LaDawn grabbed her hand, her eyes flashing. “Stop. You stop right now. I won’t have this. I’ve been as good a friend as any to you, and I won’t let you hurt yourself or Tag like this. You do what you want with this information, but don’t behave like a spiteful child with it, and I’m not gonna let you leave it in our laps like that. I call unfair.”
“Tag is going to be Em’s brother-in-law, honey. It’s wrong to put her in the middle like this,” Dixie said.
They were right. It was wrong. It was unfair to ask them to make promises that only created more secrets. He could find out after she was gone. “Then just give me a day or so.”
“To do what?” LaDawn demanded with a tap of her glittery purple nail to the countertop.
To breathe, she wanted to scream. To process the entirety of the whole mess her life had once been. To pack up and leave Plum Orchard so she never had to see Tag again. “I just need to figure out how to go about exonerating myself—in the right way.”
“The right way?” Em asked, her tone full of caution.
Marybell ignored Em’s question. “Where is Tara-Anne?”
“She lives in Atlanta still. She’s married and has a little one. But she wants to see you, MB. She wants to apologize,” Dixie soothed.
“Okay. So just give me a day—to get my head together—and then you can tell Tag whatever you want. Please.”
Dixie nodded and then put a hand on LaDawn’s arm. “Could you ask Caine to prepare a bag for me? I’ll stay here with MB.”
Don’t! she almost yelled before sucking in a gulp of air. “I need...to be alone. Please just let me be alone.”
She watched as they all passed concerned looks at each other before Em said, “You don’t have to be alone anymore, MB. We’re here. Let us help you. Please let us help.”
No. No one could help this empty hole in her stomach, the numb, almost out-of-body feeling. Marybell forced herself to soften her tone. These were people that loved her, and she wanted to honor that, but if she didn’t get some time to herself, she’d crawl right out of her skin.
“I know you’re here. If y’all knew how much I’ve appreciated that, you’d double over with the weight of my gratitude. But I was alone for a long time, and even though I know I can count on you at a moment’s notice, I need time to wrap my head around this.”
LaDawn finally smiled and bobbed her platinum head. “Without all our mindless yappin’.”
Dixie gathered her in a hug so hard she had to squeeze her eyes shut. “You call me, understand? I won’t have you alone if you need me. Doesn’t matter what time.”
Marybell nodded, reaching for Em and LaDawn and squeezing them, too.
“You heard Dixie,” Em said, rubbing circles on her back. “Doesn’t matter what time.”
“Thank you. Thank you all. I...” She couldn’t finish the words. She didn’t always know how to express her gratitude, but if she knew what the words were to express how important their faith in her was, she’d use them.
“Say no more,” LaDawn soothed. “You rest now, sugar. Enjoy a free day from all that slop on your face.”
And with those words, they were gone in clusters of varied perfumes and high heels, and there was nothing left but the silence and the ringing in her ears.
* * *
“Tara-Anne?” Marybell fought to keep her voice calm, to keep her anger in check.
“Carson.” There was fear in her reply, the kind of fear she’d lived with for years now. That she’d be found out. That the nightmare would start all over again.
Marybell clutched the phone in her hand. “Are you all right? You, your husband, the baby?”
She choked on her next words. “I can’t believe you’d ask me that. I don’t deserve it. I don’t.”
Marybell shook her head as though Tara-Anne were in the room with her. No recriminations, no apologies. Just an answer after all this time. She needed to hear it from her mouth. “I just want to know one thing, and that’s all.”
“Anything. Anything. I’m sorry, Carson. I can’t ever tell you how sorry I really am.”
Marybell couldn’t hear apologies. How did you apologize for taking so much from a person? For stealing the very life out of her? “Why?” She had to stuff a fist in her mouth to keep from screeching the question.
