His smile was wry. His girlfriend. What had started this all, Maizy’s call to Em. “I don’t think she wants a boyfriend right now, Maizy.”
“Can you make her want to be your girlfriend?” she asked, putting her hands on either side of his face and pressing their noses together so when she twisted her head, their eyes made funny shapes.
“You can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do.”
“You make me eat vegetables and I don’t want to.”
“That’s a little different, honey.” Vegetables and girlfriends. Totally different.
“You said I had to eat vegetables because they’re good for me.”
“What does that have to do with Em?”
“I heard Uncle Gage tell Uncle Tag Em’s good for you.”
The way she connected dots in her head never failed to amaze him. “Still kind of different, and very grown-up stuff you shouldn’t worry about. But vegetables are good for you—that’s why we make you try everything first.”
“Then maybe you should try to make Em your girlfriend. Maybe she doesn’t know she’s good for you, either? Like I didn’t know I liked vegetables.”
Yeah. He’d just make her want to be his girlfriend instead of his lover. It was easy. Yet, a new fire burned in his gut. Why couldn’t it be that simple?
He wanted Em. He wasn’t giving up until she told him to. And even then, he might still not give up.
“Know what, Maizy?”
“What, Daddy?”
“You’re A-Maizy.” He dropped a kiss on her nose, scooped her up and ran her up the stairs quarterback style.
Tomorrow, Em better get ready, because he was going to make her be his girlfriend if it was the last thing he did.
*
The next day, he stormed Call Girls take-no-prisoners style. He’d texted her to a deafening silence. Left her voice mail message after voice mail message with no response.
The hell she was sick.
“Em!” Jax headed for Emmaline’s office, ignoring the startled looks on the girls’ faces as he flew past them.
“Jax?” Dixie called, almost running into him in the hall leading to Em’s office.
“Dixie. Jesus, have you seen Em today? I’ve been calling and texting her and haven’t heard a damn thing.”
Dixie’s face collapsed. “Thank God, you’re here. I can’t find her anywhere, either. I’m worried sick. We all are. Especially after she left me this on my desk.”
He plucked the piece of paper from Dixie’s hand and skimmed it. “She’s resigning from Call Girls?” Now he knew something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
“She had to have been in here bright and early. I’m always here by seven, but this was waiting on my desk for me when I got here, and now, none of us can find her anywhere. The boys are with Idalee getting ready for the Winter Solstice fair in the square, but even Idalee doesn’t know where she is. Em told her she needed to leave the boys with her because she had some things to take care of, and it was the last she saw of her. That was two days ago. She’s not sick, Jax. She was covering for something else.”
Why would Em resign from Call Girls? She loved her job. She loved Dixie and the girls.
Marybell and LaDawn were right behind Dixie, faces full of worry. “Did we find her?” LaDawn asked.
Dixie shook her head but her eyes were full of determination. “Not yet. But we will. Okay, girls—Jax, you, too. Let’s spread out and find Em. Marybell, you all right with goin’ to Madge’s and askin’ around?”
Marybell was half out the door. “Couldn’t stop me even if Nanette Pruitt was waitin’ for me with Holy Water.”
Dixie raised a fist in the air and laughed. “Go get ’em! LaDawn—”
“I got it. I’ll hit the coffee shop and Lucky’s. Maybe she’s got her head buried in a pile of wood and she just forgot to turn her phone on.”
Dixie gave LaDawn a quick hug before grabbing Jax’s hand. “You come with me. We’ll start at her place and work from there.”
Jax went willingly, first, because these women were a force to be reckoned with, and if anyone could find Em, it’d be them.
Second, because these women were a force to be reckoned with.
Twenty
“Mama! You open this door right now!” Em pounded on her mother’s front door, shooting a toxic glare at the people staring at her from the front porches lining her mother’s street.
Good. Let ’em stare. The lot of them were bitter, mean, ugly spirits who had no right to judge. It wasn’t enough to talk about her and Clifton. She was an adult—she could take her licks, but Clifton Junior? He’d been physically assaulted because Louella’s bid to hurt anyone in her path had spiraled out of control.