Ain’t She Sweet?

“You are shameless!” he said angrily.

“Nonsense! You only say so because I drove your horses,” she answered.

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy

Where the devil have you been?”

Colin stalked into the kitchen with Gordon padding at his heels, just as Sugar Beth set the last of the grocery sacks on the counter. “Running your errands, your lordshit.”

“You took my car.”

“Did you expect me to walk?”

“I expect you to take your own car.”

“I like yours better.”

“Undoubtedly.” He loomed over her. “Just as I liked that brand-new red Camaro you used to drive in high school. Nevertheless, I didn’t take it upon myself to run off with it, now did I?”

“I bet if I’d left the keys lying around, you would have. That junker you drove was a major embarrassment.”

“Which was the only reason I could afford to buy it.” He swept his keys from the counter and pocketed them. “Where’s my lunch?”

“I thought famous writers drank their lunch.”

“Not today. It’s two o’clock, and all I’ve had is coffee and cold poached eggs.”

“They wouldn’t have been cold if you’d eaten them right away like I told you.”

“Spare me the stereotype of the sassy servant.”

“Fine.” She slammed a box of rice on the counter. “Leave me the hell alone, and I’ll bring your lunch as soon as I get to it.”

He regarded her glacially. “Hostility already?”

“Hostile or sassy—it’s all I’ve got. Take your pick.”

“Let me remind you that one of your duties is to prepare my lunch, which I expect to have served at something approximating lunchtime.” He turned his back on her, effectively ending the discussion, but instead of going back to his office, he wandered into the sunroom and threw himself in the big chair by the windows, all long, lithe grace and surly attitude.

She studied him as she put away the perishables. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, then crossed and uncrossed his ankles. By the time she’d tucked the onions in the pantry, she decided something more than her attitude was bothering him. She picked up a grocery sack that had fallen to the floor. “You probably didn’t know this, but in addition to being a stuntman, the late, and pretty much unlamented, Cy Zagurski fancied himself a songwriter.”

“You don’t say.”

“Bad country western. Cy was generally sweet, even when he was drunk, which, I’ll admit, tended to be most of the time. But drunk or sober, the minute he had trouble thinking up his next lyric, he’d start yelling at me.”

“In what part of this conversation am I supposed to express interest?” He sounded snooty as hell, but he didn’t make a move to get out of the chair, and as she set more oranges in the bowl, she congratulated herself on having acquired at least a little insight into human nature. “So tell me about your new book.”

“Which one?”

“The one that’s making you act like a prick, bless your heart.”

He leaned his head against the back of the chair and sighed. “That would be all of them, at one time or another.”

“All?” She peeled the cellophane from a two-pack of Twinkies, took one out, and wandered into the sunroom. “I know about Last Whistle-stop, and you said you’d written a novel a long time ago. Anything else?”

“The sequel to Last Whistle-stop. I finished it in July. It’s called Reflections, if you must know.”

Last Whistle-stop had ended in 1960, and if Reflections was a sequel, it stood to reason that her parents would be major characters. Considering Byrne’s feelings for Diddie, Sugar Beth decided she needed to get her hands on a copy as soon as she could. “When’s it coming out?”

“In about two months.”

“I’m guessing from the title that my parents and the Carey Window Factory might be major players.”

“Without the factory, Parrish would have died out after the 1960s like so many other small Southern towns. Is my lunch ready yet?”

“Just about.” She took a bite from her Twinkie and played with danger by sitting on the edge of a small rattan slipper chair near him. “What have you been doing since July?”

“Some traveling. Researching a novel.” He rose and walked toward the windows, his big frame blocking the sun. “A family saga. I’ve had it in mind for years.”

She remembered the crumpled paper scattered over the floor in his office. “So how’s it going?”

“Beginning a book is always difficult.”

“I’m sure.”

“This one is roughly based on my own family. The story of three generations of an upper-class British family set against the same three generations of a poor Irish one.”

“With everybody meeting up when the upper-class daughter falls in love with the bricklayer’s son?”

