She's Got the Look (4 page)

A snort from the two women at the next table and the grin on the face of the owner—who'd been hovering over Melody since the minute she'd arrived—confirmed her wider audience. At her own table, her three friends made no effort to hide their laughter. “Oh, my goodness, I would have paid to see that,” Paige said, her face growing red as she giggled helplessly.

With a droll lift of her brow, Melody replied, “You could have, if you lived in Atlanta and happened to be watching the eleven-o'clock news that night. The Channel Six helicopter was flying to the scene of an accident and spotted me. They lit me up like a prisoner going over the wall and broadcast the image all over the airwaves for the entire city to see.”

Rosemary shook her head. “Ouch.”

“It gets better,” Tanya mumbled as she dipped a chip.

Yeah. It got better, in a sick, oh-God-can-you-believe-she-actually-did-that way. “I panicked,” Mel said flatly. “Dropped the evidence. Dashed for the ladder. Slipped in the spilled paint—which got all over me—and fell off the end of the platform. The Cherry Cordial should've been called Blood Red, because I looked like a monster out of a horror movie dangling up there. King Kong's mutant baby or something.”

Beside her, Tanya tried to look sympathetic while also trying to hide a grin. Maybe someday Melody would laugh about it, too. Maybe when she was ninety and had managed to forget how stupid she must have looked on TV, hanging from the platform waiting for the firemen who'd rescued her with a ladder truck.

She had thought that was the most humiliating moment of her life, of all the humiliating moments she'd endured during her marriage to the prick with the drill. It'd been close. But it still couldn't beat the day her divorce decree had come down.

“Oh, sugar, haven't you heard?” Rosemary said, her lips curved in a smile. “Like Scarlett O'Hara used to say, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.'”

Paige frowned. “I thought Hannibal Lechter said that.”

Melody reached for a handful of tortilla chips, not caring how many calories were in each one. Without Bill frowning at her, she didn't give a damn what she ate or how much weight she gained.

“I think,” Tanya interjected with a disgusted grunt, “it's Klingon. Though
I
would have taken the Lechter approach.”

“I didn't mind billboard vandalism, but I hadn't reached the point where I wanted to kill my husband and eat his liver with some fava beans.” Melody ate a chip, then added, “So that's the story. My life of crime and my fifteen minutes of fame.”

“You had a couple of decades of fame,” Paige reminded her.

Right. But no more. She was completely finished with all of that and intended to live life out of the spotlight from now on. Quiet, low-key, no scandals, no adventures.

“Do you have a copy of that news program?” Tanya asked, still looking amused. “You oughta keep it as a warning for any man you consider marrying in the future.”

“Ha-ha, I know, it's all funny until a male judge who probably cheats on his wife, too, decided Bill's reputation had been damaged for life and I owed him everything but my internal organs. Which will probably be awarded to him if I appeal.”

“But you
are
going to appeal, right?” Tanya suddenly sounded serious. They'd had this conversation before, and Melody knew her friend, the fighter, believed this situation could be fixed.

Mel wasn't so sure. Not that she wouldn't like her money back, or to at least make sure Bill didn't get it. But she didn't want to go back to her old life when she'd been the duped wife, the vengeful ex. Not to mention the target of Bill's incessant anger and malicious threats.

He hadn't liked being humiliated and her money apparently hadn't eased the sting.
He's gone,
she reminded herself, refusing to think of his visit to Savannah. Not to mention the heavy-breathing calls she'd received her first weeks in town…until she'd had her number changed.
Long gone.
And she was done with the past. It was time to find herself again. To stop looking back, to move on, focusing on the future.

Paige suddenly changed the subject. “Do you remember the last time we all came here? The night before Mel's wedding?”

So much for not looking back. That'd lasted ten seconds.

“We were practically kids,” Tanya replied.

“Well, I happened to stumble across a souvenir from that night,” Paige said with a secretive smile. She reached into the duffel bag she'd been carrying when she'd arrived, and dug out a pad of paper. “Remember
everything
we talked about?”

