Pleating for Mercy

Derek Kincaid over a man who told people where he’d fished at all. Almost, but not quite.

“Ah, he’s harmless,” Ruthann said. “And he’s a hottie. The point is, I’d forgotten that Nell and Nate had dated. I know it never meant anything—”

“Didn’t mean anything to him,” Karen snapped, “but it sure did to her.”

A little spasm flitted through me. Nate had told Josie he and Nell had barely dated, but Karen certainly had a different impression.

Ruthann whirled around, her hands on her bony hips. “She never told me anything like that, and we told each other everything.”

Karen’s face turned ashen. “She didn’t want Josie to find out and you . . .”

“I what?” Ruthann demanded, her lower lip quivering.

“She didn’t think you’d understand.”

Ruthann balked. “Not understand?”

“You . . . you’ve never been in love—”

“Oh, yes, I have. I’m—”

“And Lester Kramer from high school doesn’t count, Ruthie.”

Ruthann blinked away her daze. “I was her best friend, too.”

I butted in, wanting to stop the catfight I was afraid would materialize. “People can have more than one best friend,” I said. “I’m sure you were both very important to her.”

Ruthann pressed her palm against her chest. “I was with her when she almost lost her shop.”

I looked at Karen. “And I bet you were with her at some other important time—”

Karen blinked back her tears, half nodding, half shaking her head. “You weren’t there for her when she was puking her guts out. I was.”

Nell’s words about Nate breaking Josie’s heart rattled around in my brain. What if Nell had decided Josie couldn’t have with Nate what she herself had been denied? She had seemed on edge when I met her yesterday. I imagined a confrontation. The argument Mama and I heard from inside the house—could it have been Josie and Nell? Was it a coincidence that Josie had discovered Nell’s body, or could she have been the one to kill her, conveniently making the discovery when the time was right?

Or could it have been Nate and Nell arguing? He’d been conspicuously absent last night. Overwrought with guilt because he’d resorted to murder to stop Nell from ruining his wedding?

A chill spread through me. I didn’t want it to be either of them. These were people I’d hoped to be friends with now that I was home in Bliss.

Ruthann’s shoulders hunched as she retreated behind the screen to change. “Guess I should cancel my date with George,” she said.

Karen gaped. “I thought you said you weren’t seeing him anymore.”

Gracie had finished pinning the pattern pieces I’d drawn to the muslin. I handed her a pair of dressmaking shears, Ginghers with red chrysanthemums and petite blossoms on the handles. “Go ahead and cut it out,” I whispered, not wanting to interrupt Karen and Ruthann.

“I wasn’t, but he asked again,” Ruthann said over the rustling of her clothes as she changed.

“Do you know what he told Ted?”

“Who’s Ted?” Gracie whispered to me.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, getting lost in their rapid-fire discussion.

Karen flicked a glance at us. “Ted’s my husband,” she said.

“What did George tell him?” Ruthann asked with a dejected sigh.

As Karen hesitated, looking like she was having second thoughts, I imagined a similar conversation between Nell and Josie, only with Nell not holding back at all, instead revealing to Josie the relationship she’d had with Nate.

I rubbed my temples, trying to loosen the suspicions taking root there. I was supposed to be helping Josie prove Nate was innocent, not redirecting suspicion toward her.

“George told Ted that Nell always looked like she’d . . .” Her voice cracked. Another button dropped. The sound of sharp metal sliding across metal as Gracie opened and closed the scissors magnified in my brain.

“Just spit it out,” Ruthann said.

She cleared her throat, and said, “George told Ted that Nell had been rode hard and put up wet. He’s slimy, Ruthie. You can do better than him.”

Gracie stopped in midcut, scissors open wide. “Rode hard . . . you mean like a horse?”

Oh, boy. “Yeah, you know horses need to be groomed. Brushed and stuff after they’ve been ridden. George was just saying that, uh . . .” God, I had no idea how to explain such a crude remark to a fifteen-year-old girl. “He was just saying—”

“He was saying that Nell got around,” Ruthann blurted from behind the screen, “which is more a statement about her than about George.”

Unless he was the one doing the riding, I thought.

“He’s a user, Ruthie.”

“Why does your husband hang out with him, then?” Ruthann shot back.

“He doesn’t.”

“Oh, right, he’s not with the city anymore. He’s a big shot now.”

They went on and on, but I couldn’t get Nell out of my mind. It sounded to me like her self-esteem had been crushed over and over again and she’d ended up with a reputation that was going to live on.

Long after Ruthann and Karen left, I was left wondering if George Taylor could be the man Nell had been dating.

Chapter 26

The next morning, Madelyn Brighton blew through the door of Buttons & Bows like a mini tornado on a tear through Bliss. She knocked into the little antique table as she entered. The door banged behind her against the wall. As she spun around, clutching a camera strap in her hand, the lens swung wide and hit the back of the sofa.

No, not a tornado. A bull in a china shop. A petite, squat British bull, but a bull nonetheless. Her hair still looked electrified, and she still seemed a tad disheveled. I was beginning to think it was how she always looked.

“Hi,” I said, dropping my pin box on the cutting table and hurrying toward her.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” she said. “I was afraid I’d miss you.”

Something about her accent made me stand a little straighter and smile. “This is where I always am during business hours.”

“Right. Okay, down to it. I have a thought.”

“Just one?” I said with a chuckle.

She stared at me, unblinking, for a few seconds; then, like someone flipped a switch, she laughed. “Ha! No, not just one. You don’t want to know all my thoughts, Harlow. Trust me on that. But this one, you just might.”

I’d lowered myself halfway to the couch when she said, “It’s about the Cassidy magic.” My glutes seized, panic rushing through me. And to think she’d almost won me over with her fun British accent and charm.

For a while, I’d been able to forget about the fact that I’d accidentally confirmed her suspicions about the Cassidy women, but with her here, in Buttons & Bows, there was no more avoiding it.

My throat constricted. I tried to say, “What about the Cassidy magic?” but it came out a prolonged groan.

She held up a hand. “Relax, mate. I’m not going to turn you in to the Ministry of Magic.” She winked. “Though wouldn’t it be absolutely fabulous if there were such a thing?”

I stared blankly.