“Sounds like you two are having quite the battle.” They stopped on the sidewalk outside the diner. “Pepper told me a little about it. Maddie’s got you in a tight spot.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Emmett looked over Logan’s shoulder in time to see the Chamberlains spill out of the courthouse and onto the sidewalk. They were talking all at once, although Emmett couldn’t hear what they were saying. Just when he thought they might all load into Norman’s car and drive away, Madelyn spotted him. She quickly hugged her family and started down the sidewalk toward him.
Crap.
Logan glanced in the direction Emmett was looking. “Uh-oh. Here she comes.”
“Yeah, Logan, can you give me a second here? Order me some coffee and I’ll be in in a minute.”
“Sure thing.” Logan clapped him on the shoulder and went inside the diner.
Emmett stood patiently, waiting for the storm. He slipped his hands into his pockets and forced his muscles to relax. He felt like he was strung tight as a drum, but he wouldn’t show that side of himself to her. He liked her to think he didn’t care about any of this. It made her cheeks flush an angry pink that traveled down her neck and disappeared into her blouse. For a moment he considered exactly how low the flush might go, but that wasn’t helpful. It was bad enough he had to spend twenty-four hours of community service with her. Doing it with an unwanted erection would make it that much more unpleasant.
Madelyn stomped across the street, stopping a few feet away. She looked irritated, with her classic features drawn into a frown. He didn’t know why she’d be upset with him. He’s not the one who chose the sentence, and he certainly wasn’t excited about the outcome, either.
“You look smug,” she noted.
“Do I?” Emmett stretched his face muscles to erase the offensive expression. “I must be excited about my opportunity to serve my community.”
“Please,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement pressed her breasts up and he could see a hint of cleavage at the V of her conservatively buttoned blouse. “You can’t possibly mean that.”
He shrugged, knowing it would irritate her. “I don’t have a problem with it. I’d prefer not to serve the time with you, but you can’t have everything the way you want. It is a punishment, after all.”
She snorted. “You think I want to spend it with you? It’s bad enough I’ll have to close my shop repeatedly over the next month. Doing it to pick up trash with you is just adding insult to injury.”
“Look at the bright side. You could’ve gone to jail. I don’t think prison orange is your color.”
Her nose wrinkled at him. “He wasn’t going to send us to jail. Judge Griffin is friends with my grandmother. He’d never do that. At least not to me,” she noted pointedly.
Boy, Fancy Pants sure thought highly of her social status. He took a step closer to her, invading her personal space. She tensed as he got closer, recovering in time to lift her chin defiantly to look up at him.
“Maybe,” he said in a low voice that only she could hear. “You might have enough family influence to wiggle out of anything, but I’d wager that even the Chamberlains’ power has its limits. You can bet your sweet ass that if we get arrested for fighting again or cause a scene in public while we’re serving our sentence, the judge won’t be as lenient on either of us. You heard what he said about us getting along. Like it or not, you and I have to find a way to coexist or you’re going to find yourself baking cookies at the Tutwiler Prison for Women.”
Madelyn flinched when he said that and he was glad. She wasn’t the kind of woman who belonged in a place like that, but she needed a wake-up call. He’d seen her kind before, when he lived in Florida. Some people thought they were above the law, and when they discovered otherwise, it was a hard crash landing to reality. Madelyn was a spoiled brat used to getting whatever she wanted, but if she kept pushing their feud, she would give the judge no choice but to try to scare her straight. Then they would see how much influence her family really had in town.
She recovered quickly, an expression of boredom crossing her face. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, taking a step back.
“Don’t be so presumptuous,” Emmett snapped. “We get arrested again and I guarantee you it’s a done deal. Logan says that Judge Griffin doesn’t play around, and I don’t intend to see how far I can push him. I don’t know when this exciting adventure in community service starts for us, but I’m going to be smiling the whole damn time. You’d better do the same, because you’re not dragging me down with you.”
The bored expression slipped away, showing a flicker of vulnerability he didn’t expect to see. She swallowed hard, forcing his gaze to watch the elegant line of her throat. When he focused back on her face, a wide, insincere grin had spread across it. “Is this good enough?” she asked.
Even though he knew she didn’t mean it, he was nearly struck dumb by the brilliance of her smile. She’d never smiled at him before. She was always irritated or trying to aggravate him. This smile was enough to light up her whole face, softening her hard edges and making her even more beautiful, if that was possible. It made Emmett want to make her smile for real, to see if a true smile could be even more impactful. A part of him hoped not. His pulse was already spiking and his nerve waning.
“It’ll do,” he managed to say. “Might want to practice in the mirror until it looks like you mean it.”
The smile faded and she rolled her eyes. “I’ll look into that, but there are only a couple of days to practice. After you left, the court clerk said we’re supposed to report to her on Wednesday afternoon for our first assignment. We’re to be there at three and serve until six.”
That wasn’t too bad. The bar didn’t open until five during the week. Joy usually worked on the weekends, but maybe he could get her to cover until he could get there. Or, worst-case scenario, he could delay opening by an hour without too much trouble.
“Hopefully, I won’t see you until Wednesday.”
Let the games begin.
Chapter Seven
“Blake, I need a responsible, industrious teenager.”