"Gonorrhea is misspelled," he pointed out. "And the letterhead is bogus." is misspelled," he pointed out. "And the letterhead is bogus."
She crumpled the paper in her fist. "Why didn"t you show me this as soon as you got here?"
"I was afraid you wouldn"t put out."
"Ted ..."
He eyed her casually. "Do you have any idea who might be behind this?"
She thought of the message on her bathroom mirror. "Any one of the millions of women who l.u.s.t after you."
He ignored that. "The letter was mailed from Austin, but that doesn"t mean much."
Now was the moment to tell him his mother had tried to get her fired, but Meg couldn"t imagine Francesca Beaudine doing anything as vile as sending this letter. Besides, Francesca would almost certainly have checked for spelling errors. And she doubted Sunny would have made the mistake in the first place, unless she"d done it deliberately to throw them off track. As for Kayla, Zoey, and the other women holding on to fantasies about Ted ... Meg could hardly throw around accusations based on dirty looks. She threw the paper on the floor. "Why didn"t Lucy have to put up with this c.r.a.p?"
"We spent a lot of time in Washington. And, frankly, Lucy didn"t rile people like you do."
Meg came up off the chair. "n.o.body knows about us except your mother and whoever she might have told."
"Dad and Lady Emma, who would probably have told Kenny."
"Who, I"m sure, told Torie. And if big-mouth Torie knows-"
"If Torie knew, she"d have been on the phone to me right away."
"That leaves our mysterious visitor from three nights ago," she said. Ted"s wandering eyes indicated her sarong was slipping, and she tightened it. "The idea that someone might have been watching us through the window ..."
"Exactly." He set his beer bottle on the wine crate. "I"m starting to think those b.u.mper stickers on your car might not have been the work of kids."
"Somebody tried to break off my windshield wipers."
He frowned, and she once again debated mentioning the scrawl on her mirror, but she didn"t want to be locked out of her home, and that"s exactly what would happen. "How many people have keys to the church?" she asked.
"Why?"
"I"m wondering if I should be nervous."
"I changed the locks when I took over the place," he said. "You have the key I kept outside. I have one. Lucy might still have one, and there"s a spare at the house."
Which meant the intruder had probably come in through the unlocked back door. Leaving it unlocked was a mistake Meg would make sure she didn"t repeat.
It was time to ask the big question, and she poked the crumpled ball of paper with her bare toes. "That letterhead looked authentic. And lots of government workers aren"t great spellers." She licked her lips. "It could have been true." She finally met his eyes. "So why didn"t you ask me about it right away?"
Incredibly, her question seemed to annoy him. "What do you mean? If there was a problem, you"d have told me a long time ago."
She felt as if he"d ripped the floorboards right out from under her. All that trust ... in her integrity. Right then she knew the worst had happened. Her stomach fell to her knees. She"d fallen in love withhim.
She wanted to rip her hair out. Of course she"d fallen in love with him. What woman hadn"t? Falling in love with Ted was a female rite of pa.s.sage in Wynette, and she"d just joined the sisterhood.
She was starting to hyperventilate, so she did what she always did when she felt cornered. "You have to go now."
His gaze wandered down the thin silk sarong. "If I do that, this won"t be anything more than a booty call."
"Right. Exactly the way I want it. Your glorious body, with as little conversation as possible."
"I"m starting to feel like the chick in this relationship."
"Consider it a growth experience."
He smiled, rose from the couch, pulled her into his arms, and began kissing her senseless. Just as she started to fall into another Beaudine-induced s.e.xual coma, he enacted his legendary self-control and pulled away. "Sorry, babe. If you want more of what I"ve got, you have to go out with me. Get dressed."
She pulled herself back to reality. "Two words I never again want to hear coming out of your mouth. What"s wrong with you, anyway?"
"I want to go out to dinner," he said evenly. "The two of us. Like normal people. At a real restaurant."
"A really bad idea."
"Spence and Sunny have an international trade show coming up that"ll keep them out of the country for a while, and while they"re away, I"m going to catch up on my sadly neglected business." He tucked a curl behind her ear. "I"ll be gone almost two weeks. Before I take off, I want a night out, and I"m sick of sneaking around."
"Tough," she retorted. "Stop being so selfish. Think about your precious town, then picture the expression on Sunny"s face if she found out the two of us-"
His cool faded. "The town and Sunny are my business, not yours."
"With that kind of self-centered att.i.tude, Mr. Mayor, you"ll never get reelected."
"I didn"t want to be elected the first time!"
She finally agreed to a Tex-Mex restaurant in Fredericksburg, but once they got there, she maneuvered him into a chair that faced the wall so she could keep a lookout. That aggravated him so much he ordered for both of them without consulting her.
"You never get mad," she said when their server left the table. "Except at me."
"That"s not true," he said tightly. "Torie can get me going."
"Torie doesn"t count. You were obviously her mother in a previous life."
He retaliated by hogging the chip basket.
"I"d never have taken you for a sulker," she said after a long, heavy silence. "Yet look at you."
He shoved a chip into the hottest bowl of salsa. "I hate sneaking around, and I"m not doing it any longer. This affair is coming out of the closet."
