Redneck P.I.

By Trish Jackson

Twila Taunton hates living in Yankee territory and has vowed never to allow a man into her life again. Everything is turned upside down when she invites hunky P.I. Harland O'Connor to the company picnic and she looks into his bedroomy eyes. Even worse, his equally as hunky twin brother makes her overlook her cop allergy.

Twila finds herself ducking bullets, and when Harland is wounded, she steps in to pinch-hit for him. Her lack of city-sophistication and disregard for political correctness help her solve some tough cases. And then someone tries to blow her up. She and Harland are soon caught in a dizzy, dangerous tangle that could cost them more than their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Uncial Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781601741981

Trish Jackson

Trish Jackson grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe, Africa, which sparked a love of adventure and suspense, and being a romantic at heart, she writes romantic suspense thrillers and romantic comedy. She moved to the U.S. in 1990, loves country living, horse riding, chocolate and all animals. Trish's passion is helping the innocents of the world - children, the elderly, the mentally challenged, and animals. Her stories are set in small towns, where the people enjoy country values, and the pace of life is a little slower, and her characters always include the four-legged kind.

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CHAPTER 1

The words of a co-worker bitch started the whole thing.

She hadn't done a very good job of tracking my whereabouts that morning, and obviously didn't know I was in one of the restroom stalls, with my pants on the ground.

I wonder if that little redneck, Twila, will be able to find a half-decent man to bring to the picnic. Snickers from the other bitches. She's gotta be a lesbian, or something. I've never seen her even look at a man, and besides, what man is going to want to be seen with fat white trash like her?

Those pants were pulled up and zipped quicker than a gunslinger can draw his revolver, but not quick enough. If she had still been there when I burst out of my stall, I would have kicked her ass to kingdom come, but she had left and the opportunity had passed.

The only thing I could do now to save face was go to the picnic, which I had previously not intended to do, and bring a man twice as hot as any of the pasty faced city boys they would drag along.

I just happened to know the perfect one.

It would break the promise I had made to myself never to have anything to do with any man ever again, on account of what Jimmie-Ray did. But what harm could it do, I asked myself. I couldn't let them get the better of me. After the picnic, it would be sayonara to Harland O'Connor.

Despite all that, I still couldn't believe this was me at a corporate picnic. Surreal wasn't the word for it! It was...well...super surreal. If you knew me, you would know that the last place in the world I would ever be was at a corporate anything. Especially not in Yankee territory.

And that wasn't all. Not only was I lying on a checkered blanket—probably a designer brand blanket if there is such a thing—at a corporate picnic, but despite all my best intentions, I was lying beside a man, probably the man of most women's dreams, and at that moment he was all mine.

Harland—who names their kid Harland?—was tall, probably around six three or four, and ripped. I mean, there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. It was all lean muscle, and he had the tightest little buns. His shoulders were broad, and his arms, one of which was rubbing against my shoulder, were tanned and hard. His hair was brown, with sun-bleached highlights all the way through, and the way he wore it all messed up like a surfer dude who had just been out riding the waves was smoking.

His eyes were mesmerizing. I had to avoid looking into them because once they locked with mine; I couldn't tear my gaze away. They were deep, deep brown, with long lashes, and so warm,—the most bedroomy eyes I had ever had the good—or bad—fortune to stare into. It was like looking at a bed with a down comforter on a cold night. I was in dangerous territory, and I was amazed at how the close proximity of a hot male body had changed my attitude.

He had high cheekbones and a strong, square chin, but it was his lips that held my attention the most. They were not too thin and not too thick, and he always seemed to have the hint of a smirk on them, like he was mocking me somehow. I had not yet had the pleasure of feeling them on mine, but I knew I was close.

* * * *

It was hard to believe that it was over a year since I met Harland. I had only just arrived in Boston at the time, and started my new job, and was still hurting a lot, and was generally pissed off with life, thanks to Jimmie-Ray and the recession.

Jane Scruggs, my BFF—best friend forever—lived in a more up-market apartment than mine. Now that I think about it, I'm guessing that my new boss, Andrew, probably paid for it, or at least he contributed to the rent. Her apartment was on the fifth floor.

