“Really?” Holly laughed. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“That is not something you want to see. Trust me.” He turned toward Cady. “Okay, Sis. Time to go.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right. You know,” she said seriously, “I probably shouldn’t drive.”
“Good thinking.”
He reached into the back pocket of his jeans to retrieve his wallet, but Holly waved him off.
“That’s okay, I’ve got this.”
“You sure?” he asked doubtfully.
Holly assured him she was. He shrugged, took his hand from his pocket, and guided his sister toward the door.
Holly was standing at the bar, waiting for her change, and when she looked up she saw that Rob Lee had returned.
“Did she forget something?” Holly asked, her eyes searching the counter and barstools for dropped keys or an abandoned purse.
“No. I just didn’t . . . uh.” He sniffed, then plunged ahead, as if he’d made up his mind to just spit it out and get it over with. “I didn’t have a chance to finish telling you. The reason I wasn’t planning to stay is because I only came here looking for you. My aunt is throwing this big birthday party for me and Howard, you know, up in Dallas. And, anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to come with me, be my date.”
Holly beamed. She couldn’t help herself. When Cady had started in about Rob Lee liking her—even before Cady’s clumsy and truly mortifying matchmaking effort—Holly had made little of it because she just didn’t think he thought about her in that way. Sure, they had been seeing a lot of each other, but that was because of Stormy. The horse was the only thing they ever really talked about, and she was paying Rob Lee for his training time. She didn’t really think he was interested in her, not romantically.
She stopped herself right there, told herself not to get carried away. The man just needed a date for his birthday party. She’d heard Mary Dell talking about it; there was going to be food and champagne and a band, probably dancing. Of course Rob Lee didn’t want to go stag to something like that. He was the guest of honor, after all.
Right. It’s a date, not a proposal. Don’t make a fool of yourself.
She pressed her lips together, trying to moderate her enthusiasm a little.
“Yes. Sure. It sounds like fun.”
“Good, then. Thanks. I’d better take Cady home. You coming out to see Stormy tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there.”
He smiled again and lifted his hand. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
In the parking lot, fumbling through her purse in search of her keys, Holly decided that maybe this wasn’t turning out to be such a bad day after all and that she would give Stormy an extra couple of carrots as a reward for his part in making that happen. But then her phone rang yet again and those happy thoughts were crowded aside.
“No,” she snapped without even giving the caller time to speak, “for the fiftieth time, I have no comment.”
“Then you’d better come up with one,” Jason snapped right back in a voice seething with anger, “because you’d better have a damned good excuse for the way you’ve been acting. You and I had a deal, Holly. Remember? And if you don’t start living up to your end of the bargain, not only will I give the design show to somebody more cooperative, I’ll make sure you never work in television again.
“So, unless you’d like to see if your mom is willing to put in a good word for you with the cruise line—probably as a cocktail waitress, since you’ve got more tits than talent—you had better decide right now where your loyalties lie. You got that?”
CHAPTER 31
It was too late for her to go out to the ranch that night, but first thing the next morning, Holly drove to the F-Bar-T and told Mary Dell everything.
“I should have said something the very first day,” Holly said, clutching the coffee mug Taffy had handed her as soon as she sat down at the kitchen table.
“Baby girl, I didn’t need you to tell me that Jason was a scheming sidewinder,” Mary Dell said with a derisive laugh. “I figured that out about two minutes after meeting him.”
“Yeah, but I should have told you that Jason bribed me to sabotage Quintessential Quilting. I’m sorry.”
“But did you sabotage the show? No. Of course you didn’t. That’s just not who you are,” Mary Dell said, looking into Holly’s eyes with an almost motherly affection that made Holly feel almost worse—maybe because she missed her own mother.
