The Bobcat's Tate (18 page)

“The fact that you
—hey! You did it again.” Lainey poked at her with her broom.

“So, are you going to see Mr. Hot Stuff again tonight?”

“Yes, in fact, I am, Miss Nosy-butt. We have another dinner date at Henry’s house this evening. Thank you for letting us have sex on your fiancé’s bed. Don’t worry, I washed the bedding this morning, and I will do so again tomorrow morning.”

“It’s all good
. That bed has a sturdy frame, doesn’t it?” Marigold reached up to dust a high shelf. She suddenly stiffened and scowled, setting her feather duster down on a side table. “I feel the presence of evil. Or at least something really annoying.”

“Are you sure it’s not just dust?”

“Do not question the evil-meter, woman
. I’m a psychic.”

“You’re a love psychic. That’s different.”

Then Lainey heard a voice calling from the front of the house. “Lainey? Are you there?”

It was her mother.

“Oh, damnation,” Lainey groaned. “Fine. Your evil-meter is in perfect working order. Frickin’ hell. Why must she come here and harsh my mellow while I’m still bathed in post-coital bliss?”

Her mother walked through the
sitting room door with a determined smile pasted on her face.

She turned to Marigold first. “I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Renee Robinson
. It’s ever so delightful to meet you.” She extended her hand as if she were royalty about to actually touch a filthy peasant, beaming with self-congratulation.

Marigold didn’t move from the
spot or change her expression, which was the exact same expression a person would wear if they realized they’d just stepped in a big, fat cow patty.

After a moment, Renee dropped her hand and turned back to
Lainey. “I understand that you are upset with Miles, but you need to rethink your hasty decision. A marriage isn’t just about love. It’s about duty to your family and planning for the future. I have been informed that you’ve been gallivanting around town with a completely unsuitable man, a wolf shifter at that, not even a bobcat. Miles comes from a very successful family, and your children would bear the name of the Bauer family. Remember how excited you were at the thought of becoming part of the Bauer family?”

“No, that was you,”
Lainey said. “You were excited about becoming part of the Bauer family. If you like them so much, divorce Dad and marry Miles yourself. He’s made it clear he’s not picky. He just wants a paycheck.”

Her mother didn’t notice the insult.
“Don’t be foolish, young lady, our people don’t divorce. You are consorting with a man with very little money and no future. Do you want your children to be poor? To worry about where their next meal is coming from?” Renee’s smile was starting to waver at the corners, but she kept it pasted on her face like a beauty queen at a pageant.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.
We’re shifters. We can hunt our food, not that he’s a pauper, anyway. He owns a business. The fact that he’s not a multi-millionaire doesn’t mean he’s poor.”

“Hunt your food?” her mother looked utterly horrified at the thought. Civilized city shifters did not hunt for their own food.

“You can blow hot air all day long,” Marigold interjected, “but it won’t change anything. Tate Calloway is her fated mate.”

“Nonsense
. That’s a myth.” The pageant smile stayed put, but Renee’s eyes were bright and angry.

“
No, it isn’t,” Lainey said boldly. “The moment his eyes met mine, I felt like I’d been hit by a thunderbolt. I never felt like that before, and I never will again. He is the one for me. You and Dad showed me the right way without even meaning to. You’re rich, successful, you’ve social-climbed to the top of the ladder, and you are the most miserable people I’ve ever met.”

“This man just met you, and he’s using you for sex because he
thinks you’re going to leave town.” Renee was no longer smiling. Her lips thinned to a hard angry line. “Miles is offering you marriage and a secure, comfortable future.”

“Tate asked me to stay, and I’m going to tell him yes
.” Lainey met her mother’s eyes with an unwavering gaze, staring into their black depths.

“We’ll see about that.” Renee
left the room, her heels clacking angrily on the floor.

Marigold began
singing “Ding, dong, the witch is dead,” using her feather duster as a microphone and dancing around the room.

Lainey
turned back to her sweeping with a grimace.

“
What, is my singing that bad?” Marigold asked, in a fake-hurt tone.

“Well, yes, actually,”
Lainey managed a smile. “But you also don’t know how determined my mother is, and how low she’ll stoop to get what she wants. She’ll come up with something.”

“Chillax.
There’s nothing she can do now. She’ll have to hop on her broomstick and fly away home. Let’s go drink some mint juleps on the back porch and relax.”

“You just said the magic word.”
Lainey leaned her broom on the wall.

“Which on
e? Mint julep? That’s two words.”

“All of the words, actually.
Back porch. Relax. Mint Juleps.” She followed Marigold into the kitchen, where Marigold poured two very generous portions of mint julep into mason jars and dumped in ice.

She handled
one to Lainey, and grinned wickedly. “So, speaking of back porches, does Tate like yours?”

“
Marigold, that is personal information!” Lainey gasped. “What is it with you people from New York? You have no filter.”

“Because Henry loves mine, even though my back porch unfortunately is not as generously sized as your back porch.
Want to know our favorite thing to do?”

“No
.” Lainey ran for the back porch, with Marigold following at her footsteps, calling out far more detail than Lainey ever need to know.

“How is that even anatomically possible?”
Lainey asked, as she settled into the porch swing. “No. Don’t tell me. I’m going to drink away the memory.”

“Cheers,” Marigold said, toasting her with her glass. “And I do yoga, that’s how.”

* * *

“I’m not so sure about this.
” Lainey patted the curlers in her hair nervously.

