Page 3 of Misadventures And Ms. Demeanor

"You did. Summer after tenth grade, right after Ryan Grasselmeyer got a little too frisky at the movies." She'd spent the entire Sunday morning, instead of going to church like a normal family, giving me pointers on how to make a fist and where to strike on the face.

Aunt Velma nodded, her gold hoop earrings swinging with the motion. "Right. I heard he weighs over two hundred fifty pounds now and sells used cars up in Great Falls."

"Ninety in a forty-five, Daphne, that's a little over the top, don't you think?" Carl asked, his whiskers making a rasping sound as he ran his hand over his chin.

If he'd had to listen to someone else making sounds like he and Aunt Velma had, he'd be fleeing town as quickly as possible, too.

"I overslept and was running late for my flight." I turned my gaze to Aunt Velma. "Someone kept me up half the night."

She had the gall to smile and give a furtive and flirtatious glance at Carl. "Yeah, someone kept me up half the night, too."

The man's cheeks reddened like Santa Claus'.

I groaned and stood, both Velma and Carl stepping back out of my way. "Can I get out of here now?"

Velma looked me over critically. "At least you didn't pee yourself. I've heard that's a side effect from being stunned."

I glanced down my body. Long sleeved dark blue t-shirt with Minnesota across the front, black yoga pants, old sneakers with a gray cardigan wrapped around my waist. My hair was no longer in a ponytail and was wild about my head. Other than having my brain sizzled, I didn't seem worse for wear. And I hadn't become incontinent before Aunt Velma.

"The speeding and the stun gun sort of voided each other out, so you're free to go," Carl answered. He held out his hand toward the open jail cell door and led me down the labyrinth of corridors to the lobby.

I'd missed my flight, I didn't know where my little car was, nor what I was going to do to replace the Thailand assignment. What I did know was that I was stuck in Montana with Aunt Velma until I could figure it out. I had nowhere else to go. When I'd finished my last assignment in Kiev, I'd flown back to LA for the short break until it was time to go to Thailand. On arrival, I'd found out that Roger, my boyfriend—if that was what you called a guy you hadn't seen in three months—had taken up with another woman. The term boyfriend was a very lax description of him since we barely saw each other. He was a consultant doing some kind of computer security thing and he was a road warrior, too. Our schedules never meshed. Fortunately, they hadn't meshed last week when I'd landed and found the evidence of the new cohabitation arrangement. I certainly didn't wear six-inch stilettos. So I flew to Bozeman and to Aunt Velma's, the only place I had to go. Fortunately, it coincided with her birthday, so there weren't any questions about my surprise appearance.

"Carl Dobbs, what did you do to Daphne?" The question was shouted from across the lobby of the jail. Folks who were sitting in plastic chairs bolted to the floor, most likely waiting for their turn to see an incarcerated loved one, swiveled their heads. I froze in place and took a deep breath.Great.The only person crazier than Aunt Velma was her best friend, Goldie West. When the two of them got together, it was like combining baking soda and vinegar in science class. A really big show with lots of fizz.

Goldie West was a force of nature. A few years older than Aunt Velma, she owned and ran the only adult store in this part of Montana. She knew everyone within a hundred-mile radius and their secrets, too. She was like a doctor, a lawyer and a priest combined. Not only did she keep people's proclivities confidential, she ensured her customers a healthy sex life, kept the city's divorce rate down and knew which folks were going to hell.

My friend Veronica, Violet's twin sister, had compared Goldie to the Tasmanian Devil. She spun in and wreaked havoc and left people stunned and confused in her wake. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, dangly earrings identical to Aunt Velma's hung from her ears to almost brush against her hot pink t-shirt with the word 'sassy' written in sparkly gemstones across her chest. And when she came across the lobby to join us, everything stopped. Heads turned, conversation ceased. Even the phone stopped ringing.

Veronica had worked part-time at Goldilocks ever since she became legal, so I'd been in and out of the store for years. But I'd slipped under the woman's radar for the most part because I'd spent my high school years at boarding school in Vermont, then on to Minnesota for college and then fell right into my freelance writing which kept me away from Bozeman for long stretches of time. I loved Aunt Velma, but she was...exhausting.

"Really, Carl," Goldie tsked and shook her head. "Just look at her."

I must have looked pretty darn bad if Goldie pointed it out.

Carl looked like a little kid who'd been scolded. "I haven't done anything, Goldie, and you know it. JT McCade caught the girl going ninety and pulled her over."

"I heard he stun gunned her until she peed her pants." Goldie's eyebrow went up as she looked me over.

So did everyone else in the waiting room. Word spread in Bozeman faster than a wildfire during a drought. I rolled my eyes.

She held out a pair of pants. "Here. I brought you a pair of jeggings." She tossed them to me and I caught them without thinking. I held them up.

"They're jeans, but they're leggings. See? I'm wearing a pair, too."

Yes. Yes, she was wearing a pair of jeggings with a pair of her usual clogs. The combination prompted me to never wear the pair she'd just brought me.

"Wow, thanks, Miss Goldie, but I didn't pee my pants," I said loud enough so everyone who was listening knew that fact.

"Keep them then. It was one of those TV specials where you buy one pair and they send you the second pair for free. Good thing we wear the same size. Unlike your aunt over there who can share clothes with the MSU basketball team."

"Hey!" Aunt Velma retorted crankily. She couldn't say much more because it was true. While she was close to six feet tall, I was average. Only five and a half feet barefooted, I was so-so on the weight department. I could stand to lose a few pounds, but a donut with my name on it would not be ignored. I had average brown hair of average length, average brown eyes. I wasaverage.

"Carl doesn't seem to mind that I'm big boned," Velma said.

Everyone in the room looked to Carl. He was one of a few men who made Aunt Velma look petite. He'd been a bronc busting champion four years running and had been the quarterback of MSU's football team back in the day. He'd worked first as a beat cop, but I didn't know how a police cruiser had fit him. "No, ma'am, I sure don't," he replied with a sly grin.

I wiped a hand over my eyes and looked away and directly into the face of Detective McHottie.