The Cowboy Genie's Wife: A Paranormal Romance (The Dirty Djinn Series) (4 page)

“I’m not telling her anything. The less she knows about me, the better. I need that woman to know about my lamp, like I need a fucking hole in the head. Jack shit crazy. Rosa, whatever you do, stay away from her. She’s scared of me, and there’s nothing more dangerous in the world than a scared woman.”

There was 0.2 percent chance she’d listen to him. But heavens, he hoped so. Hiding the corpse of a seventy-year-old Sunday school teacher wasn’t on his list of things to do today, but he’d rip Janet to shreds if she laid a finger on Rosa. Best to keep them apart.

Rosa’s hand tapped against the mirror. The other drummed just as feverishly against her hip. “So, we’re just gonna let it go that we’re being spied on?”

“We?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t you have some sort of plan for this type of situation?”

“Yeah.”

“Care to share it?”

He reached around to hand her the shovel. “Wait her out. I can handle anything for a few decades.”

Except being without his wife. Rosa was here. Proof that waiting worked. Said wife’s face twisted, and her eyes rolled, but he’d rather have her there pissed than not at all.

“Why do I have a shovel in my hand?”

“C’mon, city girl. We need to get your mind off things. Let me teach you about farm living.”

S
hit. Piled on top of more shit.

Shit in her pores.

Behind her nails.

Splatters of it on her face. “Who lives like this?”

Her plaid-shirted, shiny-buttoned Algerian ripped a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped her face. “You know in some places, Rosalinda, this look you have going is considered good for the skin.”

“Shut it. And name one place, just one, where it’s cool to be covered in manure.”

He folded the handkerchief and dabbed along her jawline. “I can’t do both, so I’ll do none. Safer anyway. C’mon.”

She grasped his extended hand as he lifted her from the stack of horse crap she’d fallen into. It couldn’t have been past noon, and she was already dead tired.

Everything drained her.

The crap.

The crappy man.

The crap-tastic, creepy as hell eyes...

Ugh.
She shuddered at the image reflected in her mind. Those years of living with Fazil had made her sensitive to all manner of things she hadn’t noticed before. Not that the time away from him lessened it, but still the eyes, or rather their owner, served as a stark reminder of what she’d run away from. He had the nerve to act as if it was no big deal.

“What did I do now?” He stood there with his arms folded, leaning against a fence post. The horse, whose head he’d been rubbing, wandered off for better environs.

“What are you talking about?”

Fazil snorted and cracked his knuckles. “You’ve got that look on your face again. Yeah, that one. The one that says you’re pissed at me for existing.”

“That’s not it. Not exactly, anyway.” He couldn’t help what he was, but she didn’t have to like it.

Or love it.

She pushed ahead, not giving this line of conversation any more rope to grow. Inevitably, it would lead to questions of her and him and what she still felt for him. Questions she didn’t have answers to right now.

“Well?”

In just about the worst segue of all time, she picked at a rusty nail in the fence post. “Do you have any more of that stuff? The food. Or is it feed? Do I need to wish for more?”

“Avoidance? How very expected of you.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m running low on it. And tamp down on the wishing. For stuff like this, in this town, people keep records. An extra cow or one repair is one thing. But everyone here gets their goods from the same place. He’ll notice if I only feed my animals once a year.”

“You mean to tell me that no other distributors roll through Podunk, Arizona?”

“I mean to tell you that if I could
afford
a separate service coming in, people would start getting nosey. Or say I’m too good to buy from a local guy. Wish the money, buy the goods. No harm. No foul.”

“Except for the creepy eyes in a mirror?”

“Time will make sure we win this fight. Let’s not make any waves. These next three decades can’t pass fast enough. You, uh, wanna come with me? We can get you a cowboy hat.”

“I’ll pass on the hat, but you’re actually shopping? Like a regular human being? I could stand to watch that.”

“Now that I don’t have a wife to order around—”

She threw a clod of dirt, but it still didn’t wipe the smirk off his face. She hadn’t been entirely fair. Once a week he’d grab her for a stroll to the open market for spices and fresh produce. What about taking quiet moments for granted...

“You know I’m kidding, right?”

