considered the caustic comment. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling a little ordinary. Besides, she knew Della well enough to realize that the comment was sheer bravado. Sarcasm was easier than worrying about Erica’s safety.
“Do you have any red wine back there?” Mattie asked. She’d only recently learned to tolerate alcohol in the form of wine. Half of the articles in the medical magazines she stocked at the bookstore were now claiming that red wine was beneficial to your heart. But in all honesty, holding the stem of a graceful wineglass while she read in bed at night made her feel more like a literary connoisseur and less like a lonely spinster.
“No, no red wine,” Della answered absentmindedly, ducking beneath the bar in search of something.
“Are you sure?” Mattie eyed the dozens of bottles on the shelf.
“No.” Her friend’s blond head popped up. “Besides, today I’m making margaritas.” She shook a canister of salt for emphasis, cha-chaing her hips to the beat, then held up her hand when Mattie started to protest. “Don’t be a wimp, Mattie.”
She snapped her mouth shut. Tonight she was not a wimp. She was a successful small-business owner, single and still a size six. She bit her lip. Well, a size six most of the time. If she wasn’t retaining water and if she held her breath. At any rate, she was going to drink a margarita without grimacing, dammit.
After sipping and perfecting, adding various potions and revving the mixer to a deafening RPM, Della returned to the table with the drinks, leaving a half-full blender on the bar.
Mattie took a sip and managed not to grimace. A muted burst of male laughter erupted from the direction of the conference rooms. Della waved her hand as she sipped.
“Chamber of Commerce meeting in the back.”
Mattie was about to get the details when a soft rustle from the entrance caught her attention. Shay stepped out of the shadows, her tall form gliding gracefully toward their table.
“Shay!” Mattie jumped to her feet, scooping her friend into a hug as she neared. Della was next in line for a hug, though Mattie thought she detected a guilty expression, at least one that looked as close to guilty as Della ever came.
“We never dreamed you’d come.” Della hesitated. “How are you?”
Shay took a seat and met their eyes, hesitating until she had their full attention. “I’m great,” she answered, her voice breathy. Shay always gave the impression of being delicately out of breath, as if she’d just breezed in from somewhere important.
Mattie shook her head in amazement. Shay looked like some misplaced Celtic princess. The crushed silk sheath she wore came nearly to her ankles, the effect no less than stunning. Auburn curls wound to her waist, and her ivory complexion was ten years more youthful than it should have been. Cut crystals hung from her ears, matching the crystal pendant that swung between her breasts. The New Age garb was the only hint that Shay’s life had taken a turn down the road less traveled. Mattie sipped her drink and suppressed a surge of jealousy. Did everyone else have to be so damn interesting?
“Cough up that envelope.” Della got right to the point.
Shay opened a delicately crocheted handbag and removed her envelope. Mattie eyed her own pedestrian-looking purse, then Shay’s. Heck, she’d probably grown the cotton—organically, of course—spun it and crocheted herself, all the while chanting good thoughts for the universe. Mattie sat her drink down with a thud. Was it the alcohol or was she just becoming a middle-aged bitch?
Shay added her envelope to the growing pile in the center of the table, her expression serene but not entirely natural. The envelopes themselves told part of the story. Della’s was ringed with coffee stains, Shay’s rumpled but clean, and Mattie’s pristine, having survived its twenty-year wait pressed between the pages of a dictionary.
Mattie thought about what her envelope contained. This was the one that had started them all, the first time one of her fantasies met paper. And for twenty years it had been her little secret. Proof that she could be naughty when she wanted to. But now she wasn’t so sure. What had been deliciously wicked twenty years ago suddenly seemed a little, well, stupid.
There was a feeling Mattie got when she was about to do something colossally dumb. It was a creepy creeping sensation that started at the base of her spine and worked its way to her chest like a big hairy spider. It was crawling now. And once it got to her chest, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. She flexed her shoulders as if she could dislodge it. It didn’t work.
“Jack!” Della’s voice shouted in Mattie’s ear. “Come say hi.”
What? What? She followed her friend’s gaze to find the silhouette of two men frozen in the shadows of the entrance. One was thin and rather short. The other was obviously Jack. The shadows fell across his face but she’d know that perfect silhouette anywhere.
“He and his partner are moving back here from Atlanta.”
Partner… Mattie’s tequila-laced mind turned the word over, trying to make the puzzle piece fit.
Jack’s posture spelled r-e-l-u-c-t-a-n-t as he crossed the distance to their table. Mattie’s stomach clutched, then froze in a spasm of denial as Jack stood before her. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit, a stunningly shy grin and…bronzer? She squinted. Mother-of-pearl, he looked like the local news anchorman after last season’s disastrous brush with self-tanner. And to make matters worse, his black hair was spiked and so thick with gel that it could put out an eye.
“Y’all remember Jack, of course.”
Shay stood and embraced Jack without hesitation. Mattie watched her friend’s ample breasts flatten against the lapel of Jack’s suit, strained to make out her breathless greeting. Unlike Shay, Mattie was frozen in place, cemented to her seat. Something was off kilter, something—
“And this is Cal,” Della said, as she motioned the second man to the table. “Cal is Jack’s partner.”
The smaller man literally seemed to pulse with energy as he approached. His head was shaved smooth, the shiny dome interrupted only by a pair of goggle-like glasses perched atop it. He wore a casual white shirt tucked inside eye-popping striped pants. Mattie felt her eyes go round with realization. No straight man she knew would wear tight white denim with wide brown stripes. She cocked her head, thinking for a moment that the vertical stripes had a great slimming effect. She blinked, forcing herself to focus as her gaze traveled upward, finally resting on a diamond stud that winked in one earlobe. Cal smiled in response to her scrutiny. He had blindingly white teeth and one perfectly manicured hand resting possessively on Jack’s shoulder.
Oh God.
“E-excuse me.” Mattie stood.
“Mattie? Mattie Harold?” Jack held out his arms and her stomach lurched. “My God, you haven’t changed—”
Neither have you. The normal response formed in her brain but ended as a strangled noise in the back of her throat. “I— I’ve got to…” She stammered, then reached for the obligatory hug. The sound of a million and one fantasies shattering was deafening. “Excuse me for a moment.” Mattie swiped her drink from the table and dashed to the ladies’ room.
As Mattie hightailed it, Della shook her head. Her gaze fell on her brother, sweeping him from head to toe
