Chapter Sixteen
L adies.” Ted’s gaze flicked from Meg’s white server’s apron to his mother, who’d suddenly turned into a whirlwind of motion.
“Find a chair, darling. Squeeze in next to Shelby.” Her small hand flew from hair to bracelets to napkin, a bird of paradise searching for a safe place to land. “Fortunately, my son is a man at home in the company of women.”
Torie snorted. “You can say that again. He’s dated half the room.”
Ted inclined his head toward the assemblage. “And enjoyed every moment.”
“Not every moment,” Zoey said. “Remember when Bennie Hanks plugged up all the toilets right before the fifth-grade choral concert? We never did make it to dinner that night.”
“But I got to see a dedicated young educator in action,” Ted said gallantly, “and Bennie learned a valuable lesson.”
A momentary yearning softened Zoey’s features, an indulgence in the memory of what might have been. To her credit, she shook herself out of it. “Bennie’s at space camp in Huntsville. Let’s hope they do a better job of guarding their toilets.”
Ted nodded, but he’d fixed his attention back on his mother. His eyes were steady, his mouth unsmiling. Francesca lunged for her water glass. Emma darted an anxious glance between them and quickly stepped into the breach. “Did you have a successful business trip, Ted?”
“I did.” He slowly withdrew his gaze from his mother and focused on Meg. She pretended she didn’t notice and served the first of the soufflés with a flourish, as if the dessert was intended to have a giant crater in its middle.
He came toward her, his jaw set in a stubborn line. “Let me help you, Meg.”
Yellow caution lights flashed in her head. “No need.” She swallowed. “Sir.”
His eyes narrowed. She picked up the next pot. Francesca and Emma both knew she and Ted were lovers, and so did the mysterious nighttime Peeping Tom, who might also be her home invader. Was that person here right now, watching them? The possibility accounted for only part of her growing sense of foreboding.
Ted took the ramekin from her and began serving each guest with an easy smile and a perfectly chosen compliment. Meg seemed to be the only person who noticed the tension lurking at the corners of that smile.
Francesca made cheery conversation with her guests, acting as if her son always helped out the serving staff. Ted’s eyes darkened when Shelby announced that the bidding to Win a Weekend with Ted Beaudine had hit eleven thousand dollars. “We’ve got bids coming in from everywhere thanks to all the publicity we’ve gotten.”
Kayla didn’t seem as happy about that as the others, which suggested Daddy had cut off her bidding money.
One of the golfers waved to catch his attention. “Ted, is it true a crew from The Bachelor is coming to Wynette to tape background footage?”
“Not true,” Torie said. “He couldn’t pass their stupidity test.”
The tray was finally empty, and Meg tried to make her escape, but as she dashed for the kitchen, Ted followed.
Chef was all smiles when he saw who’d barged in. “Hey, Mr. Beaudine. Great to see you.” He abandoned the coffee carafes he’d just filled. “I heard you were out of town.”
“Just got back, Chef.” Ted’s effortless good humor vanished as he focused on Meg. “What are you doing serving at my mother’s party?”
“I’m helping out,” she said, “and you’re in my way.” She grabbed an extra dessert from the counter and shoved it at him. “Sit down and eat.”
Chef tore around the center island. “You can’t give him that. It’s already fallen.”
Fortunately, Chef didn’t know about the twenty others that had met an identical fate. “Ted won’t notice,” she said. “He eats Marshmallow Fluff straight from the jar.” She was the one who did that, but life in Wynette had taught her the value of prevarication.
Ted returned the dessert pot to the counter, his mouth grim. “My mother set you up, didn’t she?”
“Set me up? Your mother?” She lunged for the coffee carafes, but she wasn’t quick enough, and he snatched them out from under her. “Give those back,” she said. “I don’t need your help. What I need is for you to get out of my way so I can do my job.”
“Meg!” Chef’s already florid face developed a purple tinge. “I apologize, Mr. Beaudine. Meg hasn’t served before, and she has a lot to learn about how to treat people.”
“Tell me about it.” Ted disappeared through the door with the coffee.
He was going to mess everything up. She didn’t know how. She only knew he was going to do something awful, and she had to stop it. She grabbed the iced tea pitcher and charged after him.
