Ain’t She Sweet?

“Oh, dear, I wish to heaven I knew where he has gone, and what it all means!”

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Corinthian

By dinnertime, Winnie and Ryan had resettled Sugar Beth at Frenchman’s Bride, doing all the work themselves while Sugar Beth paced the house and made more fruitless calls to Colin’s cell. With every call that went unanswered, her anxiety grew. He was tough. What if she’d only been given one chance and she’d blown it? Maybe he’d performed some sort of permanent exorcism when he’d driven away and cut her out of his heart forever.

She stood in her old spot just inside the door of Colin’s closet and watched Winnie at work. The sight of her dismal wardrobe hanging among the expensive suits and sports coats Colin had left behind made her want to cry. “I’m just going to move everything back to the carriage house after you leave,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” Winnie replied. “You’ll feel better if you’re here. This will help you understand where your life is supposed to be.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

Sugar Beth turned away. Gordon followed her downstairs, where Ryan was taking a break on the sunroom couch, drinking a beer and catching the end of a golf tournament. “I want my wife back,” he said, flicking off the TV as she came in. “I know you’re upset, and I know this isn’t a good time for you, but I want her back tonight.”

“You’ve had her for fourteen years. Can’t I have her for a few more days?”

“No. I need her now.”

“You think I’m being selfish, don’t you? Keeping her?”

He smiled and set down his beer. “Always.”

She wandered over to the sunroom windows. As she gazed out at the piles of stone still waiting to be laid, she prayed Colin would someday finish his wall. Why did he have to fly off like this? He should have given them more time, and when she finally reached him, she intended to tell him exactly that. “Why won’t he turn on his phone?”

“Because he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I liked it better when you were nice.”

“You didn’t give him a lot of options.”

Gordon rubbed her ankles. She leaned down and patted him, taking comfort in his sloppy warmth. “Do you remember Luv U 4-Ever?”

“We were kids,” he said. “What we felt was real at the time.”

“Ken and Barbie work a lot better in make-believe land than they do in real life.”

He stretched his legs. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for dumping me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“It’s easy to see now how badly matched we were,” he said. “I’m too boring for you, and all your drama would have driven me nuts.”

“Colin loves drama. It’s how he makes his living.”

He gave her his sweet Ken smile.

She sank down on the ottoman. “I should have been more flexible with him.”

“Too bad you didn’t have that epiphany a few days ago.”

“I’m a drama queen,” she said dismally. “I only learn things the hard way.”

Winnie came in. “Ryan, I think—”

“No.” He rose from the couch, his good humor fading. “No more. I mean it, Winnie. Either Sugar Beth comes first in your life or I do. Make up your mind.”

“Don’t you dare try to railroad me.”

“You want to have everything your way. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not how it’s going to work.”

“Quit being an ass.”

“If anybody’s acting like an ass—”

“Oh, stop it,” Sugar Beth said. “Wait until you’re alone to start your foreplay.” She rose from the ottoman, took a step toward the middle of the room, and froze. “Gigi!”

They gazed at her.

“Colin said he was going to call Gigi tonight. Hurry!” She raced from Frenchman’s Bride, leaving Ryan, Winnie, and Gordon to follow in her wake.

She stormed into the Galantine house just as Gigi was coming downstairs. She’d abandoned Goth for a pair of cropped cargos that hung way too low on her hips and a sheer, pin-tuck shirt that didn’t cover her rib cage. Yesterday when Sugar Beth had asked her about it, she’d gotten a calculating look in her eye and said she was exploring her sexuality. Even in Sugar Beth’s emotionally impaired state, she’d known when she was being tested, and she hadn’t risen to the bait.

“What did you do to Colin?” Gigi cried, ripping off her headset.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s gone!”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

Sugar Beth stiffened. “When?”

“A few minutes ago on the phone.”

Sugar Beth sank down on the bottom step and dropped her head into her hands. “You’ve already talked to him.”

“He sounded totally bummed,” Gigi said accusingly. “You dumped him, didn’t you?”

Sugar Beth couldn’t muster a response.

It was one thing for Colin to leave. It was quite another for him to cut off all communication, and Sugar Beth didn’t intend to put up with it. First thing Monday morning, she called his publisher and asked to speak with his publicist. When the woman answered, Sugar Beth adopted her best Yankee accent. “This is Frances Gordon calling. From the Oprah show.”

“Gordon? I don’t recognize the name.”

“I’m new. This is very last minute, but Oprah wants to have Mr. Byrne on her show this week. I need to talk with him about it today if we’re going to make that happen. Stephen King really wants the slot, and you know how pushy he can be.”