“I was jealous. I was so sick with jealousy I couldn’t see straight. I want to blame that on youth or stupidity, but it was just a blind rage. He’d made so many promises to me for so long. Then to see you two... I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t do anything but see all sorts of colors. And the next day, I found the sleaziest reporter I could, one who was hanging around Leon’s office, hoping to get a scoop, and I handed him the picture of you, took his money once he verified it wasn’t altered and sent you off to slaughter like... I had no idea...” Her hoarse words cracked, her voice rose. “Oh, my God, Carson. I had no idea!”
A blanket of peace fell over her. As easy as a feather, fluttering to the ground. “Okay.”
“Then you disappeared, and I thought surely you’d run off with Leon, and I sat in my anger and waded through my money, and then I saw the news last week and how you lived for so long and...God forgive me, Carson, I’m sorry!” she screamed, ragged and raw, her sobs rising, her baby crying in the background.
Peace. Somehow she found peace in Tara-Anne’s words. In her remorse, the hysteria in her words, the panic. “It’s okay.”
“Okay?” Her voice cracked with disbelief. “No! None of this is okay, Carson! I’ve lived with the guilt of this for so long that when your friends found me, it was almost a relief. If you’ll just let me tell my husband and family, let me gather my thoughts, I’ll make this right.”
“No, Tara-Anne! Don’t. Don’t ever tell another livin’ soul, or if you have to, only tell someone you can truly trust. Your secret’s safe with me and my friends. I promise you. Don’t do it.”
Tara-Anne inhaled with a sharp wheeze. “I have to, Carson. You’ve been persecuted for so long, and now there’ve been Leon sightings. I can’t let them chase you like this anymore. I won’t.”
No more. “Don’t do it. It’ll ruin your baby’s life forever. I don’t want that. I want you to go right on doing what you’ve always done, but please don’t go to the press. You have no idea what it’s like.” She bit back a sob. “I don’t want the baby hurt. I don’t want you hurt.” No more hurt.
“I...I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say goodbye. Don’t thank me. Don’t apologize to me. Just say goodbye and know that I’ll go to my grave with this.”
There was a long pause, one Marybell was certain was steeped in indecision before she whispered in a trembling phrase, “Goodbye, Carson.”
Marybell hung up the phone, her hands shaking, but the burden of betrayal so much less like an anchor in her chest.
Twenty-One
When she woke the next morning, the empty hole in her stomach hadn’t lessened, but her resolve was beginning to fill it.
As the day went on, and she packed as much as she thought she could fit into her car, she realized the drone of voices outside her door was virtually gone. Venturing a quick peek outside the window, she noted her security was still present but not a car in sight.
She went to the door and opened it. “They’re gone?” she squeaked to the nearest guard. Everything the reporters had trampled had been replaced; all the lawn ornaments Blanche was so fond of were returned to their rightful places.
Blanche sent her a wave from just behind one immense guard. “How are you, dear?”
Marybell didn’t know what to say. Blanche almost never spoke to her. “Fine, Miss...Miss Blanche, and you?” No way could she keep the disbelief out of her voice.
“May I come in?”
As in inside her apartment? The security guard stepped aside while Blanche waited for permission. “Um...yes. I mean yes.”
Blanche smiled at her, but her smile turned to something else when she saw the boxes stacked up.
There hadn’t been much to pack in the way of possessions, but it added up. “You’re leavin’?” She breathed the question.
That tug on Marybell’s heart tugged harder. “Yes. I was going to give you notice just after I found a safe way out of here, but everyone’s gone.”
“Mmm,” Blanche hummed, tucking her purse under her arm. “I hear they think they’ve found that Leon—somewhere in Idaho was the last bit of speculation. Guess he’s bigger fish to fry ’n you, but it won’t be long before they’re back, beatin’ on your door. For now, they’ve all gone off to chase a new story.”
Marybell’s eyes flew open wide. Idaho? “But...”
Blanche patted her arm in motherly fashion. “That means you’re no longer the story. So you won’t need to give me notice, dear.”
No. Even if they’d truly found Leon, she couldn’t stay here with Tag. She couldn’t. Plum Orchard was too small; her heart was too battered. “No, Miss Blanche. I won’t be stayin’, but thank you for rentin’ me the apartment. I know Caine talked you into it, but I appreciated it just the same.”