He’d already started filling cups without asking what anybody wanted, but even the tea drinkers didn’t protest. They were too busy fussing over him. Ted wouldn’t look at his mother, and twin furrows had formed in Francesca’s otherwise smooth forehead.
Meg headed for the opposite side of the dining room and began refilling iced tea glasses. The woman Zoey had identified as Hunter Gray’s mother gestured toward Meg. “Torie, that looks just like your Miu Miu skirt. The one you wore when we all went to see Vampire Weekend in Austin.”
Ted broke off his conversation with Francesca’s agent. Torie flicked her lazy, rich girl’s eyes over Meg’s skirt. “They knock off everything these days. No offense to you, Meg. It’s a fairly decent knockoff.”
But this was no knockoff, and Meg suddenly understood the veiled looks she received whenever she wore any of the garments she’d picked up at Kayla’s resale shop. All this time, she’d been wearing Torie O’Connor’s castoffs, clothes so immediately identifiable that no one else in town would buy them. And everyone had been in on the joke, including Ted.
Birdie shot Meg a smug look as she handed over her iced tea glass. “The rest of us have too much pride to wear Torie’s old clothes.”
“Not to mention, we don’t have the body for it,” Zoey said.
Kayla fluffed her hair. “I keep telling Torie she’d make a lot more money if she sent her things to a consignment shop in Austin, but she says it’s too much trouble. Until Meg came along, I could only sell her things to out-of-towners.”
The comments would have stung, except for one thing. All of the women, even Birdie, kept their voices low enough so only Meg could hear their barbs. She didn’t have time to ponder why they’d done that because Ted was setting down both coffee carafes and heading right toward her.
Although his easy smile was firmly fixed, his determined eyes told a more dangerous story. A car crash was heading toward her, and she couldn’t think of a single way to avoid it.
He stopped in front of her, pulled the iced tea pitcher from her hand, and passed it over to Torie. Meg took a step back only to feel his fingers curling around the nape of her neck, anchoring her in place. “Why don’t you go help Chef in the kitchen, sweetheart. I’ll clear off these dishes.”
Sweetheart?
The engine roared, the tires squealed, the brakes smoked, and the speeding car slammed into the baby carriage. Right there in front of the biggest gossips in Wynette, Texas, Ted Beaudine lowered his head, sealed his legendary lips over hers, and announced to the whole world that there’d be no more sneaking around. Meg Koranda was the new woman in his life.
A furious Kayla came out of her chair. Shelby groaned. Birdie knocked over her iced tea glass. Emma buried her face in her hands, and Zoey, who looked as befuddled as one of her second graders, cried, “I thought she was making it up to get rid of Spence.”
“Ted and Meg ?” Hunter Gray’s mother exclaimed.
Francesca sagged back in her chair. “Teddy . . . What have you done?”
With the possible exception of her agent, everyone else in the room understood the import of what had just happened. Kayla watched her boutique slip away. Birdie saw her new tearoom and bookstore go up in smoke. Zoey mourned the school improvements that would never happen. Shelby and Torie envisioned more sleepless, guilt-ridden nights for their husbands. And Francesca saw her only son slipping into the grasp of a scheming, unworthy woman.
Meg wanted to cry from the sheer, exhilarating joy of knowing he’d do something so colossally stupid for her.
He brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “Go on now, sweetheart. Mom appreciates the way you stepped in to help her today, but I’ll take over now.”
“Yes, Meg,” Francesca said quietly. “We can handle it from here.”
Meg was more important to him than this town. Her heart surged with a giddy intoxication that made her dizzy, but the woman she’d become didn’t let her enjoy the moment for long. She dug her nails into her palms and faced his mother’s guests. “I’m . . . I’m . . . sorry you were forced to see that.” She cleared her throat. “He’s, uh, had a tough time lately. I’m trying to be kind, but . . .” She took a shaky, shallow breath. “He can’t accept the fact that I’m . . . just not that into him.”
Ted picked up what was left of Torie’s soufflé, took a bite, and listened patiently as Meg tried her best to do the right thing and dig him out of the beautiful mess he’d created. “It’s me, not you.” She turned to him, urging him with her eyes to go along with her. “Everybody else thinks you’re fabulous, so it has to be me, right? Nobody else seems to find you just a little bit . . . creepy.”
