SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,1
“How’d you get so smart?”
“Older sister. And I actually listen to our women friends. No female wants a man to buy her the skimpy stuff. Let them choose that on their own.”
“Right. Any other words of advice?”
Mad must really love the guy, because he offered up his best tip. “At Gemma’s, find a shampoo with a scent you really like. When you’re at the B&B, make some time to wash Willow’s hair. Thoroughly. Bet she feels pampered and you get your horniness attended to. Win-win.”
Coop’s smile grew to a grin. “You need a favor, Mad, I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved off his friend. “I won’t need favors. I’m going to be hitting the waves in Mexico.”
Ten days of surf and sun should smooth his brittle edges, improve his outlook, brighten the world for him. Any of those things. All those things.
He reached for his door handle when he was hailed once again. A second old friend.
Such was life in a smallish town you’d lived in your entire life. The one that claimed your mother as its mayor. He shifted to face the lanky man with a shock of hair spilling over his forehead. “What’s up, Shane?” he asked. “Your bags packed for Zihuatanejo?”
The expression on the other man’s face made Mad furrow his brow. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re screwed,” Shane said. “Have you been following the weather in Mexico?”
“Uh, no.” He’d been deep in wrapping up the case.
“I just got word that our surf camp was decimated by the latest hurricane.”
“Hell,” Mad said. Hurricane and tropical storm season in that part of the world was summer into fall, but he’d not been tuned in to the latest forecasts. “Decimated?”
“As in, the place is gone. Literally gone.” Shane shoved back his hair. “And before you ask, there’s an advisory against traveling to the area. Other resorts, even the high-end ones, have suffered damage as well.”
Meaning their Mexican trip was off. He hoped the family that ran the surf camp they’d visited a few times could rebuild, but obviously not in time for Mad to visit this year. So much for sand and surf with beer and tequila shooters on the side. “We could head north,” he mused aloud. “Strap the boards on top of my car and—”
His buddy was already shaking his head. “I’m going to have to say no.” Shane shoved his hair away again. “We got a call to take over a roofing contract when a fellow businessman lost a couple of his workers to a hospital stay after a rollover on the highway.”
Mad grimaced. “I heard about that.”
“Yeah. Three guys hospitalized with various broken bones. They’ll be all right eventually, but now I want to help out the other contractor.”
“I get it,” Mad said. A small business owner like Shane—he owned a business with his half-brother Rafael—had to make hay when the opportunities presented themselves.
“Maybe I’ll postpone my vacation.” Though Mad could practically guarantee his lieutenant wouldn’t let him back through the department doors. “No, I’ll probably paint my house.”
“That doesn’t sound like any fun.” He sighed. “Sorry, Mad.”
He waved the apology away. “I’ll think of something to fill my time.” That sleep he needed. Maybe his head would hit the pillow and he’d wake up on the morning he was scheduled to return to his desk.
That could work.
Back in his car, he continued through town, the traffic lightening as he reached the outer edge of the business district.
Cars peeled off onto side streets, others veered into parking spaces, and then the wide-open road stretched ahead of him—except it wasn’t wide open at all. A beater of a vehicle blocked his lane, the body scuffed and dirty, its Nevada license plate dinged and dingy. Sluggish hazard lights blinked at the same rate as a sloth’s eyes.
The hood, paint oxidized, was propped up and from here he could see a side view of a woman leaning over the engine. Just part of her, dressed in ancient cut-off overalls and lightweight hiking boots that looked as if they’d walked a million miles.
On a sigh, Mad stopped his vehicle and turned off the ignition.
Without even taking a look at him, the woman raised her slender hand and waved him along, indicating he should steer around the blockage.
Maybe he would have considered it, but Mrs. Dowd came to stand in the doorway of her paper goods shop. If he left a damsel in distress, the old gossip would spread the news all over town. This was when mom-as-mayor was a distinct liability.