I understood, she thinks she’s landed in a field of clover. The rich guy buys her diamonds.”
“I won’t ask what he gets in return.”
Ivy grimaced. “Neither would I.”
“Well, I’ll see you at the dance. Where is it, and when?”
Ivy gave her the particulars, but she was morose when she hung up. What if Rachel was involved with someone well-known and the wife found out and went after her in the press? Rachel was brassy and demanding and totally lacking in compassion. But she was weak in every other way. A scandal would drive her over the edge. There was no telling what she might do.
There had been something unusual in their last conversation as well. Rachel had asked her to pass a message along to the owner of the only bakery in town, the Bun Shop. It hadn’t made sense to Ivy; something about a shipment of flour that hadn’t arrived on schedule. She wanted to know why Rachel was concerned with a bake shop. Rachel said it was a friend who needed the message passed along.
That conversation had been more volatile than she felt comfortable divulging to Merrie. Rachel had mentioned the ultimatum she’d given her rich lover, that either he divorce his wife or she’d go public with the truth of their relationship. Ivy had pleaded with her to do no such thing, that if the man was that rich, his wife could hire someone to hurt her. Rachel had only laughed, saying that the wife was a cold fish who was half out of her mind, and that she posed no threat at all. But in case that fell through, she said, she’d discovered another good way to get a lot of money. She taunted Ivy with her newfound sources of wealth, intimating that Ivy couldn’t get a man even if she had millions. Ivy didn’t care. She was tired of Rachel’s sarcasm.
They’d parted on not good terms. Rachel had accused her of being jealous. She’d never gotten the attention Rachel had, not even from their father. Ivy was just a loser, Rachel said, and she’d never be more than a clerk. Ivy had agreed that Rachel had gotten more attention at home, by lying about Ivy to their father and letting her take the punishment their father had deemed appropriate for her supposed sins.
Rachel had sounded shocked at the description of their father’s idea of punishment. Ivy was lying, she’d accused. The old man hadn’t had a violent bone in his body. He loved Rachel, Ivy reminded her sister bitterly. Ivy was just the servant, and the more Rachel denounced her, the more critical and angry he became.
For a few seconds, Rachel actually sounded regretful. But it passed, as those rare bouts of sympathy always did. Rachel hung up abruptly, mumbling that her lover was at the door.
Ivy put down the phone and realized that she was shaking. Reliving those last days Rachel was at home made her miserable. Her memories were terrible.
* * *
She did go shopping for a dress, but the boutique owner she kept books for insisted on letting her borrow one of her own designs for the affair.
“It’s my display model,” Marcella Black insisted, “and just your size. Besides, it’s the exact shade of green that your eyes are. You come by here at five, and I’ll help you into it and I’ll do your hair and makeup as well. No arguments. You’re going to be a fairy princess Friday night.”
“I’ll turn into the frog at midnight,” Ivy teased.
“Fat chance.”
“All right. I’ll come by at five on Friday. And thanks, Marcella. Really.”
The older woman wrinkled her nose affectionately. “You just tell everybody who made that dress for you, and we’re even.”
“You bet I will!”
* * *
Hayes wasn’t wearing his uniform. He had on a dark suit with a white cotton shirt and a blue patterned tie. His shoes were so shiny that they reflected the porch light at Mrs. Brown’s rooming house.
Ivy had just returned in the little used VW she’d bought and learned to drive two years earlier from Marcella’s boutique, where she’d been dressed and her long blond hair had been put up in a curly coiffure. She had on just enough makeup to make her look sensational. She was shocked at the results. She’d never really tried to look good. Her mirror told her that she did.
Hayes gave her a long, appreciative stare. “You look lovely,” he said quietly. He produced a plastic container with a cymbidium orchid inside. He offered it with a little shrug. “She said that women wear them on their wrists these days.”
“Yes,” she said, “so they don’t get crushed when we dance. You didn’t have to do this, Hayes,” she said, taking the orchid out of the box. “But thank you. It’s just beautiful.”
“I thought you might like it. Ready to go?”
She nodded, pulling the door closed behind her. She had a small evening bag that Marcella had loaned her to go with the dress. She really did feel like Cinderella.
* * *
The community center was full to the brim with local citizens supporting the animal shelter. Two of the veterinarians who volunteered at the animal clinic were there with their spouses, and most of the leading lights of Jacobsville turned up as well. Justin and Shelby Ballenger came with their three sons. The eldest was working at the feedlot with Justin during the summer and working on his graduate degree in animal husbandry the rest of the year. The other two boys were still in high school, but ready to graduate. The three of them looked like their father, although the youngest had Shelby’s blue-gray eyes. The Tremayne brothers and the Hart boys came with their wives. Micah Steele and his Callie came, and so did the Doctors Coltrain, Lou and her husband “Copper.” J. D. Langley and Fay, and Matt Caldwell and his wife Leslie, and Cash Grier with his Tippy were also milling around in the crowd. Ivy spotted Judd Dunn and his wife, Christabel, in a corner, looking as much in love as when they’d first married.
“Amazing, isn’t it, that the hall could hold all these people?” Hayes remarked as he led Ivy up the steps into the huge log structure.
“It really is. I’ll bet they’ll be able to add a whole new kennel with what they make tonight.”
He smiled down at her. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”
They bumped into another couple, one of whom was Willie Carr, who owned the bakery. Then she remembered Rachel’s odd message that she was supposed to give him.
“Willie, Rachel asked me to tell you something,” she said, frowning as she struggled to remember exactly what it was.
Willie, tall and dark, looked uncomfortable. He laughed. “Now why would Rachel be sending me messages?” he asked, glancing at his wife. “I’m not cheating on you, baby, honest!”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t that sort of message,” Ivy said quickly. “It was something about a shipment of flour you were expecting that didn’t arrive.”
Willie cleared his throat. “I don’t know anything about any shipment of flour that would go to New York City, Ivy,” he assured her. “Rachel must have been talking about somebody else.”
“Yes, I guess she must have. Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “She’s incoherent most of the time lately.”
“I’d say she is, if
