It was then that I saw him. With his back to me, I had no trouble picking him out by his height, his brown wavy hair, his faded denim jeans, the length of his torso, and the cut of his tight Western shirt.
Why was I worried? This was going to be fun. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, handsome, want to dance?”
He swung toward me, and with him a familiar blonde. Now I saw what I’d missed in the crush of dancers: Ryan was partnering his ex, and my nemesis, Hillary Sloan-Rawlings. And he didn’t appear to consider it a hardship. Her hands were clasped around his neck, drawing the two of them close together and leaving no room for the Holy Spirit between them, as they used to tell us at First Baptist.
The butterflies evaporated and in their place appeared green-eyed devils. Which made me feel all kinds of ridiculous. I’d never been a beauty queen like Hillary, and she’d never been as gutsy and courageous as me.
“Hey, Jos.” Ryan made as if to remove Hillary’s hand from around his neck, but the beauty queen kept swaying back and forth. I couldn’t help but notice she’d forgotten to button one of her shirt buttons—the one right over her cleavage. “What happened? I thought I’d lost you.” He kept dancing though he was talking to me, mindlessly following where she was leading. They looked so good together, swaying as one, completely in sync with each other.
“Did you catch the bad guys?” Hillary asked. She’d added just the right inflection at the end of her question so I had no doubt that she was being sarcastic and witchy.
“Do I look like the sheriff?” I met Ryan’s questioning gaze, but I refused to soften. Tough. I wasn’t about to share my investigative secrets with this Miss America wannabe. Okay, I had to admit she wasn’t a wannabe. She had placed third in the final round of the big beauty bonanza, in front of a television audience and everything. She just got my goat, without even trying.
“Hey, come on, Ryan. Let’s finish the dance, then you two can catch up.”
He gave her an irritated look and disentangled himself from her grasp. “We’ve danced a few dances, Hillary. Ending in the middle of this one won’t kill us.”
She leaned against his chest and tousled his hair and then smoothed it down slowly, snaring him with her gimlet eyes.
And he wasn’t complaining. They’d dated on and off about a year ago. But on again was in their immediate future if she had her way.
“Let’s talk later,” I said.
He grabbed my arm. “Let’s talk now.” He led me to a cluster of tables, seating us at one near the back. Hillary followed close behind, taking the seat on his other side.
“I’m not saying a word with her here,” I whispered under my breath.
“You don’t mean that, Josie.” Hillary smiled a toothy smile. She had obviously been listening “We’re old friends. Let bygones float away.” In college, we’d started out as friends in the journalism department, but she always received the accolades while I stayed in the background doing the grunt work—no matter that I often stayed up late to help her write her late assignments.
I tried. “Where did you come from? I thought you left after the parade.”
“Oh, the town council—that’s whose car I rode in—took all the local beauties out to lunch.”
“I didn’t see you.”
She laughed and then paused. “Oh, you thought we’d go to Milagro. Oh no. We went to Riata in Alpine. Fillet, salad, baked potato, and blackened salmon.”
I loved fillet, salmon, and Riata’s expensive vibe, but I didn’t need her rubbing them in my face.
“What do you know about the burglary at Gold Rush Lighting, or did Majors send someone else?” Hillary asked matter-of-factly.
“That’s all there is to tell.” I didn’t trust her motives. She had a way of convincing our editor to give her the juicier stories, though technically her job was writing the occasional celebrity feature.
She smirked. “You know who did it, don’t you?” She batted her eyelashes like a lovesick calf. “You can tell me. Majors is going to be thrilled you got the inside scoop from that overbearing Lightfoot character, no matter who turns in the story.”
“It’s my story, Hillary.”
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “No argument here, but just so you know, he did ask me to cover the story as well.” She adopted a sad expression. “In case you couldn’t deliver the goods.”
“What? He wouldn’t do that, not after—”
“Please. No need to have a panic attack over it.” She smiled a cat-with-the-cream smile. “As it is, he’ll want to fire me when I tell him that Ryan and I are going to Austin next weekend.”
The bottom of my stomach turned into a block of cement. Back in September, Ryan had invited me to join him for a trip to Austin to visit our old college hangouts, like The White Horse honky tonk. That answered any nagging doubts I had about making the trip. If he invited her, then he didn’t understand me very well or the deep-seated dislike, not to mention, disrespect, she held for me. Why couldn’t he have left it at two old friends revisiting their college days? Getting out of town for a much-needed break?
He saw Hillary and me in the same light. What the heck?
“Jos—”
I ignored the appeal in his eyes. “No big deal.” I even managed to smile, with teeth and everything. “It’s a free country.”
Ryan frowned. “Give me a sec—”
With a shake of my head, I placed a hand on his arm. “We’re good.” I included Hillary in my largesse. “No worries.”
He leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “We’ll talk later.”
I kept my focus on Hillary. She wasn’t going to find any trace of disappointment on my face. “So, you’ve finished your stories
