Addicted to Love Read online

  Resolutely, she swung her legs off the bench, sat up straight, and settled the veil over her head. “I wish,” she murmured, “to be cured of my need for romance. I wish to stop believing in true love and soul mates and happily- ever-after. I want a calm life free of the exciting adrenaline rush of first lust. I want to stop having crushes and spinning fantasies. I wish this love monkey off my back.”

  The minute she made the wish, something strange happened. Her scalp tingled until her entire head throbbed with a vibrant, pulsating energy.

  Her pulse quickened. Her breath hung in her lungs. Her vision suddenly blurred.

  Whoa!

  And then there he was in the doorway of the holding cell. Gun strapped on his hip, badge glistening in the harsh fluorescent lighting, Stetson cocked back on his head. He looked strong and big and in control. The kind of man you could count on in an emergency. A guy who wouldn’t run away at the first sign of trouble.

  Brody Carlton.

  “Rachael,” Brody called her name and broke the spell.

  The tingling in her head vanished, leaving her breathless and gawking at him as if he were a stalwart knight lifted from the pages of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

  There you go with the romantic fantasies. Knock it off.

  Clearly, the stupid wedding veil had malfunctioned.

  “Yes?” she said, startled to find that her voice came out little more than a whisper.

  “You have visitors.”

  She jumped off the bench, ran to the bars. “Visitors?”

  “One of them says she’s your lawyer.”

  “There’s more than one?” Her hopes soared.

  “Three to be exact and they aren’t real happy with me.”

  Relief and happiness and a sweet sense of belonging washed over her. All three of her friends had come. She had true friends. Why on earth had she ever thought she needed a man?

  “Against my better judgment,” he said, “I’m going to let them all come back to see you. Mainly because your lawyer keeps making threats.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Jillian,” Rachael said. “She’s a bit intense.”

  “A bit?”

  “Okay, a lot intense. But she has a heart of gold.”

  He looked like he wasn’t going to take her word on that. He left the room and returned moments later with Delaney, Tish, and Jillian following behind him.

  “Oh, you guys,” Rachael said as Brody unlocked the cell door and let them inside. The bars clanged closed behind her friends and Brody stepped back into his office to give them privacy. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue. I love you all!”

  “The first time our sweet little Rachael gets into real trouble?” Tish said and enveloped her in a hug. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “How’s Shane and the baby?” Rachael asked about Tish’s husband and new infant son.

  “Fine, fine.” Tish nodded and tucked a dark auburn corkscrew curl behind an ear studded with multiple earrings. She was dressed in a bohemian-style peasant blouse and stonewashed blue jeans. “Max is cutting his first tooth and Shane sends his love.”

  Delaney hugged her next, her baby bump pressing into Rachael’s side as she squeezed her so tightly it almost took her breath. “Sweetie, we know you’re hurting. We’re here for you.”

  “How are Nick and Audra?” Rachael asked, changing the subject by referring to Delaney’s police detective husband and their toddler daughter.

  “Great. Although Audra’s deep into the terrible twos.” Delaney turned to Tish. “Just wait until Max gets there. You’ll think a demon has possessed your darling child.”

  “Do you know what sex the new baby is?” Rachael asked.

  Delaney encircled her belly with her arms and her eyes lit up. “It’s twin boys.”

  “Twins!” Tish exclaimed. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “We just found out on Friday. Twins run in Nick’s family,” Delaney explained.

  Delaney and Tish started talking about babies. Rachael looked past them to see Jillian standing to one side, cool and slightly aloof as always. Watching everyone closely, not missing a beat.

  Jillian possessed exotic looks with her ebony hair and dark eyes. She had the kind of curvy body that drove men wild and a Mensa IQ. She was dressed in an expensively tailored business suit and three-inch stilettos that sent her towering to over six feet. In her hands she held a leather briefcase. No doubt about it. Jillian was a force to be reckoned with.

