“Yes, that would suit your ego, I’m sure.”
“Without evidence to the contrary, why shouldn’t I come to that conclusion?”
“Because I’ve told you otherwise.”
“Words,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Nothing but words.”
She frowned at him. “You don’t have to have dinner with us, you know. You can drop me off. Mary Vaughn and I can celebrate without you.”
“But that would hardly prove whatever cockamamie thing she’s trying to prove, would it?”
“Not as effectively, no. Seeing all three of us together will show Serenity that there are no hard feelings.”
“Then it’s my duty to play this out,” he said solemnly. “Never let it be said that my mother didn’t raise me to be a true Southern gentleman. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to protect a woman’s honor.”
“You don’t have to get carried away,” Jeanette said.
“Apparently I do.” And something told him, he was going to regret it.
Inside Sullivan’s, Jeanette abandoned him the second they’d been shown to a table. He stared after her in bemusement as she headed directly for the kitchen. Maybe she was going to share the news that she’d contracted to buy a house, but he suspected she had a few other tidbits she wanted to share with her friends, as well.
Something told him he could spend the next fifty years with her and never entirely understand her. Of course, unraveling her secrets would definitely give him something to look forward to. And his anticipation of that prospect was something refreshingly new to him. Never before had he found a woman so intriguing that he could envision growing old with her.
* * *
Mary Vaughn sat in her car in the parking lot at Sullivan’s retouching her already flawless makeup and trying to work up the courage to go inside. The instant she’d uttered the invitation to Jeanette and Tom, she’d regretted it. She had considerable experience pretending all was right with her world when it was crumbling around her, but she wasn’t sure she was capable of putting on such a display tonight. This latest setback was still a little too fresh.
“Nothing for it,” she muttered, and exited the car. She would not let one single soul in Serenity know how she felt about having yet another man stolen right out from under her. Not that Tom had ever been hers, but she’d wanted him. The whole darn town probably knew that, just the way they’d always known what was going on with her folks and had never said a single word, much less stepped in to protect her or her mother.
As an only child, Mary Vaughn had learned to keep silent about her problems from a master. Her mother had endured years of abuse—verbal and physical—from her alcoholic husband without asking for help. When Mary Vaughn had been old enough to ask her about it, she’d denied that there was a problem. She had bruises because she was clumsy. The raised voices were nothing more than “discussions.” Because her mother had refused to acknowledge what was happening, Mary Vaughn had been forced into silence, as well.
She’d always told herself that things would be different if her father had ever attacked her, that her mother would leap to her defense and take them away from the whole awful situation, but she’d harbored her doubts about that. Thankfully her theory had never been tested. Her father had been content to take out his anger on her mother.
She’d gone to school with her chin up and ignored the whispers from neighborhood kids who’d seen her father weaving his way home from Serenity’s most notorious bar, who’d heard the inevitable shouting that followed his arrival. She’d denied the abuse when compassionate, concerned counselors had sought to help. She’d become as masterful as her mother at living a lie.
She’d fallen for Ronnie Sullivan in part because he’d been new in town and hadn’t looked at her with pity the way others at school did. She’d married Sonny because he’d loved her in spite of her troubled background. He’d even claimed to admire her for rising above the situation and striving to make her own way in the world.
By then her father and mother were both dead, her father from complications from cirrhosis of the liver, her mother from a heart attack. Mary Vaughn hadn’t truly mourned either one of them. What she’d mourned was the family she’d never had.
Sonny—son of the town’s most respected citizen—had become her whole family, and then Rory Sue. She’d known from the beginning that whatever her marriage to Sonny might lack in passion, she would always be safe and she would always have his respect. And because of his family, she’d have the town’s respect, as well, though she’d worked darn hard to earn that for herself. She’d told herself that safety and mutual respect were more than enough, and they had been for her. It was Sonny who’d eventually wanted more.
When he’d left her, she’d been forced once again to keep her chin up and ignore the whispers. She drew on that experience now to walk into Sullivan’s without letting anyone see how her heart was aching. She was here to celebrate the sale of a property and, by gosh, no one was going to think otherwise.
There wasn’t a false note in her voice or a wavering of her smile to suggest that she was anything other than thrilled for Jeanette for getting the house of her dreams...and maybe the man that Mary Vaughn had wanted, as well.
When the champagne came, she lifted her glass. “To a wonderful future in your new home,” she said, then clinked glasses with Jeanette and with Tom. “I hope you’ll be happy there.”
“You do know this is my house, right?” Jeanette said wryly. “Tom is still looking. Maybe you can think of something he would like.”
“Well, of course I can,” Mary Vaughn said, cheered to know that whatever was heating up between these two hadn’t reached a stage where they’d be
