“It wasn’t.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Colin’s sense of foreboding grew stronger as he watched Sugar Beth move around the room with her tray. Ted Willowby couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and the kid at the bar was making an idiot of himself whenever she stopped for refills. She offered a napkin to the head librarian at the university and fetched a drink for Charise Leary. Then she slipped on her mask of cool indifference and headed right back to serve the Seawillows.
The scotch he’d been drinking sloshed in his stomach. She’d break before she bent an inch. He wanted to drag her from the room and kiss the stubbornness right out of her.
“She still thinks she owns the world,” Ryan said.
Except Sugar Beth wasn’t the toxic teenager they remembered. He thought about saying as much to Ryan, but since he’d only begun to understand that himself, he kept silent.
He heard a soft gasp and turned his head just in time to see Merylinn tip her glass of red wine right down the front of Sugar Beth’s blouse.
Sugar Beth fled to Colin’s bedroom. She wasn’t going to let them make her cry. She’d cried enough self-pitying tears in her life to drown a goat, and all it had gotten her was a big fat nothing. Wine soaked her blouse like blood from a fresh kill. She made herself take a deep breath, but it didn’t help break the traffic jam in her throat. Might as well call a spade a spade. That traffic jam came from shame. There was a big difference between knowing people still hated your guts and seeing it in their faces.
She found tissues in the bathroom to blow her nose. She wasn’t running away. The Seawillows could take all the bites out of her they wanted, but she refused to go anywhere. She was like a kid’s punching toy. Knock her down as many times as you wanted, and she’d still get back up, right?
But she didn’t feel like getting up as she pulled off her blouse and swabbed her chest with Colin’s washcloth. The wine had left a red blotch on her bra, and she couldn’t do much about that. Truth was, she couldn’t do much about anything. As she headed for his bedroom, she felt as fragile as the spun-sugar castle that had once decorated her eighth birthday cake.
Colin walked in.
“Get out,” she said, marching into his closet.
He didn’t mention that this was his room. Instead, he stood just inside the closet door, the same place she’d stood a few hours earlier while he’d been dressing. “I want you to go back to the carriage house right now,” he said with a gentleness that stung more than the hostilities downstairs.
“Do you now?” She flipped through his shirts.
“Enough is enough.”
“But I haven’t bled yet.” She whipped one of his white shirts from the hanger and shoved her arms in the sleeves.
“I don’t want your blood, Sugar Beth.”
“You want every last drop. Now get out of my way.” She started to push past him, but he grabbed her arm, forcing her to look up.
Normally she liked looking at him, but now those arrogant jade eyes had softened with a compassion she hated. “Hands off, bud.”
He eased his grip, but he didn’t release her, and his words fell over her, as cool and light as snowflakes. “Do I have to throw you out?”
She fought the urge to bury her face in his neck. If he wanted to go all sensitive on her, that was his problem because she wasn’t having any of it. “You betcha, suckuh.” She pulled away. “Throw me out because that’s the only way I’m leaving.”
“This isn’t a battle.”
“Tell them. Better yet, tell yourself.” She worked furiously at the buttons.
“I made a mistake,” he said. And then, in that same Father Caring voice, “Go home now. I’m firing you. I’ll be over first thing in the morning to write you a check.”
A big one, she’d bet anything. “You and your pity money can go to hell, Your Grace. The guest of honor doesn’t leave in the middle of her party.”
“I planned this party before I hired you.”
“But you hadn’t planned the entertainment. You waited till I came along for that.”
He didn’t deny it. Whenever she’d asked who he’d invited, he’d danced around the truth. “Let me.” He pushed her hands away from the buttons. “You’re making a muddle of it.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Right. Just like you do everything.” She tried to back away, but he held her fast. His hands began moving along the row of buttons, unfastening the ones she’d gotten wrong, refastening. “You don’t need anybody, do you?” he said. “Because you’re the biggest badass in town.”
“Believe it.”
“Armed and dangerous. Letting everybody know how tough you are.”