“Something like that.”

“Writing a novel is a big change.”

“Just because I’ve become known for nonfiction doesn’t mean that’s all I can do.”

“Absolutely not.” She wasn’t surprised that he sounded defensive. He’d been wildly successful writing nonfiction but failed at his early attempt at fiction. “You don’t seem to be brimming with confidence.”

He gazed at her Twinkie. “Is that organic?”

“I’m guessing not.” She went after a dab of filling with the tip of her tongue.

He grew very still, and the way his eyes lingered on her mouth told her he was reacting to her, whether he wanted to or not. She used to be mystified by women who didn’t know how to turn men on, since she could do it so easily herself. Then one day she’d realized that intelligent women relied on their brains to get ahead in the world, instead of sex. And hadn’t that been a real well, duh moment?

Still, sometimes you had to use what God gave you, and she continued to make oral love to the Twinkie, nothing even close to blatant—that would be too tacky for words—only a few slow swirls of her tongue to show this arrogant Brit he didn’t intimidate her. Or not much anyway.

His gaze stayed on her mouth. “You do enjoy playing games, don’t you, Sugar Beth?”

“Us tarts like to keep ourselves amused.”

He gave her an enigmatic smile, then turned away from the window. She expected him to head back to his office, but instead he walked into the kitchen and began examining the groceries she hadn’t finished putting away. “Apparently you didn’t read my instructions about buying organic food.”

“Dang, you were serious. I thought that was some kind of test to see if I could think for myself instead of being a blind follower of the ridiculous.”

Another of those arched eyebrows. She polished off the Twinkie and headed back to the kitchen.

“I believe I mentioned fresh produce, organic when possible. Whole grains, fish, nuts, yogurt.” He picked up a bag of cherry Twizzlers. “Your diet is abominable.”

“I had oatmeal for breakfast.”

“Undoubtedly your first decent meal since you got here. And you mainly ate the brown sugar.”

“I need to keep up my strength. My boss is a slave driver.”

He caught sight of the sack from Jewel’s store and lost interest in the groceries. Unfortunately, he pulled out one of the Georgette Heyers first. She grabbed it from him. “A perfect example of that miscellaneous pilfering from the help you were talking about to justify being a cheapskate.”

He glanced at the receipt. “So I see.”

He flipped open one of his new research books. She watched him for a moment. “If you need any help with that chapter you’re trying to write—the one that’s responsible for your chipper mood—let me know. I have lots of ideas.”

“I can imagine.”

She should have stopped right there, but she still hadn’t learned to curb her tendency toward excess. “For example, I’m positive I could write a great sex scene.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You are planning to have lots of sex scenes, aren’t you? You can hardly expect to sell fiction without them.”

His eyes drifted from her collarbone to her breasts. This man could find his way around a woman’s body. “You know a lot about writing a novel, do you?”

“Not lesbian scenes, either. I know how much you men like them, but women buy most of the books in this country, and that’s not a big turn-on for most of us.” She thought of Jewel. “Although I suppose sticking one in wouldn’t hurt.”

“Sticking one in? Interesting turn of phrase.”

“I’ve always had a gift for the spoken word.” She toyed with her turquoise butterfly. “Personally, I’d like somebody to write a scene with one woman and two men. Oh, heck, make it three.”

“I believe that’s why they invented porn.”

“As if all those lesbian scenes you want to write aren’t porn.”

“I don’t want—”

“I understand.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Heterosexual men get all threatened when there’s more than one man in bed. But as long as you keep the woman in the middle, I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Speaking from personal experience?”

“I’d ruin the mystery if I told you.” She beamed him her beauty queen smile. “Now, run along so I can get my work done.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he eased down on a stool at the counter and opened one of his books. Dirty pictures began to flash through her mind, pictures of herself naked in bed with Colin. She added George Clooney, then tossed in Hugh Jackman just for fun. She played with the image a bit, letting the filmstrip unwind in her head, but then she realized she didn’t like what she was seeing. Instead of paying attention to her naked body, George and Hugh were talking football. She tried to refocus the film, but they were real sports fans, and the next thing she knew they’d abandoned her for a Chargers game. Which meant that she and Colin were alone. And naked.