It took Melody a moment to recall the entire evening, which seemed like the last truly happy one she'd had. Any happy ones she'd shared with Bill had been zapped out of her memory around year three of their marriage. But when Paige flipped open the notebook and turned it around to show the rest of them, she remembered. “Oh, our infamous Adultery Free Zone lists.”

“Right. We were going to go for it, no questions asked, no guilt, if we ever had the chance with one of these guys.”

“Well,” Rosemary said, “my go-for-it list is on my fridge. I've crossed off number five…that Atlanta Braves player? Met him at a New Year's Eve party and we had sex in a coat closet as the ball was dropping.” Almost purring, she added, “Fortunately, he spent a lot more time going down than the ball did.”

Melody couldn't help wondering if Rosemary would ever find
one
man who satisfied her as much as so
many
men did. “Uh, I thought the lists were a joke.”

“They were…until I met that Braves player.” Rosemary's smile was definitely catlike. “Speaking of our lists, I've kept my copies of all of them. I even dug yours out, Mel, once I knew you were divorcing the dick with the drill and coming home.”

Grunting, Melody said, “Well, someone talking about me having sex is about as close to a sex life as I've had in a long time, so I guess I can't gripe about it.”

The middle-aged owner with thinning dark hair walked by just in time for that comment; his speculative look made her grab for her margarita.

Tanya shuddered. “Quick, Paige, find Mel's list. If there's anybody who needs to get laid in this town, it's
her.
”

Wrinkling her nose, Melody ignored her friend. But Paige had already started flipping through the notebook. “Oh, my,” she said. “Jonathan Rhodes…there's a blast from the past.”

Glancing over her friend's shoulder, Melody scooted her chair around to get a closer look. “Yikes. I forgot about him. He sure didn't last long in Washington.”

“Probably only a bit longer than he lasted in the hooker's bed,” Tanya said. “He didn't even run for reelection after he got caught in that police raid at a sleazy hotel. He came back here to Savannah and returned to his law practice.”

Rosemary nodded, a speculative look in her eye. “Hmm…so he's still around. A definite possibility, Mel.”

Melody shook her head. “Not happening. Even if the list was serious—which it's
not
—I'm not interested in sex. I'm not feeling very charitable toward men right now.”

“Which is why you need to think like a man,” Rosemary said. “Go out and live a little, take what you can get. You might not have meant it the night we wrote these down, but you can mean it now.” Leaning forward, Rosemary continued almost fiercely, “
Live,
Mel. Get back to being the happy, confident girl you were that night and don't let the bastard you married cause you one more minute of pain or self-doubt.”

Rosemary was the languid one, not the passionate one, so Melody was somewhat taken by surprise. It said a lot about how worried her friends were, which touched her. Deeply.

Knowing, however, that Rosemary was involved in a somewhat serious on-again, off-again romance, which she was keeping pretty close to her vest, Melody didn't believe her friend was living by her own advice. But she had once. And it didn't appear to have hurt her. So maybe…

No.
She needed sex like a nun needed edible underwear.

Before Rosemary could keep arguing, Paige yelped, “Oh, yikes, this guy—number five—didn't fare so well. Chef Charlie of Chez Jacques died about a month ago, in his own restaurant.”

“I heard he got drunk and choked on a meatball,” Tanya said. “Sounds like that man swallowed some dumb-ass pills first.”

“Creepy,” Paige said. Then she made the sign of the cross.

Tanya rolled her eyes. “You're not Catholic.”

“It seemed appropriate.” In typical Paige fashion, she allowed herself to be completely distracted by a random thought. “Why do you think he was making meatballs? Isn't Chez Jacques a French place? Do they serve meatballs? Is Charlie a French name?”

Tanya gave Paige an impatient glare. Then she pointed at the notebook. “Who else did Mel list?”

Yeah, who else?
Melody had been so focused on her rocky marriage and horrible divorce for such a long time, she hadn't thought about the list in ages. She didn't even know where her originals were and had to read over Paige's shoulder to remind herself who she'd once wanted so badly.

