by Tawny Weber
“Everyone?” Bev asked, her eyes questioning Eden.
Eden just shrugged again. She wasn’t going to lie to her best friend, but neither did she see any point in admitting that she would have given anything to join the well-sexed crowd. But not for the title. Nope, she just wanted Cade.
“Ladies, time to get to work,” Gloria Bell, the Garden Club president called, clapping her hands for attention. “The Spring Fling is just around the corner. Our biggest society ball needs the best flower arrangements, don’t you think? Come on now, chop chop.”
Most of the older women got up and gathered around the three head tables, discussing what kind of flowers screamed fancy party. That left Eden and a dozen women her own age seated next to the dessert buffet. A fact that seemed to pain half of them, since they studiously kept their gazes averted. Eden, who while carrying a plethora of issues and challenges, could happily eat anything and everything without gaining an ounce, just grinned.
This was the only way she stood out, a wren among peacocks. They were grace, she was clumsy. They were as beautiful as money could buy, she was as average as broke could maintain.
“I can’t believe nobody has shared the secret yet. Are you sure there is one?” Bev asked, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, it sounds like more of an urban legend than fact, you know?”
“Oh, it’s real.” Crystal Parker leaned forward, her eyes shifting to the matriarchs to see that her mother was occupied before she shared in a low tone, “My sister, Chloe, was almost one of the Cade-ettes.”
“Almost?” gaped Bev. “How is one almost in the club?”
“She went on a few dates with Cade the winter before he graduated. The two of them were getting really friendly, if you know what I mean, during the high school Winter Bash and Chloe got a little loud. Then the principal, Mrs. Pince, walked in on them. Chloe said Cade charmed his way out of a lecture, but never did ask her out again.”
She gave a good-humored roll of her eyes, as if her sister’s getting busted making out still amused her.
“Of course, that couldn’t have been as embarrassing as what happened to poor Eden here,” Janie said with a giggle before patting Eden’s hand. As if that friendly gesture made the joke any easier to take. “You never have told us the real story about what you and Kenny Phillips were really doing when he broke his foot and ended up covered in a nasty rash.”
Eden pressed her lips together in a grimacey sort of smile, hoping someone, anyone, would change the subject. She didn’t need anyone speculating about what particular sexual position Kenny had been in when he’d fallen.
Cade had rescued her then, too. Turning the tables nicely, he’d shown up at the lake to find her with his best buddy from high school. The poor guy had been rolling around naked in a patch of poison oak while clutching his broken ankle.
“Girls,” Gloria called, gliding over like an elegant steamship. “Chitchat is over. Now it’s time for work.”
“I can help,” Eden offered, gratefully getting to her feet. But in her desire to escape further sexual comparisons, her hip bumped the table, sending the unlit candles toppling, forks bouncing off plates and the grapes rolling over white damask to the floor.
“Oh, well...” Mrs. Bell grimaced, then shook her head. “Thank you, dear. But we need someone with a little better eye for color. Janie, why don’t you and the girls come along now and see what you think of the plans.”
En masse, all of the women except Bev and Eden migrated to the front of the room. To the popular section.
Eden sighed, pushing aside the last plate of dessert, this one a double-chocolate brownie.
“What’s wrong? It’s not like you to stop rubbing your super-fast metabolism in the princesses’ faces before you’ve tried every dessert,” Bev said quietly.
Although Eden noticed a few envious glances at three empty plates in front of her, all she could focus on was the giggling group of women all bundled together around the flower displays. All fitting in, all contributing meaningfully. All perfect, even if they couldn’t eat more than two hundred calories at a time.
“Nothing. I’m just tired,” she excused, not completely lying. She was tired.
Tired of being so easily dismissed.
Tired of feeling like a failure.
Tired of wallowing in mediocrity.
Just once, she wanted to be admired. To stand out—in a good way. To feel like someone special. To be part of the in-crowd.