“I don’t believe Mr. Byrne is available.”

“Of course, he’s available. It’s Oprah!”

“I’d feel more comfortable talking to my regular contact.”

“Unfortunately, she was in an automobile accident this morning. Nothing too serious, but she’ll be out for a while.”

“Odd. I spoke with him less than ten minutes ago.”

“Must have been while he was waiting for the ambulance.”

The woman hung up.

Winnie had given in to Ryan’s pressure and moved back home on Saturday evening. That didn’t mean, however, that she believed in leaving Sugar Beth to her own devices, and she decided to hold the Reconciliation and Forgiveness Dessert at Frenchman’s Bride. “It’ll be more symbolic that way,” she told her.

Monday evening arrived, and as Winnie stood at the sink rinsing off the chocolate-smeared dessert plates, she told herself she should be happy with the way things were unfolding. Sugar Beth was wound tight as a spring, so things had been a little tense at first, but the Seawillows had been prepared to forgive. Amy’s absolution was a foregone conclusion, and Leeann had already been softened up by Sugar Beth’s affection for Charlie. Heidi succumbed after Sugar Beth enthused over photos of her three-year-old, but Merylinn’s resentment ran deep, and she didn’t give in until Sugar Beth put her arms around her and said, “Either kill me or forgive me.”

As for Colin . . . They said it was just like Sugar Beth to drive a man to do something like this, but they didn’t turn against her, and Sugar Beth’s manner grew a little less forced. By the time the last piece of Winnie’s double chocolate cake had disappeared, Sugar Beth was once again a Seawillow. The leader of the Seawillows.

Winnie snatched up the last dish and shoved it under the running water. All five of them were clustered in the sunroom, giggling and sharing memories Winnie had no part of. She shouldn’t feel as though they’d deserted her—she was the one who’d insisted on cleaning up the dishes—but she felt like she was sixteen all over again.

She grabbed the dish towel in disgust. She knew how much Sugar Beth had missed the Seawillows, and she should be happy that she’d brought them back together. But they were her friends, too, and Winnie liked being their leader. Until now, she’d been the one who had the final say on when they’d hold their get-togethers and on who’d bring what. She was the one who’d smoothed ruffled feathers and received confidences. And she’d been good at it. Now, however, everything would be different.

Unless Sugar Beth left Parrish.

The possibility brought Winnie to her senses. She didn’t want Sugar Beth to leave. They were sisters now, and she wouldn’t give that up, not even to hold on to her position as leader of the Seawillows. By the time she joined them in the sunroom, she was feeling a little better, but the conversation continued to go on without her.

“. . . and remember when we were doing the moonwalk in Heidi’s living room and we broke her mother’s lamp?”

“. . . and when Amy’s dad caught us smoking?”

“What about that night we were out at the point and Ryan’s car wouldn’t start?”

“Remember how we all—”

“No, I don’t!” Winnie said, shocking herself. “I wasn’t a Seawillow then. I’m still not. And I’d appreciate it if you’d show a little sensitivity to my feelings by not spending the rest of the night talking about things I wasn’t part of.”

An awkward silence fell over the group. Merylinn brushed a speck of lint from her slacks. Heidi twisted her wedding ring. Only Sugar Beth seemed comfortable with the situation, and her fine brows arched in phony surprise as she surveyed the others. “You mean you never initiated her?”

“We never thought of it,” Leeann said.

Merylinn tucked her legs under her. “You always took care of initiations.”

“That’s right, I did.” Sugar Beth turned her attention to Winnie, who wasn’t one bit comforted by the guile in those narrowed silver-blue eyes. “Winnie, leave the room while we vote.”

“Vote?”

Sugar Beth regarded her haughtily. “Do you want to be a Seawillow or not?”

Winnie haughtied her right back. “Don’t you think we’re a little old for this?”

No, they didn’t.

Winnie finally gave up arguing, partly because it wasn’t doing any good, and partly because Sugar Beth was finally showing some of her old spirit. Besides, Winnie really wanted to be a Seawillow.

They bundled her off to the living room. Where she waited.

And waited.

The minutes ticked by. Finally, she got fed up and stormed back to the sunroom. “Do you mind telling me what’s taking so darned long?”

Merylinn pointed toward Amy, who was sprawled on the floor. “Oh, we voted a long time ago, but Amy wanted to show us her new sit-ups, and we forgot to call you.”

That got Winnie upset all over again. “I won’t be forgotten, do y’all hear me? Just because Miss High and Mighty’s back in everybody’s good graces doesn’t mean I’m going to let any of you start walkin’ all over me.”