She toed another clod, not noticing she bit her lip until it hurt. She let him off with a wave. Yeah, she knew he was kidding. He’d only ever asked her to wish for things. Some women might be grateful—and she had been, but things change.

So had he.

“I like this version of you. The one with dirt on your shirt and under your nails.” She yanked at his hands to inspect his lack of a manicure and found herself unable to drop them. His wrists tensed, almost as if he wanted to grab hold but restrained himself as she thumbed the calluses and swollen knuckles.

Over, under. Over, under. She ought to let go, but how long had it been since she’d had even a simple touch such as this?

Then his fingers moved, entwining themselves between hers.

She didn’t withdraw. Yes, he ticked her off, and yes, he was a jerk, and yes, he still felt so very good.

Hand in hand they walked, not speaking, all the way to the garage. Only when he held the door open for her did he let go.

And even that was temporary. On his end anyway.

The second he hopped in on the other side, he reached for her. But it was too late. The moment had passed. She got her head on straight and sandwiched her hands safely between her legs.

He didn’t bring it up as they left the ranch and drove along the unlined road to town. While large, black, shiny-feathered buzzards circled overhead, he pointed out the window to note who owned which property.

Two times they passed a tractor traveling at snailish speeds. In both instances, the weathered-face farmer leaned over, waved them by, and tipped a ragged hat.

“They’re good people out here. Don’t take this the wrong way, Fazil, but you don’t fit.”

“Ignoring that. To your actual point, you’re right. I get why that old bitch doesn’t want things to change around here. These folks see me as some sorta city slicker, I guess. When I started ‘succeeding,’” he said, complete with air quotes, “they rooted for me all the way. I made up some story about being adopted by a couple in Kansas and wanting to make good on my own.”

“They bought that?”

“Hook, line, and sinker. Why can’t it be true? Besides, they want to believe it. I get invited to church on a regular basis. I get advice on everything from which honey jars work best to how to get rid of mice with peppermint.”

“You have mice?”

“’Course not. But every other barn does, so ...” He shrugged as he turned down a corner and into what might be a town.

Might
.

Generally, you knew when you were coming up on a city center. Not here. They’d gone from one field to another, until the final hill. Just over it, the single street morphed into two lined lanes. The area resembled something from a Wild West movie smashup. Large, wooden, two-story buildings loomed over pickup trucks and dusty minivans. Every store vomited frilly curtains. The ice cream shop with the creaky sign swinging overhead completed the picture. “This is a movie set.”

“It’s home.”

No. It was the twilight zone. Everyone waved, and when she didn’t immediately throw her hand up, Fazil elbowed her. In the fifty-freaking-foot walk from car to store, she must have waved at everybody, their momma, and their momma’s momma. Twice.

On a small bench in front of a bakery oozing rousing scents of cinnamon and crème, a woman with silvery white hair sat knitting. “Well, hello, Mr. Jones.”

Jones?

She looked at Fazil Basam Oded Wahid and waited for a correction that didn’t come. The fool bowed to the lady, who tittered when he kissed each cheek, and then pointed to her. “Mrs. Johnson, lovely as the morning. May I introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Jones?”

It was like a frickin’ bomb went off. Women, young and old, poured out of the next two buildings to stare in their general direction. What in the fresh hell? This was no look-while-pretending-not-to thing. This was full-on, open-mouthed, all-up-in-your-business Harper Valley.

“I’m, uh, trying to win her back, ya see,” Fazil
whispered
at the top of his voice. The wholly ineffective whisper had all those mommas she waved to earlier stepping forward to say their hellos.

The jack-hole wasn’t done.

“I messed up some time ago. But, well, she’s getting up in age and wanted to try things out one more time.”

She’d kill him. The first human in modern history to kill a djinn, but she’d find a way.

The phone saved him.

When Fazil turned and walked away to take the call with an apologetic hand over his head, the herd of blue-haired, cane-wielding kraken attacked. “So, you’re the missus? I can’t say I’ve seen you in the years since your mister has been here.”

They swarmed, not leaving an inch for her to escape. The air grew thick, choking her with cinnamon and Lysol. “Uh, yeah. Yes.”

