"Thanks. I just finished them." Meg slipped them from her ears and held them up. "The beads are Tibetan Sherpa coral. Quite old. I love the way the colors have worn."

"What about that necklace?" another woman asked. "It's very unusual."

"It's a Chinese needle case," Meg said, "from the Chin people of Southeast Asia. Over a hundred years old."

"Imagine owning something like that. Are you selling your work?"

"Gosh, I hadn't really thought about it."

"I want those earrings," Diet Pepsi said.

"How much for the necklace?" another golfer asked.

Just like that, she was in business.

The women loved the idea of owning a beautiful piece of jewelry that doubled as a historical artifact, and by the following weekend, Meg had sold another three items. She was scrupulously honest about authenticity, and she attached a card to each design doc.u.menting its provenance. She noted which materials were genuine antiquities, which might be copies, and she adjusted her prices accordingly.

Kayla heard about what she was doing and ordered some pieces on consignment for her resale shop. Things were going almost too well.

After two long weeks away, Ted showed up at the church. He was barely inside the door before they were pulling at each other's clothes. Neither of them had the patience to negotiate the stairs to the hot choir loft. Instead, they fell on the couch she'd recently rescued from the Dumpster at the club. Ted cursed as he banged against the wicker arm, but it didn't take him long to forget his discomfort and focus all his brainpower on remedying the mysterious flaws in his lovemaking technique.

She gave in to him as she always did. They rolled from the couch to the hard floor. The fans stirred the air over their naked bodies as he went through all the steps in the s.e.x instruction video he must play in his head. Lights flashed, a sweeping arc across the tin ceiling. She clung to him. Begged. Commanded. Gave in.

When they were done, he sounded both wrung out and a little peevish. "Was that good enough for you?"

"Dear G.o.d, yes!"

"d.a.m.n right. Five! And don't try to deny it."

"Stop counting my o.r.g.a.s.ms."

"I'm an engineer. I like statistics."

She smiled and nudged him. "Help me move my bed downstairs. It's too hot to sleep up there."

She shouldn't have introduced the subject because he jumped off the couch. "It's too hot everywhere in this place. And that's not a bed, it's a fricking futon, which would be fine if we were nineteen, but we're not."

She tuned out his very un-Ted-like rant to enjoy the unrestricted views of his body. "I finally have furniture, so quit complaining."

The ladies' locker room had recently been refurbished, and she'd been able to snag the castoffs. The worn wicker pieces and old lamps looked right at home in her church, but he didn't seem impressed. A fragment of memory distracted her from her visual survey, and she came up off the floor. "I saw lights."

"Glad to hear it."

"No. When we were going at each other ..." When you were going at me. When you were going at me. "I saw headlights. I think somebody drove up to the church." "I saw headlights. I think somebody drove up to the church."

"I didn't hear anything." But he pulled on his shorts and went outside to look. She followed him and saw only her car and his truck.

"If anybody was here," he said, "they had the good sense to leave."

The idea that someone might have seen them together made her uneasy. She was allowed to pretend to be in love with Ted. But she didn't want anybody to know it might be more than pretense.

s.e.x with a legendary lover wasn't as fulfilling as she'd like, but two days later, she sold her most expensive piece, a blue gla.s.s Roman cabochon she'd wrapped with fine silver, using a technique she'd learned from a silversmith in Nepal. Her life was going too well, and she was almost relieved when she left the club the next evening and discovered someone had keyed the Rustmobile.

The scratch was long and deep, running from front fender to trunk, but considering the car's overall dilapidated condition, hardly a catastrophe. Then other cars started honking at her for no reason. She couldn't figure it out until she spotted the crude b.u.mper stickers plastered on the back.

I'm Not Free but I'm Cheap Mean People Suck. I Swallow Ted found her crouched down in the employees' parking lot, trying to peel off the disgusting stickers. She didn't mean to yell, but she couldn't hold it back. "Why would somebody do this?"

"Because they're creeps. Here. Let me."

His gentleness as he moved her aside nearly undid her. She grabbed for a tissue in her purse and blew her nose. "It's not my idea of a joke."

"Mine either," he replied.

She turned away as he began methodically peeling up the edges of the second sticker. "People in this town are mean," she said.

"Kids. That doesn't excuse it, though."

She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. The sprinklers went on in the flower beds. She blew her nose a second time.

"Hey, are you crying?" he asked.

She wasn't exactly, but she was close. "I'm not a crier. Never have been. Never will be." She'd had so little to cry about until the past few months.

