“You look very handsome,” she said, hopefully without stuttering.
He grinned. “You look pretty amazing yourself. Is this dress new?”
She frowned at the question. “Why would you think I’d run out to buy a new dress just to go out with you?”
He reached toward her and touched her shoulder. “Tag’s still on.”
Laura blushed furiously. “Oh, sweet heaven, how did I miss that? Yes, the dress is new, but I didn’t buy it for tonight, I swear. I bought it last week, because it was on sale and I fell in love with it and Adelia said it looked good on me.” She drew in another breath. “And now I’m babbling on and on about it. Sorry.”
His gaze held hers, which should have unnerved her, but instead seemed to settle her.
“Adelia has excellent taste, apparently.”
“She does.”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Just let me snip off this stupid tag and I will be,” she told him.
Fifteen minutes later they were at Sullivan’s, where they were greeted by Dana Sue, rather than the hostess. She grinned at Laura. “I saw the reservation and decided to see for myself if the two of you were here together again tonight. It’s getting to be a habit. As soon as I saw the reservation book, I stopped off at Wharton’s today to place my bet.”
Laura groaned. “Way to pile on the pressure, Dana Sue. I’m surprised any couple in this town lasts more than a second with all these interested parties on the sidelines. Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen cooking instead of out here meddling?”
“My daughter would never forgive me if I didn’t get the latest scoop firsthand. Annie, Sarah and Raylene have become your biggest boosters since the fall festival success. They’re already bubbling over with ideas for next year. They’re determined to see that you top yourself. I think they’d like to see it take over the state fairgrounds, though that strikes me as overly ambitious.”
“It would also defeat the purpose of promoting Serenity, don’t you think?” Laura said wryly.
“Well, there is that, too,” Dana Sue said. “Let me show you to your table. I gave you a prime spot.”
Laura glanced around as they were shown to a table in the middle of the floor. “Where everyone can see us?”
“That’s the idea,” Dana Sue said cheerfully. “Or I could tuck you into that secluded little booth in the corner over there. I should warn you, though, that choosing that will stir up even more talk.”
“I want the corner,” J.C. said decisively. “If you have one of those fancy folding screens you could use to hide us from view, all the better.”
Dana Sue laughed. “Now that really would stir things up.”
J.C. regarded her somberly. “I wasn’t entirely kidding.”
“Sorry, a secluded booth is the best I can do.”
“The booth is fine,” Laura said quickly before J.C. decided they should be having dinner in some other part of the state and dragged her back out the door.
As soon as they were alone, she looked into his eyes. He seemed a little panic-stricken.
“Already regretting this plan of yours?” she asked him.
“There was no plan,” he said. “The words just sort of tumbled out of my mouth, and here we are.”
“We were here the other night and you didn’t look like a deer caught in the headlights.”
“That was different. It wasn’t a date. This is.”
“And that changes things,” she concluded, knowing it was true. It did change things, whether two people wanted it to or not. Hadn’t the very same thought occurred to her earlier?
“Of course it does.”
“Then why did you ask me out? You’d already made the ground rules very clear. I certainly wasn’t expecting this sudden shift in attitude.”
“You suggested we stop seeing each other just to quiet all the talk around town,” he said, then shrugged. “I didn’t want to stop.”
He looked so thoroughly bemused by his own reaction, she didn’t have the heart to keep pushing. “May I ask you something?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It may have been a long time since I’ve dated, but I do believe give-and-take is part of the evening.”
“Okay, then. Why the hard-and-fast rule about not dating up till now?”
“I’m no good at it,” he said simply. “Not the dating part, the rest of it.”
“The relationship?” she guessed.
“The relationship, marriage, any of that. Fullerton men have really bad track records. It’s probably genetic or something.”
“You’re the medical expert, but I don’t think genes have much to do with relationship staying power,” Laura said. “Do you know any of this firsthand, or are you relying totally on family history?”
He gave her an approving look. “Cleverly worded,” he said. “Yes, I was married.”
“And?”
“It didn’t last,” he said tightly.
“Something you did?”
He frowned at the question. “It must have been.”
“You’re going to have to explain that. Either it was or it wasn’t. Who asked for the divorce?”
“I did.”
“Because you didn’t love her anymore?”
His scowl deepened. “Do you really need to know every last detail? It was a long time ago.”
“And it obviously shaped who you are, at least in terms of how you relate to women, so, yes, being a woman who’s sitting here with you right now, I need to know.”
“Okay, then,” he said, pausing before adding with unmistakable reluctance, “I came home one night after a very long shift at the hospital during my residency and found my wife in bed with the chief resident, who was technically my boss.”
He said the words in a burst as if he wanted to get the humiliation out there and over with.
Laura bit back a gasp. “What a lousy thing to walk in on!” She regarded him curiously. “How, in any way, are you to blame for that?”
“I must have been a terrible husband for her to cheat like that. My dad had the same bad fortune with my mom. She was a serial cheater. He just never had the gumption to leave her.”