It was the July fourth weekend, and about thirty people were crammed into her living room and spilling out onto her balcony.

Harland had arrived late and I found it impossible not to notice him. Me and all the other women in the room. They—the other women—spent a lot of time trying to attract his attention, but a couple of times when my eyes strayed his way, he looked over their heads at me and we locked gazes. I had no intention of getting involved with any man ever again, so both times it happened I tore my gaze away from him and turned my back.

I was standing at the table dipping tortilla chips into the Mexican dip when he moved in beside me. Something about him made me feel him there before I saw him. He used the corniest pick up line in the world. We haven't met,

I looked him up and down, said, Yeah and we probably won't, and walked out onto the balcony. To my annoyance, he followed. Hey, what's your problem? I was just trying to be civil. You could at least tell me your name.

Why don't you just piss off and leave me alone. If I wanted to tell you my name I would have done so long ago. There are plenty of women here, who will give you their phone numbers, so why don't you go bother them?

Do I detect a Southern accent? He didn't wait for a response, but sighed deeply. So much for the myth that people from the South are hospitable.

I didn't say a thing. I just turned away and made like I was watching the sun setting over the city. Intermittent bangs rising from the streets below hinted at what was to come. It would be another couple of hours before the fireworks started, and we'd have a great view of them from here. Traffic hummed in the distance, and the unmistakable aroma of gunpowder hung in the air. A man and a woman from the party stood side by side, their arms draped over the balcony railing, watching the smoke from their cigarettes spiraling upward.

After a couple of minutes I felt him leave and I just stood there enjoying the sunset. The strange thing was that when I went back into the living room to get another beer I couldn't stop myself from searching him out with my eyes. I was really pissed with myself when his eyes met mine again, and he gave an annoying little knowing smirk. I scowled and chugged the entire beer, and grabbed another.

Someone had put a Norah Jones CD on and a few couples clung to one another and were swaying to the music, apparently oblivious to the limited space available. The room smelled of food, the perfume from the dozens of candles whose flames flickered softly in the dark corners, and clean but sweaty bodies.

Twila. I know your name now, he said from close behind me. You are the only woman in this room who interests me. You gonna tell me why you're so unfriendly?

It's none of your business, I said through clenched teeth. Why don't you just leave me alone?

I will. But I'm gonna get your phone number from Jane and I will call you. You will find out that when I want something, I never give up. You're the only real woman here, and I want you. You want me too, but you just won't admit it.

Later, when we all went out onto the balcony to watch the fireworks, he stood close behind me. So close that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I don't know how many people were out there, but it was a tight squeeze, and it seemed that every time someone moved, his body made contact with mine. Despite my distrust of men, it made me feel hot all over.

The most annoying thing about him was that afterwards, when Jane and I discussed him, she told me that it was a proven fact that people whose eyes meet despite their best efforts to avoid it, always ended up having sex.

* * * *

One thing that really bugged me was that these Yankee city folk sure didn't know how to organize a picnic. It was held in a city park, with mowed lawns and little designated picnic spots. And who the heck brings white starched tablecloths and silverware to a picnic?

Not to mention wine and wine glasses.

A real picnic is held in the boondocks near a creek or a lake, with a plastic tablecloth spread over a folding table. Everyone drinks beer out of bottles. The meat is barbecued and thrown into buns, and eaten off paper plates with corn and beans, using plastic utensils. Afterward those who aren't fishing will maybe join in the football game. Everyone always ends up in the water, usually stripped down to their underwear—or less, if they dare. Later they see how many beer cans they can hit with their rifles and shotguns.

That's a real picnic.

Harland had never given up trying to lure me into going out with him on a date, and I know y'all are wondering why I resisted so hard. Believe me, at times it was very difficult to say no. It really ain't his fault. Jimmie-Ray should be taking the blame.

I can understand why he wanted me so badly, though.

