how telling Kimee that you needed a haircut so that you could get your picture made has caused you to look like—” she wavered a little under Jack’s glare “—like a tanning salon mutant.”
“Because, dear sister, little Kimee was convinced that the photographer’s lighting would…how did she put it?…fade me out.” He rubbed at his face with his knuckle. “She put… What was it called, Cal?”
“Bronzer,” Cal offered with a sly grin.
“Yeah. That’s it. She put bronzer on me with a weird little sponge.”
Della looked at Cal. “And you were…?”
“Reading Cosmo.” He shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “What can I say?”
“Yeah, about that,” Jack interjected. “Try Field and Stream next time you’re in public.” He glanced at Cal’s slacks. “I know subtle isn’t your nature, but you might want to let people get to know you before you break out the tiara.”
“Oh, please.” Cal rolled his eyes. “This is Haddes, not Green Acres. I think they can handle one gay man.”
Jack looked serious. “This is Haddes, not Atlanta.” He shrugged Cal’s hand off his shoulder. “And cut the touchy-feely stuff before you give everybody the wrong idea about us.”
Della straightened. “A tractor and a head of cattle wouldn’t hurt, either.” She fell into a fit of laughter. Shay muffled a giggle.
Cal winked. “Cows. I’ll get right on that.” He looked at Shay, then gestured toward Della and Jack. “Can you believe these two?”
Shay smiled, laughter replaced by her usual Mona Lisa serenity. “Haddes is pretty good at taking folks in.” She met Della’s eyes for a moment. “Even people who are different.”
“So.” Della jumped back to her brother. “Why did you let Kimee do this to you?”
“I didn’t let her.”
“Then why are you, uh, tan?” Della leaned forward to get a closer look.
“Because when I said no thank you, she started to cry.”
Della laughed. “Kimee does not cry.”
“I can assure you that she does.”
Della was horrified. “Why? Why would that make her cry?”
“You left the poor kid with a gazillion people waiting. When I got there Estelle Ashworth looked like she was going to a Pink concert.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right. Kimee was in over her head. I thought putting up with this stuff—” Jack scrubbed his jawline with his knuckle again, but the uneven color appeared to have adhered permanently “—until I could get to the car and wipe it off would make her feel better. But now it’s not coming off.”
Della smirked. “Well…uh…it’s kind of a stain.”
Jack looked puzzled.
“Self-tanner. It’s what we use in the salon. It’s a semi-permanent application. It won’t wash off, it has to wear off.” Della flinched and jumped behind Shay when Jack straightened his six-foot-three frame to full height. “It may take a week.”
CHAPTER 2
Mattie burst through the ladies’ room door, stopped at the sink and stared at her own horrified expression. The tequila swirled in her stomach, threatening to swirl in the sink. Fighting fire with fire, she threw the rest of her margarita down her throat, sat the empty glass in the sink and headed for a bathroom stall, opting for a good pee instead of a good cry. What was the use, anyway? Jack wouldn’t be any less gay if she burst into tears.
Jack is gay…. Jack is gay…. How could she not have known this?
Mattie zipped her pants and straightened with new resolve. She knew one thing: there was no friggin’ way she was going to read that fantasy letter to her friends. The idea of sharing her thoughts on sex was like a bad joke. Nope. Unlike Jack, she was going to keep her secrets in the closet.
Only one time in her life had she considered herself sexually active. And even then, she’d probably been more inactive than active. Despite the fact that she’d been a virgin, she’d instinctively known that Brad, her college boyfriend, was a sexual underachiever. She squeezed her eyes shut, wincing at the memory of Brad pounding away while she sort of flopped about, her back pressed against the mattress, her expectations withering along with her passion. It hadn’t been the kind of experience she’d dreamed of, definitely not the sort penned in eighteen-year-old handwriting and sealed in an envelope.
It hadn’t been with Jack.
And all these years she’d been certain that, if it had been, it would have been perfect.
Not.
Mattie felt as if someone had just jarred her from a deep sleep. One that she’d been in for, say, about twenty years. She’d written down every passionate thought she’d ever had and had sealed it in that envelope. And there it had stayed, safe and sound, pure and unmarred. Looking back, she doubted that even Brad had gotten the benefit of that passion. How could he? It had been sealed away in an envelope and flattened in a dictionary.
The sense that she’d waited too long flowed over her, and her shoulders slumped. She looked at herself in the mirror. Defeat lined her eyes, softened her jawline. Mattie looked away.
Too late, too late, too late, the tequila taunted over and over in her brain.
She envisioned herself marching out of the bathroom and to the table, snatching up the envelope and breaking the seal. And then what? What would she find? Would the glue crumble, would the pages be yellowed?
The sense that this was not all about Jack was pretty obvious, and yet… How could she not have known? Jack had never been too involved in small-town life, or small-town girls. She had always assumed he was destined for bigger things, had his sights set outside the city limits of Haddes. Of course, it had been easier to fabricate the perfect life for Jack rather than face her own. And in doing so, she’d somehow missed the obvious.
But now… Now she was beginning to feel entirely too sober. Mattie washed her hands, retrieved the margarita glass and gathered her courage. She willed the hinges to stay silent as she eased open the door to the ladies’ room and peered out. Relief washed over her. Jack was gone. She marched straight to the bar, refilled her glass with the melting margarita mix and returned, none too coordinated, to her chair. She stared with hostility at the ominous pile of envelopes instead of making eye contact with Shay and Della. Surely fragments of shattered dreams were still clinging to her face.
“Jack said to tell you that he hopes to see you again now that he’s back in town,” Shay said.
Heaven forbid. “I didn’t know that Jack was—” she hesitated, mentally rephrasing “—that Jack had a partner.”
“I thought you did.” Della shrugged. “Cal’s great. They’re opposites. Sort of yin and yang. A great fit.”
Mattie