“From the very first day,” Mary Dell went on, “you gave it your all. Because that is who you are—a hard worker and a team player. But I don’t blame you for wanting to land that design show, baby girl. Why wouldn’t you? There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, not as long as you don’t compromise your character in pursuit of it—and you didn’t. You and I were pulling in the same direction from the first minute. And I don’t blame you for not telling me about Jason’s offer right off either. You didn’t know me or how I might react to that kind of news. It might have set me up against you and made me distrust you. Sometimes it’s wise to hold back a little, until you know who you’re dealing with.”
Mary Dell reached across the table and curved her hand over Holly’s, which was still wrapped around the coffee mug.
“Listen to me; when Jason the Sidewinder said you had to decide where your loyalties lay, that’s what you did. You picked the right path, the honest and loyal path. That’s the only thing that matters. So quit beating yourself up, all right?”
“Thanks.”
Mary Dell gave Holly’s hand one more pat and then picked up her own coffee mug. Taffy, who had been shuffling around the kitchen and listening in, refilled both of their cups and set a plate of homemade cinnamon rolls on the table.
“So that nasty Artie has been reporting everything back to Jason?” Taffy asked.
“Uh-huh,” Holly said, and after calculating how many extra miles she’d have to run to burn off one of those cinnamon rolls and deciding it was worth it, she took one from the plate. “I can’t say for sure, but I bet Jason tried to make the same kind of deal with Artie that he made with me—help him get rid of Quintessential Quilting and he’d give Artie a shot at directing something bigger later.”
Taffy pulled up a chair and sat down. “So you think he did all that crazy editing on purpose?”
“No, I’m with Mary Dell on that. I think he honestly thinks what he did was cool or edgy or something. He’s a terrible director,” Holly said. “And an even worse editor. I’m sure that’s why Jason picked him, because he knew how bad he was.
“But Artie has definitely been reporting back to him. Jason knew all about how we’d refused to use that confessional camera, and even repeated back exactly what we’d said when we told Artie we weren’t doing it. He knew a bunch of other stuff, too, like how I’d backed you up on the idea of shooting the opening segments on location, and how I come over here during the week so we can work together prepping the quilt projects and demonstrations. He knew a lot of stuff,” Holly said, “and it could only have come from Artie.”
Mary Dell, who had been gazing off into the distance with a kind of bewildered amazement during all this, looked at her mother and said, “So I was wrong when I said I thought Artie just wasn’t too bright. Turns out he’s dumb and evil. You still want me to invite him to dinner, Momma?”
“Of course I do,” Taffy said, her mouth half-filled with cinnamon roll. “Nothing has changed, Mary Dell. Artie is still the boss. Unless you’re just ready to throw up your hands and let him ruin your show, you’ve got to figure out a way to either win him over or get around him.”
“And you think feeding him a chicken dinner will do that?” she scoffed.
Taffy pushed back her chair, squinting a little as her beady blue eyes bored into her daughter’s. “You just do what I’m telling you to and invite Artie to dinner. You hear?”
CHAPTER 32
If Mary Dell’s confidence in the viability of her mother’s plan to resc
ue Quintessential Quilting had been plotted on a scale of one to one hundred, the result would have been a negative number. She only followed Taffy’s orders because she honestly didn’t think Artie would accept the dinner invitation, but, much to her consternation, he did and seemed to enjoy himself immensely, eating more food than Mary Dell could ever recall seeing one person consume in a single sitting.
Watching Artie eat, and eat, and eat some more—the movement of his fork-wielding arm between his plate and his mouth was as constant as the pumping of a piston in a steam engine—was disgusting, but also impressive in its own way, especially since he never, ever, ever stopped talking, not even while he was chewing, which added a whole new dimension to her disgust.
Mary Dell couldn’t decide if Artie was the most self-absorbed individual she’d ever met or the most insecure. After a while she ceased to care and just sat there staring at Artie’s incessantly moving jaw with a kind of glazed fascination, calculating the odds of him becoming satiated before they ran out of food, deciding they were slim.
