“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admitted. “I’m just not myself lately.”
He gave her knee a squeeze. “You’ve been through a lot. It hasn’t been all that long since ... you know ... It takes a while to spring back from something like that. And with all that’s happened with our weddings. That would put anybody on edge.”
The tears trickled down her cheeks. She quickly brushed them away. “But usually, I take things in stride, you know. Seems like I should be feeling better. A little bit better anyway. But it seems to be getting worse.”
Dirk thought for a long time as they drove along in silence. Finally, he said, “Would you consider maybe ... talking to somebody about it?”
She knew what he meant. And she couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t occurred to her, once or twice, to seek professional help with this problem. But she couldn’t imagine herself sitting in a room with a total stranger, sharing the details of the darkest moment of her life.
“I am talking to somebody,” she said. “I’m talking to my best friend about it.”
He gave her a smile. “You’re doing better than you think you are,” he told her. “You’re a strong woman. You’re gonna get through this, babe.”
She returned his smile. “Thank you.”
“I can call you ‘babe’ now, right? I mean, the fight’s over?”
She laughed and patted his hand that was on her knee. “Yes, my darlin’ meadow muffin. The fight’s over.”
“Hey, aren’t meadow muffins piles of cow sh—”
“Shhh.”
Chapter 9
Savannah knew something was up the moment she set foot in her house.
It was quiet.
Oh, the television was on. Upstairs, Atlanta was playing her guitar and singing. And there were several low-key conversations going on in the living room and in the kitchen.
But for a Reid house, it was strangely peaceful.
When she walked into the living room, the thought raced through her head, Somebody’s died. She couldn’t think of any other reason why they would be so subdued.
Lined up on the sofa were Marietta, Vidalia, Butch, and Jesup. The children, Cordele, and Macon sat on the floor at their feet. Granny was resting comfortably in Savannah’s overstuffed chair.
All eyes were trained on the TV, a show about the joys and attractions of the Disneyland resort.
The room was free of fast food wrappers, empty soda cans, pizza boxes, toys, tabloid reading materials, and discarded clothing.
On the coffee table sat an attractive tray of goodies: crackers and cheeses, all sorts of fresh fruit, and a batch of freshly baked chocolate cupcakes with pecan and coconut frosting. Iced tea glistened in her antique, cobalt blue pitcher.
“I want to go to Pixie Hollow,” Jillian said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
“We will, sugar,” Vidalia told her. “Right after we take Jack on the teacups.”
“Goody!” Jillian clapped her hands, then quickly settled down. “We’re going to Disneyland tomorrow,” she told Savannah, her eyes aglow.
“That is ... if you aren’t figuring on trying to get married ... again,” Marietta added with an unmistakable sarcastic tone. It occurred to Savannah that the expression on her face was that of a constipated bloodhound. But she decided to keep that observation to herself.
Blood had been shed in the Reid clan for verbal infractions less incendiary than that.
“That’ll be enough lip outta you, Miss Marietta,” Granny said as she shot her a warning look. “Seems you’ve already forgotten that little family discussion we had earlier.”
“No, ma’am,” Marietta said, donning a hangdog look. The same expression she and the rest of the Reid kids wore any time there was a threat of a trip to the woodshed hanging in the air.
Oh, Savannah thought, mystery solved. They’re all behaving themselves because Gran laid down the law.
That wasn’t quite as nice as self-imposed reform, but she’d take what she could get.
“We figured you’d be home about now,” Gran told her. “So, Alma and Waycross are in there scrounging up some dinner for you. This troupe done ate already.”
“I helped Aunt Alma put the cupcake papers in the pan,” Jillian said proudly.
“And I stirred the frosting for Uncle Waycross!” Jack added with a big, chocolate-enhanced grin.
“Thank you, sweet cheeks.” Savannah reached down and tweaked Jillian’s pigtail and ruffled Jack’s curls as she walked past them on the way to the kitchen. “And thanks to the rest of you, too,” she added. “But you don’t have to be quiet as church mice. I don’t mind you talking to each other, for heaven’s sake.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than bedlam erupted.
“You better not expect me to go on that Space Mountain. I’ll toss my cookies for sure!” Marietta exclaimed.
“Don’t be a spoil sport, Mari!” Vidalia said. “You’re always such a drama queen when it comes to stuff like that. You ruin it for the rest of us.”
“Yeah, Mar ... you’re such a wuss.” Macon gave her a playful smack on the leg with the back of his hand.
“O www! Dang you, Macon Elmer Reid, that hurt!”
She hit him on the head, and a flurry of slaps ensued.
“Stop it!” Gran shouted. “Or I swear, I’ll land on you like a duck on a June bug and whoop the tar outta the bunch of ya!”
Savannah chuckled as she walked into the kitchen, where Alma stood at the stove, making what appeared to be a toasted cheese and bologna sandwich.
Waycross was washing a big, red tomato at the sink. Beside him, on the counter, sat a bowl of sliced cucumbers and onions floating in a bath of vinegar, salt, and sugar water with a sprinkling of fresh dill.
“Boy, howdy,” Savannah said, walking over to them and giving each a kiss on the cheek. “That smells plum fit to eat!”
