Mastered by Malone (Haven, Texas 6)

“Just surprised to see you driving one, considering it’s a stick shift. “

“I can drive a stick shift. Mike taught me when I was a teenager. So, you want to tell me what happened tonight? Did you fight with Gloria? Why would the cops be after you?”

“Gloria an’ me are no more. She chose Ron Bergman over me. Can you believe that? Fucking Ron Bergman. I was trying to surprise her tonight. She wasn’t ’pecting me. Walked in and there she was, fucking Ron Bergman on the table. I thought I was the only person to bend her over that table.”

“Oh, Jaret. I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about, darlin’.” He yawned. She tried to take shallow breaths as the air in the cab became filled with the stench of whiskey. “Wasn’t your fault she decided she’d rather have Ron Bergman’s pencil dick over my anaconda-sized dick. Fuckin’ Ron Bergman. Thinks he’s a politician, you know? But he’s just a forty-year-old mamma’s boy. Still lives at home, for fucks sake. And, honest to God, his dick.” He held up his pinky finger.

She bit back a smile. It wasn’t really funny. And she knew he was using humor to hide how hurt he really was.

“What did you do?” she asked. “You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?”

“Depends on your definition of stupid. May have slashed all the tires in his car and run my keys down the fancy paintwork, though.”

She looked over at him in horror. “You didn’t?”

“And, perhaps, written pencil deck in spray paint along the other side of his car.”

Great. Shit. Her mind raced. “They’re gonna know it was you.”

“They have no proof,” he said smugly.

“Yeah, only you just walked in on your girlfriend having sex with another man. And then that man’s car gets trashed. Kind of too much of a coincidence for the cops not to put two and two together.”

“Good point. All right, we need a story.”

“A story? What do you mean, we need a story?”

“We just need to change the narrative. If the cops figure it out—”

“When they figure it out, they’re not morons.”

“Don’t know about that. Two of the deputies are Bergman’s cousins. So they’re probably not too smart.”

“Oh my God. You trashed the car of your girlfriend’s lover, and two deputies on the police force are his cousins? Jaret, this is a problem.”

“Never met a problem that can’t be fixed,” he told her. “This is what happened. I walked in on them fucking. Yelled a few insults. Stormed out of the house to get drunk. Which a number of people can corroborate. I went over to Patty’s Bar. That Patty has got the best tits in the state. No offence.”

“None taken,” she said dryly. “Then what?”

“Well, after a few drinks I went back to Gloria’s, grabbed some spray paint out of her garage and trashed his car, but we’re not gonna say that.”

“Good plan,” she said sarcastically. “So what are we gonna say?”

And what the hell was this ‘we’ business?

“I never went to Gloria’s. I called you ’cause I had too much to drink. You came and got me, drove me home. We got back at . . . ” he l

ooked blurrily at the dashboard. “What’s the time?”

“You’re looking at the gas gauge,” she pointed out. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“Okay, cool, you picked me up at ten.”

“And what about the clerk at the 7-Eleven? He saw us.”

“Oh, I bribed him. He didn’t see nothin’.”