Susan Phillips - Ain’t She Sweet?

Sugar Beth finally let herself notice what she hadn’t wanted to see. Leeann was wearing a coat.

It was a jacket, really. Quilted brown wool that was too heavy to wear inside. Something the maid would be expected to hang up. Leeann quivered with delight as she shrugged out of it and tossed it to Sugar Beth. “Be careful with that. It’s my favorite.”

A dozen insults skipped through Sugar Beth’s head, but she didn’t utter a single one of them because she’d turned her back on her oldest friend for a worthless shortstop named Darren Tharp.

All of them watched her as she made her way across the foyer. The jacket on her arm weighed a thousand pounds.

The bell rang again. She kept moving. Didn’t let herself hear it. Almost made her escape.

“Get that, would you, Sugar Beth?” Colin said quietly.

Dread curled in her stomach. Where there was one Seawillow, there were bound to be more.

The walk back to the door took forever. No more Seawillows lived in Parrish. All the rest had moved away. But some of their boyfriends had stayed…

She opened the door.

He looked as familiar as if she’d seen him just that morning, yet the years had left their mark, and as she gazed into his eyes, she knew the teenage boy she remembered was a mere shadow of the man he’d become. He was even more handsome than she’d imagined he would be, confident and polished, his blond hair a shade darker but his eyes the same warm caramel. His black-and-white-herringbone sports coat was perfectly coordinated with a subtly striped shirt. Both pieces were beautifully made and very expensive. But despite his astounding good looks, she felt no pangs of passion. None of the hot rush of desire that Colin Byrne aroused. Instead, she experienced a mixture of nostalgia and bone-deep regret.

Leeann’s wool jacket burned her arm. The pianist began playing a Sting ballad. Ryan’s family had been poor compared with her own. Their house was small and cramped, their cars old, but she’d never cared about that. Even when he’d been a boy, she’d seen his worth. For that, at least, she could give herself credit. Then again, maybe it had just been sex.

“Hello, Sugar Beth.”

She tried to get his name out, but it stuck to the roof of her mouth, and all she could manage was a nod. She stepped back awkwardly to let them in. Because, of course, Ryan hadn’t come alone.

Winnie had replaced Diddie’s pearls with a bezel-set diamond, and matching studs glittered through her dark hair. She wore a slim-fitting basil green pantsuit with an emerald sequin camisole. The color would have washed out Sugar Beth, but Winnie had Griffin’s olive tones, and she looked stunning.

She didn’t show any of the spiteful delight that Leeann and Merylinn had shown. As their eyes met, she exhibited only a deep, fierce dignity. Let all the world see that the lumpy outcast had turned into a very beautiful, very wealthy swan.

Ryan slipped his arm around Winnie’s shoulders. Sugar Beth got the point.

Colin stepped forward. Winnie looked small and feminine standing between the two men. Sugar Beth had forgotten how petite she was. She and Colin exchanged a social kiss.

“Winnie, you look smashing tonight. But, then, you always do.” His smile told Sugar Beth that, however fond he might be of Leeann and the other Seawillows, his friendship with Winnie ran deeper.

“I was afraid we’d be late. Ryan had an emergency at the plant.”

“Equipment trouble with one of the lines,” Ryan said. “But we’re up and running again.”

“Glad to hear it.” Colin and Ryan shook hands in the easy way of men who were comfortable with each other. They were a study in contrasts: Ryan fair and fine-featured. Colin dark, brooding, and enigmatic. She fled.

By the time she reached the laundry room, she was shaking. Nothing would make her go back out there. She was leaving and never coming back. Her purse? Where had she left it? Where-

I love you, my Sugar Beth. And you love me, too, don’t you?

Delilah… Just for a moment, she’d let herself forget. Preserving her pride wouldn’t put a stop to the bills that were coming due for her stepdaughter’s care. Once again she’d reached another of life’s turning points. Emmett would have called tonight a golden opportunity to show what she was made of.

Glass, my darling. Just like one of Daddy’s windows.

Quitcher bitchin’, love, and do what has to be done.

Easy for you to say. You’re dead.

But you’re not, and Delilah depends on you.

She stabbed a hanger into the sleeves of Leeann’s jacket. She could almost taste the sweetness of revenge on Colin’s tongue. He expected her to run-wanted her to run-and the longer she locked herself away back here, the more satisfaction she was giving him.

She turned to the door and drew a deep breath. It was time to test herself. Again.

“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?