Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) by Jennifer Skully Page B

into
Cottonmouth?”
    “Whore is a strong word.” It seemed too crude
for the chickens. “And you’ve already got The Chicken Coop.”
    “It’s the quantity and quality, Brax. We’re a
small town. We want it to stay that way. That’s why most of us are
here.”
    Hard as it was to believe, people came to
Goldstone by choice.
    “They’ll want to start building houses and
apartments and condos,” Carl went on, “because their employees will
need somewhere to live. Then there’ll be laundromats and gas
stations on every corner. And before you know it, they’ll want to
put in a shopping mall.” He shuddered as if that signaled the
decline of modern civilization.
    “On the bright side, at least you wouldn’t
have to drive thirty miles to get your groceries and you wouldn’t
run out of gas between here and Bullhead.”
    “Only tourists run out of gas.” Goldstone had
a gas station, but from what Brax had seen, they’d tacked on
another twenty cents a gallon to the price.
    “Goldstone’s eventually gotta come into the
new millennium.”
    “Maybe,” Carl muttered. “All right, sure. But
it’s not gonna be done by some outsider who looks like a weasel and
acts like an ass.” Carl turned away to stare out the window. “One
of these days, someone around here’s gonna surprise everyone.”
    And that someone would be Carl himself? What,
was he planning on finding a treasure trove of lost diamond rings
beneath one of Whitey’s four outhouses?
    Damn. That was harsh. Carl wasn’t a bad guy.
He’d given his wife quite a nice roof over her head, even if it was
a trailer, and up until a few months ago, Maggie had actually
seemed happy most of the time.
    Could the two events be more than
coincidence? When had the Lafoote hotel business started? Did that
coincide with Carl’s behavioral changes Maggie had described? Were
the two connected, and how?
    He was thinking like a cop and treating
Carl’s outburst like a crime. Hell, he was far better at solving
felonies than mediating marital squabbles. At least usually. The
now-familiar stab of guilt reminded him why he’d left
Cottonmouth.
    Brax turned back to the original cause for
alarm. “So Lafoote thinks you sabotaged him and he’s pissed.”
    Carl snorted. “Yeah. I don’t know why I let
it get to me back there.”
    Brax knew. Lafoote had implied that Carl was
a loser in front of an overcrowded room full of men Carl probably
played with regularly. Any man would be pissed. The near rage in
his eyes, though, had been unsettling.
    That hadn’t been because of the hotel.
Something deeper was brewing. Brax was willing to bet Carl himself
didn’t consciously know the reason. He’d fought with Maggie, then
he’d gone ballistic when Lafoote had intimated he was a loser. The
implication was clear. Carl thought of himself as a loser, Maggie
exacerbated the situation, and Lafoote tapped into it either as a
lucky hit or because he was adept at exploiting weaknesses.
    Sometimes a man would do just about anything
to prove he wasn’t a failure.
    That was the frightening part.
    “Carl, things are getting out of hand. You
and Maggie need to sit down and talk over your problems.”
    “I’ve tried.”
    “No, you haven’t. You leave early, you’re
gone all day, and when you’re home, you closet yourself in your
trailer.” Christ. He sounded like a woman nattering at her
husband.
    “I’ve got important things to do.”
    “Nothing’s more important than your marriage
and your wife.” He should have listened to that advice before his
own marriage had gone belly-up. “I’m not trying to butt in.”
    “Yes, you are.”
    “All right, I’m butting in because I care
about Maggie’s happiness.”
    “Brax, it’s not—”
    Brax cocked his head and skewered Carl with a
sideways look. “I’ll tell Mom you said the F -word.”
    Carl turned. Brax heard a snort. Then a real
chuckle. Finally, Carl’s voice rose to a falsetto note. “Oh,
please, please, Brax,