As she talked, I could see Rosemary getting angry all over again. Her cheeks flushed and her green eyes shot sparks when she mimicked Dave’s voice.
“You know when you and the Fitzhumes saw us out on his balcony Sunday morning? That touching display of domestic harmony that he deliberately staged?”
I nodded.
“Twenty minutes later, I left him outside and went in to get dressed. I didn’t close the French doors all the way, but I’m sure the cocky bastard thought I’d gone into the bathroom to do my face. I came back into the room to get my purse that I’d left by the door and I heard him say, ‘We’re home free, baby. Three judges and a judge’s wife just saw us connubilling.’ ”
“His term for connubial behavior,” Rosemary said drily.
“So as soon as Jenna presented herself, you hatched the plan?”
“Why not? It didn’t take much pushing. She was hot to trot and he never turned down an easy roll in the hay.” She grinned. “Or a splash in a Jacuzzi.”
“So the real reason he’s willing to let the original proceedings go forward is because he doesn’t want the cupcake back in Durham to hear about it?”
“Oh, I imagine she’ll hear about it,” Rosemary said complacently. She held out her sunscreen to me. “Could you get my back?”
I laughed. “Seems to me like you’ve already got it.”
CHAPTER
28
I lay on my stomach, my head pillowed by my crossed arms, half drowsing, when Rosemary came back to our umbrella from her swim. As she toweled her hair dry, she said, “Will Blackstone was out there in the water, too. Have you seen his eye?”
“You know him?” I asked.
“Sure.” She reached into her beach bag for a comb and began untangling her hair. “He and Dave worked on a report together two or three years ago. Teen courts and recidivism. He stayed over one weekend while they finished working on the statistics. Nice man.”
“Did he say how he got the eye?” I asked innocently.
“Slipped getting out of the shower and banged into the sink, poor guy. He says everyone’s teasing him that somebody’s husband punched him out.”
“Oh?”
“Well, if you know him, you know what a hunk he is. Divorced. Unattached. And he does like to flirt. He even flirted with me just now. He’s heard that Dave and I are headed for divorce and he said Dave must be crazy to go out for a hamburger when he had steak at home. Wasn’t that sweet?”
“Joanne Woodward probably thought so.”
“Huh?”
“I read somewhere that that’s the reason Paul Newman gave for not cheating on her.”
“Oh.” She digested that for a moment, then, with a touch of defiance in her voice, said, “I still think it was sweet of Will. He asked me to have a drink with him later.”
“You going?”
“Why not? Chelsea Ann’s having dinner with that detective again tonight. You want to join us?”
The thought of watching Will Blackstone squirm through a round or two of margaritas was incredibly tempting, but I resisted. “I don’t think so, thanks.”
I wondered if Rosemary would let him put the moves on her. Will Blackstone and Dave Emerson struck me as two of a kind and some women do have a tendency to keep picking the same losers time after time.
“
I closed my eyes and thought about the various men I’d been involved with over the years. Were there similarities? One could say that Dwight and the game warden had a few things in common—both liked the outdoors, both wore badges and were comfortable with guns. Allen Stancil never wore a badge and his moral compass was several degrees to the left of theirs, but he and Dwight were built alike. On the other hand, those three were nothing at all like the rather bookish law student I’d lived with one winter in New York, neither physically
“
Beside me, Rosemary began to pack up her belongings. “You ready to go?” she asked. “I want to shower before Chelsea Ann gets back. Takes me a little longer these days to get all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
