“What are you doing?”
“I’m calming down,” he said, although it didn’t look as if that were the case at all. “And I’m telling myself you weren’t just tweaking your nose at me, that there’s a reason for what you did.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Miranda asked through the public smile that was still plastered on her face.
“I’m talking about my daughter. And that dress.” He ran a hand through his already rumpled hair, then pointed toward the stage. “She looks exactly like my mother. And she has a whole hiveful of boys buzzing around her.”
Andie kept her shoulders back just like Miranda had told her and was very careful not to slouch. She knew from Miranda’s mirror, and the eye-widening that took place every time someone caught sight of her, that she had broken through some invisible barrier and taken Truro by surprise. The other girls, who’d been buzzing with self-importance in their juvenile ruffles and bows, fell silent when she approached. The boys looked equally stunned.
Only Jake commented on her transformation. “Wow, Andie,” he said, stepping forward and welcoming her into the group. “You look great.”
“You look pretty good yourself,” she said. And he did, in his simple black rental tux with his dark hair curling just above his broad shoulders. “ML.” She nodded regally, for once feeling that her height was an advantage somewhere other than on the court. The other girl barely reached Jake’s shoulder and wore a pink cap-sleeved dress with an unfortunate ruffle that wound from her waist across her thighs.
Andie was admonishing herself for being so uncharitable, when Steve Carrington and Earlene Johnson arrived. Steve clapped Jake on the shoulder and the couple stepped into place next to Mary Louise.
“Ahchoo!” Mary Louise sneezed, and the massive ruffle quivered.
Earlene leaned across Steve. “Do you need a Kleenex, ML?”
“Ahhhhhchooooo!” Mary Louise doubled over with that one. Earlene fished in her bag for a tissue and ML sneezed again. As a group they watched Mary Louise’s face begin to swell.
“Oh, no!” she wailed. “Is somebody wearing Libido?”
She sniffed and stared at Jake accusingly.
“It’s not me, ML. I gave that bottle away to . . . Jake’s voice trailed off and he winced. “Steve. I didn’t know he was going to be here tonight, or I would have warned him.”
“Ahhhchooo!”
Tears ran down Mary Louise’s cheeks. Andie knew she should feel bad for her, but there’d been a few too many catty remarks to feel truly sympathetic. “Do you want me to look for an antihistamine?” she asked.
Mary Louise’s eyes were starting to disappear into the swollen blob of her face. “No, somebody find my mother. Oh, God, I look like Miss Piggy when this happens.”
“Do you want me to try to find Doc Pritchard?” Jake asked.
“No!” Mary Louise shrieked. “Don’t look at me. Oh, God.” Her hands skimmed over her misshapen face. “I’m all swollen and ugly!”
ML’s mother swept up and pulled her shrieking baby bird under her wing.
“Should I drive her home, Mrs. Atkins?” Jake stepped forward, looking shaken.
“No!” ML shrieked again. She glared at Andie and Jake from behind the hands she’d cupped over her face as if they’d planned her humiliation intentionally. “I want my mother to drive me home! I’ll never forgive you for this, Jake Hanson, never!”
With a final sneeze and shriek they were gone.
Miranda followed Blake’s finger to the group assembled near the stage, the one Mary Louise Atkins and her mother appeared to be fleeing from.
“Those boys are buzzing all around her. The next thing you know, that one”—he pointed at Jake Hanson—“will be trying to suck her nectar. Excuse me.” He took hold of her shoulders and tried to set her out of the way. “I’m going to arrest him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Miranda stood her ground. “She’s absolutely magnificent. And if you leave her alone she’ll have the time of her life.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She laughed and tugged on his shoulder to pull him around to face her.
“Andie is a—” he began.
“Very smart levelheaded girl,” Miranda finished. “She’s not going to rush out and do something stupid. And Jake Hanson is a very nice boy.”
“That’s just what he wants us to think. Believe me, I know what’s going through his mind right now, and—”
“Shhh,” she hushed him. “Vivien’s going up to the microphone. It’s almost time to take the tumbrel up to the guillotine—I mean, the stage.” She closed her eyes briefly to gather her strength. One last humiliation and the Guild Ball could be put behind her.
