Sweet Olive (9780310330554)

by Zondervan Publishing House

  “This is business, not corporate espionage,” Camille said. “The next time you sabotage me, I contact Scott.”

  “That’s a good idea. You can remind him about that interview you gave to a network reporter—on camera. Great job, Camille—if you wanted to raise questions about our image.”

  She slid her perfect coral nails back and forth on the desk, the noise matching the grinding of Camille’s teeth. “You were demoted—and you know those Sweet Olive yokels stand between you and your fancy job. You’re no different from me.”

  “You seem to have it all figured out,” Camille said. “So maybe you can enlighten me on why I have this office and you don’t.”

  “My interim work as the head of this office was outstanding. How was I to know they’d think I was cheating them? I offered more money than they’ve ever had. Then Marsh went all soft and took the case.”

  “I don’t even know why J&S let you go out in the field.” Camille was half thinking out loud but couldn’t deny she wanted to prod Valerie.

  “I know the well-to-do landowners in North Samford—and was … friends … with the Martinezes. If you ask me, they should take the J&S money and bulldoze every one of those tacky houses.”

  “That would be terrible,” Camille said. “There’s quite possibly not another place like that in the South … maybe in the entire country.”

  “That’s what Larry says, but it would give them a new start, bring them into the modern world. They could even send some of the money to all those relatives they still have south of the border.”

  Camille raised her eyebrows. “Are you talking about Lawrence Martinez?”

  “He was Larry when we were engaged, and I’m not going to call him anything else.” Valerie stood. “Do you have more to say, or am I free to go?”

  The Samford Club grill was packed for South by Southwest Night, a contrast to its staid lunch personality. Scott believed in making business friends over dinner, and Camille was reluctantly employing that technique on Valerie.

  After today’s blowup, she figured she had to try something.

  The place was so noisy that Camille strained to hear Valerie across the table and watched with amazement the action at the adjacent bar.

  She passed on the offer of “the best margarita you’ve ever had,” although the idea of numbing this meeting with Valerie was tempting.

  Valerie ordered a beer but changed her mind after Camille declined alcohol. “I’ll have a Diet Pepsi with a real lime, extra ice,” Valerie said. “And we need chips and hot sauce.”

  As the server walked away, Valerie leaned in, as though they were having a girls’ night out. “I hope you didn’t take our talk this morning personally.”

  Camille, who had spent the rest of the day wondering if everyone in Samford knew about her botched TV interview, stared into Valerie’s eyes. “Everything that J&S does is personal to me.”

  “Would you really complain about me to Mr. Stephens?” Valerie asked.

  “In a heartbeat. But I don’t need to.”

  Valerie gave a smug smile before Camille continued. “He depends on me to take care of problems like you.”

  Drawing back, Valerie’s heavily made-up eyes opened wide. “You are good,” she said, and Camille thought she stopped just short of a thumbs-up sign. “So you work closely with him?”

  “Certainly.” Camille kept her face passive, as though reading from her résumé. “I interned at drilling sites and started as a landman right out of college. I’m returning to Houston as soon as I wrap up this assignment. To keep you from asking, I’m thirty.”

  Valerie gave Camille a rare smile, her perfect teeth gleaming. “I’d rather tell you my weight than my age, but I’m ahead of you by a couple of years.”

  She positioned her elbows on the table, her eyes slits. “You’ve traveled a lot, while I’ve been stuck in Samford.” Valerie wrinkled her nose. “My parents live in the same house my grandparents lived in. I lived there until last year.”

  “You’re certainly plugged in here.”

  “When your father’s Slattery Richmond, you’re born plugged in.” She leaned forward. “What kind of work does your father do?”

  “He died a long time ago.” Camille swallowed.

  “Was he in the oil-and-gas business?”

  “Yes,” she said, the short answer difficult to utter. But sometime in the last few days, she had decided she was not going to ignore her past anymore. Bad memories bound her every bit as much as Uncle Scott’s machinations.

