Mr. Write (Sweetwater) (13 page)

“Consider it
character research.”

Mason
glowered, then finally threw up his hands.  He turned to go, then lobbed a hail-Mary pass over his shoulder.  “Sarah walked by the window a few minutes ago.  I believe she was wearing a cocktail dress, but quite frankly I was too distracted by her legs to tell.”

An image of her lying on the ground in that robe flashed into his mind, and Tucker
nearly wavered.  Especially when the visual shifted to her lying in a similar position, this time naked. And in his bed.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

“Excellent.”  Mason brightened.

“I’ve been spending too much time on the house.”  He tapped a couple keys on his computer.  Brought up the screen he’d been avoiding for the past
couple weeks.  “Since you’re going to be gone for a few hours, I should probably take the time to do some paying work.  After all, I’ve been procrastinating.”

Mason
began to speak, his expression one of protest, until he recognized the corner he’d just been painted into.  “You are such an arsehole.”

Tucker acknowledged that truth
with a nod.  “Shut the door on your way out.” 

SARAH
tried to tell herself that the rolling and pitching sensation in her stomach wasn’t nerves.  Because that would just be stupid.

But as she c
hopped mint to garnish the juleps lined up in the pretty, frosty silver cups, she had to wonder if she knew what she was doing.

Not with the mint.  She’d probably garnished a thousand dr
inks when she’d done a stint as a cocktail waitress.

And not with the store.  Or, at least, the
business
of running the store. 

She’d checked and rechecked every detail,
met every code, passed every inspection, ordered and catalogued nearly every item of inventory herself. 

In addition to hundreds of books, there were sweetgrass baskets, locally made, along with the mugs she’d commissioned from a resident potter.  T-shirts – organic cotton, grown
near Sweetwater – were emblazoned with the Dust Jacket’s name, and stacked neatly, according to size.  A line of homemade condiments accompanied a Gullah cookbook.  Bookmarks, e-reader cases and gift cards were displayed attractively at the point of purchase.

Josie’s pastries needed no special arranging
. They would quite simply sell themselves. 

Hours of sweat and labor had transformed the neglected, floral nightmare of a cottage into something
warm and welcoming and cozy, with just the slightest bit of a funky edge.  Local artwork adorned the walls – a nice arrangement with the gallery next door – and between her brother’s help and handiwork, haunting the local thrift stores, and raiding Allie’s attic, they’d managed to make the renovations fit within their budget.

With enough left over to hire the very helpful and entertaining Rainey.
  Even if she did make Sarah feel old.

Sh
e glanced up, to where her former babysitting charge and her best friend were flitting about, like two very poised and pretty butterflies, in the garden.

A garden crowded, Sarah noted as more butterflies seemed to flutter in her belly, with quite a few members of Sweetwater’s social elite.

Both Rainey and Allie mingled easily. Rainey, because she was young and beautiful and outgoing. And Allie, because this kind of social gathering was her natural milieu. 

Sh
e had acted as hostess for her father for years after her mother walked out, until his rapidly deteriorating health – not to mention their recent financial circumstances – precluded them from hosting the dinners and galas for which her family had been known.

And at which Sarah’s mother had
often worked.

It was an old thorn, mostly dull
by now, though still enough to irritate as it poked her side.  Not because Allie – or her brothers, or even Judge Hawbaker, for that matter – had ever made an issue of it.

Allie’s mother, however, had been a different story.

Sarah felt ridiculous, letting the childhood wound fester.  It certainly didn’t matter, at this point, that Evelyn Hawbaker had once deemed Sarah an unworthy playmate for her little girl.   

B
ut the scene with Jonas kept replaying like a wired loop in her head. 
Trashy. 
It was the same word Allie’s mother used.  The word, uttered with such icy disdain that Sarah had withered like a fragile bloom at the first bite of frost. 

And while Sarah knew,
knew
that it wasn’t true – knew that she was an intelligent, successful woman – she couldn’t help wondering if a few of those people out on the lawn looked at her and still saw the disadvantaged little Barnwell girl.  Mama died young, and her daddy fell so far down into a bottle that they’d ended up living in a secondhand trailer in the Baptist Church parking lot.

And wasn’t she being selfish? 

This party had to be at least as difficult on Allie as it was on her.  More so.  After all, all of that had happened years ago.  Allie’s family was the one who’d been grist for the town gossip mill for the past few years. 

But these people still
see Allie as an equal,
said a nasty little voice inside Sarah’s head.  Whatever Allie’s current problems – and they were legion – she had the Hawbaker pedigree to back her up.  

Sarah blew out a breath.

Annoyed that she’d allowed Jonas to dredge up all her old insecurities, she glanced down, to where her gauzy sleeve hid the livid purple and yellow mark on her arm.

She hadn’t wanted anyone to see it.  Hadn’t wanted to suffer casual concern or – worse – explain to
Allie, Noah, Josie or God,
Will,
what had happened.  So she’d covered it up.

Just like she had years before.

Since her brain seemed determined to revisit ancient history, Sarah guessed she might as well get it all out.  So she let the memory – the bright fear, the dull, dulling shame – creep out of the dark hole in which it lived. 

Hard hands, grabbing her
from behind, pushing her down.  Ugly words slurred hotly in her ear.  Clothes ripping, falling away. The sound of a zipper lowering.  Her legs like rubber as she kicked, and ran.

She’d had bruises after that night, too.

Sarah had been afraid to say anything.  Fearful of what people would think. Worried about somehow jeopardizing her father’s tenuous hold on sobriety.

