The Sassy Belles Read Online Free PDF

say? I really miss you, Sonny.”
    Sonny still had a face full of freckles and the darkest brown
eyes. They could always see right through me. And I could still see that
fifteen-year-old in him. As he paid for his beer, he looked at me with that
smile and his famous one eyebrow up, cocked his head and said, “Blake, we run in
different circles now. You’re all elite with your law school buddies and your
near-blue-blood husband. My friends are good ol’ boys, rednecks, ya know? On the
weekends we got longnecks in one hand and a remote in the other. And I always
said, Blake, if I can’t have you in every way, I can’t bear seeing you, knowing
somebody else is lovin’ you.”
    I had been lost in his words and that curled-up smile when the
beer lady’s shrill voice had shattered the moment. “Honey, you want yer change
’er what? C’mon now.”
    Sonny tipped his baseball cap to her and shoved his change into
his too-tight jeans. He’d looked back at me, leaned in and kissed my cheek. “It
was good to see ya, Blake. Hi to Harry.”
    With that I had felt a sudden chill in the October air. I’d
watched him walk away for only a second, then I turned to the lady with the
shrill voice. “I’ll have one of those longnecks, please.”
    Room 106 was now filling to capacity. Nobody knew if it was
really a crime scene or what. The police took a few notes and never even
cordoned off the scene. No one seemed to know how to classify it. Vivi, now
revived, sat on the side of the bed sipping water from one of those little
square glasses from the motel bathroom. Harry moved toward her and Sonny stepped
fully inside the room.
    “Hey, Blake. How are ya?” Sonny greeted me with a quick kiss on
the cheek. He sounded happy with his deep baritone, honey-dripping, slow
Southern drawl. Seriously, he had me at “Hey.”
    I swallowed instead of speaking and smiled at him. But I
couldn’t stop myself. I stood.
    “Hey, Sonny!” I stepped in closer and gave him a hug. That’s
how Southerners say hello. We hug everyone, all the time, both hello and
goodbye. It’s bad manners not to. In fact, it’s downright hurtful. I heard the
heavy Southern drawl in my hello. When I’ve had a few drinks or I’m feeling a
little flirtatious, my accent seems to intensify. And Sonny, well, I guess he
just brought out a tinge of my inner redneck. We all have some. Inner redneck, I
mean. There’s someone in everyone’s family that’s a teeny bit red. Think about
it. For me, it came from my dad’s side. Way back in his line were the
moonshiners. Yep. I know. Unreal, huh? My mom’s family is a bunch of lawyers.
One story has the moonshiners on my dad’s side being defended by the lawyers on
my mom’s side. And of course, if you think about it, you can imagine what the
payoff was—yep, fresh whisky, right from the backyard! I’m not from stupid
lawyers!
    As I stood, Harry caught Sonny’s reflection in the mirror. He
left Vivi and came over with his hand extended. Harry’s not a hugger anyway, but
he would never hug Sonny. This was my cop, remember?
    “Hey, Sonny. Thanks for coming.” Over the years, these two men
I loved had come to an understanding through work. This was not the first case
they had worked on together and I’m sure it would not be the last. Harry and
Sonny stepped outside into the late afternoon sun and I sat down on the bed next
to Vivi.
    “You okay, hon?”
    “Oh, I’m just fine, but you’re lookin’ a little red,” she
teased.
    “Oh, stop it,” I said.
    “He does it to you, doesn’t he?” She scooted back on the bed to
make room, but kept one eyebrow cocked.
    “He who?” I shot back as if shocked at the insinuation.
    “You know, there was a time I thought you’d marry that boy.”
She looked at me, seeing right into my soul as only Vivi could.
    “I’m taking the Fifth,” I said, grabbing her water and taking a
swig. I decided to get the conversation back on track. We needed to talk about
the body, or lack