He must not have believed her because he rose and set his hands on her shoulders. "You've put up with Arlis Hoover, and you've put up with me. You can handle this."

"It's just so ... nasty."

He brushed her hair with his lips. "It only says something about the kid who did it."

"Maybe it wasn't a kid. There are so many people here who don't like me."

"Fewer all the time," he said quietly. "You've stood up to everybody, and that's earned you some respect."

"I don't know why I even care."

His expression grew so tender she wanted to weep. "Because you're trying to build something for yourself," he said. "With no help from anybody."

"You help me."

"How?" He dropped his hand, once again frustrated with her. "You won't let me do anything. You won't even let me take you out to dinner."

"Setting aside the issue of Sunny Skipjack l.u.s.ting after you, I don't need everybody in this town knowing a sinner like me is getting it on with their sainted mayor."

"You're being paranoid. The only reason I've put up with it is because I've been out of town the past couple of weeks."

"Nothing's going to change now that you're back. Our secret fling is staying that way."

He temporarily dropped the subject and invited her to a private dinner that night at his place. She accepted his offer, but as soon as she reached his house, he dragged her upstairs and began playing his precise, calculated s.e.xual games. By the end, he'd satisfied every cell in her body without touching any part of her soul. Exactly as it should be, she told herself.

"You're a magician," she said. "You've spoiled me forever for other men."

He threw back the covers, dropped his legs hard over the side of the bed, and disappeared.

She found him in the kitchen a short while later. She'd pulled his abandoned black T-shirt over her panties, but left the rest of her clothes tangled in the duvet on his bedroom floor. His dark brown hair was rumpled from her fingers, he was still bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only a pair of shorts. His boxers, she happened to know, were tangled in the sheets.

He had a beer in his hand and a second waiting for her on the counter. "I'm not good in the kitchen," he said, looking gorgeous and sulky.

She tore her eyes away from his chest. "I don't believe you. You're good at everything." She blatantly stared at his crotch in a sad attempt to make up for her disappointment. "And I do mean everything."

He could read her mind, and he practically sneered. "If I'm not living up to your standards, I apologize."

"You're delusional, and I'm hungry."

He rested his hips against the sink, not done with being surly. "Choose what you want from the freezer, and maybe I'll defrost it."

He would never have talked to another woman so rudely, and her spirits rose. As she moved behind the center island, she thought about bringing up the contest, but since the national publicity had just boosted the bidding past nine thousand dollars, she couldn't be so mean.

A man's refrigerator told a lot about him. She opened the door and took in sparkling gla.s.s shelves holding organic milk, beer, cheese, sandwich meat, and some neatly labeled food storage containers. A peek in the freezer revealed more containers, pricey frozen organic dinners, and chocolate ice cream. She looked over at him. "This is a total chick refrigerator."

"Your refrigerator looks like this?"

"Well, no. But if I were a better woman it would."

The corner of his mouth kicked up. "You do understand, don't you, that I'm not actually the person who cleans and stocks it?"

"I know that Haley buys your groceries, and I want a personal a.s.sistant, too."

"She's not my personal a.s.sistant."

"Don't tell her that." She pulled out two labeled and dated containers, ham and sweet potatoes. Although she wasn't a great cook, she was a lot better than either of her parents, thanks to the housekeepers who'd put up with the Koranda kids raiding their kitchen.

She leaned over the bottom hydrator looking for salad greens. The front door opened, and she heard the click of heels across the bamboo floors. A p.r.i.c.kle of uneasiness scuttled through her. She quickly straightened.

Francesca Day Beaudine sailed into the room and flung open her arms. "Teddy!"

Chapter Fourteen.

Ted's mother wore black skinny pants and a hot pink corset top that shouldn't have looked so good on a woman approaching her midfifties. Her shiny chestnut hair showed no signs of gray, so she was either lucky or she had a skillful colorist. Diamonds glittered at her earlobes, the base of her throat, and on her fingers, but nothing about her was overdone. Instead, she reflected the elegance of a self-made woman possessed of beauty, power, and personal style. A woman who still hadn't spotted Meg as she launched herself at her beloved son's bare chest.

"I've missed you!" She looked so pet.i.te in the arms of her tall offspring, it was hard to believe she could have given birth to him. "I rang, honestly, but your bell is out of order."

"It's disconnected. I'm working on an entrance lock that can read fingerprints." He returned her hug, then released her. "How did your interview with the hero cops go?"