Her nipples tightened. Luckily, he seemed to have lost himself in his book and didn’t notice.

It had only been a year since Emmett’s health had failed, and here she was having a sex fantasy about a man who hated her guts. Typical. Just when she’d thought she’d developed sense, all her old masochistic habits came banging at the door trying to get back in.

Promise me, Sugar Beth, that you won’t waste time mourning me. You’ve been living like a nun for more years than I want to admit to. It’s gone on long enough.

But it hadn’t been nearly long enough. She thought of him lying in bed all those months, his powerful body wasted, and the old anger-washed love filled her. Why’d you have to up and get sick on me, you old coot? Let alone die. I need you, don’t you know that?

He’d been the love of her life, and some days she didn’t think she could bear the pain.

Colin rose and returned to his office. She threw together his lunch, a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread, and—as further punishment—a big handful of organic bean sprouts. He was back at the keyboard, so she left the tray on the corner of his desk without interrupting him.

Colin’s treatise on her job responsibilities noted that he had a weekly cleaning service, but that she was supposed to tidy up after him, which included making the ducal bed and straightening the imperial bathroom. Since both activities gave her an excuse to explore, she headed upstairs. Gordon had grown bored with the writing life, and he padded after her.

Smoke-colored paint had replaced Diddie’s pink floral wallpaper, and modern copper wall sconces framed the windows on the landing. When she reached the top of the stairs, she glanced to the right and saw small changes: paint and moldings, different lighting, a slender steel sculpture resting on a block of frosted glass. To the left, however, everything had been reconfigured. Instead of a hallway leading to Diddie’s and Griffin’s separate bedrooms, a neoclassic arch framed a niche holding a set of double doors. She couldn’t believe it. The old attic door had been located at the end of a hallway that no longer existed!

She dashed into the master bedroom suite, a vast space with arches, art, and sleek furniture that included a king-size bed with four twisted metal posts. The nearest door led to a cathedral-size bathroom. The second door opened into a luxurious, cedar-scented, two-room closet complete with a teak bench. She looked everywhere but couldn’t find any access to the attic, and she headed for the other wing.

Her former bedroom, along with the old sewing room, had been converted into a state-of-the-art home gym. Another guest room held a small, book-lined study, while a third had been luxuriously refurbished for company. She poked into closets, peered behind chests, searched everywhere she could think of.

The attic door had vanished.

Ryan didn’t fall asleep until after midnight, but he awakened before five. He had an OSHA meeting scheduled for that day, and he wanted to be sharp, but he’d been having trouble sleeping for a couple of weeks. He should be sleeping like a baby. He had a wonderful life—a family he loved, a job that challenged him, a beautiful house, good friends. He was the luckiest guy in the world.

Winnie gave a soft sigh in her sleep and curled against him. She smelled faintly of the perfume she’d dabbed at the base of her throat before he’d come home from work. She always did things like that, made sure her hair was combed, her makeup fresh. Other men complained about their wives letting themselves go, but Winnie grew prettier all the time. She was perfect in every way: smart, kind, loving. So different from Sugar Beth, who’d been demanding, temperamental, vain, and spoiled.

But she’d also been glorious, an out-of-control thrill ride sending him from ecstasy to despair and back to ecstasy again in the wink of an eye. When she’d broken his heart, he’d thought the pain would kill him, and the adoration in Winnie’s eyes had been a salve to his young man’s wounds.

She draped her hand over his thigh in her sleep. She was naked. She slept that way a lot. Willing. Available. He still couldn’t get over how lucky he was. Sometimes, maybe, he wished she wouldn’t try quite so hard, but that was only because he felt guilty knowing she gave more to their marriage than he did. But what could he offer when she’d already thought of everything?

