High-pitched giggles drifted toward them, a curse, a shush. The women disappeared around the side of the house.
Gigi scowled. “If the kids at school find out about this, I’m not going back. I mean it.”
“We’ll leave town together.”
“Nothing like this ever happened before Sugar Beth came back.”
“If she stays, it’ll only get worse.”
“Still, I don’t want her to leave.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Neither do I.”
Gigi sucked in her breath as the women reappeared from the other side of the house, this time with her own mother in the lead. “This is
“The sad thing is, I doubt they’ve had a drop of liquor.”
“I used to think Mom was perfect.”
“She can’t help it, honey. Southern women are born with the insanity gene.”
“Not me.”
He sighed. “Sooner or later, you’ll go the way of the rest.”
With a hissing noise, the automatic lawn sprinklers came on, and all of them began to shriek.
“I can’t look anymore.”
Ryan buried his daughter’s face in his chest and smiled. “In the morning, we’ll pretend it was all a bad dream.”
Sugar Beth shut off her alarm. It was Tuesday, the day she’d planned to leave Parrish. She turned her head into Colin’s pillow, and as she drew in his familiar scent, she prayed he’d come home before she had to change the sheets. Misery washed over her. She fought it off by remembering last night and the Seawillows. She smiled. Winnie had given her a priceless gift.
She managed to pull herself out of bed-not an easy task these days-and get dressed before she headed for the bookstore.
“I thought you’d be packing now,” Jewel said as Sugar Beth handed over the blueberry danish she’d intended to eat but couldn’t quite stomach.
“A temporary change of plans. I’m hanging around a little longer.”
Jewel’s tiny face brightened. “For real?”
She nodded and filled her in on what had happened with Colin.
“He left? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Sugar Beth replied, warmed by Jewel’s expression of outrage.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Keep trying to get hold of him.”
Jewel regarded her sympathetically. “From what you’ve said, that could take a while. He doesn’t seem to want to be found.”
“I’m calling his editor. Somebody has to know where he is.”
“You’d better come up with a more believable story than that Oprah thing you told me about.”
“I will.”
Colin’s editor answered on the second ring. “Neil Kirkpatrick.”
“Lady Francis Posh-Wicket here calling from London.”
“Who?”
“I’m the director of Her Majesty’s Royal Office of the Garter. Her Majesty has some rather exciting news for one of your authors. Sir Colin Byrne. Ah, but what a stupid cow I am. He’s not Sir Colin yet. Which is why I need to ring him up. But he doesn’t seem to be answering his bloody phone.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.”
“Bollocks, sir. Am I to believe you’ve lost one of your most important authors?”
“Excuse me?”
“Perhaps
“Who is this?”
“I must insist you locate Sir Colin im-
“I don’t know who you are, but I have work to do here.”
“Not until you tell me where the hell he is, you
There was a long pause. “Sugar Beth, is that you?”
This time she was the one who hung up.
GEORGETTE HEYER,
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Blazes of azalea and dogwood announced the arrival of April. Northern Mississippi had never been more beautiful, but Sugar Beth was miserable. She lived her days in limbo, taking comfort only in the fact that no moving company had appeared to pack up Colin’s things. Sometimes she managed to convince herself that Colin was simply trying to manipulate her and that he’d be back soon. But as one week gave way to another, she began to believe he’d meant exactly what he’d said.
Two weeks after Colin had driven away, Ryan appeared at her door with the news that he’d finally called. “He’s rented a house-he didn’t mention where. He says he’s working round-the-clock to finish his book.”
“What about me? What did he say about me?”
Ryan made a business of examining his car keys. “I’m sorry, Sugar Beth. He said he didn’t want to talk to you yet-maybe when his book is done. And he said to stop harassing his publisher. Oh… he asked about Gordon.”
He
Her anger carried her through the next two weeks. And then
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jewel crowed. “The book hasn’t been out a full week, and I’ve already sold three hundred copies.”
“
Sue Covner regarded Sugar Beth smugly from behind Jewel’s shoulder. “Look on the bright side, Valentine, honey. Not everybody gets to be immortalized in great literature.”
Marge Dailey poked her head out from the inspirationals. “I think you’re holdin’ up pretty well. If it was me, I swear I’d move to Mexico. Although I suppose that’s not really far enough away, still bein’ in North America and all.”
The whole town was laughing its collective ass off.
The book immediately shot to the top of the
“Why, that’s Sugar Beth Carey you’re looking for,” Amanda Higgins said about five seconds after the reporter arrived in town. “Sugar Beth Carey Tharp Zagurski Hooper.”
“You might remember reading about her a few years back,” her husband volunteered. “She was that waitress who married the oil tycoon. Emmett Hooper was his name.”
The story hit the papers twenty-four hours later, and even Tibet wasn’t far enough away to hide.
Early in May, a month after Colin had left, the painting went up for auction, and the J. Paul Getty Museum