To her left, girls from Kendra’s dance team swam and jumped into a full-sized pool enclosed in steamy glass. Adele obviously wasn’t the only late parent.
She followed Zach toward a turbo-sized barbecue set into a stone island and past several tables set with yellow tablecloths. Between the tables were five commercial-grade patio heaters, each warming up the twenty feet around them. Adele set her plate next to a bag of chips and pasta salad on a long table. A man wearing a ball cap stood next to the monster-sized grill. The second woman standing beside him laughed at something he said. As Zach approached with the tray of meat, the guy in the cap opened the big chrome lid and scraped the grill with a wire brush.
Adele didn’t belong there and planned to make a quick getaway. She turned toward the pool, and the closer she walked to the enclosure, the more she was able to see that she’d either been mistaken about the time, or there were a lot of late parents. She opened the glass door and the smell of chlorine and the sound of high-pitched laughter hit her like a brick to the head. She spotted Kendra hanging on to the side of the pool and knelt on one knee beside her. “Am I late?” she asked above the noise, and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head.
Kendra wiped water from her eyes. “What time is it?”
“About a quarter to four.”
“The party ends at six.”
“I thought you said three.”
“No.” Kendra shook her head. “Six. We practiced new dances until three. Maybe you got confused.”
“Obviously.” And Zach hadn’t bothered correcting her. “I’ll come back in a few hours.”
“Okay.” Kendra smiled. “How’s Momma?”
The last thing Adele wanted was to wipe the smile from her niece’s face. “She’s fine. The baby’s fine.” She stood. “Have fun, and I’ll see you later.”
Kendra sank into the water, then pushed off and swam toward a group of girls on the other side of the pool.
The door opened, and Zach stepped inside, carrying a glass of red wine. “It’s time for y’all to get out of the pool,” he said in a loud, clear voice, and the noise in the pool house suddenly quieted. Then he started issuing orders like he was calling plays on the football field. “Get dressed. Dry your hair. You’ve got fifteen minutes. Go.”
Adele half expected him to yell a few hut huts, then drop back for a pass. Instead, he moved toward her, grabbed her hand, and pressed the glass into her palm.
“What’s this?” she asked, and glanced up from the wine and into his face.
“Wine,” he answered. “I thought you could use it.”
“I don’t suppose telling you I don’t want wine will make a difference.”
“Sure it will.” He shrugged one big shoulder. “Are you an alcoholic?”
“No.”
“Allergic?”
“No,” she answered, as the girls began to drag themselves out of the water and move toward the far end of the pool, where Tiffany handed out thick white towels.
“Cheap drunk?”
“No.”
“Mormon?”
“No.”
“One of those girls who gets drunk and wants to get naked?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a shame.”
She smiled despite herself.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before these girls start with those ear-piercin’ screeches that they mistake for talkin.’” He placed his palm in the small of her back and steered her toward the door.
Through her sweatshirt, his touch pressed into her spine, light and heavy at the same time, spreading a warm, aware rush across her skin and bringing back visceral memories of his hand sliding to her waist and pulling her against his side. She took a drink of a very fine Merlot and was extremely grateful when he dropped his hand and opened the door. She stepped outside onto the walkway and felt she could breathe again. All that steam in the pool house had made her feel a little light-headed.
“If any of those girls get the sniffles, their mommas are goin’ to come after me,” he said, as they moved toward the courtyard.
Adele glanced at Genevieve and the other woman standing around the barbecue and wondered if they, too, had gotten the time wrong. “I thought I was late picking up Kendra. So, why didn’t you tell me I’m actually early?”
“My momma told me I shouldn’t ever correct a lady.”
Adele lifted a brow and looked up at him. “Uh-huh. Try again.”
“I knew you’d hop into your car and peel out on my driveway.”
He was right.
“And I don’t think it’s right that I have to suffer through this party by myself.”
“Isn’t that part of your job as a parent?”
“To suffer?” He nodded as they walked past the heaters in the courtyard. “Yeah, but what no one told me was that cleanin’ stinky drawers was goin’ to be the easy part.”
“You cleaned stinky drawers?”
“When I was home.” They stopped beside the grill, and Zach introduced her to Cindy Anne Baker. Next she met the guy in the cap, Joe Brunner, defensive coach for the Cedar Creek Cougars. “And you already met Genevieve,” Zach said as he grabbed the tray of burgers and dogs and lifted the huge barbecue lid.
Genevieve hardly acknowledged Adele with a breezy “Yes” before she turned her attention to Zach, and asked, “What can I do to help you?”
“Nothin,’” he answered as he picked up a spatula and placed patties on the grill. “You just relax.”
“Oh, you know I have to feel like I’m doing something useful.” Genevieve picked up a glass of Merlot and took a drink. She moved closer to Zach and spoke low so no one else could hear her.
“Which daughter is yours?” Cindy Anne asked Adele.
“It’s my niece, and she’s one of the new girls, Kendra.”
Cindy Anne looked like one of those stocky women who’d been a gymnast in a former life. Short, compact, perky. Hair cut into a blond wedge. “Do you have children?”
Through the white smoke rising up around Zach’s head, Adele caught his gaze and looked away. “No.”
“Married?” Cindy Ann asked.
“I came close once,” she fudged, and she figured if Dwayne hadn’t gone insane because of the curse, she might have married him.
“Boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “My pregnant sister is in the hospital with preeclampsia. I’m taking care of her and Kendra, so at the moment I only have time for my family.”
“Did you go to Cedar Creek High?” Joe asked as he looked straight at Adele.
“Yes.”
“We were in the same art class. I graduated a year after you.”
That finally got Genevieve’s attention. “You went to Cedar Creek?”
“Yep,” Adele answered, and told her the year she’d graduated.
Genevieve studied her face. “Oh. I remember you now.” She turned to Zach. “Did you get an invitation to the Night of a Million Stars benefit?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going, aren’t you? I know it will be painful without Devon. We still miss her horribly, of course.”
Zach placed hot dogs next to the patties, then set the tray down.
“We were best friends since our very first Little Miss Sparkle Pageant. We were close as sisters. Devon was just one of those special people, and the Junior League just isn’t the same without her.”