He wasn’t going to fall back asleep, so he slipped out of bed, and Winnie’s radar kicked in as usual. “ ‘S anything wrong?”

“Going for a run.” He tugged the blanket over her bare shoulder and pulled on his sweats. It was still too dark to run. He’d catch up on some paperwork first.

As he let himself out into the hallway, he saw that Gigi had hung another poster on her door, even though she was supposed to keep them in her room. She’d begun asking questions about Sugar Beth. Gigi called her She Who Must Not Be Named after the evil Voldemort in the Harry Potter books. Wiseass.

They’d never tried to hide the truth from her, so she’d always known about the blood relationship between Winnie and Sugar Beth, but the complexities behind that relationship were beyond a thirteen-year-old’s comprehension. He supposed it was only natural for her to be curious, but she’d been so rebellious lately that her questions had begun to make him uneasy. She was perfectly capable of accosting Sugar Beth on the street and asking her the same questions she’d been asking him. He’d finally told her she was forbidden to have any contact.

Now, if only somebody would do the same for him.

By the time he got to work, Ryan felt back in control again. The refurbished three-story Art Deco lobby with its great sweep of CWF windows greeted him. He’d never quite gotten over the fact that, at thirty-three, he was COO of the company where his parents had spent their working life, his mother as a file clerk, his father as a painter. He’d earned his position, along with the respect of the employees, through hard work and dedication, and he never took it for granted.

The factory had a good safety record, and his OSHA meeting was going well when his secretary pulled him away from the plant tour he was conducting to tell him the principal at Gigi’s school was on the line. Eva never called him, and he quickly excused himself to take the call in the loading dock office. “Eva, it’s Ryan. What’s wrong?”

“I have Gigi here. I need you to come in.”

“Is she hurt?”

“She’s fine. But Chelsea Kiefer has a broken wrist. Gigi pushed her into a locker.”

“Gigi wouldn’t push anyone.” He rested his hip on the corner of the desk and gazed through the window onto the loading dock. Craig Watson, one of his senior VPs, had taken over the tour, but Craig wasn’t up to speed on all the new safety regulations, and Ryan needed to get back. “Chelsea’s Gigi’s best friend. I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding. Call Winnie. She’ll take care of this.”

“She’s in Memphis for the day. You’ll have to come in.”

He’d forgotten Winnie had a buying trip. He shifted his position to get a better view through the window. “I can’t leave right now, but one of us will be there around five.” If Winnie hadn’t gotten back by then, he’d juggle his schedule. An inconvenience, but he could manage it.

“This isn’t going to wait that long. Gigi is being belligerent, and Chelsea’s mother is furious. She’s talking about filing a police report.”

“A police report?”

“Yes, Ryan, a police report. Get in here right away.”

Gigi had never seen her dad so mad. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and the muscle at the corner of his jaw jumped up and down. He’d never hit her, but she’d never done anything this bad, and she thought he might want to.

He hadn’t said a word to her since they’d left the principal’s office. Part of her wanted him to start yelling, so they could get it over with, but the rest of her wanted to postpone it as long as possible. It wasn’t like she’d meant to break Chelsea’s wrist.

Just thinking about it made her stomach ache. Chelsea had been acting like a bitch all week, maybe because she’d been fighting with her mom, but that still hadn’t been any reason for her to say that Gigi had started acting all stuck up again because she was rich. Gigi’d finally gotten so mad that she’d told Chelsea she was getting fat, which was totally true. Chelsea had yelled back that she hated Gigi just like everybody else, and then Gigi had sort of pushed her, not to hurt her, just to push her a little, except the door to her locker was open, and Chels had fallen against it and broken her wrist. Now everybody was blaming her.

The piece of cafeteria pizza she’d had for lunch rose up in her throat. She kept hearing the sound Chelsea had made when her wrist broke, this choky little scream. Gigi swallowed hard to push the pizza back down.

When her dad had finally walked in the office, Gigi had been so scared about Chelsea’s mom saying she was going to file a police report that she wanted to throw herself in his arms and cry like she used to when she was little. But he hadn’t even looked at her, just like he wasn’t looking at her now.