His mulish determination scared her. "Hold it right there. Spence is used to getting what he wants for Sunny and for himself. If you didn"t believe that, you wouldn"t have encouraged me to stay all palsy-walsy with him."
He snapped a chip in half. "That"s going to stop, too. Right now."
"No, it"s not. I"ll handle Spence. You deal with Sunny. As for the two of us ... I told you from the beginning how it was going to be."
"And I"m telling you ..." He jabbed the broken chip in the general direction of her face. "I"ve never sneaked around in my life, and I"m not doing it now."
She couldn"t believe he was saying this. "You can"t jeopardize something so important for a few meaningless rolls in the hay. This is a temporary fling, Ted. Temporary. Any day now, I"ll pull up stakes and head back to L.A. I"m surprised I haven"t done it already."
If she"d hoped he"d insist their relationship wasn"t meaningless, she"d set herself up for disappointment. He leaned across the table. "It doesn"t have anything to do with what"s temporary. It has to do with the kind of person I am."
"What about the kind of person I am? Somebody who"s completely comfortable with sneaking around."
"You heard me."
She regarded him with dismay. This was the unwelcome consequence of having a lover with honor. Or at least what he saw as honor. What she saw was a looming choice between disaster and heartbreak.
Between trying not to think about falling in love with Ted and thinking too much about a possible reappearance by her mysterious home invader, Meg didn"t sleep well. She used her wakeful nights to make jewelry. The pieces were becoming more complicated, as her small group of customers showed a distinct preference for jewelry that used genuine relics instead of copies. She researched Internet dealers who specialized in the kind of ancient artifacts she wanted to use and plowed an alarming chunk of her nest egg into an order with a Boston-area anthropology professor who had a reputation for honesty and who provided a detailed provenance for everything she sold.
As Meg unpacked some Middle Eastern coins, Roman cabochons, and three small, precious mosaic face beads from around the second century, she found herself wondering if making jewelry was her business or a distraction from figuring out what she should really be doing with her life?
A week after Ted left town, Torie called and ordered Meg to show up for work an hour early the next morning. When Meg asked why, Torie acted as if Meg had just failed an IQ test. "Because Dex will be home then to watch the girls. Jeez."
As soon as Meg got to the club the next morning, Torie dragged her to the practice range. "You can"t live in Wynette without picking up a golf club. It"s a city ordinance." She handed over her five-iron. "Take a swing."
"I won"t be here much longer, so there"s no point." Meg ignored the pang that tweaked at her heart. "Besides, I"m not rich enough to be a golfer."
"Just swing the d.a.m.n thing."
Meg did and missed the ball. She tried again and missed again, but after a few more swings, she somehow sent the ball in a perfect arc to the middle of the practice range. She let out a whoop.
"A lucky shot," Torie said, "but that"s exactly how golf sucks you in." She took the club back, gave Meg a few pointers, then told her to keep working.
For the next half hour, Meg followed Torie"s instructions, and since she"d inherited her parents" natural athleticism, she began connecting with the ball.
"You could be good if you practiced," Torie said. "Employees play free on Mondays. Take advantage of your day off. I have a spare set of clubs in the bag room you can borrow."
"Thanks for the offer, but I don"t really want to."
"Oh, you want to, all right."
That was true. Watching so many other people play had piqued her interest. "Why are you doing this?" she asked as she carried Torie"s bag back to the clubhouse.
"Because you"re the only woman other than me who"s ever told Ted the truth about his dancing."
"I don"t understand."
"Sure you do. I also might have noticed that Ted went strangely quiet when I brought up your name in our phone conversation this week. I don"t know if you two have a future-providing he doesn"t have to marry Sunny-but I"m not taking any chances."
Whatever that meant. Still, Meg found herself adding Torie O"Connor to the list of all she"d miss when she finally left Wynette. She slipped the bag of clubs off her shoulder. "Regardless of Sunny, how could Ted and I have a future? He"s the Lamb of G.o.d, and I"m the town bad girl."
"I know," Torie said brightly.
That evening, as Meg hosed off the day"s dust from the drink cart, the catering manager approached and told her one of the members wanted to hire her to serve at a ladies" luncheon at her home the next day. The few townspeople who could afford it routinely hired staff to help at private parties, but no one had ever requested her, and she needed all the money she could get to make up for the materials she"d just bought. "Sure," she said.
"Pick up a white server"s shirt in the catering office before you leave. Wear a black skirt with it."
The closest thing Meg had was her black-and-white Miu Miu mini from the resale shop. It would have to do.
The catering manager handed over a piece of paper with the directions. "Chef Duncan is cooking, and you"ll be working with Haley Kittle. She"ll show you the ropes. Be there at ten. And this is a big deal, so do a good job."
After she got back from the swimming hole that evening, Meg finally looked at the information the catering manager had given her. There was something familiar about the directions. Her gaze flew to the bottom of the page where the name of the person she"d be working for was typed out.
Francesca Beaudine She crumpled the paper in her fist. What kind of game was Francesca playing? Did she really think Meg would take the job? Except Meg had already done exactly that.
