Cupid’s Confederates

clasped in front of her. Exasperation warred with humor inside of him.

Bett slipped an arm around Zach’s waist, glancing up at him as they strolled up the walk. “You’re really irritated, aren’t you?”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Not at you.” A hiss and a snarl from the front porch made Bett stiffen in alarm. “A black cat,” he murmured under his breath. “Why am I not surprised?”

Bett relaxed again. “Behave yourself,” she mouthed, her lips twitching with laughter.

“Are you kidding? I am,” he mouthed back.

Reverend Moody was already greeting Elizabeth at the door. He was a gray-haired man with a long face, soulful eyes and a black suit that was just a touch shiny in the seat. He chattered to Elizabeth as if he’d just found a long- lost friend, eyed Bett at length from head to toe and wasted a fleeting disappointed look as he registered Zach’s presence.

By the time the “so glad you’re here” stuff was over with, the three of them were inside. “Perhaps a slight libation to relax all of us before we begin,” the reverend suggested soothingly as he led them through a carpetless hall, lit only faintly by a dangling lightbulb.

“Thanks, but we’re not much into libations, Reverend,” Zach said pleasantly. “Before we go any further, though, I wonder if I could have a private word with you.”

“Certainly, certainly.”

First, Zach took a cursory look at the room into which Reverend Moody was ushering the two women. It was square and dark, lit only by candles, and held a circular table in the center of it, covered, not surprisingly, with a black tablecloth. Harmless. Bett shot him a startled look, but he closed the door on her and faced the reverend without any more smiles.

“How much?” he demanded flatly.

“I sense,” the tall man said soothingly, “a slight skepticism, which I assure you I have encountered before. Once you’ve seen-”

“I’m sure,” Zach agreed. “How much?”

The reverend shook his head sadly. “A really very nominal contribution.” He cleared his throat. “Twenty-five dollars.”

Zach dug into his pocket, handed the man his fee and leveled him an iceberg stare. “Rev? Just so we both know what I’m paying for. You lay any hocus-pocus on those two, and I guarantee you’ll have a real vision of the spirit world-direct. Got it?”

“Sir-”

“And you’ll also see that Mrs. Cordell gets enough out of this experience that she will have absolutely no need ever to return here. Ever. Now, are we clear on that, too?”

“You may just be surprised with what the spirit world can come up with, Mr. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said acidly. Under Zach’s steely stare, he turned away. “I think we’re all very clear on what to expect this evening.”

Bett felt a zigzag of apprehension tickle her spine as the door opened and Zach finally returned with Reverend Moody. The whole room, the whole house and grounds, gave her the creeps. Rationally, she knew very well that the “Reverend,” though no man of the cloth, was only a harmless character and that there was nothing to be afraid of. In college, she’d even fooled around with ESP, a fascinating experience. But this was different. Her brain seemed to be functioning at only half the speed of the pulse beating in her throat. Cobwebs was what this place suggested to her-she felt as though they were going to cover her head any minute and smother her. She couldn’t really shake the idiotic feeling until Zach sat down rather heavily beside her and laid a possessive hand on her thigh.

The reverend sat down, took Elizabeth’s hands in his own and stared deeply into the lady’s eyes for several silent minutes. “I sense,” he said slowly, “the most wonderful, loving aura around you, Mrs. Cordell…”

After a time, Bett’s spine gradually unglued from the back of the straight chair. The rev really wasn’t so bad; she was even beginning to be rather taken by his low, sonorous voice. He was actually very comforting, in a spooky sort of way.

He related a number of incidents in the life of her mother and father that he could not possibly have known-if, that is, Bett weren’t already aware that Elizabeth had spent time on the phone with him. Her mother seemed suspended in that world of wanting to believe. Bett felt a rush of protective love for her…but it wasn’t necessary. The reverend wasn’t doing any harm.

He claimed Chet loved Elizabeth and would always love her, that he wanted her to be happy. That he would be waiting for her in another world, but in this one he wanted his wife to take up the reins of life again, even to find someone else to love…

Elizabeth stiffened indignantly at that.

Bett didn’t. Her dad, who would have deplored this whole scene almost as much as Zach did, would probably have offered those same words, and meant them. The reverend went on a little longer, surprising Bett when he assured Elizabeth that Chet didn’t need to talk with her again through any medium when he was always in her heart. Didn’t the rev count on repeat visits for his money? Bett was even more surprised when he finished with her mother and, before she could rise from the table, grasped both her hands.

“Oh, really, this isn’t necessary. I-”

“There’s a spirit calling you, too, Mrs. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said soothingly. “All you have to do is relax and let it happen.”

“I am relaxed, thank you, but I-”

“Brittany,” her mother hissed scoldingly.

Bett sighed.

The reverend’s eyes focused dead behind her on Zach for one long, level moment before they closed. “A living, loving spirit,” said the low seductive undertone. “Someone from your past. A lover? Yes, I think a past lover, Mrs. Monroe…”

Bett stiffened as if she’d been doused with ice water. What else had her mother told the reverend in those phone calls? And actually, Elizabeth couldn’t have known that Bett had lost her virginity to Zach when she was nineteen…

“A long time ago…before you were married, for certain… well, this marriage…it’s one of the strongest auras I’ve ever felt, Mrs. Monroe. It’s a man-I’m trying to picture him-a very tall, very handsome young man. The two of you were so very young, so very much in love, so very eager to explore all the meanings of love together. I see long, blissful nights of passion. I see him taking you in his arms that first time-”

Zach’s chair scraped behind her. Her right hand was plucked from the reverend’s grasp, then her left one. “Thank, so much, Rev,” Zach said crisply. “We’re leaving now.”

Bett considered mentioning that Andrew had hardly been “very tall” and that the reverend certainly had enough creative imagination to sell swampland in Arizona. After one glance at Zach’s face, though, she decided it just wasn’t the right time.

Chapter 5

“A lot of nonsense, really,” Elizabeth said virtuously. “I knew that ahead of time. You don’t think I didn’t?”

“Of course you did,” Bett agreed.

“You think I needed some stranger to tell me your father loved me?”

“No, Mom,” Bett agreed.

“And what a shyster he was, with all that business implying you weren’t a virgin when you married. Honestly, Brittany! I remember now that he asked me on the phone all about the family, and maybe I even mentioned Andrew’s name, heaven knows why. I know I can get to talking on occasion…but I certainly never would have intimated such a thing. I know perfectly well you were a good girl when you married Zach…”

Bett removed her tongue from her cheek long enough to reply, “Yes, Mom.” The last one in, she closed the front door and dropped her purse and sweater on the couch. Zach was already heading upstairs. He had barely said