by Meg Benjamin
Pete rode to the barbecue with Cal and Mom after all. Docia was already there, having ridden up with Reba, and Pete decided he couldn’t abandon Cal to a solitary drive with their mother.
He loaded Olive’s crate into the back of Cal’s SUV while his mother frowned.
“What’s that?”
“Olive.” He climbed into the front seat beside Cal, strapping on his seat belt.
“She’s a dog, Mom,” Cal explained. “Pete’s taking care of her for me.” He pulled out onto the highway, heading toward the edge of town.
The silence from the back was deafening. Pete took a deep breath and turned around to look at his mother.
She sat with her hands folded over the leather purse resting on her lap. The pattern on her blouse looked like tiny green tarantulas. Pete blinked. Okay, not tarantulas—ladybugs. Freud would probably have a field day with his family psyche.
His mother’s brow was pleated in a frown. “Why are you taking care of the dog when you don’t even live here?”
“Cal needed someone to look after her while he was getting ready for the wedding.”
His mother’s eyes stayed narrow. “How are you going to take care of it while they’re on their honeymoon?”
“Cal has somebody else lined up.” Pete turned back to gaze out the windshield.
“You could stay here then and look after things. Maybe you could take a vacation.”
Pete was careful not to look into the back seat. “I’m on a vacation right now.” He glanced in the rear view mirror to see his mother’s scowl.
“I still think…Mercy!”
The SUV turned onto a dirt road that looked like it had last been graded in the Carter administration. “Hang on,” Cal yelled cheerfully as he pulled the SUV to the side, managing to avoid a car-eating pothole. “Billy’s lodge is back in the woods a ways.”
Mom grabbed the panic handle above the door. “Why would anyone want to build all the way out here—without a good road?”
“It’s real pretty, Mom.” Cal flipped the four-wheel drive switch. “Billy’s tried to get the county to fix the road, but it’s not high on their list right now.”
Cal was grinning again, but Pete couldn’t argue with him this time. This was living, just like the good old days. They’d driven over every cow track in southern Iowa, looking for ways to relieve the general placidity of Lander. And finding enough of them to cause their father to confiscate their car keys on a regular basis. Or Pete’s car keys, anyway, since he was usually the one who let his younger brothers drive.
The road dipped down between limestone cliffs, crossing meadows dotted with the deep olive of live oaks, striped with the lighter lime greens of mesquite. Pete saw flashes of water now and then through the trees.
“Placitas Creek,” Cal explained, sliding right to avoid a particularly nasty washboard rut. “It covers the road once or twice a year, but not enough to keep Billy from getting in and out.”
“Why aren’t they having the wedding out here if it’s so pretty?”
Pete glanced back at Mom again. She was leaning forward in her seat, still holding onto the panic handle for all she was worth.
“Too small,” Cal called back to her. “Buckhorn’s only got room for a hundred or so people.”
“Some hunting lodge.” Pete remembered a couple of pheasant hunting trips he’d taken with Lars. Cal, of course, wouldn’t kill any animal unless it was already in mortal pain. “You don’t hunt up here, I take it.”
Cal shook his head. “Took Billy a while to accept it, but I don’t think it bothers him now.”
He pulled the SUV to a stop at a wrought-iron gate with B K splashed across the middle in brass.
“Tell me again—this is his little ‘get-away place’?”
Cal blew out a breath. “Just open the gate, Pete, you’re riding shotgun.”
The road wound around more limestone hills until the house came into view—an immense wood-and-granite building spilling over the crest of a hill on the other side of the valley. Pete could see the corner of a turquoise swimming pool around the back. Cal parked in front of the triple garage at one side.
He raised his eyebrows, but Cal shook his head. “Don’t say anything, okay? I’m marrying Docia, not Billy.”
“A decision we all applaud.” He helped his mother out of the backseat, then turned as the door of the house opened and Reba and Billy walked toward them.
Reba was wearing knit slacks in apricot with a silk blouse that had the colors of a fall sunset.
Pete heard his mother’s slight sniff as she surveyed the rye-grass-covered yard. “Where are Lars and Sherice?”
