Chapter Twenty
A ssaulted?” Spence gave a rough bark of laughter. “That’s a good one. Show me a mark anywhere on you, and I’ll give you a million dollars.”
Sunny’s customary composure had vanished, and she regarded Meg with revulsion. “How could you say something so vile?”
More cars were bumping down the gravel lane, not just one, but a whole stream, everyone sensing trouble. “Shit,” Spence exclaimed. “A man can’t take a crap in this town without everybody showing up to watch.”
Kayla jumped out from the passenger side of a red Kia being driven by one of the waitresses at the Roustabout. “What are y’all doin’ out here,” she chirped, rushing toward them as if she’d just stumbled on a roadside picnic.
Before anyone could reply, Torie, Dexter, and Kenny disgorged from a silver Range Rover. Torie’s Hawaiian print sarong clashed with her plaid bikini top. She had wet hair and no makeup. Her husband wore a dark blue business suit, and Kenny raised a hand decorated with a Spider-Man Band-Aid. “Afternoon, Spence. Sunny. Nice weather after yesterday. Not that we didn’t need the rain.”
Zoey leaped from a navy blue Camry. “I was on my way to a science curriculum meeting,” she said to no one in particular.
More cars fell in behind hers. The whole town seemed to sense a catastrophe in the making, and they were all determined to prevent it.
Dexter O’Connor gestured toward the landfill. “You’re a lucky man, Spence. So many possibilities.”
Instead of looking at him, Spence kept his angry gaze on Meg, and the relief she’d felt at the appearance of all these people began to fade. She tried to tell herself she was wrong. Surely he’d let this go. Surely he wouldn’t press this in front of so many people. But she’d known from the beginning that he couldn’t tolerate having anyone get the best of him.
“The contracts aren’t signed yet,” he said ominously.
A collective expression of panic fell over the faces of the onlookers. “Dad . . .” Sunny put her hand on her father’s arm.
Torie took charge. Tightening the knot on her sarong, she marched toward Spence. “Me and Dex are planning to throw a couple of steaks on the grill tonight. Why don’t you and Sunny join us, that is if you don’t mind kids, or maybe we’ll ship them over to Dad’s house? Sunny, have you ever seen emus close up? Dex and me have a whole flock of them. Basically, I married him so I could pay my feed bill. He isn’t as crazy about them as I am, but they’re the sweetest creatures you ever met.” Torie went on to deliver a breathless and very lengthy monologue describing the care and feeding of emus and their benefit to humankind. She was stalling for time, and since everybody kept glancing down the lane, Meg didn’t have any trouble figuring out why. They were waiting for a knight in a powder blue pickup to appear and save the town from disaster.
More vehicles streamed into the lane. Torie was running out of emu material, and she cast an imploring eye at the others. Her brother reacted first, slipping one arm across Spence’s shoulders and gestured toward the landfill with the other. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the routing.”
But Spence turned away from him and studied the growing crowd. His gaze returned to Meg, and the way his eyes narrowed told her it was payback time. “Turns out, that might be a little premature, Kenny. I have a reputation to consider, and Meg here was just telling my daughter something pretty shocking.”
Dread kicked her in the stomach. He wanted revenge, and he knew exactly how to get it. If she stood her ground, she’d hurt so many people, but the thought of backing down made her ill. How could doing the right thing feel so wrong? She dug her fingers into her palms. “Forget it.”
But Spence wanted his pound of flesh for every wound she’d inflicted on his ego, and he pressed. “Oh, I can’t do that,” he said. “Some things are too serious to forget. Meg says I— What was that word you used?”
“Let it go,” she said, even as she knew he wouldn’t.
He snapped his fingers. “I remember. You said I assaulted you. Do I have that right, Meg?”
A murmur went up from the crowd. Kayla’s glossed lips grew slack. Zoey pressed her hand to her throat. More cells snapped open, and Meg fought down her nausea. “No, Spence, you don’t have it right,” she said woodenly.
“But that’s what I heard you say. What my daughter heard you say.” He jutted out his chin. “I remember going swimming with you yesterday, but I sure don’t remember any assault.”
Her jaw didn’t want to move. “You’re right,” she murmured. “I got it wrong.”
He shook his head. “How could you get something so serious wrong?”
He was going to hammer her into the ground. The only way she could win was by letting him win, and she struggled to hold herself together. “Easy. I was upset.”
“Hey there, everybody.”