I have long, wavy amber-colored hair with a hint of copper in it. Some people have called me Carrot-top and Red in the past, but they were color blind. I have a few freckles—okay, maybe more than a few—and pale green eyes. I'm almost five-nine, and my body is curvy and sexy and I have big boobs. Real ones. There's nothing fake about me. I wear a size sixteen, but sometimes a fourteen, depending on how much flesh I want to expose. I weigh one sixty and there is no way I would want to be a top-heavy size four with blown-up plastic boobs.

The way these people dressed for the picnic in designer sun dresses and high heel sandals, and fancy-shmancy hats with wide brims made me want to puke. They couldn't let their precious little faces get a little sun in case it made a wrinkle, although the morons had obviously spent hours on a tanning bed. A couple of the guys had been bold enough to wear shorts, but their expensive, high-tech sneakers and socks were perfectly white, their shirts perfectly pressed.

I looked really hot that day in my short pink denim shorts, white cut-off tank top that showed a lot of flesh, and pink sneakers, with a camouflage cap.

Harland looked at me with those dreamy eyes and put those gorgeous lips to my ear. We should go for a walk, or something. I'm not crazy about the way those dudes are all eyeballing you.

Actually, I loved the way they were all staring at us, the jealousy clearly showing in their snotty faces. This was working out just as I had hoped it would. The guys tried to act like they didn't care that Harland was twice as hot as any of them, and I could just imagine the vindictive bullcrap springing from their dearly beloveds' bright pink lips.

How did that little Redneck tramp hook up with a man like that? the malcontents were asking themselves. I could hear it in my head as if I was standing beside them. She doesn't know anything about dressing right, she doesn't know how to apply make-up, and look at those shoes—not to mention the cap.

They were right about one thing. I surely didn't fit into their world, and I didn't intend to be there for long.

I would never let them know, but the truth is, I was homesick—as homesick as you can get. I really missed my previous life. I'm all country, and living in the city just wasn't for me. The problem was, I couldn't go home until the recession was over and that didn't seem like it was ever gonna happen.

* * **

Looking back, I guess it was kind of rash of me to move so far away from home. My life had been perfect the previous year when I was selling real estate in my home town of Quisby, in southeast Alabama. That all changed when the recession came along and the real estate market ground to a crunching halt. Nobody could buy or sell properties because there was no money available for loans, thanks to the bloated bureaucrats in New York City who called themselves bankers. When they screwed up, they sure did a good job of it.

I was born and raised in Quisby. It may not be the fanciest town in the world, but it's home to me, and I love it there. It being a small town, I know everyone who's worth knowing, along with some who aren't.

Jimmie-Ray was my childhood sweetheart. We weren't like Jack and Diane, we were them. He gave me my first romantic kiss when I was eight years old. He helped me with my homework. He swam naked with me in the creek. Jimmie-Ray took my virginity in the back seat of my pop's Thunderbird when I was fifteen.

Everyone knew he was gonna be the father of my children, but I am really thankful now that I didn't get pregnant that night. After that I made him carry condoms around in his pocket at all times.

I always thought that we would tie the knot as soon as I finished high school, but he had big plans to be a lawyer. Being the quarterback of the Grover High School football team, which didn't do too badly in the small town league they played, he was offered a scholarship to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

I should have smelled a rat when he went off with promises that we would get married as soon as he had graduated. Tuscaloosa was more than just a couple hours' drive away, but I bust a gut to organize my schedule so that we could get together as often as possible. More often than not it meant that I would have to leave Quisby at sparrow fart so I could get to Tuscaloosa in time for the football game. Jimmie-Ray was on the bench most of the time, being their fourth string quarterback, but it didn't seem to bother him. It got him closer to the skanky cheerleaders. What a waste of time all that all turned out to be.

The other problem I had was that once he had made the decision to go to U.A., I had to figure out what to do with myself after I finished high school.

College was out of the question for a lot of reasons. Firstly, there was no money, secondly, there was no money and third—you guessed it—there was no money. I wasn't the sucky-up kind of student, which meant that a scholarship was also out of the question. Do not take that to mean that I'm dumb. I just didn't have any motivation to do any more than the minimum necessary to graduate from high school. I also had no desire to continue going to school.

I did know I wanted a better life than my mama, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that money was the catalyst that would change it.