And maybe she should wish for a time machine, too, and blast back to high school when she should have gotten over these silly issues.
“Oh, Eden,” Lilly-Ann Winters, who sat at the next table, called, offering a charming smile. “I’m so glad you made it to the meeting this month. You so rarely do.”
“I usually work Thursday afternoons,” Eden said with a cautioning look toward Bev. Lilly-Ann had a trio of Parti Yorkies and a pedigree Persian at home.
“Oh, you still have that, um, job?” Lilly-Ann asked, a rapid flutter of her lashes probably supposed to be a distraction from her having no clue what Eden did.
“I opened my veterinary clinic six months ago, and yes, it’s still in business,” Eden said with a nod, amping up her smile and getting ready to pitch her real reason for subjugating herself to this torture. “You should bring Snowball in for a checkup. I have a wonderful new program for cats, an all-natural diet and supplements that are guaranteed to add luster to her coat.”
“Oh, no. Snowball only sees Dr. Turner,” Lilly-Ann said, her eyes wide with horror at the idea of taking her precious Persian anywhere but the most expensive vet in three counties.
“I understand,” Eden said, pulling out the diplomacy she’d been practicing since she’d called in her RSVP. “Dr. Turner has a wonderful reputation. And he’s so popular. Just last week someone was saying she had to wait a month to get her puppies in for a routine exam.”
Lilly-Ann’s smile tightened at the corners. Bingo. Eden knew the only thing the other woman hated more than designer knockoffs was having to wait for anything.
“Don’t you worry about emergencies, though?” Eden continued, leaning forward and speaking in a hushed, let’s-share-a-secret tone. “You can’t take risks with a feline as delicate as Snowball. If you wanted to just bring her by for a checkup, I’d have her information on file in case, God forbid, there was ever a crisis.”
For one brief, gratifying second, Lilly-Ann looked tempted. Then she gave Eden a once-over, as if to remind herself who she was dealing with, and shook her head. “No, no. Thanks, though. Dr. Turner has a pet ambulance. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
With that and a giggling little finger wave, she got to her feet. Bev stood, too, an argument obviously on her lips.
Eden shook her head, gesturing to her friend to sit. What was the point? She needed clients desperately. She’d hoped a few of the women would, if only for faux-friendship’s sake, give her a chance. But to them, and to most of Ocean Point, she’d always be the klutzy girl who’d broken Kenny’s foot while having sex. A joke. An average, broke joke who was about to lose her home. Because she’d tried everything she could think of, even calling her mother—who hadn’t answered—to find a way out of this financial mess. If she didn’t come up with the money—or at least enough to negotiate a deal—within three weeks, her home, her heritage, would be gone.
“Brownie?” Bev offered again with a sympathetic frown.
Eden shook her head.
Some things, even chocolate couldn’t help.
* * *
SHE WAS STILL ASKING herself what the point of it all was two hours later as she drove home.
“Well that was a total waste of a Saturday,” Bev declared from the passenger seat, nibbling on the piece of cake she hadn’t let herself eat in front of the other women. “I can’t believe that in a roomful of thirty women, twenty-six of them have pets.”
“And of that twenty-six, I couldn’t get a single client,” Eden mumbled, wishing she hadn’t wasted Bev’s time. �
��Still, it wasn’t all bad.”
She didn’t have to take her eyes off the road to know Bev had shot her an incredulous look. Probably a sneer, too, if Eden knew her friend.
“Hey, I made contacts. That counts. They might not have signed on board today, but all it takes is one good word, one rich matron with a colicky dog, and I’m set.” She slanted a sideways glance toward the passenger seat. “And, hey, at least dessert was good.”
“Well, I’ll give you the desserts point. But do you really think a matron or two using you as their vet is going to stop the bank from calling in the loan?” Bev didn’t even bother with the skeptical look this time. Her tone, even wrapped around chocolate icing, spoke volumes.
“Until I come up with something better, this is the best shot I’ve got,” Eden said morosely.