He cocked an eyebrow.
Francesca swelled up in her chair. “Did you just call my son ‘creepy’?”
Ted spooned up another bite of chocolate, interested in what else she’d come up with. He wasn’t going to help at all. She wanted to kiss him, yell at him. Instead, she returned her attention to the women. “Be honest.” Her voice gained strength with the rightness of what she was doing. “You all know what I mean. The way the birds start to sing when he walks outside. That’s creepy, right? And those halos that keep popping up around his head?”
No one moved. No one said a word.
Her mouth had gone dry, but she plowed on. “What about the stigmata ?”
“Stigmata?” Torie said. “That’s a new one.”
“Marking-pen accident.” Ted devoured the last spoonful of chocolate and set the dish aside. “Meg, honey—and I’m only saying this because I care so much—you’re acting kind of crazy. I sure do hope you’re not pregnant.”
A dish banged in the kitchen, taking her resolve with it. He was a master of cool. She was merely a wannabe and she’d never be able to beat him at his own game. This was his town, his problem to solve. She grabbed the iced tea pitcher and made a dash for the kitchen.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he called after her. “Same time. And wear that dress of Torie’s. It looks a hell of a lot better on you than it ever did on her. Sorry, Torie, but you know it’s true.”
As Meg slipped through the door, she heard Shelby’s wail. “But what about the contest? This is going to ruin everything!”
“Screw the contest,” Torie said. “We’ve got bigger problems. Our mayor just gave Sunny Skipjack the finger and San Antone a new golf resort.”
Ted wisely didn’t return to the kitchen. As Meg helped Chef clean up, her mind was spinning in a dozen different directions. She heard the guests leaving, and before long Francesca came into the kitchen. Her face was pale. She was barefoot, her party clothes exchanged for shorts and a T-shirt. She thanked Chef and paid him, then handed Meg her check.
It was twice what Meg had been promised.
“You did the work of two people,” Francesca said.
Meg nodded and gave it back. “My contribution to the library fund.” She held Francesca’s gaze just long enough to display a little dignity, then returned to her work.
It was almost dinnertime before the last dishes were put away and she could leave, toting the generous sack of leftovers Chef had given her. She couldn’t stop smiling all the way back to the church. Ted’s truck was parked by the steps. As tired as she was, all she could think about was tearing his clothes off. She grabbed the leftovers and dashed inside only to come to a screeching halt.
The church had been ransacked. Overturned furniture, slashed pillows, strewn clothing . . . Orange juice and ketchup were smeared on the futon, and her jewelry supplies were scattered everywhere—her precious beads, the tools she’d just purchased, tangled lengths of wire.
Ted stood in the middle of the mess. “The sheriff’s on his way.”
The sheriff found no sign of forcible entry. When the subject of keys came up, Ted said he’d already put in a call to have the locks changed. As the sheriff advanced the theory that a vagrant had done the job, Meg knew she had to come clean about the message smeared on her bathroom mirror.
Ted exploded. “You’re just getting around to telling me? What the hell were you thinking? I wouldn’t have let you stay here another day.”
She just looked at him. He glared right back—no halo in sight.
The sheriff asked with a straight face if anybody held a grudge against her. She thought he was putting her on until she remembered he worked for the county and might not be tuned in to local gossip.
“Meg’s had some run-ins with a few people,” Ted said, “but I can’t imagine any of them doing this.”
The sheriff pulled out his notebook. “What people?”
She tried to pull herself together. “Basically anybody who likes Ted isn’t too fond of me.”
The sheriff shook his head. “That’s an awful lot of people. Could you narrow it down?”
“There’s not really much point in throwing out random names,” she said.
“You’re not accusing anybody. You’re giving me a list of people who have a grudge against you. I need your cooperation, Miz Koranda.”
She saw his point, but it didn’t feel right.
“Miz Koranda?”
She tried to muster the energy to begin. “Well, there’s . . .” She barely knew where to start. “Sunny Skipjack wants Ted for herself.” She gazed at the destruction around her and took a deep breath. “Then there’s Birdie Kittle, Zoey Daniels, Shelby Traveler, Kayla Garvin. Kayla’s father, Bruce. Maybe Emma Traveler, although I thought she’d come around.”
