She opened the door. “Yes?”
“I understand why you did it,” Meg said. “I’m asking you to undo it.”
Francesca pulled off the half-glasses but didn’t budge. Meg had briefly entertained the notion that Sunny had been responsible, but this was an emotional act, not a calculated one. “I have work to do,” Francesca said.
“Thanks to you, I don’t.” She stared down the green icicles shooting from Francesca’s eyes. “I like my job. Embarrassing to admit, since it’s hardly a big-time career, but I’m good at it.”
“Interesting, but as I said, I’m busy.”
Meg refused to move. “Here’s the thing. I want my job back. In exchange, I won’t rat you out to your son.”
Francesca displayed her first trace of wariness. After a short pause, she stepped aside just far enough to let Meg in. “You want to deal? All right, let’s do that.”
Family photos filled the office. One of the most prominent showed a younger Dallie Beaudine celebrating a tournament win by lifting Francesca off her feet. She hung above him, a lock of her hair tumbling over her cheek, a silver earring brushing her jaw, her feet bare, and one very feminine red sandal balanced on the top of his golf shoe. There were also photos of Francesca with Dallie’s first wife, the actress Holly Grace Jaffe. But most of the pictures were of a young Ted. They showed a skinny, homely boy with oversize glasses, pants pulled up nearly to his armpits, and a solemn, studious expression as he posed with model rockets, science fair projects, and his father.
“Lucy loved those pictures.” Francesca settled behind her desk.
“I’ll bet.” Meg decided on a little shock treatment. “I got her permission before I slept with your son. And her blessing. She’s my best friend. I’d never have done something like that behind her back.”
Francesca hadn’t expected that. For a moment, her face seemed to collapse, and then her chin came up.
Meg plunged on. “I’ll spare you any more details about your son’s sex life except to say he’s safe with me. I have no illusions about marriage, babies, or settling into Wynette forever.”
Francesca scowled, not as relieved by that statement as she should have been. “Of course you don’t. You’re a live-for-the-moment person, aren’t you?”
“In a way. I don’t know. Not so much as I used to be.”
“Ted’s been through enough. He doesn’t need you messing up his life right now.”
“I’ve noticed a lot of people in this town have strong ideas about what they think Ted needs and doesn’t need.”
“I’m his mother. I’m fairly clear on the subject.”
Here came the tricky part, not that it had been exactly smooth sailing so far. “I guess an outsider, someone without preconceived notions, sees a person a little differently from those who’ve known him for a long time.” She picked up a photo of a very young Ted with the Statue of Liberty in the background. “Ted is brilliant,” she went on. “Everybody knows that. And he’s wily. A lot of people know that, too. He has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. He can’t help that. But here’s what most people, especially the women who fall for him, don’t seem to notice. Ted intellectualizes what most people process emotionally.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She set down the photo. “He doesn’t get swept away in romantic relationships like other people do. He adds up the pros and cons in some kind of mental ledger and acts accordingly. That’s what happened with Lucy. They fit together in his ledger.”
Outrage propelled Francesca from her chair. “Are you saying that Ted didn’t love Lucy? That he doesn’t feel things deeply?”
“He feels a lot of things very deeply. Injustice. Loyalty. Responsibility. Your son is one of the smartest and most morally upright people I’ve ever met. But he’s totally practical about emotional relationships.” The more she spoke, the more depressed she got. “That’s what women don’t pick up on. They want to sweep him off his feet, but he’s not sweepable. Lucy’s decision traumatized you more than him.”
Francesca shot around the side of the desk. “This is what you want to believe. You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“I’m not a threat, Mrs. Beaudine,” she said more quietly. “I’m not going to break his heart or try to trick him into marriage. I’m not going to hang on to him. I’m a safe place to stash your son until a more appropriate woman comes along.” That hurt a lot more than she wanted it to, but she somehow managed a carefree shrug. “I’m your dream girl. And I want my job back.”
Francesca had herself under control again. “You can’t really see a future in doing menial work at a small-town country club.”
“I like it. Who knew, right?”
Francesca picked up a notepad from her desk. “I’ll get you a job in L.A. New York. San Francisco. Wherever you want. A good job. What you do with it is up to you.”
“Thanks, but I’ve gotten used to getting things for myself.”
Francesca set down the notepad and twisted her wedding ring, finally looking uncomfortable. Several more seconds ticked by. “Why didn’t you take your grievance against me straight to Ted?”
“I like to fight my own battles.”
Francesca’s brief moment of vulnerability vanished, and steel took over her spine. “He’s been through enough. I don’t want him hurt again.”
