“Nothing so productive.” She rubbed her nose, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “Just stuff I...write.”
“Journals?”
Sure. That was close enough. She made a sound he took for agreement.
“Dear Diary.” Beneath the swag of lights crisscrossing high atop the pool area, Jay’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Tonight, I nearly got caught by—”
She reached up and pressed her hand over his mouth. “Stop!”
She felt his smile against her palm and her stomach swooped. She should have felt chilly in her damp swimming suit. Instead, she felt warm from the inside out.
She pulled her hand away and turned to face the pool again.
Even at that hour there were a half-dozen people in the water playing a noisy game of water volleyball. A few more guests lounged on the chaises surrounding it. They all had drinks in their hands, served up from the bar situated next to a small dais where a trio of musicians played live music. On the other side of the musicians sat another table with pale blue hotel towels stacked on it.
Jay gestured. “See? Towels.”
He was impossible to resist even when he was being impossible. When he was grinning at her the way he was now? It was a lost cause altogether. “Why would the hot tub be reserved only for guests but the pool isn’t?”
He shrugged. “The hot tub accommodates twenty people and the pool handles a lot more? I don’t know. Ask your brothers. They’re more likely to know the answer to that than me.”
She made a face. “If my brothers find out I’m here with you swimming, you’re going to regret all of this.”
His lips twitched. “Pretty sure I’m not.”
I think you should know that...
...I’m the perfect guy for you.
His confidence was intoxicating. “Swimming pool it is.” She stepped off the paved pathway and cut across the grass diagonally toward the nearest chaise lounge. She dropped her bag on it and kicked off her sandals and slid into the water.
In comparison to the night air, it felt warm and welcoming. Not quite at the level that the hot tub had, but it was still wonderful.
She expected Jay to follow her in, and when he didn’t, she slicked her hair out of her eyes and looked back at him. “Well?”
He was no longer smiling. Instead he was staring fixedly toward the bar where a tall man was watching them.
Then the man walked toward Jay and she saw the glint of a badge on his belt.
That’s when she placed him. He was the officer at the municipal building.
Not officer. Detective. Detective Teas.
“Cross,” he said as he stopped in front of Jay.
“I’ve already answered all your questions,” Jay said flatly. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”
“I’m not here to question you again,” the detective said. “Not yet, anyway.”
Arabella frowned. She was barely aware of the way Jay and the police detective had drawn the attention of the guests nearest them as she started up the steps. The night air no longer felt hot and balmy, the water no longer soft and warm.
Jay’s face tightened even more. He looked hard and nearly unrecognizable. “Then what—”
The detective raised his hand. “There’s been an incident. With your grandmother.”
Water splashed as Arabella scrambled out of the pool. She slid her hand into Jay’s.
He didn’t spare her a glance, but his fingers closed tightly around hers. “What kind of incident?”
The detective looked suddenly uncomfortable. “She and Mabel Forsythe got into it over at Provisions. Afraid they were both hauled in for—” He broke off, grimacing.
Arabella hugged Jay’s arm to her. “For what?”
“Public brawling,” the detective finally said, looking pained. “She’s gonna need you to bail her out.”
Chapter Eight
“Well? Anything you have to say for yourself?” Jay peered through the bars of the cell. It was empty except for his grandmother. An identical cell next to it held Mabel Forsythe.
Both women sat on the hard benches that lined the perimeter of each cell. They had their backs to one another and their arms folded across their chests.
At his grandmother’s stoic silence, he sighed and rubbed his fingers through his hair. “If Mom finds out about this—”
“She’d better not,” his grandmother warned. “I keep your secrets, you better be prepared to keep mine.” She suddenly looked over her shoulder at the woman sitting behind her. “And if I hear you’ve been spreading tales, Mabel Forsythe, I’ll hunt you down and finish what we started.”
Mabel looked fit to spit.
“She didn’t mean that, Mrs. Forsythe,” Jay soothed.
“The hell I didn’t!”
He eyed her. “Threats aren’t going to help the situation here, Granny. If you want me to post bail—” he’d already done it, but she didn’t need to know that “—then you’re going to have to explain yourself.”
She harrumphed and folded her arms again, looking prepared to sit there until kingdom came.
If his grandmother wouldn’t talk, then maybe Mabel would.
He moved past his grandmother’s cell—just thinking those words made something inside his head clang painfully—and stopped in front of Mabel. “What about you, Mrs. Forsythe? Do you want to explain what went on over at Provisions tonight?” Teas had already told him that Mabel’s daughter-in-law was driving in from Dallas to post bail, but she would be hours getting there yet. “I might be willing to look at paying your bail if—”
“You’d damn well better not,” Louella said furiously. “You’ll have your grandpa rolling over in his grave if you spend one red cent on that woman.”
That woman had risen to her feet, too, wrapping her arthritic fingers around the cell bars as if she were prepared to push them apart Samson-style. “Herb would still be alive if he’d married me instead of you.”
“You miserable—” Louella reached through the bars and yanked on Mabel’s hair, pulling the glossy brown coif askew to reveal the sparse white hair beneath.
“Ladies!” Detective Teas strode into the holding area and his bark echoed around the cement walls. “And believe me. Right now I’m using that term generously.” He glared at the women. “Keep it up and I’ll keep you both here
