her off the balance. “Won’t the caffeine keep you up?”

He raised his gaze to her face, pausing for a heartbeat on her lips before he looked into her eyes. “I have today and tomorrow off.”

Lord love a duck, his energy caused friction in her stomach. Fiery dangerous friction that she hadn’t let herself feel for a long time. She moved to the coffee maker and filled the filter with Italian roast. With Tucker, it wasn’t a matter of letting. It was more like a bombardment. “I’m off today too. And I have a million things to do before Saturday’s spa event.” It wasn’t necessarily a hint for him to leave. Not yet. In a few more minutes, she’d kick him out. There’d been a time in her life when she liked playing with fire, but she was a respectable mother of a ten-year-old boy. It wasn’t just her anymore.

“You work at a spa?”

One cup and she’d kick him out. Lily glanced over her shoulder at him as he walked to the little kitchen table and hung his coat on the back of a chair. Like two thin arrows, twin creases ran down his back from his shoulders to his waistband, pointing to his nice round butt in those horrible pants.

“I own a spa in Amarillo.” She returned her attention to the coffee maker and filled the carafe with water, then poured it into the machine. Not just any guy could make those pants look good. She hit the On button then turned to face him. “Lily Belle Salon and Spa.” He picked up an extra teal-and-white invitation from a small stack sitting on the table. “I’m having a big event Saturday. You should come by and win a facial,” she joked.