“Not a single one of them would tear the place up like this,” Ted said.
“Somebody did,” the sheriff replied, flipping to a fresh page in his notebook. “Go on, Miz Koranda.”
“All of Ted’s old girlfriends, especially after what happened at the luncheon today.” That involved a brief explanation, which Ted thoughtfully provided, along with his commentary on the cowardice of people who wanted to sneak around instead of being up front about their relationships.
“Anybody else?” The sheriff turned another page in his notebook.
“Skeet Cooper saw me mash one of Ted’s golf balls into the ground to keep Ted from winning his match against Spencer Skipjack. You should have seen the way he looked at me.”
“You should have seen the way I looked at you,” Ted said with disgust.
Meg picked at a hangnail.
“And?” The sheriff clicked his pen.
She pretended to look out the window. “Francesca Beaudine.”
“Now wait a minute!” Ted exclaimed.
“The sheriff wanted a list,” she retorted. “I’m giving him a list, not making accusations.” She turned back to the sheriff. “I saw Mrs. Beaudine a little more than an hour ago at her house, so it would have been very hard for her to have done this.”
“Hard, but not impossible,” the sheriff said.
“My mother did not trash this place,” Ted declared.
“I don’t know about Ted’s father,” Meg said. “He’s hard to read.”
Now it was the sheriff who puffed up with outrage. “The great Dallas Beaudine isn’t a vandal.”
“Probably not. And I think we can safely eliminate Cornelia Jorik. It would be tough for a former president of the United States to sneak into Wynette without getting noticed.”
“She could have sent her henchmen,” Ted drawled.
“If you don’t like my list, you come up with one,” she shot back. “You know all the suspects a lot better than I do. Bottom line—somebody is sending me a clear message that they want me out of Wynette.”
The sheriff looked at Ted. “How about it, Ted?”
Ted shoved his hand through his hair. “I can’t believe any of these people would do anything so ugly. What about somebody you work with at the club?”
“Those are my only positive relationships.”
The sheriff flipped his notebook closed. “Miz Koranda, you shouldn’t stay here by yourself. Not until this thing is settled.”
“Believe me, she’s not going to stay,” Ted said.
The sheriff promised to talk to the police chief. Ted walked him out to his squad car, and Meg’s cell rang in her purse. When she glanced at the display, she saw it was her mother, the last person she should talk to right now and the person whose voice she most wanted to hear.
She moved through her trashed kitchen and out the back door. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. How’s the job?”
“Great. Really great.” She sank down on the step. The cement still carried the day’s heat, and she felt its warmth through Torie O’Connor’s castoff skirt.
“Your dad and I are so proud of you.”
Her mother was still under the illusion that Meg was the activities coordinator at the club, something she’d have to correct very soon. “Honestly, it’s not much of a job.”
“Hey, I know better than anyone what it’s like to work with giant egos, and you have to see a lot of that at a country club. Which brings me to the reason I called. I have some great news.”
“Belinda died and left me all her money.”
“You wish. No, your grandmother will live forever. She’s one of the undead. The great news is . . . Your father and I are coming to visit you.”
Oh, God . . . Meg jumped up from the step. A dozen ugly images flashed through her head. The ripped sofa cushions . . . The broken glass . . . The drink cart . . . The faces of everyone who held a grudge against her.
“We miss you, and we want to see you,” her mother said. “We want to meet your new friends. We’re so proud of the way you’ve turned things around for yourself.”
“That’s . . . that’s great.”
“We have some scheduling we need to work out, but we’ll settle that soon. A low-key visit. Just a day or so. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Mom.” She’d have time to clean up the mess inside, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. What about her job? She assessed the probability of being promoted to activities coordinator before their visit and concluded she had a better chance of being invited to Birdie’s house for a slumber party. She shuddered at the thought of introducing her parents to Ted. It didn’t take much imagination to picture her mother falling to her knees and begging Ted not to wise up.
She picked the most straightforward of her troubles. “Mom, there’s just one thing . . . My job. It’s not that impressive.”