  “A friend of Mr. Stephens?” Valerie pressed.

  Camille broke a chip in half and then fourths. “Something like that.”

  Valerie lowered her voice. “Did they have a falling out?”

  Wiping her forehead, Camille toyed with her fork. “This hot sauce doesn’t seem to agree with me.”

  “We’re eating greasy chips on an empty stomach.” Valerie cast her gaze around the room and waved a waiter over. “We need to order.”

  Camille looked up and met Lawrence’s eyes. “Valerie, please,” she said, embarrassment flooding through her.

  “Larry’s used to my impatience. Aren’t you?”

  “Lay off, Val,” Lawrence said.

  “You’ll have to speak louder. We can’t hear you over that mariachi music.”

  “Valerie!” Camille snapped and then looked up at Lawrence. “We’re not in that big a hurry. How’s your mother feeling?”

  Valerie’s gaze narrowed. “What’s wrong with Evelyn?”

  “I’m sorry.” Camille put her hand over her mouth as her gaze met Lawrence’s. “I didn’t realize it was confidential.”

  Camille was fairly certain murderers had gentler looks than the one that passed across Valerie’s face.

  “We’ve only told a few people, but it’s no secret,” Lawrence said. “My mother has been diagnosed with cancer, Val. Now, what would you ladies like for dinner?”

  As he walked off with their orders, Valerie made a huffing noise but her eyes followed him. “He could quit these silly jobs if he’d sign the land deal. He and his mother have twenty acres right in the middle of Sweet Olive. His mother toughened up when she married a foreigner, and she’s still a stubborn old biddy.”

  Camille looked back at Lawrence, delivering a tray of food to an adjacent table.

  “We can still get Larry,” Valerie said in a whispered voice, barely audible over the recorded music. “If his mother’s got cancer, they need the money.”

  Camille gasped. “Why would you say such a thing?”

  Valerie shrugged. “They’re hung up on ‘community history.’“ She put air quotes around the words. “And they don’t want a gas well right by their house. And he’s punishing me for breaking up with him. We need leverage.”

  Camille picked up a chip and dipped it in the red salsa. “Doesn’t Lawrence work for your father?”

  “Weird, huh?” Valerie said. “Larry and I were engaged for two years, and most people—my father included—pretend it never happened. I was the spoiled girl who dated the pool boy to get the other guy’s attention. Unfortunately, I still haven’t talked Marsh into marrying me.”

  “You and Marsh—” The words flew out of Camille’s mouth almost as soon as they hit her brain.

  “Power couple, right? Maybe one of these days …”

  Camille stared, wondering if she could feign illness and leave. Or if Valerie kept talking, maybe she wouldn’t even have to pretend. Her stomach roiled.

  Valerie broke a chip in half. “You actually got a degree in art?” Her tone suggested an interest in art was somewhere along the lines of an infectious disease.

  Camille thought of the students at Ginny’s house and wished she were crowded around the little art table.

  “Daddy would have had a fit if I’d studied anything but business.” Valerie held her hand up and gestured for Lawrence. “I believe I’ll have one of those margaritas after all. How about you, Camille?”

  “I’ll pass,�
� she said and tried to sneak a look at the time on her phone.

  “You’re just like Marsh. Don’t you have any fun?”

  Marsh stepped through the door of the club and walked toward the noise in the rear. Even though it was past the dinner hour, the little room was packed, and a few people stood on the fringes, drinks in hand.

  While Marsh scanned the bar, Ross greeted diners, a gregarious charmer through and through. “May I help you, Mr. Broussard?” the hostess asked. She was an attractive college-aged woman in a miniskirt that would have had Marsh’s mother clucking under her breath.

  “Val’s car’s out front, so she’s here somewhere,” Ross muttered.

  “Mr. Broussard? Hel-lo,” the hostess said. “May I help you locate someone?” Her flirtatious smile flitted to Marsh and then lingered on Ross.