The girls from her prep class moved sedately into line on either side of the platform as they’d been instructed, their escorts beside them. Jake stepped into place beside Andie, and the girl shot her father a look.
“Just leave them be,” Miranda urged. “You can put the fear of God into Jake
after
the presentation. Let her enjoy her moment. Look—” She pointed to the other side of the dance floor, where his grandfather and her grandmother stood. “Gus is taking a picture of them now. They look so unbelievably sweet together.”
Blake growled under his breath, but he stayed put.
Miranda ran a nervous hand over the front of her gown and drew in a steadying breath as Vivien began to speak into the microphone. She wished she were anywhere but here. She wished the night were behind her, the embarrassment of being crowned without her husband by her side already lived through and forgotten. She looked over at Blake. She wished a lot of things.
“And now,” Vivien said, “without further ado, I present you with this year’s Guild chairwoman and reigning queen . . .”
There was a drum roll, and then a spotlight skidded around the room searching her out. “Miranda Smith.”
A trumpet sounded, and Miranda felt the hot glare of the spotlight skim over her face. For a moment she was paralyzed by fear and embarrassment; the room practically echoed with the all-too-true whispers that her husband wasn’t coming back. Then the knowledge washed through her: She’d been abandoned and left to face what had seemed like insurmountable problems, but she hadn’t run from them and she hadn’t let them beat her. She might be alone, but she knew now what she was made of, and what she was made of was more than enough.
Miranda drew herself to her full height and stepped forward into the light. She felt the warmth of the spotlight on her face and felt the smile come naturally to her lips. She walked slowly and regally, trying to calm her racing heart, pretending it was just a pageant, letting herself walk the walk, reminding herself she didn’t need a man by her side.
She had covered only a few steps when she felt someone step up beside her.
“Would you like an escort?” Blake’s smile was both warm and confident as he bowed smartly before her. Heads bent toward each other and the murmuring grew louder, but she ignored it. She was moved by Blake’s gesture and tempted by the idea of having his solid strength at her side. She looked into his eyes and smiled her thanks, but shook her head slightly.
“I really appreciate the offer,” she said softly. “But I think it’s time to prove I can go it on my own.” Her smile grew, and her voice got even softer. “But if you’d like to come over later . . .”
Blake bowed again, his acceptance clear in his eyes. Lifting her chin, Miranda walked between the double line of Rhododendron girls and up the steps to accept her cape and crown. As the applause swelled, she surveyed her domain with new eyes and felt a calming sense of acceptance settle over her. For better
and
for worse, these were her people.
When you got right down to it, it was good to be queen.
It was long past midnight by the time Blake was able to extract Andie from the swarm of young bees and spirit her and Gus home, and after one by the time he’d shucked the monkey suit and judged the town tucked in enough to drive over to Miranda’s.
He’d stayed clear of her since their night at the Ritz, knowing they had no business being anywhere near each other until Tom Smith was found and dealt with. But he’d never thought finding the man would take so long, or that staying away would be so difficult.
Getting through the evening without dragging her off to a broom closet or some deserted corner had required every bit of restraint—something that seemed to have deserted him completely as soon as she’d whispered her invitation.
Miranda answered the door in the long velvet cape and nothing else, and his entire body snapped to attention. The red velvet swirled around her bare legs and provided glimpses of smooth white skin. She looked regal and sensual all at once and the look in her eyes told him she was as eager as he was.
“No crown?” Blake stepped into the foyer, lowered his mouth to Miranda’s, and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Do I need one?”
He slipped his hands inside the velvet and pulled her up against him. “No.”
Her skin was warm and ripe and, at her short gasp of excitement, he walked her backward until they came to a halt against the foyer wall, their bodies pressed intimately together.
He let his hands roam freely, and somehow his coat came off and his shirt was untucked and her fingers were fumbling with his belt.