  As far as Rachael knew, Jillian had never had a serious romantic relationship. She’d snared every man she’d ever set her sights on, but then she dumped them just as easily as she collected them.

  The four friends had all met at Rice University where they’d been sorority suitemates. Over the years, Rachael and Jillian had had their differences. A natural clash of romantic versus cynic. But now, for the first time, Rachael totally got where Jillian was coming from. And amid the bubbly new mothers, they had a new alliance. Women who weren’t besotted by babies.

  Plus, while she appreciated both Delaney and Tish for leaving their families to come all this way to show their support, Jillian was the only one who could really help her.

  “We saw the billboard,” Tish said.

  “We still can’t believe you did that,” Delaney added. “You? Miss Romantic?”

  “Not anymore,” Rachael muttered. “I’m done with romance. Jillian had it right all along. Love stinks.”

  Delaney and Tish shared that knowing look of women lucky enough to have found true love. Then they glanced at Rachael with pity in their eyes.

  A tinge of envy, mixed with anger, took hold of her. Why couldn’t she have found that kind of happiness, too? And so what if she never found true love? She could still have a happy, productive, fulfilling life. She didn’t need a man for that. Look at Jillian.

  “Could you guys give us a moment alone?” Jillian asked Delaney and Tish. “I need to go over her defense.”

  “I don’t need a defense,” Rachael said. “I’m guilty.”

  Jillian shook her fingers. “Not so fast. I’m going to prove there were extenuating circumstances that drove you to rash action.”

  “That’s certainly true.”

  “Sheriff,” Jillian called out to Brody. “Could you please open the door?”

  Brody returned to let Delaney and Tish out and he escorted them back to his office, leaving Jillian alone with Rachael.

  Jillian took Rachael’s hand and pulled her down on the cement bench. “Tell me everything.”

  Rachael told her what had happened from the moment she’d fled the chapel in her wedding dress and driven straight to Valentine, stopping only to buy the bucket of black paint.

  “You were pushed to the limits of your endurance,” Jillian said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You snapped.”

  Rachael nodded.

  “Anyone who’s ever been in love and been dumped will sympathize with what you’ve been through.”

  “Judge Pruitt married her high school sweetheart. The only man she ever loved,” Rachael said.

  “You forget, I live for challenges.” Jillian’s eyes gleamed. “First order of business, we’ve got to get you out of that wedding dress. The evidence against you is smeared all over it.”

  “I’ve got nothing to wear. My wedding trousseau is in the trunk of Trace’s car.”

  “Trust you to say trousseau.” Jillian shook her head. “Only a die-hard romantic.”

  “Hey,” Rachael said. “I’m through with being a romantic. Painting the Valentine sign was my emancipation proclamation.”

  “Don’t worry about the clothes. I’ve got you covered.” Jillian snapped open her briefcase and took out a simple blue suit skirt with matching jacket and white silk blouse.

  The conservative outfit was as far a cry from Rachael’s style as Deana’s flashy clothes. She preferred flowing, feminine garments in floral prints and pastels, dresses to pants, empire waistlines to form-fit
ting sheaths. But she accepted the suit without comment. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and after all, Jillian knew what she was doing.

  “Thank you,” Rachael said. She reached over to pick up the wedding veil lying beside her on the bench and handed it to her friend. “I want you to have this.”

  Jillian shook her head. “I have no use for that thing.”

  “Delaney and Tish don’t need it anymore and it didn’t work for me. You might as well have it.”

  Jillian took the wedding veil, holding it gingerly, as if she feared it might give her some dread virus. “I’ll hang on to it for you,” she said and slid it into her briefcase. “Just in case you change your mind.”

  “I won’t be needing it,” Rachael said stubbornly. “I’m finished with romance.”

  “You say that now —”

  “This time I mean it.”

  “Rachael, a leopard doesn’t change its spots. You are who you are. You can’t change by graffitiing a billboard with black paint and declaring you’re done with love. You’re a starry-eyed romantic optimist. It’s your essential nature. It’s one of the things we love most about you.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said fiercely, struggling to deny that Jillian was right. “I can change and I will. I’m going to become a hard-boiled cynic, just like you.”