  That had been the response to the two since eighth grade when Ross scored the winning touchdown in a district football championship. He had turned that personality into Samford’s most prestigious commercial real estate business.

  “Do you know where our friend Valerie’s seated?” Marsh asked.

  “Valerie …” She looked down at the diagram of tables. “She’s around the corner there, near the back.”

  Ross had already plunged into the crowded room. He smiled and spoke to almost everyone in his path, many greeting him by name.

  “Thanks.” Marsh gave a quick follow-up smile and wondered why he’d let Ross talk him into this. He’d planned to do paperwork in his office at home and call it a day but had been looking for an excuse to close the J&S folder when Ross had called. A little baseball would have sufficed.

  Marsh spotted Val, her table half hidden by an aqua post that held a temporary sombrero. Leaning over the table talking, she looked a bit frayed, her face tight, her hair actually slightly out of place.

  “Valerie’s with someone.” Marsh took a couple of steps toward the table. The moment he saw her companion, he knew for sure he should have passed on this evening.

  Ross increased his speed.

  “Hey, guys,” Val said, and her voice suggested she was not on her first drink of the evening. She stood to give each a brief hug. “Camille, you’ve met our star Realtor, Ross Broussard, haven’t you?”

  “We met at the fund-raiser,” Ross said, “and I’ve sat in on a couple of business meetings.”

  Camille gave him a cordial smile but seemed to be eyeing the door.

  Val patted the chair next to her. “Why don’t y’all join us?”

  “That’d be great,” Ross said.

  “We’re getting a table,” Marsh said at the same time.

  “It’ll take forever.” Val pulled him toward a chair. “Sit here.” She smoothed her hair.

  Camille picked up her purse. “I’m not much of a night owl, and I need to finish up a couple of things before I call it a day.”

  “Has Val been teaching you the ins and outs of oil and gas in North Louisiana?” Ross asked. “She’s a pro in this area, you know.”

  Marsh watched Camille, whose thoughts played across her face. Without saying anything, she placed her purse back on the floor and nodded.

  “Camille’s quite taken with Sweet Olive’s …” Valerie twisted her head to look at Lawrence, approaching their table “… art.”

  “It’s a neat little community,” Camille said.

  What kind of corporate dragon used the word neat? Marsh rose to shake Lawrence’s hand.

  “Did you …?” Lawrence stopped, looked to Camille then back at Marsh, who gave a quick shake of his head.

  “This is complicated,” he said in a low voice.

  “Are you here for a business meeting or a beer?” Val said.

  “Give me a second,” Marsh snapped.

  “You don’t have to get testy.” She threw him the look that had charmed men across Louisiana for years.

  “Lawrence, I’ll get with you later.”

  “Now, how about that drink?” Val drawled.

  Camille picked up her purse again. “Valerie, sign this to the J&S account. I enjoyed our … visit.”

  Ross shot to his feet. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

  Marsh stood more slowly.

  “It’s been a long day.” Camille turned her smile on Lawrence. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  He nodded.

  Marsh cleared his throat.

  Camille looked him in the eye and walked toward the elevator.

  Chapter 17

  Camille had not planned to drive by the duplex at the corner of Trumpet and Vine, but her discussion with Valerie had opened a vault of memories—and Camille couldn’t seem to close it.

  She’d spent fifteen years learning how to blot this place from her mind, her mother’s weeping, her uncle’s preaching.

  Easing off the clutch, she surveyed the corner. “What am I doing?”

  The convenience store on one corner was closed, although she couldn’t tell if it was shut for good or just for the evening. The church on the other corner had a For Sale sign in front of it. A locked gate blocked the park across from the duplex, the grass tall and ragged by streetlight.

  She pulled into the duplex, the rutted driveway making her appreciate the workhorse of a truck.

  As she stared at the house, she remembered her mother and the woman who had lived there sitting on the porch, shelling peas. Her mother had been smiling, looking at Camille sprawled on the steps.

  “She’s my one and only best girl,” her mama had said.