“A hell of a lot tougher than a weasel like you,” she countered.
“Undoubtedly.”
“You’re such a wuss.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I like to think I have a certain female sensibility.”
“I’ll bet you wear lace panties.”
“I doubt they’d fit.”
He reached her breasts, and the backs of his fingers brushed the curve of flesh, sending little feathers of sensation skittering across her skin. The feeling scared her more than the idea of going back downstairs. He exuded exactly the kind of male power that had brought her down in the past.
But not this time. No matter what.
She pulled away and began knotting the shirttails at her waist. “I sure haven’t seen any women around here. How long since you’ve had a date? With a female, that is.”
“I’m on sabbatical.”
“That’s what they all say right before the closet door bangs them in the ass.”
“Go home, Sugar Beth. You’ve already shown them what you’re made of. You don’t have anything left to prove.”
“Now why would I leave a party just when it’s getting fun?”
“Because this particular party is ripping your heart out.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong, bucko. I’ve buried two parents and a pair of husbands. This isn’t bothering me at all.” She pushed past him and headed for the door. This time he didn’t try to stop her.
Colin hadn’t thought things could get worse, but he was wrong. Sugar Beth refused to back down. With the mask of polite detachment fixed on her face, she continued fetching drinks and passing hors d’oeuvre trays. When he couldn’t stand watching her any longer, he grabbed the last tray away from her and earned a syrupy smile and a laser-hot put-down for his efforts.
As she’d stood in his closet, her white bra stained with wine, even his desire for her couldn’t mask his self-disgust. He began moving around the room, trying to concentrate on his duties as a host. Everyone here had helped him with Reflections in one way or the other—the librarians, the historians. Winnie had critiqued his manuscript when he’d needed a fresh perspective. Jewel and Aaron Leary had given him entrée to the town’s African American population and made him understand the mind-set of its older members. The Seawillows had helped him sort out fact from gossip.
Colin saw Winnie standing next to one of the small tables that had been set up in the sunroom. She was gazing out into the darkness beyond the windows. On the other side of the peninsula that divided off the kitchen, Sugar Beth and the caterer were adding the final touches to the serving platters. Ryan and the Seawillows had drifted into the sunroom, along with a few of the other guests, but Winnie had separated herself from all of them. She looked small in comparison to Sugar Beth, but not as defenseless.
“A memorable party,” she said as Colin approached her.
He made a futile attempt to distance himself from the cruelty he’d set in motion. “I planned it before she came back to Parrish.”
“I know.”
Unlike so many other women, Winnie wasn’t afraid of conversational lulls, but tonight her silence made him edgy, and he was the one who finally broke it. “Merylinn shouldn’t have dumped the wine on her.”
“You’re right. But I loved it,
Colin. I’d be lying if I pretended I didn’t enjoy every drop.”
He understood, and he only felt angrier with himself.
His editor had drifted into the sunroom. The goodwill of a publishing house wasn’t to be taken lightly, even by one of its mega authors, and Colin should go over and talk with him. Instead, he watched Sugar Beth carry a salad bowl toward the dining room. “It happened such a long time ago,” he said. “When it comes right down to it, we were all kids. Do you ever think about just letting it go?”
He knew he’d botched it even before he heard her quiet intake of breath.
“She’s getting to you, isn’t she? Just like she gets to every other man who flies too close to her web.”
“Of course not.”
Her look of betrayal said she didn’t believe him. He didn’t believe it himself. He remembered the rush of heat he’d felt as he’d buttoned the shirt Sugar Beth had taken from his closet.
“I always thought you were the one person who’d be immune,” she said.
“We all have a lot of rubbish in our pasts. Having her here has simply made me realize that, at some point, we need to step over the piles and get on with it.”
She fingered the diamond solitaire at her throat. “You think I haven’t gotten on with it?”
“I’m only talking about myself,” he said carefully.
“More power to you, then, if you’re ready to step over being accused of sexual assault. Me, I’m not that evolved.”
