“You’re not really that naive, are you? Or is it just that you don’t know Mary Vaughn that well?”
“Okay, it’s true I don’t know her well at all, but come on, she wouldn’t be as successful as I’m told she is without being thoroughly ethical and above reproach.”
Jeanette thought of the way the woman had gone after Ronnie, but that wasn’t business. It was personal. “I suppose she has standards about this kind of thing,” she conceded.
“Not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Tom noted. “Do the two of you have a history?”
“Not us. The history’s between her and Dana Sue. When Ronnie first got back to town, Mary Vaughn was all over him, despite the fact that he was trying to work things out with Dana Sue. She made no bones about wanting him. It got a little sticky. There’s no love lost between her and Dana Sue.”
“And by extension, you?” he asked.
“Oddly enough, no. We’ve always gotten along okay. She’s a client and she encouraged me to join the Christmas festival committee, but that was before she set eyes on you. Something tells me she now considers me a rival.”
He gazed into her eyes and smiled as he touched her cheek. “There can’t be a rivalry when there’s no contest. You’re the one I want, Jeanette. The only one.”
She shivered at the intensity in his voice, then forced her gaze away. “Stop saying things like that.”
“Even if it’s true?”
“It can’t be true. You’ve only gotten this crazy idea because I’m unattainable. Some men are like that. They only want what they can’t have.”
“But I can have you,” he said with so much confidence she was tempted to smack him.
“I don’t think so,” she insisted, backing out of reach. There were a dozen different ways he could prove her wrong just by a touch and they both knew it. She just didn’t intend to admit it.
The kitchen door slid open a few feet away and Mary Vaughn stepped out. “Jeanette, could you come inside?”
Nervously, Jeanette went into the kitchen. She glanced around and saw that the other couple was gone. Did that mean what she hoped it did? Or was Mary Vaughn about to tell her that her bid had been rejected?
Mary Vaughn gave her a halfhearted smile and held out the portable phone. “I have Nancy here and she’d like to speak to you.”
With her pulse scrambling, Jeanette accepted the phone.
“Hi, Nancy, how are you?” she said. “How’s Florida?”
“Just wonderful,” Nancy said, sounding happier than she had in months. “I love being so close to the beach and the kids.”
“I’m glad,” Jeanette said sincerely. “I know it was lonely for you here after Garrett died.”
“It was, but until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about letting go of that house and all my memories, so I could stay down here. Then Mary Vaughn called with two offers. She mentioned one of them was yours. That was all I needed to hear to be content with my decision.” She laughed. “Thank goodness, yours was the highest bid and more than I’d hoped to get, as well. My kids would never have let me hear the end of it if I’d let sentiment overrule common sense.”
“I fell in love with the house the second I walked into the garden,” Jeanette said honestly, barely able to contain her excitement.
“You and I talked a few times about gardening when we had a chance to visit on the patio at the spa,” Nancy recalled.
“That’s how I know you’ll take good care of it. As far as I’m concerned we have a deal, Jeanette. You, Mary Vaughn and the bank can take care of the details, and assuming everything goes smoothly, the house is yours. I want you to make me a promise, though.”
“Anything,” Jeanette said at once.
“Will you let me stop by for a visit if I get back up that way?”
“You’d be welcome anytime,” Jeanette told her, trying to contain her urge to give a shout that would shatter Nancy’s eardrums. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you what this means to me. I’m so excited, I’m shaking.”
“I just hope you’ll be as happy there as I’ve been.”
“I’m sure I will be. Goodbye, Nancy, and thank you again.”
As she disconnected the call, she turned to see Tom regarding her with a grin.
“It’s yours?”
“It’s mine, or it will be once the bank approves my loan and we can close on it,” she said as he scooped her up and whirled her around. When he set her back on her feet, she caught a quick glimpse of—what? sadness?—in Mary Vaughn’s eyes. But then she forced her trademark smile.
“Congratulations,” Mary Vaughn told her. “How would you two like to go out for dinner and some champagne to celebrate? I’ll take you to Sullivan’s.”
Tom gave Jeanette a questioning look. “What do you think? Are you free?”
Jeanette thought Mary Vaughn was being extremely gracious under the circumstances. Maybe she was also just a little anxious to show the world that she wasn’t the sore loser she’d been when Dana Sue won Ronnie for a second time.
After considering the invitation for a moment, she nodded. Why not let the other woman have a chance to save face.
“We’d love to, Mary Vaughn,” she said. “And thank you for whatever you said to Nancy to persuade her to take my offer.”
“Oh, sweetie, there was no persuasion involved. It was all about dollars and cents—that and the fact that you took the time to be nice to her when she was hurting after Garrett died. That’s just more proof that what goes around comes around.” She sighed audibly, then murmured half to herself,
“Probably a lesson I need to learn.”
Jeanette caught her words. “Mary Vaughn, are you okay?”
That fake smile she’d perfected was back in place so fast, Jeanette almost thought she’d imagined the weary resignation she’d heard in her voice. “I’m just peachy, sugar, but I sure could use a glass of champagne. Why don’t I meet you at Sullivan’s in fifteen minutes. I’ll close up here and put a Sale Pending sign out front.”
“Okay, we’ll see you there,” Jeanette said. She had the distinct impression that Mary Vaughn needed that time to compose herself for the performance she was about to give to the whole town, the one to prove she was still on top and unfazed by whatever was going on between Jeanette and Tom. Jeanette couldn’t help admiring her. If they’d switched places, she’d be heading home to comfort herself with a half gallon of strawberry-cheesecake ice cream.