Damn her mother. Damn herself for not forcing Eleanor to sign herself off the property when Eden had bought her out. She should have known better. According to her personal bio, Eleanor Gillespie was a free spirit. A wild wind that couldn’t be tamed. Eden sighed, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel. A loving flake who specialized in making life difficult for her only child.
From preschool when she’d used all of Eden’s classmates to test her politically incorrect, factually accurate and visually scarring nursery rhymes to high school when she’d volunteered as a parental chaperone at the senior all-nighter, then lectured everyone on birth control, sexual satisfaction and the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, she’d been a challenge. But she was also fun and bubbly, creative and clever, and loved Eden in her own self-absorbed, offbeat way.
Eden rounded the corner of narrow country road, tall trees looming on either side of the asphalt. But just as she passed the pretty stone gates that led to the Sullivan Estate, something white flashed. She lifted her foot off the gas, peering through the window. She saw it again.
White fur and gray spots.
She slammed on the breaks.
Bev’s hand shot forward, bracing against the dash.
“What the hell...?”
Half on and half off the road, Eden killed the car engine and threw her door open.
“It’s Paisley,” she called as she hurried around the car toward the stately bank of large maple trees Laura Sullivan had planted when she was a young bride. “Mrs. Carmichael has been frantic since the cat ran away last week. We need to rescue her.”
“That cat is evil,” Bev muttered, following her. “Besides, do you really think ran away is the right term? That sounds so innocent. I heard it was more like a prison break, complete with injuries and property damage.”
Eden waved that away. So Paisley was a little difficult. She was a rare snow Savannah. Being standoffish was a characteristic of the breed, as was the need for play and fun. Since Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t much good at either, the poor cat had probably run off out of boredom.
Before she could explain the psychological makeup of Savannahs, there was a loud screech, then a crash boomed out from behind the women.
Except for a teeth-clenching wince, Eden froze.
Bev screamed.
Cringing, they both pivoted toward the car.
Eden had forgotten to set the parking brake.
She and Bev stared at the tree-hugging vehicle in silence.
Damn.
“This is a bad week for cars around you,” Bev observed with a resigned sort of huff.
Eden groaned. It was like she was a walking, talking accident waiting to happen.
The car wasn’t new, or even in very good condition, but it’d been big enough for her to transport anything smaller than a horse, was paid for and had looked decent enough not to irritate wealthy potential clients.
Now the passenger fender had formed an intimate relationship with a redwood.
After staring at the car for a solid minute, Eden sighed and deliberately turned her back on it to walk the rest of the way across the street.
“Aren’t you going to do something? Where are you going?” Bev hurried after her. When Eden stopped under a tree and peered through the leaves, then reached up to test the strength of one branch, the cheery blonde gaped. “You can’t be serious? You’re still going to try to rescue the cat?”
“Why not? The car is already a mess—I might as well have something to show for it.” A safe, secured pet was a reasonable price to exchange for a molested fender. And maybe, if she was lucky, this could be her chance to bond with Paisley and get in Mrs. Carmichael’s good graces.
“Paisley,” Eden called in a cajoling tone. The cat, perched high on a maple branch, stopped its upward bounce to toss Eden a disdainful look. “C’mere, pretty kitty.”
“Why don’t we just call Mrs. Carmichael and tell her we saw her cat. She can come get it herself,” Bev suggested when her stilettos slid on the dirt bank. “And give us a ride while she’s at it.”
“Sure, a sixty-year-old woman needs to be climbing a tree after her cat,” Eden dismissed, her own stubby-heeled Mary Janes not slipping at all—girls who tended to trip over their own feet wore stilettos at great risk—as she made her way around the base of the maple.
After a few more calls, a few snarky remarks from Bev and another dismissive look from the cat, Eden sighed. She looked up the road, then down, to make sure no cars were coming. She only climbed trees once in a blue moon, but somehow she always managed to get busted.