Moving his hands beneath her buttocks he lifted her in his arms and headed for the stairs. Her legs wrapped around his waist and a bare breast brushed against his lips. Her tongue teased his ear.
“I want you
now
.” She nibbled on his earlobe and her teeth grazed his neck as the velvet cape swirled around them.
“Then you’ve got me, Your Majesty.” Stopping mid-step, Blake undid the tie at her neck and let the red velvet puddle on the landing. Then he placed her gently on top of it and prepared to service his queen.
“You’re a loyal subject.” She smiled as he kneeled in front of her and brought his mouth down to her breast. “And if you keep that up, I see a knighthood in your future.”
He woke at four in Miranda’s bed and told himself he should go home, move the car, do something other than lie there feeling so good. She lay curled beside him looking decidedly unqueenlike. The last vestiges of her makeup had disappeared, and so had the sophisticated façade she presented to the world. Without makeup the dusting of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose stood out in stark relief, and her lips looked even more inviting without the shiny gloss of lipstick.
“I like you this way,” he said as her eyes fluttered open. “Without all the . . . props and lighting.”
She smiled and moved closer.
A wave of real feeling washed over him and he beat it back. Miranda Smith had a husband who was still missing, and a host of secrets she hadn’t seen fit to share. The last place he should be right now was here. “I need to go,” he said. “Your neighbors . . .”
“Have probably already called Clara Bartlett to report seeing us strip in the foyer.” She snuggled closer and reached for him, and he stopped worrying about her neighbors and her secrets.
When his cell phone rang an hour and a half later, he was in a postcoital fog and it took him a couple of minutes to track the phone down to his pants pocket on the stairs. He pulled it out and saw the phone number of one of his deputies scrawled across the small screen, but then phone calls at 5:30
A
.
M
. almost never came from Publishers Clearinghouse. He answered, and stood naked on Miranda Smith’s stairway as Ed Beagley’s voice came over the line.
“Chief?” The deputy’s voice was hushed. “I just got a call from Earl West—he was up fishing at Lake Carraway on Ballantyne Bald.”
Blake stared out the fanlight above Miranda’s front door as Ed went on speaking, and his whole body tensed as he replied. “Get ahold of Gabe Holcomb and have him bring the tow truck up there. Then you take Earl’s statement and ask him to wait until I get there. I’ll call the GBI.”
Blake slipped on his pants and put the cell phone back into his pocket. He carried his shirt and the velvet cape back upstairs with him and placed them next to Miranda on the bed.
“You’d better get dressed, Miranda,” he said quietly. “That was Ed Beagley. It looks like we’ve found Tom.”
chapter
24
S
he was a widow. The word reverberated in Miranda’s brain. She was a widow, because her husband was dead. Kaput. As in no longer alive.
She could not get her brain around it.
She’d spent the last three and a half months hardening her heart and telling herself that she was better off without Tom. Stunned by both his departure and betrayal, she’d spent those months whipping up her anger, shoring up her backbone to do what needed to be done. She’d even dedicated numerous hours to picturing Tom with a world-class wedgie and more than a couple wishing him dead. But she’d never really thought about what that would mean, or truly considered the permanence of it.
And never, even in her worst nightmares, had she imagined that he might die in the front seat of his car wearing nothing but ladies’ lingerie. Or that he and his car, which was packed and ready to blow town, would be found in the lake in front of their vacation house. And that all of Truro would know it.
“I’ll need to file a report,” Blake said when he came back that afternoon to give her the official news.
She looked at him through her tears, unable to bear the distance in his eyes. Less than twenty-four hours ago they’d been as intimate as it was possible for two people to be. Now he was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“I’ll have the coroner’s findings by midweek, and then the body can be released for burial.”
That thought had produced a fresh flood of tears.
“It can wait until after the funeral,” he said in that professional voice of his, “but you’re going to have to cooperate with this investigation.”
“Investigation?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, but he didn’t step closer and he didn’t take her in his arms. “Your husband’s dead, Miranda,” he said. “Under very strange circumstances. And you’ve been pretending he’s away on business.”