When her gaze fell on the name of a golfer who'd had a chance in the PGA some years ago, but had quickly fizzled out, she gasped.

“What?” Rosemary asked.

“You're not going to believe this, but Kenny Traynor, that golfer who was supposedly gay? He was all over the news in Atlanta last month. He was killed in a weird accident in the locker room of the country club where he was a golf pro.”

They all fell silent as the reality sunk in. Two of the men Melody had joked about sleeping with had died since that night. Young men, healthy men. Paige was right…it
was
creepy.

Suddenly looking relieved, Paige smiled. “But number four—Drake Manning, the reporter—is still around. He's an anchor on Channel Nine. And his hair hasn't moved since you left.”

“He's a pig,” Tanya said, her mouth tight.

Paige continued before Melody could question Tanya's comment. “Now we come to number one, which was why I brought our lists. I saw this on eBay and had to get it for you.”

Reaching into her bag, Paige retrieved a plastic-wrapped magazine. Melody recognized it—and the picture on the cover—immediately. It was her marine, the one who'd saved the children. Her number-one fantasy man.

“You sure were drooling into your burrito when his picture came on the TV screen that night. Wasn't she?” Paige said.

Tanya nodded. “Uh-
huh!
That boy was
fine.
”

Rosemary, for some reason, remained silent, just staring at the picture, a half smile on her lips. Melody couldn't blame her. She was enraptured by the photo on the magazine, too. “Oh, my God, I hope I didn't jinx this guy.”

“It would have made the news,” Paige said. “He was a Georgia hero. We would have heard if he hadn't made it back.”

She prayed Paige was right. Because she'd hate to think of this particular man meeting some strange fate like the others.

The picture was every bit as dramatic—as compelling—as it had been that night six years ago. More so, really, since she was a woman now, not an immature girl, as she'd been when she got married. The only thing that hadn't changed was the
hunger.

The sudden flash of want surprised her. But it was there…strong, insistent. She was attracted to this stranger like she hadn't been attracted to anyone in a long time.

“He looks familiar for some reason,” she murmured.

“Well, duh, of course he looks familiar,” Paige said. “You only lusted after him more than any guy you'd ever seen.”

“I know that. But there's something else. I just can't quite put my finger on it.” The little flash of intuition, recognition or memory disappeared as quickly as it had popped into her brain. “I wonder what happened to him after…”

“You have to go to the police.”

Shocked by Rosemary's words, Melody just gaped. “Huh?”

“I mean it. Two out of five men on your list have died, both very recently. Both right here in Georgia, and under strange circumstances. We're calling the police.”

Melody was shaking her head throughout Rosemary's spiel. “That's utterly ridiculous. This has nothing to do with me.”

Ignoring her, Rosemary reached for her cell phone. “I know someone on the Savannah PD.”

Though outwardly scoffing, a hint of concern did go through Melody's mind. Still, she insisted, “I can't do it. I'm not going to tell some cop that men I once wanted to have sex with are dropping like flies throughout the state of Georgia.”

“You sure won't get a date that way,” Paige offered.

“Hush up, Paige,” Rosemary said. “Mel, I am not kidding. You just came through a divorce with a husband out for revenge.” Her eyes widened. “Bill
knew
about this list! I remember it came up during one of my visits to Atlanta a few years ago. He was joking about it, while you seemed to have forgotten the whole thing.”

She
had
almost forgotten about the list, which had at first been just a joke to her. Later, when it had become clear that her marriage had been an enormous mistake, the silly game had provided some fodder for late-night fantasies and dreams, but eventually, she'd stopped even dreaming. Fantasies, dreams and thoughts of her list had faded away…as had her marriage.

“Yeah, he knew,” she finally said. “He found all four of our lists in my purse during our honeymoon. We laughed about them and he even wrote out his own top five.”

Of course, Bill probably
hadn't
been joking. She wouldn't be surprised if the son of a bitch had crossed every name off his list before their fourth anniversary.