The crowd turned in unison as their savior ambled forward. He’d arrived unnoticed because he’d been driving the dark gray Benz they all tended to forget he owned. He looked tired. “What’s going on here?” he said. “A party I forgot about?”
“I’m afraid not.” Even as Spence frowned, she could see he was reveling in the power he held over all of them. “I sure am glad you showed up, Ted. It seems we have an unanticipated problem.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Spence rubbed his jaw where the day’s stubble cast a blue-black shadow. “It’s going to be hard for me to do business in a town where a person can go around throwing out false accusations and getting away with it.”
He wasn’t going to cancel the deal. Meg didn’t believe it. Not with Sunny giving him those pleading glances. Not with an entire town lined up to fawn over him. He was playing a cat-and-mouse game, flexing his muscle by humiliating her and letting them all see who was in charge.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Spence,” Ted said. “I guess misunderstandings can happen anywhere. The good thing about Wynette is that we try to fix our troubles before they get too big to cause problems. Let me see if I can’t help straighten this out.”
“I don’t know, Ted.” Spence gazed toward the empty landfill. “Something like this is going to be hard to get past. Everybody’s counting on me to sign those contracts tomorrow, but I can’t imagine that happening with this false accusation hanging over me.”
Tense murmurs rippled through the crowd. Sunny didn’t see through her father’s game, and her face was a picture of dismay as she envisioned her future with Ted slipping away. “Dad, we need to talk about this privately.”
Mr. Cool pulled off his ball cap and scratched his head. Did anyone but her see his weariness? “You have to do what you think is right, that’s for sure, Spence. But I’m betting I can help fix this if you’ll just tell me what the problem is.”
Meg couldn’t stand it any longer. “I’m the problem,” she declared. “I insulted Spence, and now he wants to punish the town for it. But you don’t have to do that, Spence, because I’m leaving Wynette. I’d be gone by now if Sunny hadn’t stopped me.”
Ted shoved his hat back on his head, and even as he glared at her, his voice was calm. “Meg, why don’t you let me handle this?”
But Spence was out for blood. “You think you can just drive away with no harm done after making such a serious accusation in front of my daughter? That doesn’t work for me.”
“Now hold on here,” Ted said. “How about we start at the beginning?”
“Yes, Meg,” Spence sneered. “Why don’t we do that?”
She couldn’t look at Ted, so she focused on Spence. “I’ve admitted that I lied. You were a perfect gentleman. There was no assault. I . . . made the whole thing up.”
Ted spun on her. “Spence assaulted you?”
“That’s what she told my daughter.” Spence’s words dripped with contempt. “She’s a liar.”
“You assaulted her?” Ted’s eyes blazed. “You son of a bitch.” With no more warning than that, Mr. Cool launched himself at the town’s last great hope.
A gasp of stunned disbelief went up from the crowd. The plumbing king sprawled to the ground, his Panama hat rolling away in the dirt. Meg was so shocked she couldn’t move. Sunny let out a strangled scream, and everyone stood in frozen horror as their unflappable mayor—their very own Prince of Peace—grabbed Spencer Skipjack by the collar of his dress shirt and dragged him back to his feet.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Ted shouted in his face, his own features twisting in dark fury.
Spence lashed out with his foot, catching Ted in the leg and sending them both tumbling back into the dirt.
It was all a bad dream.
A bad dream that turned into a full-fledged nightmare as two familiar figures emerged from the crowd.
She was imagining them. It couldn’t be. She blinked, but the awful vision wouldn’t go away.
Her parents. Fleur and Jake Koranda. Staring at her with appalled faces.
They couldn’t be here. Not without telling her they were coming. Not here at the landfill witnessing the greatest personal disaster of her life.
She blinked again, but they were still standing there, with Francesca and Dallie Beaudine right behind them. Her mother, gloriously beautiful. Her father—tall, craggy, and ready to spring.
The brawlers were on their feet, then back on the ground. Spence had Ted by a good fifty pounds, but Ted was stronger, more agile, and fueled by an anger that had transformed him into a man she didn’t recognize.
Torie clutched her sarong. Kenny released a blistering obscenity. Kayla started to cry. And Francesca tried to run to the aid of her precious baby boy only to have her husband snatch her back.
No one, however, thought to restrain Sunny, who wouldn’t let any man, not even the one she fancied herself in love with, attack her beloved father. “Daddy!” With a cry, she threw herself on Ted’s back.
It was more than Meg could stand. “Get off him!”