“Somewhere around here. That’s his rental car.” Cal glanced back at the other cars parked at the edge of the driveway.
“Everybody’s out by the pool,” Reba trilled. “Did y’all remember to bring your suits?”
Mom looked momentarily as if she’d been asked to perform a human sacrifice. Cal took her arm and herded her toward the swimming pool in back. “C’mon, Mom, let’s go find Lars.”
“Lars and a margarita,” his mother said in a hollow voice.
Janie sat beside the pool between Allie and Bethany. Allie was wearing a red maillot that did great things for her olive complexion. Bethany had draped a denim shirt over her black one-piece and wore a floppy straw hat to protect her from the sun. Janie wore the two-piece she’d picked up at a sale at the Lucky Lady—yellow flowers on a bright blue background. It looked…okay. Not as good as it had in the shop, unfortunately.
She sighed and went back to watching Otto swim. Droplets of water gleamed along the long muscles of his back and arms as they bunched and stretched with his strokes. His short brown hair made him look a little like a seal when he raised his head slightly to breathe.
He flipped onto his back and the muscles of his chest flexed as he sliced through the water again. She had the odd feeling that she was supposed to be looking at the stacked rings of his abdominal muscles where they formed a perfect six-pack. Instead, she found herself studying his expression as he grunted with the effort of swimming.
He really was a very good-looking man, she told herself again. She was a very lucky woman. She could have sex with that body. She could even do it tonight if she wanted to.
If she wanted to.
Janie sighed again and took another sip of her margarita. It had started out frozen, but now it was just cold.
“Holy crap,” Allie murmured beside her, “what a body!”
Janie looked back at Otto again. “Yep.”
On her other side, Bethany sucked in a breath. “Not real,” she said. “Definitely plastic.”
Janie blinked at her, then glanced at the other side of the pool.
Sherice Toleffson was wearing two small strips of cloth that passed for a black bikini, with a black scarf wound around her platinum hair. From where Janie was sitting, it looked like Des Moines had at least one salon that knew how to do a nice Brazilian wax.
“I don’t know,” Allie mused. “Wouldn’t the scars from a boob job show in a swimsuit that size?”
Bethany made an impolite sound. “She’s five-foot-five or so and weighs about as much as the average wren. Believe me, honey, nobody that size naturally has tits like cassava melons.”
Janie bit her lip to hold back the laugh. Unfortunately, it came out as a snort. She picked up her margarita for a quick swig.
“Watch it,” Allie warned, “the Girl from Ipanema is heading this way.”
Sherice sauntered around the pool, a magenta canvas bag draped across her arm. Her black leather mules clicked against the pebbled concrete. She stopped a few feet away from them and angled herself above a black metal lounge.
Janie’s conscience took a quick bite. “Sherice,” she called.
Sherice turned slowly, staring in Janie’s direction from behind a pair of huge black sunglasses that made her look vaguely like an insect. She didn’t smile.
Janie took a quick breath and push
ed the corners of her mouth into a semblance of friendliness. “That lounge has been out in the sun all day—it’s probably pretty hot. Would you like to join us?”
Sherice stared at her for another moment, then shrugged. “Whatever.”
She ambled to a fabric-covered chair on Allie’s other side, then pulled a bottle of sunscreen from her bag and began to rub it onto her arms.
After a moment, Allie cleared her throat. “I’m Allie Maldonado, and that’s Bethany Kronk at the end. I guess you met Janie yesterday.”
Sherice raised her sunglassed eyes to stare in Janie’s direction. “I guess.”
She turned back to rub sunscreen onto her legs, then glanced across the pool. “Lars!” she called. “Bring me a drink, will you?”
Janie looked up. The three Toleffson brothers were clustered together on the far side like a small stand of redwoods. Three dark heads turned to stare across the pool. Only one of them smiled.
“Sure, Sherice,” Lars Toleffson called, heading toward the bar Billy Kent had set up at one end of the pool.
Sherice pulled off her sunglasses and began applying sunscreen to her face. “So what do you people do around here for fun?”