“Trust me when I tell you that I’m not important enough for that ever to happen.” Another painful pang. “I’m his rebound girl. I’m also the only woman, other than Torie, that he can be bad-tempered with. It’s restful for him. As for me . . . He’s a nice break from the losers I generally hook up with.”
“You’re certainly pragmatic.”
“Like I said. I’m your dream girl.” Somehow she managed a cocky smile, but as she left the office and headed back across the courtyard her bravado faded. She was sick of feeling unworthy.
When she showed up for work the next day, no one seemed to remember that she’d been fired. Ted stopped by her drink cart. True to her word, she didn’t mention what had happened or his mother’s part in it.
The day turned blistering hot, and by the time she got home that evening, she was a sweaty, sodden mess. She couldn’t wait to get to the swimming hole. She pulled her polo over her head as she walked past the battered old table that held her jewelry supplies. One of the ecology books she’d borrowed from Ted lay open on the worn couch. In the kitchen, a stack of dirty dishes waited for her in the sink. She kicked off her sneakers and opened the bathroom door.
All the blood drained from her head as she saw what was scrawled across the mirror in a vicious smear of crimson lipstick.
GO AWAY
Chapter Fifteen
Her hands shook as she tried to scrub the words away, and queer little sounds escaped from her throat.
GO AWAY
Leaving lipstick messages on mirrors was the biggest cliché in the world, something that only a person with no imagination would do. She needed to get a grip. But knowing an intruder had sneaked into her house when she was gone and touched her things made her nauseated. She didn’t stop shaking until she’d erased the awful words and searched the church for other signs of invasion. She found nothing.
As her panic faded, she tried to imagine who had done this, but there were so many potential candidates she couldn’t sort through them all. The front door had been locked. The back door was locked now, but she hadn’t checked it before she’d left. For all she knew, the intruder had gotten in that way, then locked it afterward. She pulled her damp polo back on, went outside, and walked around the church but found nothing unusual.
She finally took her shower, darting nervous glances at the open door as she washed. She hated being frightened. Hated it even more when Ted loomed without warning in the open doorway, and she screamed.
“Jesus!” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“I knocked.”
“
How was I supposed to hear?” She jerked off the faucet.
“When did you get so skittish?”
“You took me by surprise, that’s all.” She couldn’t tell him. She knew that right away. His status as a certified superhero meant he’d refuse to let her live here alone any longer. She couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, and she wasn’t letting him pay rent on another place. Besides, she loved her church. Maybe not at this precise moment, but she would again, as soon as she got over being creeped out.
He pulled a towel from the new Viceroy towel rack, Edinburgh line, that she’d recently installed. But instead of giving it to her, he draped it over his shoulder.
She held out her hand, even though she had a pretty good idea what was coming. “Give me that.”
“Come and get it.”
She wasn’t in the mood. Except, of course she was because this was Ted standing in front of her, steady and sexy and smarter than any man she’d known. What better way to shake off her remaining jumpiness than to lose herself in lovemaking that demanded so little of her?
She stepped out of the shower and pressed her wet body against him. “Give it your best shot, lover boy.”
He grinned and did exactly as she asked. Better than she’d asked. Each time he took more care and postponed his satisfaction longer. After it was over, she wrapped a sarong around herself with one of the silk pieces she’d worn to his rehearsal dinner, then retrieved beers for both of them from the twelve-pack he’d stashed in her refrigerator. He’d already pulled on his shorts, and he took a folded piece of paper from the pocket.
“I got this in the mail today.” He sat on the couch, one arm draped along the back, and crossed his ankles on an abandoned wooden wine crate she’d turned into a coffee table.
She took the paper from him and glanced down at the letterhead. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. He didn’t usually share the more mundane aspects of his mayoral job, and she sat on the arm of a wicker chair with faded tropical print cushions to read. Within seconds, she’d shot up only to discover her knees were too rubbery to hold her weight. She sank back into the cushions and reread the pertinent paragraph.
Texas Law requires that any person who tests positive for a sexually transmitted disease including, but not limited to, chlamydia, gonorhea, HPV, and AIDS, must provide a list of recent sexual partners. This is to notify you that Meg Koranda has listed you as one of these partners. You are urged to visit your physician immediately. You are also urged to cease all sexual contact with the above named infected person.
Meg gazed up at him, feeling sick. “Infected person?”
“Gonorrhea 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 lust 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 crap?”
“We spent a lot of time in Washington. And, frankly, Lucy didn’t rile people like you do.”
Meg came up off the chair. “Nobody 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 bumper 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 with him.
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 passage 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 sexual 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 attitude, 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 i
nto 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.”
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