Sugar Beth sniffed. “Touchy.”

“Always was,” Merylinn agreed.

Leeann regarded Winnie smugly. “You’d better watch how you talk to us. You haven’t gone through the initiation ceremony yet, so we can withdraw your invitation any time we want.”

Winnie crossed her arms over her breasts and tapped her foot. “Initiation ceremony?”

That was all it took to set off a big debate, because nobody could remember exactly how the initiation ceremony went, except they all agreed on one thing. They needed a photograph of George Michael.

“For what?” Winnie asked with exaggerated patience.

Leeann tugged on her bra strap. “You have to swear to love him forever.”

“That is so not going to happen.”

“You have to,” Merylinn said. “It’s a Seawillow ritual.”

“Except we don’t have a photo,” Heidi pointed out.

Amy reached inside her purse and pulled out her Bible. “I’ve got an idea.”

“We are not using a picture of Jesus!” Merylinn exclaimed.

Amy looked disappointed but gracefully gave in to group pressure. The discussion continued, but went nowhere. Finally, Leeann took it upon herself to investigate Colin’s CD collection. “Look! Here’s the new U2 album. Winnie can swear allegiance to Bono instead.”

Heidi studied the album. “It just doesn’t seem the same.”

Sugar Beth passed the album over to Winnie with a grin that nearly made it to her eyes. “Kiss Bono’s picture and swear to love him forever.”

Winnie regarded her loftily. “Only because of his dedication to good causes.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. Apparently they had a secret handshake, but nobody could remember what it was. They also used to sit in a circle and pass around some kind of necklace, but it had been lost years before.

“I remember one thing for sure,” Merylinn said. “You have to tell what boy you like.”

“Gosh, I’ll have to think about it,” Winnie said sarcastically.

“She’s not displaying proper Seawillow spirit,” Heidi pointed out.

“She also has to tell a sex secret,” Leeann said.

“Sex secret?” Winnie rolled her eyes. “You guys were eleven. How many sex secrets could you have had?”

“Quite a few. Merylinn found her mom’s copy of Joy of Sex.”

Winnie threw up her hands. “All right. A couple of nights ago I had an erotic dream about Edward Norton.”

“Like who hasn’t?” Heidi said, unimpressed. “We need a better secret than that.”

Winnie’s biggest sex secret—the lack of desire she’d once felt for her own husband—was something she didn’t intend to share with anybody. She pretended to think it over. “Okay, how about this? Merylinn, do you remember the time you kept Gigi so Ryan and I could go to that conference in Miami?”

“Uh-huh.”

“There wasn’t a conference in Miami. We took a hotel room in Memphis and spent the weekend playing sex slaves.”

It was a lie, but their reactions more than satisfied her.

“You slut!”

“Sex slaves?”

“Did you use handcuffs and everything?”

“Everything,” Winnie said.

Sugar Beth wasn’t buying it, but she stayed loyal and kept her mouth shut, which made Winnie think about how nice it was to finally have a sister.

“She’s getting tears in her eyes,” Merylinn exclaimed. “That must have been one hell of a weekend.”

Winnie smiled at Sugar Beth. “Unforgettable.”

Sugar Beth returned the smile. “Even I can’t top an entire weekend playing sex slaves.”

Winnie shifted her position on the couch before another wave of sentiment caught up with her. “Isn’t it time to light the initiation candle?”

“Not quite.” Sugar Beth lifted an eyebrow in calculation. “There’s one more thing . . .”

Amy shot up from her chair. “No. We are not doing that.”

“We have to,” Sugar Beth said, “or Winnie’ll never be an official Seawillow.”

“Oh, God . . .” Merylinn threw her head back and started to laugh.

Leeann groaned. “I shouldn’t have eaten so much.”

“If we do, we can’t tell anybody,” Heidi said. “You know how my mother-in-law hates me. If she finds out, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Do what?” Winnie asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know.

A few moments of silence fell over the group. They looked at one another. Finally, Amy spoke in a hushed voice. “We have to strip down naked and run around Frenchman’s Bride three times.”

Winnie regarded them incredulously. “You’re making this up.”

Leeann snorted. “I wish.”

Amy shook her head. “It’s true. Whenever anybody new came into the Seawillows—”

“Which thankfully wasn’t too often,” Merylinn interjected.

“—we’d wait for a night when Sugar Beth could talk Diddie into letting us have a sleepover.”

“Preferably during the summer so we could sleep outside on the veranda,” Heidi added.