Blanche adjusted her purse in the crook of her elbow, her eyes inquisitive. “So you’re just gonna run off? Why would you do that when you have a perfectly fine life right here?”
“But you hate us—me...” She felt as if she’d just been dropped into an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Blanche sighed, her face softening. “I don’t hate you. That’s not to say I approve of what y’all are doin’ back there in the guesthouse, but I don’t hate you.”
“But you picketed...”
“I’m weak, Marybell. So weak, I’m too afraid to speak out against the Mags. But I admire you. The way you’ve shown us bunch o’ biddies what’s what. We talk a big game, but not all of us feel like Louella and Kitty do. Some of us are just too pathetic to buck a system that’s been in place longer than you’ve been on this earth. I don’t admire that trait in myself, but that’s the plain truth of it. So before you go off thinkin’ it’s better for you to run away, maybe you should keep right on takin’ that stand you took when you were wearin’ the devil’s uniform.” She turned on her heel and began to leave, but not before she said, “Good luck, dear.”
Marybell stood in the middle of her apartment, her mouth wide-open. Blanche Carter had just given her the thumbs-up.
And the press was off looking for Leon in Idaho.
This was definitely an episode of The Twilight Zone.
* * *
“That was Gage drivin’ through town like Coon Ryder was pointin’ his old double-barrel at him, pretending to be you?” Dixie asked, her red eyes full of disbelief.
At Tag’s request, they’d convened at Call Girls and gathered around the break room table.
To keep the press at bay long enough for Tag to get out of the house and institute “the plan” to win MB back, Jax and Gage had come up with the plan to send Gage out as a decoy, leading the press on a wild-goose chase. He looked enough like Tag to pull it off from a distance. Gordy playing Marybell had taken some convincing, though.
Tag directed his nod at Dixie. “Yep. It was Gage’s idea, too. He figured if he could get the press to believe Gordy was Marybell, and Gage was me, he could get them to follow him at least to the airport in Atlanta and keep them busy for a while. We made flight reservations in both Marybell’s name, and mine, too. It might not hold the paparazzi off for long, but at least it buys us a little time to figure out what to do next.”
“Gordy? From the coffee shop Gordy? How did you talk him into putting all those spikes in his hair so he’d look like MB?” LaDawn crowed.
“We promised him a job at the mill. Full-time, with benefits, and it helps that he really likes Marybell.”
Em leaned forward, clearly still very angry with him, her eyes as red as Dixie’s. “Was it you who tipped them off about Leon being in Idaho?”
Tag shook his head. “That wasn’t us, but it can’t hurt. Last I heard from Gage, the line of cars following them on the road to Atlanta had lessened considerably.”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” Dixie mumbled, blowing her nose.
LaDawn popped her lips. “Because we’re sittin’ around here like a bunch of sissy girls and our heads just aren’t on straight.”
“And now, thanks to you, MB’s leavin.” Em poked Tag in the chest. “Later this afternoon. She already called and told us all she wanted to come in and say goodbye. Not a one of us could talk her out of it. I blame you, Taggart Hawthorne.”
She was right, but he had a plan. And he needed help. If he focused on Marybell walking away from him, he wouldn’t be able to keep his head on straight. “I need to see her, Em. I know I shouldn’t ask you. I know you’re angry with me right now, but I need you all to help me. Please.” There. He was laying his guts out on the table, right there in front of them all.
Dixie perked up, blowing her nose into a tissue. “Well, spit it out. My eyes are all dried out from cryin’. If you have a way to fix it, you’d better speak up.”
LaDawn dropped a Snickers bar on the table and pulled out a chair. “I sure hope it works, because I’m not lookin’ forward to explainin’ my bronzed flogger to the moving men.”
Tag looked at her with surprise. “You’re going with her?”
“You don’t think I’d let my girl go out and face this alone, do you? Unlike you, that is.”
