Ain’t She Sweet?

“There is something excessively vulgar about persons under the sway of strong emotions.”

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Corinthian

Colin watched as Sugar Beth came into the living room, carrying a tray of canapés and a stack of cocktail napkins. The Seawillows lifted their heads, carrion birds spotting their prey. They’d flocked together, leaving their husbands to fend for themselves. Winnie, the former outcast who’d become their leader, shone in their midst like the diamonds she wore. She took a sip from her wineglass, neither ignoring Sugar Beth’s presence nor staring at her as the others were doing.

Ryan stood in the archway, separated from the rest, but discreetly watching Sugar Beth. Colin tried to tap into the sense of righteousness that had fueled him ever since she’d returned to Parrish, but he couldn’t find it. Watching her being forced to take Leeann’s coat had been more than enough to satisfy his need for revenge. Now he simply wanted the evening over so he could put Sugar Beth and all the mayhem she caused behind him.

The color burned high in her cheeks as she crossed the room, but instead of avoiding the Seawillows, like any sensible person, she headed straight for them. Colin could feel their bad will creeping toward her like radioactive waste. She’d hurt them all, and they hadn’t forgotten. As she forged ahead, he wished she had at least a little ammunition to defend herself: the black stilettos he’d forced her to abandon, one of her shrink-wrapped tops, the turquoise butterfly.

She held out the tray to Leeann. “Shrimp?”

Leeann touched a finger to her chin. “Give me a minute, will you? I’m trying to imagine what Diddie would think if she could see her Sugar Baby now.”

Instead of wiping the smirk from Leeann’s face with one of her cutting remarks, as the old Sugar Beth would have done, the tall blonde with the shrimp tray didn’t say a word. She just stood there and let them look her over as if she’d grown fungus.

Colin hated this. Why didn’t she cut her losses and walk away? Did she need that painting so badly? He could think of no other reason she’d be so willing to trade in her self-respect.

“Are the shrimp fresh?” Heidi asked, nose in the air.

As a host, he should have been offended, but this didn’t have anything to do with him or the shrimp. He willed Sugar Beth to launch a counterattack, but she didn’t.

“I’m sure they are.”

Heidi took a shrimp, and Leeann, full of self-righteousness, reached for Winnie’s half-full glass. “Winnie’s champagne needs refreshing. Get it for her.”

He’d been the evening’s architect, so how could he blame them for such naked displays of delight? When he’d made his plan, he’d seen this as the perfect way to settle scores. A gentleman’s revenge, if you will—straight to the point but without bloodshed. Now, however, his old bitterness seemed like a grainy piece of film that had played too long in his head.

Sugar Beth slipped the napkins into the same hand that balanced the tray, and took the flute.

His thirst for revenge turned to ashes in his mouth, and the old, destructive desire to slay dragons took over. He moved to her side. “I’ll take care of that.”

She pulled the glass away before he could touch it. “Don’t you trouble yourself, Mr. Byrne. I’m more than happy to get it.” She set off for the bar, chin high, posture erect, a queen with a shrimp tray in her hand.

“Well, la-di-da.” Leeann frowned, disappointed that she hadn’t gotten more of a reaction. “She’s still a snot.”

Heidi craned her neck to watch Sugar Beth at the bar. “Did you see her face when Leeann gave her Winnie’s glass? I don’t know about y’all, but this is the best party I’ve ever been to.”

Amy looked worried. “I shouldn’t be enjoying this so much.”

“Have a ball,” Merylinn retorted. “You can beg Jesus for forgiveness tomorrow.”

“She just wrote us out of her life,” Heidi said. “The minute she got to college, it was like we didn’t exist anymore.”

“Plus what she did to Colin,” Amy added.

“She swore it was true,” Leeann said to him. “But we never believed her.”

Colin had heard this before, and he didn’t want to hear it again. “Water under the bridge and all that. Let’s let it go.”

They stared at him, but before they could pounce, Sugar Beth returned with Winnie’s glass. Winnie took it without looking at her, just as if Sugar Beth were invisible. He should congratulate himself. This was drawing-room justice at its finest.