Taffy, on the other hand, seemed delighted by Artie’s presence, practically simpering as she plied him with compliments and serving after serving after serving of her home-cooked food. Remembering what Dr. Gillespie had said about people who were getting older becoming more of what they’d always been—in Taffy’s case, a flirt—Mary Dell tried not to let it bother her, but it wasn’t easy. From her vantage point, Taffy’s fluttering and fussing over a man who was single-handedly destroying her career seemed like a case of aiding and abetting the enemy.
When Artie finished his second piece of buttermilk pie, saying it was the best dessert he’d ever had in his life, Taffy giggled like a schoolgirl and said she admired a big, healthy man with a big, healthy appetite, and Mary Dell thought she might lose her supper.
“Artie, I am just so delighted you were able to join us tonight,” Taffy said as she cleared his plate. “I never realized how difficult it is, directing a television show. The whole thing really rests on your shoulders, doesn’t it?”
“Well . . . ,” Artie said with a shrug, as if he was too modest to come right out and say that it was so.
“I am truly honored to have someone of your stature sitting at my table,” Taffy said, putting the dishes on the counter and walking to the refrigerator. “I hope you saved just a little more room, Artie. Because I made something special, just for you.”
Beaming a smile, Taffy set a medium-sized glass serving bowl directly in front of the burly director. “It’s my special ambrosia salad. An old family recipe handed down from my mother’s mother.”
Now Mary Dell really thought she would be sick, and not just from the way that Taffy was sucking up to Artie. The sight of still more food literally made her nauseous.
“Momma, another dessert? We’re all about ready to burst.”
“It’s not for you,” Taffy replied haughtily before turning her eyes to their guest. “I made this just for Artie.”
She batted her eyelashes and handed him a spoon. Artie demurred, saying he didn’t know if he could eat another bite, then proved himself wrong by eating the whole thing, even scraping the spoon against the bowl to get to the last bits of the whipped cream and maraschino cherries.
Early the next morning, on her way to the kitchen for breakfast, Mary Dell passed the hallway bathroom and heard the sound of someone being violently and repeatedly sick.
“Artie?” She knocked on the door. “Artie, is that you? Are you all right?”
The noise stopped. She heard the toilet flush and the sound of a man panting, trying very hard to catch his breath and compose himself.
“Yeah. It’s me. Oh God . . . ,” he said, in a way that sounded more like a prayer for help than an utterance of blasphemy. “God. I’ve never been this sick. I don’t know what’s wrong. Must be some kind of bug or—”
Mary Dell heard a groan and the sound of more violent and sustained retching. It was terrible. She actually felt sorry for him.
After another brief conversation through the bathroom door, their exchange cut short by still more nausea, Mary Dell went into the kitchen and found Taffy, already dressed and standing at the stove, frying eggs.
“Poor Artie,” Mary Dell said as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “He’s in the bathroom vomiting like a volcano. I’ve never heard anybody throw up that many times. He can’t direct the show today; that’s for sure. But I’m really worried about him. I wonder if we should call a doctor.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Taffy said breezily. “Must have been something he ate. It’ll wear off in a few hours.” Taffy scraped her spatula against the bottom of the cast-iron skillet, flipped over the eggs, and started humming a happy tune. Something about the self-satisfied smiled raised Mary Dell’s suspicions.
“Momma, tell me you did not poison Artie’s dinner.”
Taffy put her hand on her hip, offended. “Of course not! The dinner was fine, same thing I served to the rest of the family and ate myself. I was willing to give him a chance, see if there might not be a way to bring him over to your side. But you were right, Mary Dell; the man is dumb as a post and nasty to boot. The more he talked, the more I could see it was a lost cause. There was no help for it,” she said. “I had to bring out the ambrosia.”
“Oh, my Lord! Momma, you poisoned the ambrosia! You actually did it on purpose?”
“Well, I should hope you wouldn’t think I did it by accident. I’d like to think I’m a better cook than that! Oh, quit looking at me that way,” Taffy said, flapping her hand in Mary Dell’s direction. “And stop saying ‘poison.’ Goodness. A little ipecac never hurt anybody. You make it sound like I was trying to kill him.”