She yanked on her happy printing company T-shirt and stomped around the kitchen for a while, cursing Francesca, cursing herself for not reading the information earlier when she could still have refused. But would she have? Probably not. Her stupid pride wouldn"t let her.
The temptation to pick up her phone and call Ted was nearly unbearable. She made herself a sandwich instead and carried it out to the cemetery only to discover she"d lost her appet.i.te. It was no coincidence this was happening while he was gone. Francesca had executed a stealth attack designed to put Meg in her place. It probably made little difference to her whether Meg accepted or not. She wanted to make a point. Meg was an outsider, a down-on-her-luck drifter forced to work for a meager hourly wage. An outsider who"d only be allowed in Francesca"s house as one of the help.
Meg pitched the sandwich into the weeds. Screw that.
She reached the Beaudine compound a little before ten the next morning. She"d chosen her sparkly pink platforms to wear with the white catering blouse and Miu Miu mini. They wouldn"t be the most comfortable shoes to work in, but the best defense against Francesca was a strong offense, and they"d send the message that she had no intention of being invisible. Meg would hold her head high, smile until her cheeks ached, and do her job well enough to put a crimp in Francesca"s satisfaction.
Haley pulled up in her red Ford Focus. She barely spoke as they walked into the house together, and she looked so pale Meg grew concerned. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I"ve got ... really bad cramps."
"Can you get someone to work for you?"
"I tried, but n.o.body"s around."
The Beaudine kitchen was both luxurious and homey with sunny saffron walls, a terra-cotta floor, and handcrafted cobalt blue tile work. An enormous wrought-iron chandelier bearing colorful gla.s.s cups hung in the center of the room, and open shelves displayed copper pots and hand-thrown pottery.
Chef Duncan was unpacking the food he"d prepped for the event. A short man in his early forties, he had a big nose and a graying shrub of wiry auburn hair protruding from beneath his toque. He frowned as Haley disappeared into the bathroom, then barked at Meg to get to work.
While she set up the gla.s.sware and began organizing the serving dishes, he detailed the menu: bite-size puffed pastry hors d"oeuvres filled with melted Brie and orange marmalade, minted fresh pea soup served in demita.s.se cups that still needed to be washed, a fennel-laced salad, warm pretzel rolls, and the main course, asparagus frittata and smoked salmon, which they"d plate in the kitchen. The piece de resistance was dessert, individually potted chocolate souffles the chef had been working all summer to perfect and which must, must, must be served as soon as they came out of the oven and placed gently, gently, gently in front of each guest.
Meg nodded at the instructions, then carried the chunky green water goblets into the dining room. Palm and lemon trees grew in Old World urns placed in the corners, and water trickled from a stone fountain set in a tiled wall. The room held two temporary tables in addition to a long wooden permanent table with a distressed surface. Instead of formal linens, Francesca had chosen hand-woven place mats. Each table had a copper tray centerpiece holding a.s.sorted clay herb pots of oregano, marjoram, sage, and thyme, along with earthenware pitchers br.i.m.m.i.n.g with golden yellow blooms. Through the expansive dining room windows, she could see part of the courtyard and a shady pergola where a book lay abandoned on a wooden bench. It was hard not to like a woman who"d created such a beautiful setting to entertain her friends, but Meg intended to give it her best effort.
Haley still hadn"t emerged from the bathroom when Meg returned to the kitchen. She"d just begun washing the pottery demita.s.se cups when the tap-tap-tap tap-tap-tap of heels on the tile floor announced the approach of their hostess. "Thank you for helping me out today, Chef Duncan," Francesca said. "I hope you"re finding everything you need." of heels on the tile floor announced the approach of their hostess. "Thank you for helping me out today, Chef Duncan," Francesca said. "I hope you"re finding everything you need."
Meg rinsed a cup, turned from the sink, and gave Francesca her brightest smile. "h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Beaudine."
Unlike her son, Francesca had a lousy poker face, and the play of emotions that crossed her face was fairly easy to decode. First came surprise. (She hadn"t expected Meg to accept the job.) Then came puzzlement. (Exactly why had Meg shown up?) Discomfort appeared next. (What would her guests think?) Then doubt. (Perhaps she should have thought this through more carefully.) Followed by distress. (This had been a terrible idea.) All of it ending in ... resolution.
"Meg, may I speak with you in the dining room?"
"Of course."
She followed the tapping heels out of the kitchen. Francesca was so pet.i.te Meg could almost have tucked her under her chin, although she couldn"t imagine doing anything like that. Francesca was stylishly dressed as always-an emerald top and a cool white cotton skirt she"d cinched with a peac.o.c.k blue belt. She stopped by the stone fountain and twisted her wedding ring. "I"m afraid there"s been a mistake. My own, of course. I won"t need you after all. Naturally, I"ll pay you for your time. I"m sure money is tight or you wouldn"t have felt the need to ... show up today."
"Not as tight as it used to be," Meg said cheerfully. "My jewelry business is doing a lot better than I dreamed."
"Yes, I"d heard." Francesca was clearly fl.u.s.tered and just as clearly determined to settle this. "I suppose I didn"t think you"d accept the job."
"Sometimes I even surprise myself."