“Three husbands, Sugar Beth?” He curled those workingman’s fingers around a cut-glass tumbler. “Even for you, that seems a bit extreme.”
“One thing never changes about Parrish. Gossip’s still this town’s favorite pastime.” Cool air brushed her belly as she slipped her hands into the pockets of her black leather jacket and pushed it back. Her cropped candy pink T-shirt had the word Beast written in glitter script over her breasts. It was a little flashy, but it had been marked down to $5.99, and she could make just about anything look trendy. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get that chain off my driveway.”
“Would you now?” He sank into one of the leather chairs without inviting her to do the same. “You have a wretched track record with husbands.”
“You think?”
“Word travels,” he drawled. “I believe I heard that husband number one was someone you met in college.”
“Darren Tharp, all-American shortstop. He played for the Braves for a while.” She executed a nifty tomahawk chop.
“Impressive.” He took a sip from his drink, the tumbler nearly swallowed by his palm, and regarded her over the rim of the glass. “I also heard he left you for another woman. Pity.”
“Her name was Samantha. Unlike me, she managed to graduate from college, but it wasn’t her degree that attracted Darren. Turns out, she had a natural-born gift for fellatio.”
The tumbler came to a stop halfway to his lips.
She gave him her best Southern belle smile, the one that went from here to there without coming anyplace close to sincerity. With a few adjustments-and if Diddie hadn’t possessed such a hang-up about Atlantic City-that smile could have put something more impressive than a homecoming crown on her head. “I guess brains can only get a girl so far.”
Byrne had no intention of letting her sidetrack him. “Apparently you took off to Hollywood with your settlement money.”
“I earned every dollar of it.”
“But you weren’t flooded with movie offers.”
“And aren’t you just the sweetest thang, taking such an interest in me.”
“Surely I heard this wrong. Your second husband was some kind of Hell’s Angel?”
“That would have been more exciting, but I’m afraid Cy was just a stuntman for the movies. Extremely talented-right up to the day he killed himself trying to jump his bike from the Santa Monica pier onto the deck of a luxury yacht. It was a film about the evils of drug smuggling, so I tell myself he died for a good cause, not that I wasn’t smoking the occasional joint myself back then.”
“And more than a few in high school, as I recall.”
“A mistake, Your Honor. I thought they were just funny-smelling cigarettes.”
He didn’t smile, but she hadn’t expected it from that granite-jawed face.
She’d left Cy a few months before that fatal stunt. No girl on earth had a bigger talent for marrying cheating losers than she did. Emmett had been the exception, but then, he’d been seventy on their wedding day, and age begot wisdom.
“After that, people seemed to lose track of you for a while,” he said.
“I worked in the restaurant business. Very exclusive.”
She’d started off as a hostess at a decent L.A. restaurant but had gotten fired for mouthing off to a customer. Next she’d worked as a cocktail waitress. When she’d lost that job, she’d served up lasagna at a cheap Italian restaurant, then gone on to an even cheaper burger joint. She’d bottomed out the day she’d found herself studying a help-wanted ad for an escort service. More than anything else, that had made her realize it was long past time for her to grow up and take responsibility for her life.
“Then you snagged Emmett Hooper.”
“And you didn’t even need the Parrish grapevine to hear about that.” Her smile hid every drop of pain.
“The newspapers were quite informative. And entertaining. A twenty-eight-year-old waitress becomes the trophy wife of a filthy rich seventy-year-old retired Texas oilman.”
An oilman whose investments had gone belly-up even before he’d gotten sick. Emmett had been her dearest friend, her lover, and the person who’d helped her finish the job of growing up.
Byrne tipped his drink toward her, looking like a bored, but very masculine, Gucci model. “My condolences on your loss.”
The lump in her throat made it hard to come up with a smart-ass response, but she managed. “I appreciate your sympathy, but when you marry someone that old, you kind of know what’s coming.”
She welcomed the contempt in those jade eyes. Contempt trumped pity any damn day. She watched him cross his legs, the movement an unsettling combination of feline grace and male strength. “We used to call you the Duke behind your back,” she said. “Did you know that?”
“Of course.”
“We all thought you were a pansy.”
“Did you now?”
“And stuck-up.”
“I was. Still am, for that matter. I take pride in it.”
She wondered if he was married. If not, the single women of Parrish must be lining up at the door with coconut cakes and casseroles. She moved toward the fireplace and tried to look assertive. “I’m sure it’s just entertaining the knickers off you to block my driveway, but the fun’s gone on long enough.”
“As it happens, I’m still enjoying myself.”
He didn’t look as though he knew how to enjoy anything, except maybe conquering India. As she gazed at his immaculately tailored clothes, she wondered who’d done the dirty work of setting the posts in concrete on such short notice. “Don’t you think it might be embarrassing when I call the police?”
“Not at all. It’s my land.”
“And I thought you were such an authority on Parrish. My father deeded the carriage house to my aunt in the 1950s.”
“The house, yes. But not the driveway. That’s still part of Frenchman’s Bride.”
She snapped upright. “That’s not true.”
“I have an exceptionally fine lawyer, and he pays attention to things like property boundaries.” He rose from the chair. “You’re more than welcome to look at the survey yourself. I’ll send over a copy.”
Could her father have been that stupid? Of course he could have. Griffin Carey had been meticulous when it came to matters involving his window factory but notoriously lax regarding home and family. How careful could a man be who kept his wife and his mistress in the same town?
“What do you want, Mr. Byrne? Obviously not my apology, so you might as well spell it out.”
“Why, retribution, of course. What did you think I wanted?”
His softly spoken words sent a shiver down her spine. She resisted a longing glance toward the glass of scotch he’d just set down, but she hadn’t had a drink in nearly five years, and she wasn’t starting up again tonight. “Well, now, isn’t this going to be all kinds of entertaining. Exactly where do you expect me to park?”
“I couldn’t care less. Maybe one of your old friends will help you out.”
This was the perfect moment to throw a temper tantrum, but she’d forgotten how. Instead, she sauntered toward him, putting a little sway in her hips even though her bones felt a hundred years old. “See now, here’s where you’re not thinking straight. I’ve already lost three husbands and one set of parents, so if you want real retribution, you’ll have to dig deeper than a measly driveway.”
“Playing the pity card, are we?”
That’s exactly what it had sounded like, and she wanted to bite her tongue. Instead, she flipped up the collar of her jacket and headed for the door. “Fuck you, Mr. Byrne. And fuck your pity.”