“It ain’t nothin’ fancy,” Alma told her, “but we figured it’d keep the sides of your stomach from stickin’ together.”
“Yeah. You ain’t ate nothin’ all day.” Waycross cut a thick slice off the tomato. “We can’t be havin’ that.”
He walked over to Alma and handed her the tomato, which she slipped inside the sandwich.
“Set yourself down over there,” Alma said, nodding toward the table. “Take a load off. We’ll have this ready in a jiffy.”
Savannah didn’t have to be told twice. Now that she was home, the day was hitting her ... like a Mack truck with a bed filled with gravel.
While Alma placed the sandwich on a plate and cut it in half, Waycross filled a glass with ice and tea.
“You doin’ all right, hon?” he asked Savannah as he slid the drink in front of her, then brought her the bowl with the cucumbers and onions. “You’re lookin’ a mite peaked.”
“I’m fine. Frickin’ ducky, in fact,” she barked. “Why does everybody keep asking me how I am?”
“Maybe,” he replied, “because you’re pale around the gills, got big circles under your eyes, and because you keep snapping people’s heads off if they even look cross-eyed at you.” He gave her a good-natured grin. “I don’t know for sure now, but call it a hunch.”
When Savannah closed her hand around the frosty glass, she noticed her fingers were shaking. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bite anybody’s head off, and especially yours. You two are the jewels in this here family crown, I swear. And I love you both to pieces and back.”
Alma set the plate, loaded down with the sandwich and an unhealthy helping of chips, in front of her. She kissed Savannah on the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it. Everybody’s entitled to get outta sorts every now and again. You’re always sweet to the younguns, and the rest of us are old enough to take it in stride.”
Waycross pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. “It ain’t like you haven’t put up with our nonsense for years now. Turnabout’s fair play.”
Savannah waded into the sandw
ich. It had been a while since she’d eaten bologna. A lot more bologna eating was done south of the Mason-Dixon Line than in California. And she had adapted, somewhat, to her surroundings.
But it tasted just as good as she remembered. And maybe even a bit more, considering that the major condiment on this particular sandwich was unconditional family love.
“Did you find out anything about that awful killing?” Alma said as she took a chair beside Savannah, her own glass of tea in hand. “If you don’t mind talking about it, that is.”
“No, I don’t mind,” Savannah said as she fished some of the cucumbers and onions out of their brine bath. “But we didn’t really find out anything important.”
“Any idea who might’ve done it?” Waycross asked.
Savannah shrugged. “When a woman turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, we most always look at the husband or boyfriend.”
“Why?” Alma wanted to know.
“ ’Cause more times than not, it’s him.” She took a sip of the tea. “But this time, it looks like he might have a good alibi.”
“He could have hired it done,” Waycross offered.
“Oh, believe me, that’s already crossed our minds. Especially since he’s out of town. That’s the perfect time to have somebody hit ... when you’re away and can’t be blamed for it.”
“Have you heard if the two of them gets along okay?” Alma asked.
“Quite the contrary. They’re going through a bitter divorce right now. Custody issues and all that ugly business.”
Alma shook her head. “That’s a bad time for a couple. Seems like that’s when women get hurt the most often, when they’re leaving some guy who doesn’t wanna get left.”
Waycross nodded. “You see it time and again, even in a little town like McGill. Never could understand it myself. If some gal don’t want me around, I start lookin’ elsewhere. There’s always another guppy in the fishbowl, and probably a prettier one, too.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a good guy with a strong sense of himself and a lot on the ball,” Savannah told him. “You’ve got better things to do with your time than try to run some gal’s life.”
“And speaking of pretty women ...” Waycross grinned self-consciously.
Savannah raised one eyebrow. “We were?”
Alma chuckled. “He didn’t work that in there none too gracefully. He’s itchin’ to turn the conversation to your friend, Tammy. She’s all he’s been talking about since she dropped by earlier.”
“Oh, really?” Savannah turned to Waycross. “Do tell... .”
Waycross’s cheeks blushed nearly as red as his hair. “Ah, come on, Alma. I just said I think she’s nice and—”
“And that she’s got shiny blond hair, and a nice shape on her, and that she seems like such a sweet person, and she’s so bubbly, and—”
“I said all that?”
“And more.”
“Oh, well. She is nice and cute as a speckled pup.” He hesitated, then gave her a threatening look. “And, Alma Jean, if you tell her I said that, I’ll get you back for it. I promise you.”
“My lips are sealed.” Alma closed her mouth and pantomimed locking them shut and throwing away the key.
“Yeah, right.” He shook his head. “No female in this family has a mouth that stays shut for long. “Don’t you tell her I like her, you hear? I mean it.”
Alma rolled her eyes. “I promise I won’t say a word. I’ll just pass her a note in class.”
Waycross gave her a dismissive wave and turned to Savannah, a serious look on his face. “She dropped by to see if we’d heard anything about the case ... you know ... that woman getting killed. I could tell she was real curious.”
“Tammy’s the quintessential sleuth,” Savannah said, popping a chip into her mouth. “She’s the only person I know who’s nearly as nosy as I am. That’s why she’s so good at it.”