“Winnie…”
“She made my life a nightmare, Colin. Do you know I used to throw up before school, then stuff myself with junk food to try to feel better? She never passed up a chance to humiliate me. In junior high I plotted which hallways to walk down so I wouldn’t run into her. All she had to do was look at me, and I’d start tripping over my feet. If one of the other girls showed any signs of seeking me out, she’d zero right in on her and tell her only losers hung out with Winnie Davis. She was vicious, Colin, and that kind of viciousness doesn’t go away. It’s part of a person’s character. So if you think she’s changed, then I feel sorry for you. Now, excuse me. I haven’t had a chance to speak with Charise.”
He suppressed the urge to go after her. On Monday, he’d stop by her shop and smooth the waters. By then he’d have gotten over his urge to defend Sugar Beth. By then, he wouldn’t be tempted to point out that it couldn’t have been easy for her either, being forced to go to school with her father’s illegitimate child and having someone like Diddie as her role model. Maybe Sugar Beth had fought back in the only way she’d known how.
More of his guests drifted into the sunroom, drawn by the smell of food. The Seawillows cornered Neil, and he overheard them asking if he knew any good diet books, and was he personally acquainted with Reese Witherspoon? Sugar Beth came up to him, but he wasn’t fooled for a moment by her deference. “Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Byrne, but dinner’s ready. Your guests can help themselves to the buffet.”
She’d emphasized her servitude by wrapping one of the caterer’s aprons around her waist, and he wanted to rip it off her, wanted to rip everything off and carry her back into his closet. “You’ve worked hard enough. Get a plate and join us.”
The Seawillows heard. Their heads circled like vultures. Winnie’s back stiffened, and Ryan headed for the bar. But the wintry bonfires that blazed in Sugar Beth’s eyes told him not to expect a thank-you note anytime soon. “Now aren’t you the dearest thing takin’ such good care of the hired help, but I’ve about stuffed myself already on those hors d’oeuvres. I swan, I couldn’t eat another bite.”
Dear God, he’d exhumed Diddie.
“Is there anything else you need?” she cooed, her eyes daring him to take this any further. “I’ll be more than happy to get it for you.”
She was dismissing him like one of her ex-husbands, and the Irish stubbornness he’d inherited from his father rose up to bite him. “You can get rid of that bloody apron and join us for dinner.”
The out-of-town guests who overheard looked puzzled, but the Seawillows understood, and hisses of displeasure came from their beaks. By tomorrow, his betrayal would be all over Parrish. Hell, sooner than that. Their fingers were itching to whip out their cell phones so they could be the first to pass the word that Colin Byrne had crossed over to the dark side.
Sugar Beth had the gall to pat his arm. “You got your medications mixed up again, didn’t you, bless your heart. We’ll call your shrink tomorrow and straighten it out.” She reached for Aaron Leary’s empty wineglass. “Let me take that, Mr. Mayor, so you have both hands free for the buffet.” And off she went, little drops of Colin’s blood trickling from her sparkly fangs.
Neil came up next to him. “The ongoing drama of life in a small Southern town. You should write a book.”
“Smashing idea.”
Neil gazed toward the dining room. “She’s just like you described her. Why didn’t you tell me she’d come back?”
“It’s been complicated.”
“Maybe we could get a trilogy out of the Parrish books after all.”
Colin had no trouble interpreting his hopeful expression. Last Whistle-stop had been the most successful book in Neil’s editorial career, and Reflections would do even better. Neal wanted a third book about Parrish instead of a lengthy generational novel about Irish and English families.
Neil balked as Colin began to steer him toward the buffet table in the dining room. “Not yet. The Seawillows just went in. They’re very scary women.”
“Imagine what they were like when Sugar Beth led them.”
“I don’t have to,” Neil said. “I’ve read Reflections.”
But no one else had, and once again, Colin found himself wondering how the citizens of Parrish were going to react to the second book about their town when so many of its featured players were still around. He gazed toward the dining room.
