switched from modeling clothes to designing the fabric
for those clothes.
“You could still be a model,” I said when we were
alone together in the kitchen, putting together coffee
and dessert while Dwight and Rob discussed the virtues
of planting more than two varieties of blueberries.
123
MARGARET MARON
She made a face. “For what? Plus sizes? Thanks, but
no thanks.”
“You’re not fat,” I protested. “And you were way too
skinny before. In fact, the first time Bessie Stewart saw
you she told Maidie they could just stick two grains of
corn on a hoe handle and use that as your dress form.”
Bessie Stewart is our mother-in-law’s housekeeper
and a plainspoken country woman.
Kate laughed. “I know. She’s still trying to fatten me
up. You certainly don’t think I made this custard pie,
do you? Skinny or fat, I’m comfortable where I am,
though, and I appreciate you and Miss Emily giving me
this weekend to put it all in perspective. I’m not super-
woman and I’ve been hovering over the kids too much
instead of letting them work it out. I’m sorry I snapped
at you yesterday.”
“No, you were right to. It doesn’t hurt to teach older
children to be patient with younger ones. All the same,
Kate, you need to understand—”
“You don’t have to say it. Rob admits that he was a
pain in the butt to Dwight and Beth, and that Nancy
Faye used to irritate the hell out of all of them in turn.
I never had brothers or sisters, so I never saw that give
and take. Anyhow, things are going to get better. Rob’s
finally convinced me that the children won’t grow up to
be axe-murderers if I get back in my studio and work on
some designs I’ve been mulling around in my head.”
She filled the cream pitcher with half-and-half and
added it to the tray.
“We haven’t touched Lacy’s room since he died last
year.” A shadow flitted across her face for that cantan-
kerous old man, her first husband’s uncle.
124
HARD ROW
Lacy Honeycutt had initially resented Kate as an in-
terloper who bewitched Jake and kept him in New York
almost against his will. It had been hard for Lacy to
realize that it was Jake’s competitive zest for the New
York Stock Exchange and not Kate alone that kept him
away from the farm. When Kate inherited the place
after his death and came down to await little Jake’s
birth, she had needed all her persuasive charm to bring