“I deserve that.” He did. But there was just one thing he wanted to do for her. If she was going to leave, and his begging and scraping didn’t change her mind, he had one thing he needed Marybell to have before she left.
“You sure do. So tell us this plan and hurry up. Those movin’ men need a two-hour window if I’m cancelin’.”
Tag looked them all in the eye. Everyone that cared about Marybell. “I don’t believe she knew what Kazinski was doing. I don’t believe she was having an affair with him.” He needed to set the record straight now, before he told them he needed their help.
A collective sigh swept the room. All the women looked at each other, but he couldn’t guess what they were communicating with their eyes.
Em’s shoulders dropped. “Thank heaven. I don’t know if I could’ve lived with you if you did.”
Dixie wiped her eyes with her thumb. “The plan. Tell us the plan. We’ll do whatever you need us to do.”
“This was something I was working on before all this went down. But now...now, even if she still decides to leave, I need her to have this. I just need to speed things up.” And hope. He needed to hope he hadn’t just fucked up the best thing to come into his life in forever.
Em clapped her hands. “All right, girls. It sounds like we have a plan!”
* * *
Marybell propped the door of her car open and gathered up the bag of plum fritters she’d purchased at Madge’s. One last time before she left, she wanted to sit with her friends, laugh, girl-talk and eat doughnuts.
She didn’t want to cry over Tag anymore. She didn’t want to think too long on leaving—never seeing him smile again. She just wanted to be with the people she loved before she moved on.
Shoving the door shut with her foot, she almost laughed at the two or three people in the park, gaping at her. She’d garnered the same reaction at Madge’s. Without her people shield, she found she wasn’t interested in being bold. She didn’t snarl at Louella Palmer when she passed her on her way out, and she didn’t give her the hell she deserved for exposing her.
She’d simply waved to her and wished her well. In hindsight, Louella had done her a favor. She’d opened a door to the truth without meaning to, and for the moment, she was actually able to breathe. Marybell had no desire to tussle with her over it.
She’d rather Louella stew in her own soup, and wonder if Marybell Lyman was ever going to snarl at her again.
As she walked past the spot where Tag had kissed her that time right under the tree, the hot press of tears threatened to fall before she gulped in the chilly air of late afternoon and forc
ed her feet to move.
The sooner she left, the sooner she could find ways to begin to heal. Right now it was too fresh.
“Marybell?”
Her hand tightened on the sack of doughnuts, but she kept walking, for surely she was dreaming up Tag’s voice. She’d done it all night long—why would daylight be any different?
“Marybell, wait.”
She stopped again, cocking her head, listening to heavy footsteps approach her from behind. When she turned around, she saw the old Tag. The Tag before he thought she was a money-stealing tramp. His eyes looked tired, but his smile was in place, that grin that made her chest tingle and her toes curl.
He reached out a hand for her, but she pulled away. “Wait. Please. Just hear me out.”
It would be so easy to lob an insult at him, to ask him why she should wait when he didn’t wait to judge her. But she didn’t have it in her today. She just wanted to go.
Yet she stayed. Waited.
He took a small step closer, hedging his movement, using care with his words. “Will you hear me out?”
She closed her eyes and breathed again before opening them. “As long as you hurry. I don’t want to be on the road late at night.” I want to be here with you. The one person I needed most in the world to believe me.
He put a cautious hand on her arm. “Don’t go. Just listen and then decide if you still want to go.”
Had the girls told him about Tara-Anne? No. They’d promised. She believed they’d never give her up. “Why are you here?”
He ran a finger over her cheek, his smile apologetic. “I came to tell you I’m sorry. I was blinded by one bad experience, what happened to me with Alison. I know you’re angry with me right now. I know I said some shitty things to you, but I’m here to tell you I love you, Marybell Lyman, or Carson Chapman, or whomever you choose to be from this moment on. I believe you. I don’t care what the press says. I don’t care what the people in Plum Orchard say. I don’t care how many pictures they dredge up of you with that scum Leon. I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with it.”
A million thoughts flew through her head. Thoughts preventing her from doing anything more than stammering, “But...”
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