Angels Fall

now."
    "I'm going." He shoved to his feet. "What the hell do you want?"
    "When you figure it out, you can come back." She got up, picked up his hat, tossed it to him. "But you leave here and go hunt up one of those women and I hear about it, you won't get in the door again."
    "So I can't have you, or anybody else until you say different?"
    "No, Lo, you can't have me or anybody else until you know the difference. One thing you do know is the way out."
    Twisted with unreleased lust and frustration, Linda-gail strolled back to her bedroom and shut the door. With a bang.
    For a moment Lo only stared after her. What in the damn depths of hell had just happened? He could still taste her, his palm was still warm from her breast. And she walked off, slammed the damn door?
    Furious, he stormed out. Women like her, he thought, women who used a man, ordered a man around, played games, should be made to pay a price for it.
    He slammed into his truck, sent one dark look back toward the house with the yellow shutters. She thought she knew him, thought she had him pegged.
    She was dead wrong.

Chapter 20

    IT WASN'T HARD to walk into Joanie's. What did she have to lose? In any case, she'd learned in therapy how important it was to face and resolve problems, and to take responsibility. Embarrassment was a small price to pay for mental health, Reece told herself. And accepting the embarrassnient might get her job back.
    Groveling wasn't out of the question.
    Added to it, her daily horoscope had acivised her to shoulder burdens. If she did so, she would find they didn't weigh as much as expected.
    That was a good sign.
    Still, she went in the back way, and ten minutes before opening. There was no point in spreading her embarrassment around to customers chow-ing down on steak and eggs if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Joanie, feet planted in their practical shoes, was mixing up an enormous bowl of batter. The air smelled of coffee and warm biscuits.
    '"You're late,"Joanie snapped. "Unless you got a note from Doc, don't think I won't dock you for it."
    "But—"
    "I don't want excuses, I want reliability—and I want onions, chili peppers and tomatoes propped for huevos ranchcros. Stow your things and get to work."
    "All right." More chastened than she would have been had Joanie showed her the door. Reece scooted into the office, left her purse and jacket. Hack in the kitchen, she grabbed an apron. "I want to apologize for yesterday."
    "Apologize while you work. I don't pay you to talk."
    Reece set herself up at the work counter. "I'm sorry I was such a bitchy pain in the ass yesterday. I had no right to insult you, even though the addition of fresh herbs and cither basic ingredients would improve the breadth of your menu."

    Out of the corner of her eye. Recce saw Joanie's brows shoot up, and her lips twitch. "That covers it."
    "All right."
    "Wasn't any damn dill set you off."
    "No. It was something handy to throw at you, metaphorically speaking."
    "I had to deal with a dead body once."
    "What? I'm sorry?"
    "Rented one of my cabins to this fella from Atlanta, Georgia. Rented to him the year before, and the one before that. Used to come for two weeks in the summer with his family. That'd be, oh, ten years back. But this time, he came by himself. Seems the wife was divorcing him. Go on, get some sausage started. Lym'll be in first thing this morning, and he likes sausage with his eggs." Obediently, Reece got the tub of loose sausage from the refrigerator and began to make patties.
    "So, when this Georgia boy doesn't come back into town to turn in the cabin keys, I have to haul my ass out there. Anyway, I used to do the cleaning of the rental places myself back then. I went out there with my cleaning kit. His car's still there, so I banged on the door. Irritated, because he was supposed to be out by ten sharp. I had another tenant coming in that day at three. He doesn't answer, so…" She paused to pick up her mug of coffee, took a drink. "In I go. I expect I'm going to find him sleeping off a toot in bed. Guy who worked the liquor store back in those days, name of Frank, told me how the good old boy from Georgia bought himself two fifths or Wild Turkey the one time he came into town.
    "Instead I found what was left of him on the floor in front of the fire. I guess he drove from Georgia to Wyoming with a shotgun in his trunk for a reason. The reason being to blow his own head off."
    "Oh my God."
    "Did a good job of it. Blood and brains