And
Austin, despite his family’s less than illustrious circumstances, had been popular, an athlete.  A regular hometown hero on the gridiron.     

N
o one would have believed that she hadn’t joined him in that dark corner of the old playground willingly. That’s what she’d thought at the time, anyway. 

“Child
, are you choppin’ that mint or killin’ it?”

Startled, Sarah looked down to realize that she’d basically ground the hapless mint leaves into pulp.  “I was just…”

Hiding, she realized.  Hiding in the damn kitchen, while her own party was going on outside. 

The fairy lights they’d strung in the trees winked like fireflies, making Sarah realize it was nearly dark.
  Embarrassed, she glanced at Josie, encountered dark eyes full of understanding.  Then Josie shook her head.  “Go on, now.  Get out there, where you belong.”

For one horrifying moment, Sarah felt tears well.

That was it, she realized.  Her unspoken fear about coming back.  That even after all this time,
all she’d accomplished, she still wouldn’t quite belong.

Time to get over
herself. “I’m going.”

Balancing the silver cups on the silver platter – courtesy of the Hawbaker’s attic – Sarah carried mint juleps to dispense to
their guests.  Although Sarah herself was fine with the occasional drink, she’d been tempted to keep the party dry, both out of respect for Allie and for fear of inadvertently enabling Harlan Hawbaker.  But Allie wasn’t one to impose her personal choices on others. And besides that, Harlan had gone dark side of the moon a couple of days ago.  It wasn’t unusual, lately, for him to disappear for a week or two at a time.

But his siblings
didn’t rest easy until either Will tracked him down, or he showed up on his own.  Usually hung over, broke and filthy, without a real clear recollection of where he’d been.

Which made Sarah extra grateful for the distraction this party provided.   Allie was smiling and laughing in a way that she hadn’t
in quite some time.  In fact, as Sarah stepped out onto the porch, she heard the distinct peal of her friend’s laughter.  Clear and musical, it always brought to Sarah’s mind woodland glades, babbling brooks and frolicking, animated animals. 

Allie would just love that, Sarah mused wryly, and glanced over to see her friend smiling up at a
new arrival dressed in casual slacks and a light blue shirt.

Mason.  Sarah recognized the
golden hair, the lean build. The careless confidence of the physically flawless.  He cleaned up nicely – as if there’d been any doubt of that.  Even sweaty and dirty, he was the kind of man that made women lose their heads.  And where their heads went, their panties were sure to follow.

Concern niggled, and Sarah watched with a jaundiced eye as he chatted up Allie.

Not that she didn’t like him. He’d seemed perfectly nice – infinitely more so than his cranky counterpart – during their brief conversations.  His manners were impeccable, his demeanor courteous.  And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit the accent added charm.

B
ut something about him struck Sarah as… somehow false.   

It could be that he was simply a
very hot guy, and she didn’t trust anyone
that
handsome to be anything but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

True,
he hadn’t done more than glance at Rainey the other day, despite the fact that the teenager had practically stretched out on the kitchen floor and said “take me.”  And Sarah hadn’t heard anything about him catting about town.

A
nd she would have heard, as both he and Pettigrew were quite the topics of conversation. 

Q
uite frankly, she’d been too busy to give much consideration to either of her new neighbors.

Well, okay
. She had thought about Tucker Pettigrew.  In less than glowing terms, but more frequently than she cared to admit.

It was the singing, she mused
.  It made him something of a conundrum.  A man who looked like a mob enforcer and acted like a dyspeptic king should not be belting out Broadway hits
in the shower, for God’s sake.

She glanced over the
growing crowd, noting with amusement that Carolann Frye and her cronies were gawking at Mason, their drool all but pooling onto one of Sarah’s beautifully refinished tables.  They’d probably cough up a hairball if they knew from where the tables had come.

B
ut she didn’t see a hulking, dark-haired man scowling at the other guests.  Apparently he’d sent Mason as his proxy.

Allie
– cute as hell in her lavender sheath – was playing with her pearls, which was a dead give-away that she was nervous.  The kind of nerves a woman felt when she was attracted to a man. 

And who could blame her?

But – not to discount Allie’s appeal, which was considerable – Sarah couldn’t help but be a little suspicious on her friend’s behalf.  Allie gave off two distinct vibes: that of a woman who’d been raised with money, and that of a woman who’d been bruised, emotionally speaking.  It made her, to Sarah’s mind, a target for a certain kind of man. 

The question was, what kind of man was Mason?

“Drinks are getting warm.”

S
tartled, Sarah found herself relieved of her burden, and realized she’d been standing there, woolgathering, longer than she thought.

Will took one of the silver cups from the tray, took a healthy drink, and sat the tray onto the antique sideboard they’d placed on the porch to hold things like extra napkins, sugar packets and utensils.  Then he grabbed her shoulder with his free hand, and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.

“Well.”  Her social smile turned genuine. “That’s the second kiss I’ve gotten from a Hawbaker this week.  Though I have to say that Bran’s had considerably more flair.”

“He’s a drama
queen,” Will pointed out.  “I’m a cop.”

“Still hard to believe that
the Cutest Boy in the Senior Class wears a gun to work every day.” Sarah chuckled when he scowled.

“I’m never going to live that down.”

“Not as long as you have that face.”  Despite the fact that he was past thirty, Will had an affable, boy next door quality that had not only earned him that dubious distinction from his classmates at Sweetwater High, but – and this was the bright side he was overlooking – made him lethally effective at his job.