Mrs. Whitestone had suspended Gigi for the rest of the week and sent her outside to wait on the office bench so the adults could talk. Chelsea’s mom had always liked Gigi’s dad. She’d even kind of flirted with him, which Gigi’d always thought was creepy, but was probably a good thing, because she’d finally stopped yelling. When he’d come out of the office, though, his face had looked like he wanted to kill somebody, and Gigi didn’t think it was Chelsea’s mom.

The other kids always told her she was lucky to have such young parents because they remembered what it was like to be a teenager, but her dad didn’t look like he remembered anything about being a teenager right now. Resentment gnawed at her. In high school, her dad had been named most popular boy. She’d seen it in his yearbook. And her mom never got into any trouble. Well, Gigi wasn’t like them.

She couldn’t stand the quiet in the car for another second, and she reached for the button on the radio.

“Leave it alone.” Usually, they listened to music together, but now he sounded like he wouldn’t ever listen to music with her again.

“Chelsea started it.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I knew you’d be on her side.”

He shot her a cold look. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”

She tried to, but everything was so unfair, and she hated that he wouldn’t put his arm around her and give her one of his bear hugs and say everything was going to be all right. “This is all because I’m not perfect like you and Mom used to be!”

“This has nothing to do with your mother or me. This has to do with the fact that you’ve been acting like a brat for months now, and today you physically assaulted someone. You’re lucky her mother decided not to file charges against you. Actions bring consequences, Gigi, and, believe me, you’re going to face some serious ones.”

“You broke a guy’s collarbone once. You told me that.”

“It was a football game!”

“That didn’t make it right.”

“Not one more word!”

That night after her mom got home, they made her sit down in the living room. Her dad did most of the talking, going on about how disappointed they were in her, and how serious an offense this was. She kept waiting for him to say that, even though she’d done something wrong, he loved her anyway, but he didn’t.

“We’re taking away your telephone privileges for two weeks,” her mom finally said. “You can’t watch television, and you can’t leave the house unless one of us is with you.”

“That’s so unfair! You don’t even like Chelsea. You think she’s a bad influence. But you love Kelli Willman!”

Her dad ignored her outburst. “You’re also going to be doing a lot of studying to make up for the classes you’re missing while you’re suspended.”

As if she couldn’t catch up in about three seconds.

“And you have to apologize to Chelsea,” her mother said.

Gigi jumped up. “She has to apologize to me first! She started it.”

“This isn’t negotiable. You broke her wrist.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

But neither of them would listen. They just started in again, not understanding that Gigi already felt like shit, and she didn’t need to hear any more about how evil she was. Her parents totally forgot what it was like to be a teenager, but everybody hadn’t hated them the way the kids hated Gigi. Her parents had been perfect. Well, Gigi wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t like them. She was . . .

She was like her aunt.

The word rolled around in her head like a big shiny marble. Aunt. She didn’t have a lot of relatives: Grandma Sabrina and Nana Galantine, her Uncle Jeremy, but he was a lot older than her dad and wasn’t ever getting married. That left only one other person. Maybe Sugar Beth Carey was only a half aunt, but still . . .

The Seawillows talked about her a lot when they didn’t think Gigi was listening and how everybody had totally kissed her butt in high school. One time she’d heard Colin say that Sugar Beth had also been one of the smartest kids in her class, but the Seawillows hadn’t believed him, since she got crappy grades. Still, Colin had seen everybody’s test scores, so he should know, even though he wouldn’t tell any of them what their scores were.

Sugar Beth would totally understand what Gigi was going through. But Gigi’s dad had forbidden her to talk to her. He’d said if Gigi saw her someplace, she couldn’t even say hello because he knew how Gigi was, and she wouldn’t stop at hello, and nobody wanted old history dredged up again.

But this wasn’t old history. This was Gigi’s life. And she had to talk to somebody who’d understand. Even if she got grounded for the rest of her life.