“You’re lookout,” she told Bev. She glanced down at her pretty blue cotton dress, then tugged the back of the pleated skirt forward between her thighs, tucking it into the wide black belt. “There, modesty intact.”
“There, fashion destroyed,” Bev said, shaking her head in dismay. “If anyone asks, I tried to talk you out of this. I pointed out the likelihood of you falling, of you breaking yet another bone or something horrible happening to your hair.”
Eden’s fingers combed through the thick swath of heavy brown hair at her shoulders and gave Bev a confused look. “My hair?”
“I think it’s the only thing you haven’t messed up so far. It’s due.”
Eden grimaced, then shrugged. Bev was probably right. Some people might lament their fate, others would spend hours in therapy. She figured that by simply accepting that she was a little accident prone, she was not only ahead of the game in terms of dealing with emergencies—because after all, she created at least one a month—but she was saving a fortune on psychiatric fees.
“Watch for cars,” she warned again, reaching up to grab the closest branch.
“What do I do if I see one? Whistle? Throw myself across the driver’s window to hide their view?”
There might be a few drawbacks to having a BFF with a smart mouth, Eden decided as she levered her body onto the first branch.
“Just give me enough warning so I can hide,” she said as she gained her balance and slowly stood upright to reach for another limb.
With Bev’s voice droning in the background, covering everything from the fact that she’d never learned to climb a tree to the insanity of grown women acting like squirrels, Eden scurried higher.
A minute later, she was one branch away from Paisley.
“Hi, sweet kitty,” she said in a soft singsong voice. “Are you up here playing Queen of the Jungle? You should be—you look like royalty.”
She kept the soothing tone going, her outstretched fingers in constant motion to get the cat’s attention.
It worked. After a few seconds and a cautious sniff, the exotic white cat was nudging her broad forehead against Eden’s knuckles.
“Oh, aren’t you sweet.”
Unable to resist, Eden gave herself a moment to cuddle and pet the pretty cat before tucking her under one arm and slowly lowering herself until her butt met the branch. Like scooting down a rickety ladder, she went one branch at a time, with plenty of cuddling in between. Finally she was close enough to hand the cat to Bev.
“Why don’t you put her in the car,” Eden instructed, her belly flat against a wide limb that was
about six feet from the ground. “Crack the windows, and there’s a bottle of water and portable pet dish in the trunk. If you’ll sit with her, she’ll probably drink a little.”
Despite her earlier opinion that the cat might be evil, Bev didn’t hesitate to reach out and cuddle the gray-spotted feline. Paisley gave a meow of protest, and threw an injured look toward Eden, but didn’t try to escape. Eden waited until her friend and the cat were safely inside the car, treats and water dispensed, before she lowered herself to the next branch.
There. She smiled her relief. Almost down.
It was the smile that did it, she figured.
Because she went from enjoying an easy descent to being suddenly trapped in the space of a heartbeat. Like an anchor, something held tight, so she couldn’t move.
Breathless, Eden twisted to see what was wrong.
Then scowled when she saw that the strap of her shoe was caught on a branch. Eden tugged. The shoe stuck. She tried to slip it off, but the branch was too rough, scratching painfully against the soft flesh of her instep.
A minute later she added cursing to the mix.
“Haven’t we been here before?” a husky voice asked.
Oh, hell. Eden froze. She hadn’t even heard a car. Please, oh, please, let him be talking to someone else.
“That is Eden up there, right?” the voice asked.
Double hell.
She shook her head, hoping the move would shift the curtain of hair from blocking her view.
Her heart, already pounding like a freight train, sped up. What little was left of her breath escaped her lungs in a rush.
She twisted her torso, angling herself sideways to make sure the face matched the voice.
Gorgeous green eyes, a tanned complexion over sculpted cheekbones and a strong jawline. Wide, full lips stretched in a smile that bordered on laughter. And the sexiest man-dimple she’d ever seen.
Her eyes widened and she gave a long, lusty sigh.