“Thus the Fullerton-men-are-bad-bets theory,” she concluded. “Okay, I will allow that you might have made equally bad choices when it came to women, but their behavior is all on them. You didn’t turn them into cheaters.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we did. I can’t speak for my parents’ marriage. I was pretty young when things got bad, so who knows how the cheating started. But I was in med school, then doing an internship and then a residency. All of it was more demanding than you can possibly imagine. I was never around.”
“Your wife didn’t know what it would be like when she married you?”
“She said she did, but I doubt anyone can understand what it really means to live with a schedule like that until they do. I didn’t, even though I saw the med students ahead of me walking around like zombies once they started their internships.”
“There you go, letting her off the hook,” Laura said, then added fiercely, “You did not deserve what she did.”
He smiled at that. “Anyone ever mention this protective streak of yours?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. It’s finely honed. Nobody messes with the people I care about.”
He looked for an instant as if he might ask if he was one of those people she cared about, but instead he said, “Thus the determination to fix things for Misty.”
She nodded, willing to allow the change of topic. J.C. still had the cornered look of a man who’d had about as much personal talk as he could handle for the moment.
“I still don’t like what’s going on,” she told him. “Misty’s been in class, but I know things are no better. I can see it in her eyes and in the way she lingers after class to avoid being with Annabelle and her cronies in the hallways. I just wish Misty trusted me enough to let me deal with it once and for all.”
“I imagine she�
��s just relieved to know that an adult believes her, that you heard for yourself what she’s been living with since school started. Maybe that’s enough for now.”
“Since when is having an adult stand by helplessly while bullying continues ever enough?” she said in frustration. “I want it to end before things go too far.”
J.C.’s expression instantly sobered. “If you ever sense that it’s getting out of hand, you tell me, understood? I don’t care about school protocol or some kind of evidence that would hold up in a court. This is not going to get out of hand and ruin that child’s life.”
She was startled by the vehemence in his voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d sensed that bullying held special meaning for J.C. Tonight, though, with all of the revelations about his marriage, she judged that his feelings might be a little too raw to pursue yet another touchy subject. She would get to the bottom of it, though. She sensed that it, along with the lousy way his marriage ended, were the keys to understanding him.
And the more she got to know J.C., the more she wanted to know everything that had shaped the man he was now. She just hoped those scars from his past would allow it.
* * *
“You need to go online right now,” Katie practically shouted in Misty’s ear when Misty answered her cell phone. “I can’t believe it!”
“What are you so worked up about?” Misty asked, still lost in the fictional world she’d been creating for a story for Ms. Reed’s class.
“Just do it,” Katie commanded. “You’ll see. I’ll wait.”
“Are you talking about Annabelle’s page?” Misty asked, already typing in the link.
“What else?” Katie said. “She’s gone too far this time, Misty. You have to tell somebody. This needs to end.”
Katie might be dramatic, but she wouldn’t get this worked up over nothing, A sense of dread settled in Misty’s stomach as the page loaded.
There, front and center, she found a link that, in turn led to even more pictures of some nearly naked girl in very provocative poses. She blinked and looked again. Even without the identifying comments below, she knew that was her in the pictures, or at least it was supposed to be, she realized, nearly gagging.
How had this happened? Where would Annabelle have found pictures like this? Misty had never been photographed even close to nude in her entire life, except maybe in some embarrassing baby picture taken after a bath. Her parents would have sent her off to an all-girls school in some remote place if she’d ever even considered doing such a thing.
“It’s not me,” she said in a whisper. “There’s no way.”
“Well, I know that,” Katie said without hesitation. “But she’s gone way too far this time, Misty. These pictures will be all over school tomorrow. The site’s already had, like, three thousand hits or something. Who knows how many kids at school have printed out copies? Some teacher’s bound to see them, and you know what will happen after that.”
“I’ll probably be expelled,” Misty said, sickened by the thought of the whispering and the destruction of whatever was left of her reputation.
Worse was what this would do to her parents. Even though those pictures had nothing to do with her—anyone who wasn’t half blind could see that she wasn’t built like that—there would be talk.
She sighed heavily. At least she had her answer to her question earlier today. Things could get worse.
* * *
Misty wasn’t in class on Thursday. In fact, she wasn’t even in school. Laura checked the attendance records and saw that she simply hadn’t shown up. There’d been no call from home, nothing.
She also knew something was up around school. She’d seen the kids huddling in the corridors, whispering and giggling over something that clearly was circulating at warp speed. A terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach told her it had something to do with Misty’s absence.
Just as class ended, she noticed Katie Townsend heading toward Annabelle with a glint of real fury in her eyes. Laura automatically headed in their direction to intervene.
“You’re nothing but a low-down, lying bitch!” Katie shouted, stunning Laura not only with her choice of words but the venom behind them. Even Annabelle looked taken aback for once. The smug expression she usually wore around school was wiped away in a heartbeat as her friends stared at the two girls with shock, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Okay, that’s it!” Laura said. “Katie, Annabelle, we’re going to the office.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Annabelle protested indignantly. “She just attacked me. You all heard her.”