“I could tell she really cares about the case and about you,” Waycross told her. “She wants to help really bad, but she thinks you don’t want her to ... you know ... because of what happened before.”
Savannah thought of her gentle friend, a person so kind and filled with the sunlight of pure love that she would never cause a living being pain for any reason. She thought of all the sad and remorseful looks Tammy had sent her way for the past three months.
And it broke her heart.
Tammy had nothing in the world to feel sorry about. She had been blameless in the whole miserable mess.
For a hundred days, Savannah had tried to make her understand that. And so far, it was a losing battle.
“Thank you for telling me that,” Savannah said. “I’ll speak to her.”
Savannah stood and started to gather up her empty dishes. But Waycross reached across the table and took them from her.
“We’ll do that,” he said. “Gran’s given strict instructions that everybody vacate the bathroom upstairs and let you have a long, relaxing soak without interruptions. So, you’d best be gettin’ to it.”
Alma jumped up and rushed to pour something from a small pan on the stove into a large mug. “Here you go, a cup of cocoa to go with that bath.”
Waycross rummaged a top shelf until he produced a bottle of Baileys. “And this,” he said, adding a generous amount to the mug, “will help it go down smoother.”
“Granny’ll have our hides if she sees you adding that evil booze to my beverage,” Savannah said with a grin as Alma squirted a dollop of whipped cream on top.
“So, don’t walk too close to her,” Waycross said. “You don’t want her getting a whiff of Demon Rum, or it’ll be a hickory switch to the butt for both of us.”
When Savannah slipped into the rose-scented suds and felt the warm water washing over her body, she couldn’t believe her good fortune.
Candlelit bubble baths, fortified with some form of chocolate, were her number-one pleasures in life. And it had been over a week since she’d been able to indulge in one.
She had surely been going through withdrawal.
With a house full of guests who seemed to have bladders the size of thimbles, she had been lucky to squeeze in a two-minute shower. So, this was sheer bliss.
The Victorian claw-foot bathtub was the main reason she had bought the house, all those years ago. She could still remember the first time she’d climbed into it and instantly felt like a fairy princess.
Ah, the sheer indulgence of it all.
With the candlelight flickering on the iridescent bubbles, the flavor of the glorified hot chocolate lingering on her taste buds, and the smell of a rose garden floating in the steam around her, she could truly forget the troubles of the past week.
Almost.
Try as she might, she couldn’t banish the disappointment of three wedding attempts that had been thwarted by fire, mud, and murder. If it hadn’t been for a psycho arsonist, Mother Nature raining on her parade, and a cold-blooded killer, she’d be a married woman right now. The relatives would all be gone, and with any luck, her new husband would be there in the bathtub with her, smiling from the other end.
It was a big tub. She was sure there’d be room for two ... if she could convince him that rose-scented bubbles wouldn’t have an adverse effect on his manly naughty bits.
She smiled, just thinking about him ... until she remembered how badly and how often she’d been snapping at him lately. Her nerves were a tad frazzled around the edges, to be sure, but the past week or so hadn’t exactly been a cakewalk for him either.
Not to mention the past three months.
The suds were beginning to fade, and through the few that remained, she could see her body ... all too clearly.
She had always loved her body. Overly voluptuous though it was—according to the weight/height charts. What were a few pounds here and a few there?
This body was uniquely, wonderfully hers, and unlike any other person or object on earth, it had been with her every single second of her life. In some ways she conside
red it to be her oldest, dearest, most faithful friend.
Who cared if the fashion models on magazine covers were thinner or younger, a different shape and size? She loved her curves, all of them, and the feminine softness and pretty, creamy color of her skin.
But now ...
Her skin wasn’t perfect anymore. Far from it, in fact.
Above her left breast was an ugly, red puckered scar—a miserable reminder of the bullet that had nearly killed her, the slug that had lodged in her lung and nearly caused her to drown in her own blood.
Below her breast was an even larger, nastier looking one. That one had caused her to lose her spleen.
On her abdomen, an inch to the right of her navel, was a third scar, and a fourth was high on her thigh.
Then, there was the one on her wrist that she saw every day, all day long. An ever-present, constant reminder.
So many souvenirs. Horrid mementos of the day that changed her life and scarred her spirit forever, as well as her body.
Sometimes it felt as though it had happened years ago, maybe even in another lifetime altogether. Then, other times, it felt as though it had happened yesterday or even today.
“It hasn’t been that long, Savannah girl,” she whispered to herself in a comforting voice that sounded a lot like her grandmother’s. “It takes time. Healing doesn’t just happen overnight.”
She took a washcloth, wetted it, and wrung it out, then placed it over her face.
She knew why. She didn’t want to see the scars. Didn’t want to think about how pretty and perfect her skin had been ... before. Didn’t want to think about how it would never be like that again. Those scars might fade over the years, but they would always be there, a reminder of the violence that had been done to her.
And what made her the saddest was that Dirk would never see her body the way it was before. This would be all he would know of her.
Every time they made love, he would see those ugly scars, and she would know he was seeing them, and they would both remember every moment of that terrible night.
Buried In Buttercream Page 10
