Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) by Jennifer Skully Read Free Book Online

mechanical calf of the robot. Chocolate tossed it
to him.
    “Bucks up the ying-yang?” he repeated to keep
the girls going.
    “Whitey wants seventy-five percent of
whatever Carl finds.”
    “Hmm. That’s a bit steep. Allen wrench.”
    “What’s that?” Caramel leaned forward to
shift through the tools and parts, her filmy negligee falling
open.
    Brax ignored the sight. A man needed all his
concentration when assembling a child’s toy. He indicated the
hexagonal key near Peppermint’s bare knee. With a few twists and
turns, he gripped a completed robot leg in his fist.
    Peppermint whistled. “Wow, you’re good.”
    He smiled. “Yeah. That’s what they all
say.”
    The girls all giggled at once. Brax pointed
to the torso. “So, Carl come by often?”
    Candy snorted. “Carl? Here? You gotta be
kidding. He stinks like an outhouse.”
    “Worse, he smells like bat shit.” Peppermint
grimaced.
    Caramel threw a nod to her boss. “Chloe
wouldn’t let him in the door.”
    “And Maggie would shoot him right between the
eyes. Then she’d come gunning for us .” Chocolate punctuated
with an eye roll.
    Brax cranked and screwed. Yep, just like in
Cottonmouth, everyone knew everyone else’s business. It was obvious
Carl wasn’t getting any at The Chicken Coop.
    The front door rattled beneath a pounding
fist, and light filled the trailer’s other half as Chloe opened up.
“Come on in, Big Boy.”
    Hey! Brax had been Big Boy. Maybe the name
wasn’t so special. The man that walked in was rail thin and
beanpole tall, his grin reminiscent of one of the witch’s flying
monkeys.
    “Oh God, it’s the foot,” Peppermint groused
under her breath.
    “The foot?” Brax asked as Caramel handed him
the robot head.
    “Jason Lafoote.”
    Across the room, Chloe waggled her fingers at
the chickens. “I’ll be right back, girls. Keep our boy there
entertained.” Then she led The Foot through a stream of beaded
curtains.
    “Yuk,” Candy murmured. “I can’t imagine them
doing it.”
    Peppermint slapped her knee. “She doesn’t do
him. She doesn’t have to do anyone. She owns the place.”
    “What’s wrong with him?” Brax asked.
    “He’s a pain in the ass. He doesn’t know blow
from suck and in from out.”
    Nice analogy, that, which Brax took to mean
that Lafoote was lacking in the sexual-expertise department. He
attached the head to the torso, then the torso to the legs, and had
a brief flashback to that little fantasy about Simone, the flying
monkeys, her finger, and him nibbling on it. Damn, he had it bad
for the woman.
    “And he doesn’t tip,” Caramel added.
    Who? Oh yeah, The Foot. He was losing
concentration here.
    “Jason’s pumping money into us so he can get
to Chloe.”
    Brax figured it wasn’t only money Lafoote was
pumping at The Chicken Coop. “What’s he want from Chloe?”
    “He wants to renovate that old broken-down
hotel in the middle of town. And he thinks she’ll talk to the judge
for him.”
    “About what?” With the robot body, head, and
legs put together, all he needed were the arms. He held out his
hand to Candy, who had possession of both.
    “The judge won’t give him the permits he
needs. But Chloe’s a good businesswoman, and she sees the boom a
gambling resort could be for the town,” Peppermint explained.
    “He’s riling everyone up over the whole
thing.” Candy glared at the beaded doorway through which Chloe and
Lafoote had disappeared. “People are getting pissed. Chloe should
stay out of it, because if they get pissed enough, we could find
ourselves out on our tail feathers.”
    Peppermint wriggled her eyebrows. “It could
be a big boon for us, too.”
    “Dream on. He’s a cheap sonuvabitch,” Caramel
grumbled. “I don’t trust him to follow through on a darn thing he
says he’s going to do.”
    “I take it you ladies don’t like him.”
    “He’s a pussy.” Chocolate batted her
eyelashes at Brax, licked her lips, then dropped her gaze to