She ran to intercede, slipped in the gravel, and fell on Sunny, trapping Ted beneath them both. Spence took advantage of Ted’s temporary captivity and sprang to his feet. Meg watched with alarm as he drew his leg back to kick Ted in the head. With her own shriek of rage, she twisted to her side and slammed into him, knocking him off balance. As he fell, she grabbed Sunny by the back of her designer blouse. Ted would never hit a woman, but Meg possessed no such scruples.
Torie and Shelby Traveler eventually pulled Meg off a sobbing Sunny, but the town’s peace-loving mayor was out for blood, and it took three men to restrain him. He wasn’t the only one being held back. Meg’s mother, Skeet, Francesca, and the fire chief all had to work together to contain her father.
A vein throbbed in the side of Ted’s neck as he struggled to free himself so he could finish what he’d started. “You even think about going near her again, and you’ll regret it.”
“You’re crazy!” Spence shouted. “You’re all crazy!”
Ted’s lips thinned with contempt. “Get out of here.”
Spence snatched his hat from the ground. Oily hanks of black hair hung over his forehead. One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut, and his nose was bleeding. “This town always needed me more than I ever needed it.” He slapped his hat against his leg. “While you’re watching this place rot, Beaudine, think about what you gave up.” He slammed his hat on his head and gazed at Meg, his expression venomous. “Think about how much that nobody cost you.”
“Daddy . . .” Sunny’s dirty blouse was torn, she had a scraped arm and a scratch over her cheek, but he was too wrapped up in his own rage to give her the comfort she craved.
“You could have had it all,” he said, blood trickling from his nostril. “And you gave it up for a lying bitch.”
Only her mother throwing herself at her father kept him from leaping on Spence, while the men holding Ted back nearly lost their struggle to contain him. Dallie sauntered forward, his eyes steel blue chips. “I advise you to get out of here while you can, Spence, because all it’ll take from me is a nod, and those ol’ boys keeping Ted from finishing the job he started out to do are going to let him go.”
Spence took in the sea of hostile faces and began backing toward the cars. “Come on, Sunny,” he said with a bravado that didn’t ring true. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”
“You’re the loser, asshole!” Torie called out. “I could hit a five-iron better than you when I was in junior high. And, Sunny, you’re a stuck-up bitch.”
Father and daughter, sensing they could have an angry mob on their heels, rushed to their cars and threw themselves inside. As they drove away, one set of eyes after another landed on Meg. She felt their anger, saw their despair. None of this would ever have happened if she’d left town when they’d wanted her to.
Somehow she managed to keep her head up, even as she blinked back tears. Her exquisite mother, all six feet of her, began coming toward her, moving with the authority that had once carried her down the world’s greatest runways. The crowd’s attention had been so focused on the unfolding calamity that no one had noticed the strangers in their midst, but the Glitter Baby’s stripy blond hair, dramatic marking-pen eyebrows, and wide mouth made her instantly recognizable to everyone over thirty, and a buzz went up. Then Meg’s father moved to her mother’s side, and the buzz stopped as the onlookers tried to absorb the astonishing fact that the legendary Jake Koranda had stepped off the silver screen to walk among them.
Meg took them in with an unhappy combination of love and despair. How could someone as ordinary as herself be the offspring of these two magnificent creatures?
But her parents never got close to her because Ted had lost it. “Everybody get the hell out of here!” he exclaimed. “Everybody!” For some inexplicable reason, he included her parents in his proclamation. “You, too.”
Meg wanted nothing more than to leave and never come back, but she had no car, and she couldn’t bear the idea of riding back with her parents before she’d had a chance to pull herself together. Torie seemed to be her best option, and she cast a beseeching look in her direction only to have Ted’s arm shoot out. “You stay right where you are.”
Each word had a jagged edge and icy point. He wanted a final showdown, and after all this, he deserved it.
Her father took Ted’s measure, then turned to her. “Do you have a car here?”
When she shook her head, he pulled out his keys and tossed them at her. “We’ll hitch a ride back to town and wait for you at the inn.”
One person after another began moving away. No one wanted to defy Ted, not even his mother. Francesca and Dallie led Meg’s parents to their Cadillac. As the cars began to leave, Ted walked toward the rusted sign, where he gazed out over the vast stretch of tainted land now stripped of all its future promise. His shoulders slumped. She’d done this to him. Not intentionally, but she’d done it all the same by staying in Wynette when every sign pointed to the absolute necessity of her leaving. Then she’d compounded her stupidity by falling so absurdly in love with the man least likely to love her back. Her self-indulgence had led to this moment where everything had fallen apart.
