Torie flipped her hair. “Not me.”

“Nor I,” Emma said.

Ted shrugged and before Meg could ask what he was talking about, he’d pinned her with his tiger eyes. “Spence wants to see you, and you’d better cooperate. Smile at him and ask him questions about his plumbing empire. He’s real big on his new Cleaner You toilet.” As Meg arched an eyebrow at him, he spun on Emma. “As for you . . .”

“I know. I’m dreadfully sorry. Really. I fully intended to talk to you first about the contest.”

Torie jabbed him in the shoulder with one manicured fingernail. “Don’t you dare complain. The bidding’s already up to thirty-four hundred dollars. Not having children yourself, you can’t imagine how much the library means to the sweet little babies in our town who are crying themselves to sleep every night because they don’t have any new books.”

He wasn’t biting. “Your expenses will eat up every penny of that thirty-four hundred. Did anybody factor that in?”

“Oh, we have the expenses all worked out,” Emma said. “One of Kenny’s friends has volunteered his private jet, which takes care of airfare to San Francisco. And your mother’s connections will get us great hotel and restaurant discounts. Once we tell her we need them, of course.”

“I wouldn’t bet on her help.”

“On the contrary. She’ll like the idea very much . . . after I point out how brilliantly this contest has taken your mind off your recent . . .”

As Emma searched for the right word, Meg jumped in to help her out. “National humiliation? Public debasement? Looking like a weenie?”

“That’s uncalled for,” Torie protested. “Considering you were responsible.”

“I’m not the one who dumped his sorry ass,” Meg said. “Why can’t you people get that through your thick heads?”

She waited for the inevitable retort. That everything had been fine until she’d come along. That she’d taken cruel advantage of Lucy’s bridal nerves. That she’d been jealous and wanted Ted for herself. Instead, he waved her off and focused on Emma. “You should have known better than to go along with this harebrained contest.”

“Stop looking at me like that. You know how wretched it makes me feel when you frown. Blame Shelby.” Emma glanced around the patio for her mother-in-law. “Who seems to have disappeared. Coward.”

Torie poked him in the ribs. “Uh-oh . . . Your newest conquest is headed this way. With her father.”

Meg could swear she saw Ted frown, except all she actually saw him do was curl his mouth into one of his boringly predictable smiles. But before the Skipjacks could get to him, a shriek cut through the party noise.

“Oh my God!”

Everyone stopped talking and turned to locate the source of the noise. Kayla was staring at the small screen of her metallic red smartphone while Zoey stood on tiptoe to peer over her shoulder. A tendril of hair tumbled from her casually arranged updo as she lifted her head. “Somebody just raised the last bid by a thousand dollars!”

Sunny Skipjack’s crimson lips curved in a satisfied smile, and Meg saw her slip her own phone into the pocket of her tunic.

“Dang,” Torie grumbled. “Topping that is going to put a serious dent in my discretionary income.”

“Daddy!” With a cry of distress, Kayla left Zoey behind as she dashed through the crowd to her father. Just that morning, Meg had served Bruce Garvin an orange soda and received zero tip in exchange. Kayla grabbed his arm and engaged him in a furious conversation.

Ted’s lazy smile wobbled.

“Look on the bright side,” Meg whispered. “The dear little babies of Wynette are that much closer to curling up with the new John Grisham.”

He ignored her to address Torie. “Tell me you’re not really bidding.”

“Of course I’m bidding. Do you think I’d give up the chance for a weekend in San Francisco away from my kids? But Dex gets to come with us.”

An overheated arm settled around Meg’s waist, accompanied by the cloying scent of heavy cologne. “You don’t have a drink yet, Miss Meg. Let’s take care of that.”

The plumbing king looked like Johnny Cash, circa 1985. The silver in his thick black hair shone, and his expensive watch glittered in a nest of wrist hair. Although most of the men wore shorts, he had on black pants and a designer polo with a small tuft of hair visible at the open neck. As he maneuvered her away from the others, he rubbed his hand across the small of her back. “You look like a movie star yourself today. That’s a beautiful dress. Did you ever happen to meet Tom Cruise?”

“I never had the pleasure.” It was a lie, but she wouldn’t let him trap her into a discussion of every star she’d met. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sunny give Ted her bold smile and watched Ted smile right back. A fragment of their conversation drifted her way.

“ . . . and with my software,” Ted said, “communities improve their power efficiency. Dynamic load balancing.”