Janie managed to keep her smile in place although it made her jaws ache. “Right now we’re getting ready for The Wedding. That’s about as much fun as most of us can handle at one time.”
Sherice rubbed sunscreen down her throat with the kind of motion that probably raised a sweat on most male brows. “Lars said I’m supposed to be some kind of bridesmaid. Do you know anything about that?”
Janie nodded. “Right, Allie and Bethany are bridesmaids too. You can come over to the Woodrose tomorrow and try on your dress. I think Reba said it came in this afternoon.”
Sherice shrugged. “Tell Lars. He remembers stuff like that.”
“Stuff like what?” Lars Toleffson walked toward them with a margarita balanced carefully in one huge hand.
Janie wondered briefly what it would have been like to give birth to three sons the size of Paul Bunyan. Maybe that accounted for Mama Toleffson’s general temperament.
“I’m supposed to go somewhere tomorrow and try on a dress.” Sherice didn’t sound as if the prospect filled her heart with anticipation.
“Okay.” Lars smiled at the four of them. “We’ll get you there, no problem. Hey, you want a tour of the house? Billy’s going to take Mom through.”
Sherice raised a languid brow, then slowly slid her feet back into her mules while she pulled a gauzy wrap from her bag and draped it over her shoulders. “Why not?”
She rose from her chair, plucking the margarita from Lars’s hand, and headed toward the end of the pool without glancing back.
Lars’s shoulders tensed for a moment, then he smiled again, without a lot of warmth. “Want to join us, ladies?”
Allie gave him a leisurely wave. “That’s okay. We’ve already been around.”
Janie watched Sherice’s hips sway gently as she sashayed toward Billy Kent. Billy looked like he was trying very hard not to look at anything below Sherice’s chin. At his side, Reba was smiling very brightly indeed.
Allie glanced back at Sherice’s magenta bag, pushing her sunglasses down her nose. “You suppose she has any extra tits in there? I have a feeling I’m going to need something more impressive than mine if I want to keep Steve’s attention at this bash.”
Bethany shook her head. “Aw, hell, sugar, they’ll look but all they have to do is listen to her for a couple of minutes to know she’d be pure hell to spend any time with. My sympathies are with Lars Toleffson.”
One corner of Allie’s mouth tipped up in a half smile. “Honey, the kind of time they’d want to spend with her has nothing to do with talking and everything to do with tits.”
Judging from Otto’s expression as he watched Sherice undulate by, Janie had a feeling Allie was absolutely on the money.
Chapter Six
Sherice Toleffson was bored. As she walked around the pool, she glanced at the mansion Lars kept calling a hunting lodge and saw nothing she was even remotely interested in pursuing—with the possible exception of Billy Kent.
Not that feeling bored was all that unusual. Sherice had been bored ever since she’d walked down the aisle to join Lars Toleffson at the altar. Getting Lars to that altar had been fun. Having Lars afterward was a lot less so.
Lars was wearing his old swimming suit along with a knit shirt. She’d bought him a classy black Speedo, but he persisted in wearing a suit that made him look like an aging surfer. Typical. Lars would never look like a billionaire, much less be one.
Sherice had started reading about billionaires and their wives around the time she’d realized her looks were her greatest asset, probably sometime in grade school. Urbandale, Iowa, hadn’t provided much in the way of role models, but People magazine filled in the blanks. Women who married billionaires got to wear great clothes and even better jewelry. They lived in houses that were written up in magazines. Sometimes they became fashion designers or jewelry designers or handbag designers—all things she was fairly certain she could do, given half a chance and a lot of money. How hard could it be to design a purse, for god’s sake?
Billy Kent led the way through the lodge’s living room, yammering something about a couple of maps hanging over the fireplace. Sherice managed to pretend some low-level interest, given Billy’s probable net worth.
Finding available—or even unavailable—billionaires in Iowa had always been tough.
Her first job out of community college had been as an office manager in a medical clinic in West Des Moines. She’d figured rich doctors would be good billionaire candidates. But most of the doctors in the clinic were busy paying off their student loans, and none of them gave Sherice the impression they’d be attending cocktail parties with venture capitalists in the near future. She’d almost decided to try another office when the accountant arrived to go over the books.