The sun hung low in the sky, etching his profile in fire. The last car disappeared, but it was as if she’d ceased to exist, and he didn’t move. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she forced herself to go to him. “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
She lifted her hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, but he caught her wrist before she could touch him. “Was that hot enough for you?”
“What?”
“You think I don’t feel things.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “That I’m some kind of robot.”
“Oh, Ted . . . That’s not what I meant.”
“Because you’re a drama queen, you’re the only one who’s allowed to have feelings, is that right?”
This wasn’t the conversation they needed to have. “Ted, I never meant for you to get caught up in this thing with Spence.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let him get away with assaulting you?”
“He didn’t exactly do that. I don’t honestly know what would have happened if Haley hadn’t shown up. He—”
“I sweat!” he exclaimed, which made no sense at all. “You said I never sweat.”
What was he talking about? She tried again. “I was alone at the swimming hole when he showed up. I asked him to leave, and he wouldn’t. It got nasty.”
“And the son of a bitch paid for it.” He grabbed her arm. “Two months ago I was getting ready to marry another woman. Why can’t you cut me some slack? Just because you jumped off the deep end doesn’t mean I have to jump right in, too.”
She was used to reading his mind, but not this time. “What exactly do you mean by ‘jump off the deep end’?”
His mouth twisted in scorn. “Fall in love.”
The words were so contemptuously uttered, they should have left blisters on his lips. She pulled away and took a step back. “I’d hardly call falling in love ‘jumping off the deep end.’ ”
“Then exactly what would you call it? I was ready to spend the rest of my life with Lucy. The rest of my life! Why can’t you get that?”
“I get it. I just don’t understand why we’re talking about this now, after what just happened.”
“Of course you don’t.” His face had gone pale. “You don’t understand anything about reasonable behavior. You think you know me so well, but you don’t know anything about me.”
One more woman who thought she understood Ted Beaudine . . .
Before she could get them back on track, he resumed his attack. “You brag about how you’re all emotion. Well, a big frigging round of applause. I’m not like that. I want things to make sense, and if that’s a sin in your eyes, then tough.”
It was as if he’d suddenly started spouting a foreign language. She understood his words, but not the context. Why weren’t they talking about the part she’d played in the disaster with Spence?
He swiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You say you love me. What does that even mean? I loved Lucy, and look how meaningless that turned out to be.”
“You loved Lucy?” She didn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.
“Five minutes after I met her, I knew she was the one. She’s smart. She’s easy to be with. She cares about helping people, and she understands what it’s like to live in a fishbowl. My friends loved her. My parents loved her. We wanted the same things out of life. And I’ve never been more wrong about anything.” His voice faltered. “You expect me to forget all that? You expect me to snap my fingers and make all that go away?”
“That’s not fair. You acted as if she didn’t matter. You didn’t seem to care.”
“Of course I cared! Just because I don’t go around broadcasting every emotion doesn’t mean I don’t feel them. You said I broke your heart. Well, she broke mine.”
A pulse ticked in his throat. She felt as if he’d slapped her. How could she not have known this? She’d been convinced he hadn’t loved Lucy, but the opposite was true. “I wish I’d realized,” she heard herself say. “I didn’t understand.”
He made a harsh, dismissive gesture. “And then you came along. With all your mess and all your demands.”
“I never made a single demand!” she exclaimed. “You’re the one who made demands, right from the beginning. Telling me what I could and couldn’t do. Where I could work. Where I could live.”
“Who are you kidding?” he said roughly. “Everything about you is a demand. Those big eyes—blue one minute, green the next. The way you laugh. Your body. Even that dragon tattooed on your butt. You demand everything of me. And then you criticize what you get.”
“I never—”
“The hell you didn’t.” He moved so quickly she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he jerked her against him and shoved his hands under her short cotton skirt, pushing it to her waist, grabbing her bottom. “You think this isn’t a demand?”
“I—hope so,” she said in a voice so small she barely recognized it.
But he was already dragging her to the side of the gravel lane. He didn’t even allow her the courtesy of the backseat of his car. Instead, he pulled her down into a patch of sandy soil.