The way Sunny licked her lips made her response sound like soft-core porn. “Optimizing their existing infrastructure. That’s brilliant, Ted.”

They soon formed a foursome. Sunny, Meg observed, was the whole package. Sexy, smart, accomplished. Her father obviously adored her, and he went on ad nauseum about her accomplishments, from her GRE scores to the design awards she’d won for the company. Ted introduced them to everyone, which turned out to be surprisingly entertaining, because even Birdie, Kayla, and Zoey had to be polite to Meg in front of the Skipjacks. She’d never been around so much sucking up in her life, not even in Hollywood.

“Wynette is the best-kept secret in Texas,” Birdie trilled. “This is God’s country for sure.”

“Just walking down the street, you can run into Dallie Beaudine or Kenny Traveler,” Kayla’s father said. “Name another town where that could happen.”

“Nobody can match our scenery,” Zoey offered, “and people in Wynette know how to make strangers feel welcome.”

Meg could have debated that last point, but a hand that didn’t belong to Spence gave her elbow a warning pinch.

By the time the barbecue was served, Sunny was treating Ted like a long-term boyfriend. “You have to come to Indianapolis, doesn’t he, Dad? You’re going to love it. The most underrated city in the Midwest.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” the mayor replied with all kinds of admiration.

“Sunny’s right.” Spence gave his daughter a fond look. “And I guess Sunny and I already know just about everybody in town.”

Kayla came over to flirt with Ted and announce that the bid had gone up another five hundred dollars. Since she seemed happy about it, Meg suspected “Daddy” was responsible. Sunny didn’t seem threatened by either the higher stakes or Kayla’s blond dazzle.

When Zoey joined them, Ted introduced her to the Skipjacks. Although she wasn’t as obvious about it as Kayla, her gazes at Ted left no doubt how she felt about him. Meg wanted to tell both Zoey and Kayla to get a grip. It was obvious Ted liked them and just as obvious his feelings didn’t stretch any further. Still, she felt more than a little sorry for both women. Ted treated all females—Meg being the lone exception—as infinitely desirable creatures, so it was no wonder they continued to hold out hope.

Sunny had grown bored. “I heard they have a beautiful pool here. Would you mind showing me, Ted?”

“Great idea,” he said. “Meg’s been wanting to see it, too. We’ll all go.”

Meg would have thanked him for making sure she wasn’t left with Spence if she hadn’t recognized his true motive. He didn’t want to be alone with Sunny.

They all wandered out to the pool. Meg met their host, Kenny’s father, Warren Traveler, who looked like an older, rougher version of his son. His wife, Shelby, came across as a bubblehead, an impression Meg knew could be deceptive in Wynette, and sure enough, she soon learned that Shelby Traveler headed the board of the British boarding school where Emma Traveler had formerly been headmistress.

“Before you start yelling at me,” Shelby said to Ted, “you should know that Margo Ledbetter made an audition tape for you and sent it in to The Bachelor. You might want to start practicing your rose ceremony.”

Ted winced, a string of firecrackers went off, and Meg leaned in close enough to whisper, “You really need to get out of this town.”

The small muscle she was becoming increasingly familiar with began to tick at the corner of his jaw, but he smiled and pretended not to hear.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At the pool, Meg watched Torie wrap two future beauty queens in beach towels. The happy kisses she planted on both noses testified that she was all bluster when it came to complaining about her kids. Kenny, in the meantime, was refereeing an argument between two young boys with hair as dark as his own, while a little girl with her mother’s butterscotch curls stole the disputed rubber raft from behind their backs and ran into the pool with it.

Eventually Meg managed to excuse herself to use the bathroom only to find Spence waiting in the hallway with a fresh glass of wine as she came out. “I seem to remember you were drinking the sauvignon blanc.” He hit the consonants hard, like a man with no patience for any language other than English, then poked his head into the bathroom. “Kohler toilet,” he said. “But those are my faucets. Brushed nickel. Part of our Chesterfield line.”

“They’re . . . lovely.”

“Sunny designed them. That girl is a whiz.”

“She seems really accomplished.” Meg tried to ease away, but he was a big man, and he blocked the hallway. His hand settled into its too-familiar spot in the middle of her back. “I have to fly back to Indy for a couple of days. After that, I need to make a quick run to London to check out a cabinet company. I know you’ve got a job, but”—he winked—“why don’t I see if I can arrange for you to get a couple of days off and come with me?”