Lars was six-five or so, with curling brown hair and laughing brown eyes. Sherice went to bed with him on their second date.
She narrowed her eyes, studying Lars now as he bent down slightly to speak to Billy Kent. He was still gorgeous. But, as she should have known very well, gorgeous wasn’t enough.
Lars had fallen hard. He’d asked her to marry him after six weeks. Sherice had carefully considered her options. Lars was a junior executive in a large accounting firm and made a decent salary, which would increase sizably if he made partner. He also had a nice stock portfolio that he’d described to her on their third date, never noticing when her eyes glazed over.
She’d realized she could do worse. The question was, could she do better? For once, Sherice had been cautious. Lars was the proverbial bird in the hand. Besides, she sort of liked him. He looked great and he was terrific in bed.
At least at first. Lately, Lars hadn’t been much interested in the bed part of things. She figured his lousy performance was the result of exhaustion from work or from Daisy.
She’d gotten pregnant within a year of their wedding. A lot of billionaire wives had a baby quickly. A baby was great job insurance, plus it meant a guaranteed income no matter what happened, at least until the kid was eighteen or so.
And the baby, Daisy, wasn’t half bad. Sherice enjoyed shopping for her and dressing her up like a gorgeous live doll. For the rest of it, she had Lars. Lars loved playing with the baby. He even got up to feed her in the night and changed more than a few diapers. Sherice hadn’t changed as many herself since she’d convinced Lars to hire a nanny. That way she could get by with seeing Daisy a few times a day, preferably after someone else had cleaned her up.
She wrinkled her nose slightly, remembering the god-awful fuss Lars had made when she’d refused to bring Daisy to the wedding. What was he thinking, anyway? Society weddings were no place for a toddler. Besides, Sherice didn’t particularly want to be seen as somebody’s mother when she might be circulating among the rich and famous.
She sighed. Living
in Des Moines was torture—no parties like the ones she saw in magazines, no jetting off to the Caribbean for a weekend, nobody who owned a yacht or a house in the Hamptons (the Wisconsin Dells just did not count). And Lars wasn’t interested in moving anywhere more exciting.
Sherice took a quick glance at herself in one of the large mirrors that hung on the walls of the main hall. She knew she looked very good, despite the slightly mutinous gleam in her eyes—the bikini had been worth every penny of the outrageous price she’d paid.
Maybe she’d see what kind of opportunities presented themselves at this wedding. This was Texas, after all. Billionaire central.
Billy Kent’s house tour took them through another massive entry hall leading to an equally massive dining room with a limestone fireplace that looked big enough to roast an ox.
Billy apparently liked things oversize. Sherice gave him a quick once over and decided his taste didn’t necessarily reflect his other attributes. Then again, he was undoubtedly loaded in the financial sense.
Mom Toleffson was walking with Billy’s wife, which made flirting a little tricky. While Lars might not always notice if she did a little trolling, Mom T. was a lot more observant. And she’d never been reluctant to call Sherice on any apparent transgressions.
Still, she might have been tempted to try a few come-hither looks if Billy’s wife hadn’t been welded to his side. His wife had hips the size of a bus, but Billy didn’t seem to notice. He kept his arm around her waist and his eyes away from Sherice.
Sherice grimaced carefully, trying not to create a new wrinkle. A pity. Billy was probably in the general economic bracket she was interested in. And she’d look far more appropriate on his arm than his current wife did.
Billy waved them into a room with a pool table and an oversized flat-panel television on one wall. The game room. Two of the groomsmen were playing pool—the dentist whose name she’d forgotten and the old guy with the mustache that made him look like an extra in a Western movie. She’d already dismissed both of them as billionaire candidates.
Lars’s brother Cal and his fiancée were cuddled together on the couch. They jumped up a little guiltily when Billy and Reba walked in. The woman, Docia Kent, clearly took after her mother and clearly needed to be a lot more careful about what she put on her plate if she didn’t want to end up with hips to match. On the other hand, the way Cal looked at her made Sherice feel grumpy.