This morning,
Imogen, Emma and Alma had dragged Lainey to the Kurl Up And Dye, and she’d agreed to let Hepzibah set her hair in rollers. She hoped against hope that it didn’t look dreadful, because she was meeting Tate for lunch and she wouldn’t have time to fix it if they ended up making her look like Shirley Temple.

There was something charming about the old-timey feel of the hair salon with
its row of women with their hair rolled up in pink rollers, giant plastic bubble dryers lowered over their heads as they read magazines and gossiped.

“It’s
going to be stunning,” Emma said. “Your young man will love it.”

“Well, I don’t know if technically I have a young man…”

“Oh, pish tosh. Of course you do.” Alma and Emma spoke at the same time.

The plastic bubble shut off with a loud ding, and the warm air
vanished. Hepzibah tipped the plastic bubble back, freeing Lainey’s head.

“What are you all going to do on the day of the wedding?”
Lainey asked.

“
We’re going to the reception, not the actual wedding,” Alma said. “The salon is closed on the wedding day, because all the stylists will be at the Beaudreau mansion, styling Ginger and the ladies in the wedding party.” Hepzibah began unrolling the pink rollers and dropping them into a round wicker basket on the countertop. She’d used giant-sized rollers for Lainey, to give her big, loose curls.

The old landline phone
rang. It was a shiny black contraption that was actually connected to the wall like the one at the boarding house. Imogen walked over and picked it up as if she owned the joint. “Kurl Up And Dye,” she said. “Well, hello, Beatrice, yes, it’s me. Getting my rinse and set. You don’t say. She did, really?”

Hepzibah
carefully brushed out the curls as Imogen chattered away, and then she spun Lainey around to admire her hair, which now flowed in a Veronica Lake style, dipping in a wave over one eye.

“That is amazing,”
Lainey said happily. “It looks perfect.”

Imogen strolled up, and
Hepzibah turned to her impatiently. “Well? Spill it!”

Lainey
wondered idly what the people in this town would do if they were deprived of gossip. She suspected that the withdrawal symptoms would be immediate and severe, and treatable only by the copious consumption of mint juleps.

“Portia’s mother has appare
ntly hired some big shot psychic from California named Rainbow Moonchild, who is going to help her track down her daughter, who definitely has skipped town and possibly may have stolen the wedding tiara. Portia did that, not the psychic.”

All
the ladies in the beauty parlor began buzzing with excitement, peppering Imogen with questions.

“
This is terrible, all this happening right before the wedding,” Lainey said, shaking her head. “Poor Ginger.”

“Oh, she’s lived in Blue Moon County for a year,
so she’s used to it,” Imogen said. “There’s always some commotion going on around here.”

“W
ell, I hope they find the woman. I have to head out to get some lunch now.”

“Tell Tate we say hey!” Emma said.

“Yes, he’s welcome to stop by for some pie any time,” Imogen added, and then she turned back to the group of ladies who were crowded around her, pressing her for more details.

Lainey
headed out into the hot, bright day to meet Tate for lunch. She paused by a magnolia tree, breathing in the sweet perfume that drifted from the fat white blossoms. Heaven. She’d never smelled magnolia blossoms before she’d come to Blue Moon Junction.

Then she walked
to the Henhouse, which she knew would be bustling with the lunchtime crowd and bathed in its own kind of perfume, the coffee beans and the sizzling meat on the griddle swirling together in the unique scent of the small town diner. Her stomach rumbled at the thought.

W
hen she reached the Henhouse, she paused to look at her reflection in the picture window, admiring the big silky waves of her chestnut hair.
The retro look really works for me, if I do say so myself.

Tate was
already at the restaurant. She could see him through the window, standing by the countertop where customers sat on round spinning stools, and arguing with a slim woman with a big bouffant of frosted hair.

Her mother.

Her heart sank. What had her mother done now?

She took a deep breath,
steeled herself, and walked in the door and up to the counter. Tate turned to her and put his arm around her protectively.

The din of conversation
had died down when Lainey had walked in. Lainey glanced around. The diner was, as she expected, packed with customers. There was nowhere for her to hide. She felt dizzy and sick.

Tate glared at her mother
. “Babe, your mother is making the claim that you’re a thief, and I was just about to tell her that she better get in her car and head out of town.”

“A thief?”
Lainey echoed.

Her mother smiled
, a pitying smile that clashed jarringly with the gleam of triumph flashing in her eyes. “I was just informing this man that he’ll need to watch the books very closely if you’re going to be working for his family business. After all, if you’d embezzle from your own family…” She shook her head. “I do wish you’d sought help like we asked you to, dear.”

Lainey
froze where she stood. Her mother hadn’t. She couldn’t have. And yet, she had. When Lainey thought that her mother couldn’t stoop any lower, she found a way.

Ta
te turned to her, looking puzzled. “Lainey, this isn’t true. I know it can’t be. You don’t have a criminal record.”

Her mother pulled a
manila file folder out of her purse. “We do have some influence in our town. We worked out a deal with the district attorney’s office. We agreed to drop all charges and have her file sealed, in exchange for her doing community service. She chose to do it at some dreadful facility full of juvenile delinquents. She’d been planning to work as an art teacher, but we had to tell her we’d put a stop to that if she tried. Once we knew she was a thief, we couldn’t trust her around children.”

Every word from her mother’s mouth, every poisonous lie, was like a dagger blow to
Lainey’s heart. She slid out of Tate’s embrace and took a step back; she could feel the blood draining from her face.

“Tell me this isn’t true
,” Tate pleaded.

She couldn’t
. She couldn’t talk about what had happened, and she couldn’t tell him why.