With only the blazing sun above them, he tangled his hands in her panties, tossed them away, and splayed her legs on each side of his hips. As he reared back on his heels, the sun fell hot on the vulnerable inner skin of her thighs. He never took his eyes off the moist softness he’d exposed even as his hands went to his zipper. He was out of control, this man of logic and reason. Stripped of his gentleman’s veneer.
The shadow of his body blocked the sun. He opened his jeans. She could have yelled at him to stop—could have pushed him off—could have smacked him in the head and told him to snap out of it. He would have. She knew that. But she didn’t. He’d gone wild, and she wanted to race into the unknown with him.
He reached under her and angled her hips so she had to take all of him. No drawn-out foreplay, no painstaking torment and exquisite teasing. Only his own need.
Something sharp scraped her leg . . . A rock dug into her spine . . . With a dark moan, he drove into her. As his weight pressed her into the ground, he shoved up her top and bared her breasts. His beard scraped her tender skin. An awful tenderness filled her as he used her body. Without courtesy, without restraint or civility. He was a fallen angel, consumed by darkness, and he took no care with her at all.
She shut her eyes against the blinding sun as he pumped inside her. Gradually, the wildness that had claimed him claimed her as well, but it happened too late. With a hoarse cry, he bared his teeth. And then he flooded her.
The harsh sound of his breathing rasped in her ears. His weight pushed the air from her lungs. Finally, he fell off her with a moan. And then everything was still.
This was what she’d wanted since the first time they’d made love. To break through his control. But the cost to him had been too great, and as he came back to himself, she saw exactly what she knew she’d see. A good man stricken by remorse.
“Don’t say it!” She slapped her hand over his bruised mouth. Slapped his jaw. “Don’t say it!”
“Jesus . . .” He scrambled to his feet. “I can’t . . . I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Jesus, Meg . . .”
As he pulled his clothes together, she jumped up next to him, shoved her skirt down. His face was twisted, agonized. She couldn’t bear to hear his tormented apology for being human instead of a demigod. She had to do something quickly, so she poked him hard in the chest. “Now that’s what I’ve been talking about all along.”
But he’d gone pale, and her attempt at deflection fell flat. “I can’t—I can’t believe I did that to you.”
She wouldn’t give up so easily. “Could you do it again? Maybe a little slower this time, but not much.”
It was as if he didn’t hear her. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
She hid behind bravado. “You’re boring me, Theodore, and I have things to do.” First she’d try to give him back his self-respect. Then she had to face her parents. After that? She needed to turn her back on this town forever.
She grabbed her panties and adopted a cockiness she was far from feeling. “I realize I have managed to royally screw up the future of Wynette, so stop messing around here and do what you do best. Start cleaning up other people’s messes. Find Spence before he gets away. Tell him you lost your mind. Say that everybody in town knows I’m unreliable, but you still let yourself get sucked in. Then apologize for fighting with him.”
“I don’t give a damn about Spence,” he said flatly.
His words struck terror in her heart. “You will. You really, really will. Please. Do what I say.”
“Is that asshole all you can think about? After what just happened . . .”
“Yes. And it’s all I want you to think about. Here’s the thing . . . I need an undying declaration of love from you, and you’re never going to be able to give me that.”
Frustration, regret, impatience—she saw them all in his eyes. “It’s too fast, Meg. It’s too damned—”
“You’ve been more than clear.” She cut him off before he could say any more. “And no big guilt trip after I go. To be honest, I fall in and out of love fairly quickly. It won’t take me long to get over you.” She was talking too fast. “There was this guy named Buzz. I went through a good six weeks feeling sorry for myself, but, honestly, you’re no Buzz.”
“What do you mean, after you go?”
She swallowed. “Strangest thing, but Wynette’s lost its appeal. I’m taking off as soon as I talk to my parents. And aren’t you glad you don’t have to be around to witness that conversation?”
“I don’t want you to leave. Not yet.”
“Why not?” She studied him, looking for some sign she might have missed. “What am I supposed to stay around for?”
He made an odd gesture of helplessness. “I—I don’t know. Just stay.”
The fact that he wouldn’t meet her eyes told her everything. “Can’t do it, pal. I—just can’t.”
It was strange to see Ted Beaudine look so vulnerable. She pressed her lips to the undamaged corner of his mouth and hurried to the car that her ever-thoughtful parents had left for her. As she drove away, she allowed herself one last glance in the rearview mirror.
He stood in the middle of the road, watching her leave. Behind him, the vast wasteland of the landfill extended as far as the eye could see.