Mary Dell threw out an arm, gesturing toward the hallway, where the sound of retching could be heard faintly in the distance. “You just about have! Do you hear that?”
Taffy slid the eggs onto a plate, sat down, and started to eat without offering anything to Mary Dell.
“Don’t be so dramatic. I told you; it’ll wear off. In a while.” She paused, fork halfway to her mouth, cocked an ear toward the bathroom, and frowned. “Though I do have to say, I never figured on him eating the whole bowl. Oh, well. Serves him right for being a glutton.”
Mary Dell sank into a kitchen chair. “This is terrible. What should I do?”
“What do you mean, what should you do? It’s Monday morning. You’re going to drive over to the quilt shop and film another two episodes of Quintessential Quilting, just like you do every Monday.
“Don’t worry,” Taffy said, calmly eating her eggs. “I’ll be here to keep an eye on Artie. I’ll call Dr. Gillespie if it gets too bad. I do think we’ll have to keep him here for a day or two, though, until he’s feeling stronger. Looks like somebody else is going to have to edit the video footage this week.”
Mary Dell stared at Taffy, thinking that Dr. Gillespie must have been wrong about her mother showing no signs of dementia.
“Momma, there’s not going to be any video footage this week. We don’t have a director, remember?”
Taffy dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Mary Dell,” she said pointedly, “you don’t seriously think Artie is such a talented director that somebody couldn’t jump in and fill his shoes, do you? I sat there for three solid hours listening to him yammer on about what it is he does, and it didn’t sound all that complicated to me. Especially for somebody who’s worked on a television show for the last seven years.”
Taffy got to her feet and started rinsing her breakfast plate. “Now, go finish getting dressed, honey. You’re going to be late for work.”
Mary Dell changed her opinion regarding her previous diagnosis. Taffy was definitely not a victim of dementia. Her actions were far too calculated to be caused by any mental deficit or deterioration—quite the opposite. Taffy was far more cunning and devious than Mary Dell had given her credit for. And a part of her kind of respected that.
“By the way,” Taffy said as Mary Dell left her coffe
e cup on the counter before heading back to her room, “I left some tissue paper outside your door so you can pack your party dress. Taffeta wrinkles so, and if you’re going up to Dallas to do the editing anyway, you might as well stay until the birthday party.
“Spend some time with Howard. And Hub-Jay.” Her blue eyes twinkled as she smiled. “He is such a nice man.”
CHAPTER 33
Before going out to see her horse, Holly stopped in to visit Artie, who was still in residence at the ranch, improved but not quite recovered from the mysterious “flu bug” that had laid him flat two days before.
Mary Dell had sworn her to secrecy regarding the true cause of Artie’s illness, but, after hearing the whole story, she couldn’t quite believe that Artie hadn’t figured it out for himself. However, after sitting at his bedside for fifteen minutes, chatting as a slightly pale-looking Artie consumed a bowl of Taffy’s homemade chicken noodle soup, it was obvious that he had no idea that the same woman who had made his soup had also purposely tainted his dessert, or rather, his second dessert.
On the contrary, Artie spoke of how well he was being looked after in his illness, how Taffy had brought him tea and broth and fluffed his pillows. He spoke, too, in a feeble whisper, of his gratitude to the cast and crew for carrying on in his absence, in spite of the burden this must have placed upon them. Considering the speed with which he was spooning soup into his mouth, Holly found his speech more than a little melodramatic.
Even so, she didn’t have the heart to tell him that not only had his absence not been a burden, the crew seemed to be more than a little relieved when they found out Artie was too sick to direct on Monday. Nor did she mention how, with Mary Dell discussing her concepts and desired camera work beforehand and Gina calling the shots during the actual taping, they’d wrapped up filming in record time, or that the entire crew had burst into spontaneous applause when Gina called out, “That’s a wrap!” at the end of the day, a thing that had never happened before on the set of Quintessential Quilting, at least not since Artie had been directing.
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