"They were marvelous. All my interviews went well, except for that beastly actor person, whose name I shall never again speak." She threw up her hands. And that's when she spotted Meg.

She must have seen the Rustmobile parked outside, but the shock that widened her green cat's eyes suggested she'd a.s.sumed the car either belonged to a service person or the most lowborn of Ted's unorthodox group of friends. Meg's and Ted's disheveled appearances made it more than obvious exactly what they'd been up to, and every part of her bristled.

"Mom, you remember Meg, I'm sure."

If Francesca had been an animal, the fur would have stood up on the back of her neck. "Oh. Yes."

Her enmity would have been comical if Meg hadn't felt like throwing up. "Mrs. Beaudine."

Francesca turned away from Meg and focused on her beloved son. Meg was used to seeing anger in a parent's eyes, but she couldn't stand seeing Ted on the receiving end of it, and she cut in before Francesca could say anything. "I threw myself at him just like every other woman in the universe. He couldn't help it. I'm sure you've seen this at least a hundred times."

Francesca and Ted both stared at her, Francesca with overt hostility, Ted with disbelief.

Meg tried to tug the hem of his T-shirt lower over her bottom. "Sorry, Ted. It ... uh ... won't happen again. I'll-be going now." Except she needed the car keys stuffed in the pocket of her shorts, and the only way she could retrieve them was to return to his bedroom.

"You're not going anywhere, Meg," Ted said calmly. "Mom, Meg didn't throw herself at me. She can barely stand me. And this isn't any of your business."

Meg shot up her hand. "Really, Ted, you shouldn't talk to your mother that way."

"Don't even try to suck up to her," he said. "It won't do any good."

But she made one final attempt. "It's me," she told Francesca. "I'm a bad influence."

"Cut it out." He gestured toward the food containers on the counter. "We're getting ready to eat, Mom. Why don't you join us?"

That so wasn't going to happen.

"No, thank you." Her clipped British accent made the words even icier. She drew back on her strappy heels and gazed up at her son. "We'll talk about this later." She shot from the kitchen, her shoes beating a furious tattoo across the floor.

The front door shut, but the scent of her perfume, faintly overlaid with hemlock, lingered behind. Meg regarded him glumly. "The good news is, you're too old for her to ground you."

"Which won't stop her from trying." He smiled and lifted his beer bottle. "It sure is tough having an affair with the most unpopular woman in town."

"He's sleeping with her!" Francesca exclaimed. "Did you know this was going on? Did you know he was sleeping with her?"

Emma had just sat down to breakfast with Kenny and the children when the doorbell rang. Kenny had taken one look at Francesca's face, grabbed the m.u.f.fin basket, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the kids, and disappeared. Emma ushered Francesca onto the sunporch, hoping her favorite place in the house would soothe her friend, but a scented morning breeze and a lovely view of the pasture weren't nearly enough to calm her.

Francesca jumped up from the shiny black rattan chair she'd just collapsed into. She hadn't bothered with makeup, not that she needed much of it, and she'd shoved her small feet into a pair of clogs Emma happened to know she only used for gardening. "This was her plan from the beginning." Francesca's small hands flew. "Precisely what I told Dallie. First get rid of Lucy, then move in on Teddy. But he's so wise about people. I never thought for an instant he'd fall for it. How can he be so blind?" She stepped over a battered copy of Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy. "He's still in shock or he'd see right through her. She's wicked, Emma. She'll do anything to get him. And Dallie is completely useless. He says Ted is a grown man and I should b.u.t.t out, but would I b.u.t.t out if my son had a serious illness? No I would not, and I won't b.u.t.t out now." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up Fancy Nancy Fancy Nancy and pointed the book at Emma. "You had to have known. Why didn't you call me?" and pointed the book at Emma. "You had to have known. Why didn't you call me?"

"I had no idea it had gone so far. Let me get you a m.u.f.fin, Francesca. And would you like some tea?"

Francesca tossed the book on a chair. "Someone must have known."

"You haven't been here, so you can't comprehend how complicated things have gotten with the Skipjacks. Spence is obsessed with Meg, and Sunny wants Ted. We're fairly sure that's why Spence came back to Wynette after the wedding fell through."

Francesca dismissed the Skipjacks. "Torie told me about Sunny, and Ted can handle her." Hurt shadowed her eyes. "I can't understand why you or Torie didn't call me?"

"It's been confusing. Meg did tell certain people she was in love with Ted, that's true. But we a.s.sumed she was merely using him to get Spence to back off."