One, the leader if the number of ropes of pearl around her neck was any indication, stepped forward and patted her hand. “The circumstances of your breakup were so sad.” She paused until the nodding murmurs of agreement from her compatriots subsided. “We’re so happy to see you here. He’s a good boy.”

Boy?
The man had them all beat by a few centuries!

“Now that he has that nice, fancy ranch, I suppose that’ll be enough for a city girl like you.”

“What? It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh, well, what was it like, dear?”

None of your damned business
. Before those golden words of truth left Rosa’s mouth, Fazil popped back into her field of vision. He had a pleasant enough face, but she saw right through it. Something was wrong. Terribly so.

She excused herself to stand next to him and received a choral mixture of
aahs
and
harrumphs.
She ignored both vocal camps. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said between clenched teeth. “And I do mean that literally.”

While she tried to sort that out, his hand on her back guided them into the feed store. The heels of Fazil’s cowboy boots clomped across the floor.

“Usual, Sam.”

“Right. Right.” Sam’s handlebar mustache wiggled up and down as he looked up the order in a grimy three-ring binder. What blew her mind the most? It was a bit of a toss-up between the notebook as the order acquisition system and the state-of-the-art tablet used to process Fazil’s credit card.

Neither, it turned out. But both together.

This place, this mixture of old and modern—it hit her like a ton of bricks—this was the best representation of his life. Fazil, her Fazil, was as old-fashioned as his homeland and yet forced to exist in these modern times.

“Peanuts?”

“Huh?”

Fazil pointed to a barrel at the edge of the counter. “A dollar a bag. Want one?”

“Is that what people do?”

“That’s what people do.”

He pulled two crumpled dollar bills from his back pocket and shoved them into something labeled in scrawled ink, “The Honest Jar.” Picking up two of the tiniest paper bags in the universe, he used a scoop attached to a length of chain to fill up both bags.

He talked as he scooped, setting up delivery dates and offhandedly introducing her, once again, as his wife.

Sam threw her a nod and then went right back into a less than thrilling discussion of whose cow did what this week. Women hovered outside, but they didn’t concern her nearly as much as Fazil’s earlier call. Yet, here he was going on and on about the weight of a heifer. Who cares about strangers’ cows?

Fazil, apparently.

He nodded, jotted notes, and promised to report something about something to someone on his next visit.

Clearing her throat shut both men up. “Maybe we should check on that thing, honey?”

Sam smirked and tipped his hat, shaking his head apologetically toward a retreating Fazil.

A dog she hadn’t noticed earlier raised his head in acknowledgement of their departure, before flouncing back down. Fazil scratched behind its ears and tossed a tripped-up toy in the air. “Bluetick.”

“What?” She freaked, swatting and brushing off her legs. This caused much amusement to the various flannelled men doing ... totally nothing but sitting and sipping cola.

“The dog, babe.”

“Who names their dog Blue-fricking-tick?” she hissed into his ear.

“It’s a breed.”

“Does the dog have an actual name?”

“Bluetick Smith.”

“I’m done.”

Fazil’s warm laughter made this almost normal. Almost okay. This was his real life. Ranch, animals, small town, the whole bit. It freaked her out for all the wrong reasons.

“I’m in a place where the bakery has an ice cream shop right next door to it. Let me guess, the bakery doesn’t sell ice cream.”

“Correct.”

“And the ice cream shop—”

“Parlor.”

“Of course. The ice cream parlor doesn’t sell baked goods.”

“Correct again. Wouldn’t be right. Ready for the best part?” He waited for her nod, eyes twinkling. “They’re cousins, who inherited the shops from their mothers.”

“Who were sisters?”

“Nailed it.”

She couldn’t stop shaking her head at this place that made Fazil so happy. Then the smile cracked as reality—her wretched reality—swooped in to destroy his small-town Utopia. “So...”

“The phone call?”

“Yeah. I meant what I said, Rosa. Nothing was found.”

“Where?”

“In the apartment.”

* * * *

K
udos to her for holding it together until they got in the car.

The second her door slammed shut, however, she lost her shit. Not that he blamed her. He was halfway there himself. Everything he’d held inside at Sam’s threatened to erupt. “Bodies don’t disappear. Is there something you didn’t tell me? Who else did you go to about this?”