“We all did,” Laura confirmed. “I think the more important question might be why.”
She saw the sheen of tears in Katie’s eyes as they neared Betty Donovan’s office and knew she was terrified of another suspension. Laura wanted desperately to console her, but the situation was out of her hands. She just wished she had some idea about how it was likely to play out and what on earth had sparked that uncharacteristic outburst.
Betty stepped out of her office, saw the three of them there and motioned for them to come inside.
“Okay, Ms. Reed, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” Betty suggested.
“These two had words in my classroom just now,” Laura began, only to have Annabelle once again interrupt with a protest that she’d never opened her mouth.
“If anyone ought to be in trouble, it’s Katie,” she said, still radiating indignation. “My mother is going to be all over you for this.”
“I’m sure,” Laura said wryly. “I’m hoping, though, that we can get to the bottom of this. Katie, would you care to explain why you said what you said to Annabelle?”
Katie shook her head, staring mutinously at Annabelle. “She knows what she did. She thinks she’s some budding superstar, but she’s no better than tabloid scum.”
Betty regarded her with the same surprise that must have been on Laura’s face earlier. “Harsh words, Katie.”
“She deserves them and a lot worse,” Katie said unrepentantly.
“You may believe that, but we don’t know why,” Laura told her gently. “Isn’t it time we did?”
Katie finally turned to her with a pleading expression. “I can’t talk about it, but I promise you it’s really, really bad.”
Betty clearly had been a principal long enough to recognize they were at a standoff. So did Laura. It was Betty, though, who suggested, “Annabelle, why don’t you wait outside for a minute?”
“Why can’t I go to class?” Annabelle asked petulantly. “Katie’s the one who caused the problem.”
“You’ll go to class when we’ve gotten to the bottom of this,” Betty said. “And don’t even think about wandering off.”
Annabelle shot a withering look in Katie’s direction, then stepped outside. Betty made a point of speaking to one of the secretaries, to assure that Annabelle stayed put, before closing her office door.
When she sat back down, she looked from Katie to Laura. “What am I missing?”
“A lot,” Katie blurted, then clamped her lips shut.
“Maybe you should tell us,” Laura said gently. “Things have obviously gotten out of hand.”
“You have no idea,” Katie whispered. “But I can’t tell. I promised.”
Betty turned her attention to Laura. “Any insights you care to share?”
“I think there’s some bullying going on, but I haven’t witnessed it firsthand, at least not here at school,” Laura said, her gaze on Katie, hoping for even the tiniest hint of confirmation. Katie remained perfectly still, her eyes downcast.
Betty regarded Laura with dismay. “You believe Annabelle Litchfield is bullying someone?” she repeated incredulously. “Katie, is that true? Has she been attacking you in some way? Does this have anything to do with why you were caught skipping school earlier this fall?”
“Not Katie,” Laura said quietly, her gaze steady on Katie. “I think she’s bullying Misty Dawson, but as I said b
efore, I can’t prove it.”
Betty turned back to Katie. “Is she right?” she asked, her tone far more gentle than anything Laura had ever heard from the tough-as-nails principal before.
Tears spilled down Katie’s cheeks. “I can’t say,” she insisted again.
“But whatever happened just now between you and Annabelle, it was because you were trying to stand up for Misty,” Betty guessed.
Katie did give a brief nod at that.
“Okay, then,” Betty said decisively as she jotted out a note. “Go on to your next class, Katie.”
Katie regarded her with surprise. “That’s it? I’m not in trouble?”
“Not unless I hear about another incident like this,” Betty told her. “I applaud you wanting to stand up for a friend, but there are better ways to do it. Leave the rest to Ms. Reed and me.”
Katie nodded, shot a grateful look in Laura’s direction, then practically ran from the room.
As soon as she was gone, Laura looked at the principal. “Now what?”
“Now we try to figure out what that girl out there has been up to. We need to have every single duck in a row before we accuse her of anything.”
“I assumed as much, which is why I didn’t come to you sooner. I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of it.”
“Oh, we will,” Betty said grimly. “For now I’m going to send Annabelle off to her next class. I know she’ll assume she’s gotten off scot-free, but it’s better that than stirring up a hornet’s nest before we have our facts straight.”
“Because of Mariah Litchfield,” Laura concluded.
“Precisely. Frankly, I look forward to tangling with her, if this turns out to be true. She’s cost this school system two great teachers. It’s about time we’re able to turn the tables and give that little entitled, spoiled brat of hers the boot,” she said vehemently, then looked chagrined. “Not that you ever heard me say such a thing.”
“Not a word,” Laura said, grinning.
Her view of Betty Donovan had just done a complete one-eighty. She might be a strict disciplinarian, perhaps a little overly zealous in certain situations, but it was apparent to Laura that when it came to her students and her teachers, Betty had the same sort of protective streak that J.C. had seen in Laura.
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