“Meg, stop putting yourself down. I can’t change the fact that you’ve grown up in a family of wacko overachievers. We’re the strange ones. You’re a normal, intelligent, beautiful woman who let herself get sidetracked by all the craziness around her. But that’s behind you now. You’ve made a fresh start, and we couldn’t be prouder. I have to run. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Meg said weakly. And then, after her mother had hung up: “Mom, I’m a cart girl, not the activities coordinator. But my jewelry’s selling great.”
The back door opened, and Ted appeared. “I’ll send somebody tomorrow to clean up.”
“No,” she said wearily. “I don’t want anyone to see this.”
He understood. “Then stay out here and relax. I’ll deal with it.”
All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and think about everything that had happened, but she’d spent too many years letting other people clean up after her. “I’m fine. Let me change my clothes first.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this.”
“Neither should you.” That kind, beautiful face made her ache. A few weeks ago, she’d have asked herself what a man like Ted was doing with a woman like her, but something had started to happen inside her, a sense of accomplishment that had begun to make her feel just a little bit worthy.
He dragged the ruined futon outside, followed by the damaged couch and chairs she’d gotten from the club. He cracked a few jokes as he worked to lift her spirits. She swept up broken glass, examining it so she didn’t accidentally throw away any of her precious beads. When she was satisfied, she went into the kitchen to clean up the mess there, but he’d already done it.
By the time they were finished, it was nearly dark, and they were both hungry. They carried the luncheon leftovers and two bottles of beer into the graveyard and spread everything out on one of the bath towels. They ate directly from the containers, their forks occasionally touching. She needed to talk about what had happened at his mother’s house, but she waited until they were finished before she broached the subject. “You should never have done what you did at the luncheon.”
He leaned against Horace Ernst’s tombstone. “And what was that?”
“Don’t play games. Kissing me.” She worked to suppress the exhilaration that still wanted to bubble over inside her. “By now, it’s all over town that we’re a couple. Spence and Sunny won’t be back for more than five minutes before they’ll hear about it.”
“You let me worry about Spence and Sunny.”
“How could you do something so stupid?” So wonderful.
Ted extended his legs toward the Mueller plot. “I want you to move in with me for a while.”
“Are you paying attention to anything I’m saying?”
“Everybody knows about us now. There’s no reason not to move in.”
After all he’d done for her, she couldn’t fight with him any longer. She picked up a stick and peeled the bark with her thumbnail. “I appreciate the offer, but moving in with you would be like thumbing my nose at your mother.”
“I’ll take care of my mother,” he said grimly. “I love her, but she doesn’t run my life.”
“Yeah, that’s what we all say. You. Me. Lucy.” She stabbed the stick into the dirt. “These are powerful women. They’re sane, they’re smart, they rule their worlds, and they love us ferociously. A potent combination that makes it tough to pretend they’re normal mothers.”
“You’re not staying here alone. You don’t even have a place to sleep.”
She gazed through the trees toward the trash pile that now held her futon. Whoever had done this wasn’t going to stop, not as long as Meg stayed in Wynette. “All right,” she said. “But only for tonight.”
She followed him back to his house in the Rustmobile. They’d barely gotten inside before he drew her to his chest and made a one-handed phone call. “Mom, somebody broke into the church and trashed the place, so Meg’ll be staying with me for a couple of days. You scare her, I’m mad at you, and you’re not welcome here right now, so leave us alone.” He hung up.
“She doesn’t scare me,” Meg protested. “Not much, anyway.”
He kissed her on the nose, turned her in the general direction of the stairs, and patted her bottom, lingering on the dragon. “As much as I hate saying this, you’re dead on your feet. Go to bed. I’ll be up later.”
“Hot date?”
“Even better. I’m going to rig up a surveillance camera at the church.” His voice developed a hard edge. “Something I’d have done right away if you’d told me about the first break-in.”
She wasn’t foolish enough to try to defend herself. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down on the bamboo floor. After everything that had happened today, this time would be different. This time he’d touch something other than her body.
She rolled on top of him, grabbed his head between her hands, and kissed him ferociously. He kissed her back with his customary competency. Aroused her with his intoxicating ingenuity. Left her sweaty and breathless and almost . . . but not quite . . . satisfied.