  “No, Rachael, no,” Jillian whispered. “You don’t want to be just like me.”

  “Yes, I do. You’re smart and successful and you don’t kowtow to anyone. You don’t lose your focus when a man comes into your life. You’re strong and powerful and brave.”

  “And lonely. Don’t forget lonely.”

  Rachael blinked. “You’re lonely?”

  Jillian’s nod was almost imperceptible.

  “But you have Delaney and Tish and me.”

  “And you were all in love, all involved with your men.” Jillian held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. My work is rewarding. It’s just sort of sad to have nothing but a briefcase to curl up with on a cold, winter night.”

  “Curling up with someone is overrated,” Rachael muttered, trying to convince herself. She needed Jillian’s cynicism to keep her on track. To prevent her from embracing her romanticism and letting it drag her down.

  “This from a person who’s never gone without someone to curl up next to,” Jillian observed.

  It was true. From the time she was sixteen years old, Rachael had always had a boyfriend. Whenever she was briefly without one, she felt lost, adrift, as if she had no real purpose, no identity if she wasn’t part of a happy couple. This grasping need for romance had stunted her emotional growth, held her back.

  How could she have shortchanged herself for so long? How could she have been so blind?

  “Take the veil,” she insisted, pushing it toward her friend. “I don’t want it.”

  Jillian pushed the veil back toward her. “Neither do I.”

  “Then just take it and get rid of it for me, please? Sell it on eBay and keep the money. Give it to a bum on the street. I don’t care, just make it disappear.” Before I change my mind.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jillian nodded. “Okay, I’ll take it, but it’s not for me. I’m holding on to it for your wedding.”

  “I’m never getting engaged again.”

  “You say that now —”

  “I mean it!” she shouted.

  She shouldn’t have shouted. She knew that, but she was denying it out loud to convince herself as much as Jillian. This was tough. Battling lifetime indoctrination in the myth of Prince Charming and happily-ever-after. She was tired of wearing glass slippers.

  It was way past time to lace up the combat boots.

  BRODY LEANED AGAINST the wall of his office, sipping a cup of black coffee while Rachael used his restroom to change into her court outfit. She’d been in there for about fifteen minutes with the water running full blast. To hide the sound of her tears? He hated to think she was crying. Or — his cop instincts couldn’t help wondering — the sound of her escaping out the window?

  He discounted the idea as soon as it popped into his head. One, Rachael had never resisted taking responsibility for the consequences of her actions. As sheriff he’d learned most of those he arrested couldn’t wait to blame someone else for their predicament, but not Rachael. And two, the window was really small. Even someone as petite as Rachael was bound to get stuck if they tried to shimmy out of it.

  Belinda would have tried to go out the window.

  The thought gouged him. Belinda’s modus operandi was to run away or to blame her problems on other people. He hadn’t known that about her before they married. They’d gotten engaged two weeks before September 11, 2001, because she’d thought she was pregnant. She’d been against his enlisting in the Army and initially, she’d wanted to back out of the engagement. He should have let her. But under the circumstances, he’d lobbied hard for the marriage and in the end they’d moved up the wedding and got hitched the day before he shipped overseas.

  The same day she got her period.

  Brody was almost grateful when the cell phone in his back pocket buzzed, breaking into his glum thoughts. He pulled it out, flipped it open. “Carlton here.”

  “Brody, it’s Audie Gaston.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Someone broke into my store last night and stole a couple of gallons of black paint.”

  “They take anything else?”

  Audie paused. Brody could almost see him looking around his cluttered hardware store.

  “I’ll have to double-check.”

  “How’d they get in?”

  “Jimmied the back lock.”

  “Your alarm didn’t go off?”

  “I didn’t switch it on.” Audie sounded sheepish.