12
Tom couldn’t think of a single time in his life when an evening promised to be more awkward. He had a hunch that all eyes were going to be on the three of them when they walked into Sullivan’s, as the locals tried to figure out when the hair-pulling was likely to start between Mary Vaughn and Jeanette.
After all, Mary Vaughn had hardly made a secret of her interest in him. And Jeanette had publicly claimed him in the stands at last night’s football game, even though she said she didn’t really want him, at least not the way he wanted her. He thought she might be a trifle delusional about her own feelings, but he couldn’t prove it. Not yet, anyway.
Of course, he could always hope that people in Serenity kept their noses out of everyone else’s business, but from what he’d observed that was most definitely not the case. He had only to look at the Sweet Magnolias, their husbands and his own secretary for proof of that.
“You don’t seem to be looking forward to this dinner,”
Jeanette commented as they drove to Sullivan’s.
“What was your first clue?” he asked.
“The fact that you haven’t said two words since we left Mary Vaughn.”
“Don’t you think this is going to be incredibly weird?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “But we owe it to her.”
He stared at her in confusion. The workings of this woman’s mind were a mystery to him. “Why is that?”
“She’s trying to save face, prove it doesn’t matter that you rejected her and chose me. Not that you have, of course.”
“I have,” he said flatly so there could be no mistake about it. “And whatever your intentions last night, that kiss you laid on me at the stadium told the world that you chose me back.”
She flushed slightly. “I had my reasons for that kiss. Don’t make too much of it.”
He glanced at her with undisguised skepticism, then focused on the road again. “Want to explain that?”
“Not really.”
“In that case, I prefer to think that you were staking your own claim.”
“Yes, that would suit your ego, I’m sure.”
“Without evidence to the contrary, why shouldn’t I come to that conclusion?”
“Because I’ve told you otherwise.”
“Words,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Nothing but words.”
She frowned at him. “You don’t have to have dinner with us, you know. You can drop me off. Mary Vaughn and I can celebrate without you.”
“But that would hardly prove whatever cockamamie thing she’s trying to prove, would it?”
“Not as effectively, no. Seeing all three of us together will show Serenity that there are no hard feelings.”
“Then it’s my duty to play this out,” he said solemnly.
“Never let it be said that my mother didn’t raise me to be a true southern gentleman. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to protect a woman’s honor.”
“You don’t have to get carried away,” Jeanette said.
“Apparently I do.” And something told him, he was going to regret it.
Inside Sullivan’s, Jeanette abandoned him the second they’d been shown to a table. He stared after her in bemusement as she headed directly for the kitchen. Maybe she was going to share the news that she’d contracted to buy a house, but he suspected she had a few other tidbits she wanted to share with her friends, as well.
Something told him he could spend the next fifty years with her and never entirely understand her. Of course, unraveling her secrets would definitely give him something to look forward to. And his anticipation of that prospect was something refreshingly new to him. Never before had he found a woman so intriguing that he could envision growing old with her.
Mary Vaughn sat in her car in the parking lot at Sullivan’s retouching her already flawless makeup and trying to work up the courage to go inside. The instant she’d uttered the invitation to Jeanette and Tom, she’d regretted it. She had considerable experience pretending all was right with her world when it was crumbling around her, but she wasn’t sure she was capable of putting on such a display tonight. This latest setback was still a little too fresh.
“Nothing for it,” she muttered, and exited the car. She would not let one single soul in Serenity know how she felt about having yet another man stolen right out from under her. Not that Tom had ever been hers, but she’d wanted him. The whole darn town probably knew that, just the way they’d always known what was going on with her folks and had never said a single word, much less stepped in to protect her or her mother.
As an only child, Mary Vaughn had learned to keep silent about her problems from a master. Her mother had endured years of abuse—verbal and physical—from her alcoholic husband without asking for help. When Mary Vaughn had been old enough to ask her about it, she’d denied that there was a problem. She had bruises because she was clumsy. The raised voices were nothing more than
“discussions.” Because her mother had refused to acknowledge what was happening, Mary Vaughn had been forced into silence, as well.
She’d always told herself that things would be different if her father had ever attacked her, that her mother would leap to her defense and take them away from the whole awful situation, but she’d harbored her doubts about that. Thankfully her theory had never been tested. Her father had been content to take out his anger on her mother. She’d gone to school with her chin up and ignored the whispers from neighborhood kids who’d seen her father weaving his way home from Serenity’s most notorious bar, who’d heard the inevitable shouting that followed his arrival. She’d denied the abuse when compassionate, concerned counselors had sought to help. She’d become as masterful as her mother at living a lie. She’d fallen for Ronnie Sullivan in part because he’d been new in town and hadn’t looked at her with pity the way others at school did. She’d married Sonny because he’d loved her in spite of her troubled background. He’d even claimed to admire her for rising above the situation and striving to make her own way in the world. By then her father and mother were both dead, her father from complications from cirrhosis of the liver, her mother from a heart attack. Mary Vaughn hadn’t truly mourned either one of them. What she’d mourned was the family she’d never had.
Sonny—son of the town’s most respected citizen—had become her whole family, and then Rory Sue. She’d known from the beginning that whatever her marriage to Sonny might lack in passion, she would always be safe and she would always have his respect. And because of his family, she’d have the town’s respect, as well, though she’d worked darn hard to earn that for herself. She’d told herself that safety and mutual respect were more than enough, and they had been for her. It was Sonny who’d eventually wanted more.
When he’d left her, she’d been forced once again to keep her chin up and ignore the whispers. She drew on that experience now to walk into Sullivan’s without letting anyone see how her heart was aching. She was here to celebrate the sale of a property and, by gosh, no one was going to think otherwise.