  The old woman had smiled in return. “You two have a special bond.”

  Camille pictured the old-fashioned apron the woman wore with deep pockets attached to the front. As though on rewind, she climbed out of the truck and walked up on the porch.

  Dead oak leaves had blown into the porch’s corner, and she nudged them with her foot, the fetid smell transporting her to another rundown house in Wichita Falls, Texas, where her father had abandoned them her entire years of second and third grade.

  The traffic light at the corner glowed, but the eeriness didn’t frighten her. She’d been independent for a long time, had visited oil fields far more off-putting than this.

  “Hello?” she called out. No one replied, and Camille knocked on the door and gave it a small shove. If the door was unlocked, she would walk through it, although she wasn’t sure why.

  She and her mother had shared a rollaway bed that the old woman pulled out of a closet. The sheets had smelled clean. The door didn’t budge tonight, though, and Camille walked back to the truck. Still she didn’t drive off, staring at the house, angry at Scott for forcing her to come back to Louisiana.

  She punched his number into the phone, but the call went to voice mail, and she left another irritated message before calling her mother.

  “The house is still here,” Camille said after a moment of their regular nighttime chitchat.

  “How does it look?”

  “Worse for the wear.”

  “Aren’t we all?” her mother teased.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  They laughed, and then a long silence fell between them, broken only by the wail of a siren down Vine.

  “Your father would have come back for us.” Her mother’s voice was so soft it was barely audible. “He always did.”

  Camille picked at a loose thread in the seat’s upholstery. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  Her phone beeped and Scott’s name popped up.

  “Wish me luck, Mama. I’ve got to go.”

  The street in front of the Samford Club was almost empty when Camille returned. Her palms sweated and her mouth was dry as she cautiously pulled in to a parking place.

  Her phone still lay on the floor where she had thrown it after Uncle Scott’s call.

  Realizing she couldn’t see the door from this vantage point, she pulled out and wrangled the vehicle into a spot nearer the door, scraping the curb with her tire. She gave a shaky laugh and checked the time on her phon
e.

  According to a discreet placard she’d seen on the elevator, the club closed at eleven o’clock on weeknights.

  She had no idea, of course, if Lawrence worked till closing time, but at least she wasn’t sitting in her hotel room waiting for something to happen. She wanted her new life. And Lawrence had told her he was afraid he would be the one to cave.

  The sight of a waiter and a young waitress interrupted her thoughts, and she patted her hair and stepped out of the truck. A neon sign illuminated a few feet of pavement, but the street was dim, and she could barely make out Lawrence leaving the building.

  Standing unnoticed in the shadows, Camille listened to the three talking, their Spanish words mixed with laughter. A few yards from where she stood, Lawrence turned and headed for the parking garage.

  “Excuse me.” She walked faster and raised her voice. “Excuse me! Lawrence?”

  He peered into the darkness. “Camille? Is something wrong?”

  She hurried forward. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m sorry for the way things went at dinner,” she said in a rush.

  “I’m a waiter,” he said, his crooked smile appearing. “I’m used to pushy customers.” His smile disappeared. “Why are you here?”

  “I thought you might be reconsidering the offer.” She looked over at the heavy wooden door of the club. “It would make life easier.”

  He frowned and shook his head with the jerky rhythm of a lawn sprinkler. “Camille, I’m beat. Do you want me to walk you to your truck?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I just …”

  “You’re in the same mess I am,” he said with a strained laugh. “For some crazy reason, God sent us a landman who likes us—and likes art. But if you’re going to get out of Samford, you need to drill.” He sighed. “My mother’s illness is rough. The treatment is more expensive than I realized.”

  She heard the ugly sound of defeat in his voice and despised herself for helping put it there. “I shouldn’t have come,” she said.

  “That’s the same thing you said that day at the festival. Are you playing us?”

  “No!” A knot formed in her stomach, and she regretted eating the spicy salsa. “I had a call from my boss tonight.” She paused. “He’s not pleased with how this is going.”