  Why would someone steal black paint? He thought of the billboard, but he knew it wasn’t Rachael. Not only had she been in custody since yesterday morning, but when he’d processed her, he’d found the Wal-Mart receipt for a gallon of black paint in her purse. What he feared was that her desecration of the billboard had spurred a copycat vandal.

  Great. That was all he needed. People going all over town painting anti-romance slogans.

  Maybe this has nothing to do with that. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

  Except that Brody didn’t believe in coincidences. “I’ve got to go to court this morning,” he told Audie, “but I’ll be over there as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks.” Audie grunted. “See you then.”

  Brody hung up, then rapped on the bathroom door. “Come on, Rachael. Get a move on. Justice waits for no one.”

  JUDGE ABIGAIL PRUITT was not only the first African American to sit on the bench in Jeff Davis County. She was also the first woman. That made her something of a local legend.

  “If you work hard and stay out of trouble you could be the next Abigail Pruitt,” Valentine mothers told their daughters. “If she can be a judge, you can, too.”

  What they often failed to take into account was Abigail’s razor-sharp mind, keen observation skills, and a dogged determination to excel, no matter how tough things got. Most people, whether male or female, simply weren’t made of such stern stuff.

  Judge Pruitt was closing in on sixty. She had a short shock of kinky gray hair, dark intelligent eyes, and a habit of stroking her chin with her thumb and index finger when she was deep in thought. She also possessed an ironclad sense of right and wrong and once she’d made a decision, she was not inclined to change her mind.

  At nine a.m. on the nose, Brody led Rachael into the one-hundred-year-old courtroom, Jillian right at their heels. Delaney and Tish followed at a safe distance before slipping into the gallery seating.

  Brody pushed through the swinging door separating the gallery from the bench. The aged wooden floors creaked beneath his feet. The building smelled musty and punitive. Rachael found herself wondering how many lives had been forever altered here. She knew hers was ab
out to be one of them and she welcomed the change with open arms.

  Judge Pruitt was already behind the bench. She set aside the papers she was reviewing, slid her reading glasses down on her nose, and stared unblinkingly at Rachael over the top of them.

  Rachael tried a smile, but the judge remained stony-faced. No charming this woman. She wasn’t accustomed to people ignoring her smile and it unsettled her.

  “Intimidation tactics,” Jillian whispered in her ear, anticipating Rachael’s anxiety. “Let it roll right off your back.”

  Easy for her to say. Jillian was used to swimming in the shark-infested waters of the state legal system.

  On the complainant’s side of the courtroom, Mayor Wentworth stood with Jeff Davis County’s lone full-time prosecutor, Purdy Maculroy. Brody guided Rachael to the defense stand and then stepped back to let Jillian take his place beside Rachael. The minute Brody’s body heat was gone, she missed him. Something about his unflappable presence calmed her.

  He gave her an encouraging wink that lifted her spirits. Why hadn’t she met him before Trace?

  You did. He rejected you.

  He was twelve. She was seven. It didn’t count.

  Stop it! You’re about to be sentenced in a court of law and you’re going gaga over some guy?

  But quitting just wasn’t that easy. Looking for love in all the wrong places had unwittingly become her modus operandi.

  The judge went through the usual housekeeping of proper courtroom procedure, and then she fixed Rachael with a strict glare. “You’re charged with vandalizing the Valentine billboard.”

  “I’m an eyewitness, Judge,” Kelvin Wentworth said, “to the destruction of our beloved town landmark.”

  Judge Pruitt addressed Purdy Maculroy. “Counselor, please remind your client he cannot speak out of turn in my courtroom.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Maculroy nudged Kelvin in the ribs.

  Everyone in town knew the one thing Judge Pruitt and Kelvin Wentworth had in common was their mutual adoration of Valentine. Other than that, they pretty well hated each other’s guts. He was from the good-old-boy network and Judge Pruitt was anything but a good old boy.

  “How do you plead, Miss Henderson?” Judge Pruitt asked.