My Uncle Pervis, who lived in the next town, Grover, Alabama, was a real estate broker. I e-mailed him to ask if he could help me, and it turned out that he had been toying with the idea of opening a second office. He helped me with the licensing process, which I found pretty easy, and set me up in my very own real estate office in Quisby, right out of high school.

There were a few difficult situations during my learning process, but once I had figured it all out, things went well, and I loved my job. When they wanted to sell their properties the local residents wanted me to handle the transactions. They knew me, and more importantly, they knew Pervis. The agents in the other office in Quisby were transplants from the city, who didn't understand anything about the way of life in Quisby, and didn't even go to church on Sunday.

Well, I had let that part lapse somewhat, but everyone knew my intentions were good, and I knew Pastor George didn't hold it against me. I could tell that by the way he stared at me—more at my chest, actually—every time I bumped into him around town.

I loved that job, and I loved the fact that I didn't have to dress up in fancy clothes, like the overstuffed Realtors you see in cities. Jeans were perfectly acceptable attire for a real estate agent to wear in Quisby, and shorts in summer time. Sneakers made a lot of sense when on any given day you could be tramping around the boundary of a two hundred acre hunting tract, and climbing through barbed wire fences—sometimes diving through them when a bull took a dislike to you or if you strayed onto a property belonging to one of the more unfriendly people who lived around Quisby. You know the type. They have Trespassers will be shot signs all around their property boundaries. They might not mean it where you live, but in Quisby they are serious about it.

I was soon able to move out of my parents' trailer and rent the Kitcheners' garden cottage, which was really an old travel trailer they had mounted on blocks. They were the owners of a couple of commercial buildings in Quisby, including the building that housed the Piggy Wiggly, and I figure they must have gotten quite a bit of money from the monthly rent, 'cause neither of them worked.

The trailer had a bedroom, a small bathroom, and living area that included a kitchen and living room. An attached covered wood frame porch made more space to put stuff in. My only complaint was that it wasn't screened to keep the bugs out.

CHAPTER 2

If it wasn't for the pulp and paper mill, there probably wouldn't be a town called Quisby, or it would be a lot smaller than the 999 that the census bureau says live there. Of course, that doesn't take into account all the residents who refused to be counted in the census. They either slammed their doors in the census-takers' faces or ran them off their land with their shotguns.

The downtown area boasts five churches and five bars, which my pops says shows that it's a well-balanced town.

The mill is on the outskirts of town. On the west side. Mostly, the wind blows from the east, but occasionally, when the wind blows from the west, the stench from the mill slides through the town like a really bad fart.

The only time I had left 'Bama before was to go to Panama City in Florida for spring break my last year of high school. What happened there was very far removed from the real world, with everyone so drunk they couldn't remember a thing. I traveled there with Jimmie-Ray on his old Harley—did I mention that I love bikes? I was getting ready to buy me one when the recession hit and put an end to that thought. Anyhow, that week in Florida I ended up with a tattoo of a dragonfly at the base of my spine and a ladybug on my right breast, just above the nipple, and I couldn't remember anything about getting them. I kinda like them though.

If I had my way, I wouldn't be working in Boston, Massachusetts, for some big corporation, but when the bubble burst and the bottom fell out of the real estate market, I needed to find a way to make a living. I had to move back into my parents' trailer when I could no longer pay my rent, and that's what decided me that I had to leave.

It was hard to believe they had raised four kids in that same single-wide. Of course, Mama had always dreamed of moving up into a double-wide one day, but when Pops had an accident at the machine shop in the mill, where he worked as a welder, and took a twelve thousand dollar settlement from workers compensation and went onto disability, that was the end of that dream.

There wasn't really anything wrong with him anymore, but he once told me that when a person gets out of the habit of working, it's very hard to get back into it. Although I was young at the time, I suspected that the dozen or more beers he consumed each day were probably a contributing factor.

Their place wasn't bad. It held a lot of childhood memories for me. Some were happy, some not so warm and fuzzy. It was old, but Mama kept it as clean as possible. She made some extra money from sewing drapes for the interior design