“I finished reading that Chinese author you recommended,” Winnie said. “You were right. I enjoyed the book enormously.”

Colin felt a stab of irritation. Winnie, more than any of them, knew what it felt like to be an outcast, and he wanted better from her. The hypocrisy brought him up short. Was he now going to blame Winnie for what he’d put in motion?

Sugar Beth disappeared toward the kitchen, and he let himself relax a bit. Maybe she’d come to her senses and leave. The old Sugar Beth certainly would have. He gamely plunged into a discussion of the Chinese author. He sounded pompous, but he didn’t let that stop him. And, blast it, he wasn’t pompous, no matter what Sugar Beth said. He simply liked encouraging people to talk about books.

“Unless there’s a naked man on the cover, I prob’ly won’t read it,” Merylinn said. “Maybe they’ll make a movie.”

All of them laughed, except Winnie. He followed her gaze and saw that Sugar Beth had come back from the kitchen, and this time she was heading straight for Ryan.

Ryan enjoyed parties with good music and great food, parties where old friends could mix with enough new people to make it interesting, but he hadn’t wanted to attend tonight. At the same time, he’d barely been able to think of anything else. Finally he’d see her again.

“Colin’s gonna rub her nose in it, just you wait and see,” Leeann had crowed the last time they’d all been together. “He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t.”

The others had chirped in with their opinions, while only Winnie remained silent.

He didn’t have to see Sugar Beth to know she was coming toward him. It had been that way in high school, too. Even before he’d turned a corner, he knew she’d be standing on the other side.

Luv U 4-Ever.

He shut out that rusty whisper. They’d hardly been Romeo and Juliet. More like Ken and Barbie as they’d so often been teased. He’d lapped at her ankles like a lovesick pup, and she’d been exactly what she was now, a woman born too beautiful and too rich to worry about a small thing like integrity.

“Hey, there,” she said, her voice huskier than he remembered. “I’ve got some mediocre bruschetta waiting for a man with an appetite, but stay away from that other stuff. It’s tofu.”

He turned slowly.

Even though she was more plainly dressed than the other women, she’d managed to outshine them just by the way she held herself. As he studied her, he saw that she’d left behind the fresh beauty of her girlhood. She was too thin, drawn around the eyes. Maybe she looked a little used. Not used up. Just no longer new. At the same time, nothing could hide her thoroughbred’s pedigree.

She held out the tray she was carrying. “Look at you,” she said softly. “Mr. Big Shot.” She didn’t speak sarcastically but fondly, more like a proud mother than a faithless former girlfriend.

He felt oddly deflated, and he bristled. “No complaints. I’m right at home in your father’s office.”

“I’ll bet you are.” If anything, her smile grew more generous, which only provoked him.

“You never know when life’s going to throw you a curveball, do you, Sugar Beth?”

“You sure don’t.”

A pang pierced him, along with a flood of emotions he couldn’t quite interpret. He didn’t like the affection in her eyes. He wanted something more dangerous, something more satisfying. A little anguish over what she’d turned her back on, maybe. A few remnants of leftover lust to soothe his ego, although, considering his teenage clumsiness, that wasn’t too likely.

“Take it out, Ryan. I changed my mind. It hurts. Take it out.”

But it had been too late. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

She’d laughed. “It’s okay. Let’s do it again.”

And they had. Again and again until they’d finally gotten it right. They’d done it in her Camaro. On blankets at the lake. Next to the furnace in Leeann’s parents’ basement. And still it hadn’t been enough. When they got married, they promised, they’d do it at least three times a day. Luv U 4-Ever.

“Sugar Beth, I’d like to speak with you for a moment.”

He hadn’t heard Colin approach, and he felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness as Sugar Beth’s smile faded. “Sorry, boss. No time for chitchat. I have to serve these horse-doovers before they get soggy.”

“Forget that.”

But she’d already taken off.

The pianist switched to a Faith Hill song. Colin glowered at her retreating back. Ryan took a sip of beer and shook his head. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Colin sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“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.