“Once Diddie and Griffin fell asleep,” Amy went on, “we’d strip down, and all of us would run naked around the house.”

“I never heard a word about this,” Winnie said.

“It was our best secret.”

“Our only secret,” Leeann said dryly.

“Even the guys don’t know.”

“It’s barely dark,” Winnie said. “And it’s not even sixty degrees outside.”

Sugar Beth grinned at her. “Then we’d better run fast.”

A debate over terms and conditions followed, but in the end, they only made one concession to maturity. They agreed they could keep their shoes on.

“I knew I should have thrown out these ratty panties,” Leeann said a few minutes later as they stood in the sunroom peeling off their clothes.

“Somebody make sure all the lights are off.”

“I’m savin’ up for liposuction. I really am.”

“I liked it better when we hated Sugar Beth. Look at her legs.”

“Ohmygod, Winnie has a humongous hickey!”

Naked and giggling, they clustered at the back door. “Y’all ready?” Merylinn asked.

“Ready!” they declared.

Sugar Beth grabbed the knob and threw it open. “Seawillows forever!” she cried.

And then they flew.

Ryan and Gigi’s impulsive late-night walk took them to the end of Mockingbird Lane. As they reached the drive that led to Frenchman’s Bride, they came to a dead stop at the exact same moment.

Gigi found her voice first. “Do you think they went crazy or something?”

“Sure does look like it.”

They didn’t say anything for a few moments, but Gigi finally grew so horrified she couldn’t stay quiet. “You shouldn’t watch.”

“Honey, I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

High-pitched giggles drifted toward them, a curse, a shush. The women disappeared around the side of the house.

Gigi scowled. “If the kids at school find out about this, I’m not going back. I mean it.”

“We’ll leave town together.”

“Nothing like this ever happened before Sugar Beth came back.”

“If she stays, it’ll only get worse.”

“Still, I don’t want her to leave.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Neither do I.”

Gigi sucked in her breath as the women reappeared from the other side of the house, this time with her own mother in the lead. “This is so embarrassing.”

“The sad thing is, I doubt they’ve had a drop of liquor.”

“I used to think Mom was perfect.”

“She can’t help it, honey. Southern women are born with the insanity gene.”

“Not me.”

He sighed. “Sooner or later, you’ll go the way of the rest.”

With a hissing noise, the automatic lawn sprinklers came on, and all of them began to shriek.

“I can’t look anymore.”

Ryan buried his daughter’s face in his chest and smiled. “In the morning, we’ll pretend it was all a bad dream.”

Sugar Beth shut off her alarm. It was Tuesday, the day she’d planned to leave Parrish. She turned her head into Colin’s pillow, and as she drew in his familiar scent, she prayed he’d come home before she had to change the sheets. Misery washed over her. She fought it off by remembering last night and the Seawillows. She smiled. Winnie had given her a priceless gift.

She managed to pull herself out of bed—not an easy task these days—and get dressed before she headed for the bookstore.

“I thought you’d be packing now,” Jewel said as Sugar Beth handed over the blueberry danish she’d intended to eat but couldn’t quite stomach.

“A temporary change of plans. I’m hanging around a little longer.”

Jewel’s tiny face brightened. “For real?”

She nodded and filled her in on what had happened with Colin.

“He left? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Sugar Beth replied, warmed by Jewel’s expression of outrage.

“What are you going to do now?”

“Keep trying to get hold of him.”

Jewel regarded her sympathetically. “From what you’ve said, that could take a while. He doesn’t seem to want to be found.”

“I’m calling his editor. Somebody has to know where he is.”

“You’d better come up with a more believable story than that Oprah thing you told me about.”

“I will.”

Colin’s editor answered on the second ring. “Neil Kirkpatrick.”

“Lady Francis Posh-Wicket here calling from London.”

“Who?”

“I’m the director of Her Majesty’s Royal Office of the Garter. Her Majesty has some rather exciting news for one of your authors. Sir Colin Byrne. Ah, but what a stupid cow I am. He’s not Sir Colin yet. Which is why I need to ring him up. But he doesn’t seem to be answering his bloody phone.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.”

“Bollocks, sir. Am I to believe you’ve lost one of your most important authors?”

“Excuse me?”

“Perhaps you would like to be the one to tell Her Majesty that Sir Colin has disappeared because I’m sure I don’t want to.”

“Who is this?”

“I must insist you locate Sir Colin im-me-jetly.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I have work to do here.”

“Not until you tell me where the hell he is, you wanker!”

There was a long pause. “Sugar Beth, is that you?”

This time she was the one who hung up.