The Seawillows chose to eat at the smaller tables in the sunroom. After all his guests were served, Colin disguised his lack of appetite by making the rounds of the other tables. Eventually, he returned to the sunroom and propped himself at the counter with a plate of food he had no interest in eating, futilely hoping that his higher vantage point would, in some mysterious way, allow him to control what was happening.
“I forgot to pick up a napkin,” Heidi cooed. “Get me one, Sugar Beth.”
“I want another of those delicious rolls. Make sure it’s warm.”
“Take this dirty plate. I’m done with it.”
As soon as she’d returned from one errand, the Seawillows sent her off on another. And she let them do it. She didn’t rush, but she didn’t tell them to bugger off, either.
“Get me a damp towel. I’ve got something sticky on my hands.”
“See if you can find the pepper mill. I’m sure there’s one somewhere.”
Even Amy couldn’t resist finding her own way to join in, and he heard her whisper, “Jesus can wash away anybody’s sins, Sugar Beth, even yours. Throw yourself on his mercy.”
Colin pushed aside his plate, intending to put a stop to the nonsense, but Sugar Beth detected the movement and shot him a look that challenged not only his manhood but also his very right to exist on the planet. With a sense of resignation, he sank back down and braced himself.
“I do not think,” said Lord Bromford, having considered the matter gravely, “that one should sacrifice one’s principles to gratify a female’s whim.”
GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Winnie offered Ryan a taste of her kiwi tart right before she made her move. As Sugar Beth began to pick up the empty plates, Winnie raised her voice, ever so slightly. “Oh, dear, I accidentally kicked my fork under the table. Let me move out of the way, Sugar Beth, so you can get it for me.” She rose from the table and took one small step to the side.
Colin understood at once. Winnie had chosen something small, unimportant, something almost insignificant that symbolized everything.
To retrieve the fork, Sugar Beth would have to drop to her knees at Winnie’s feet.
He had no idea whether Sugar Beth would do it, didn’t wait to see. Instead, he shot off his stool only to realize that Winnie’s husband had beaten him to it.
“Let me,” Ryan said quickly.
The edges of Winnie’s mouth collapsed, and for the first time that evening, she seemed more vulnerable than Sugar Beth. Sugar Beth met Ryan’s eyes for a fraction of a second before she took a small step back. Slowly, he dropped to one knee at his wife’s feet, reached under the table, and withdrew the fork that Winnie had undoubtedly kicked there.
Colin gazed from one woman to the other. He’d always been fascinated by literary archetypes, but if someone had asked him, right at that moment, which of these women was plucky Cinderella and which the wicked stepsister, he’d have been hard-pressed to come up with an answer.
The evening ground on. He might be miserable, but his guests seemed to be enjoying themselves, and it was past eleven before they finally began to trickle away.
Winnie’s hands weren’t quite steady as she slipped into her skimpy black lace teddy. It was one of several she owned in various colors. Ryan came into the bedroom without his sport coat. He’d undoubtedly tossed it over a chair downstairs. It would still be there when they got back from church tomorrow. He didn’t expect her to pick up after him. He just failed to notice how many of his things he left lying around.
“Look at this.” He held out a rumpled wall poster showing a bare-chested hunk sporting a pair of nipple rings while a woman’s hand reached through his legs to cup his crotch. “She had this hanging on the back of her door when I went in to check on her.”
“She knows how much we hate her posters. That’s why she keeps putting them up.”
“If she’s this rebellious now, what’s going to happen when she’s sixteen?”
Winnie didn’t voice her deepest fear, that genetics would somehow play out, and Gigi would end up like Sugar Beth: self-centered, spiteful, and sexually active at too young an age.
Ryan tossed the poster in their trash basket and headed for the closet. He didn’t remark on her imported black teddy, but why should he? She had a vast collection of sexy sleepwear, and he saw her in or out of one of the pieces nearly every night. Sometimes she wanted to throw them all away and head to Wal-Mart for a set of comfy cotton pj’s.