Dance Away with Me(63)

*

She was too agitated to nap, and the cabin felt claustrophobic, so she washed her face, ran a brush through her hair, and found her spare set of car keys. She hiked back up to the schoolhouse for her car and drove into town.

She roamed the aisles of the Dollar General without taking anything in, then sat on the bench outside and tried to calm herself down. When that didn’t work, she got up, only to discover she’d sat in something sticky. She cleaned off her jeans as best she could before the fear that had brought her to town overwhelmed her. She had to make certain the Dennings were still at Fiona’s Purple Periwinkle Bed and Breakfast.

She drove past Brad Winchester’s rec center and the Angels of Fire Apostolic Church. Around the bend, the Purple Periwinkle sat off to her left. She slowed to a crawl.

The Dennings’ Lexus was there, but that didn’t reassure her. Wren was too fragile to be around a lot of people. What if there were other guests? Unvaccinated children?

It took all her willpower to drive back to town. She made it as far as the rec center before she had to pull over. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel as one awful image after another flooded her brain. Wren crying so hard her face broke out in splotches. Wren vomiting into her car seat. Wren with one of her explosive diarrhea attacks. Tess had wanted Wren to behave her worst for them, but knowing the baby might be doing exactly that without Tess to comfort her was more than she could bear.

She forced herself to go back to the cabin. The throw rug inside her front door was askew, and a manual lay on the kitchen table, but this time Kelly Winchester wasn’t to blame. The furnace installer had been here. Now that it no longer mattered, she had heat.

With her phone curled in her hand, she dragged herself upstairs, crawled under the covers, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

The ding of her phone woke her before the nightmare could take hold. She fumbled through the covers to retrieve it.

It was a text from Ian. Where are you?

She squinted and poked at the keypad. Beach house in Bora Bora.

Book a return ticket. Dinner here in an hour. I’m cooking.

Not hungry. Her stomach growled in protest.

Doesn’t matter. We have a deal.

The nude drawing. As if she could forget.

She glanced at the time. Almost seven o’clock. Her head ached and her mouth tasted like dirty socks. She dragged herself into the warm bathroom, filled the old claw-foot tub, pulled off her dirty clothes, and sank in.

We have a deal. As she lay back in the water, she imagined herself lying naked on that purple velvet couch. And for what purpose? Did she really think her dubious sexual allure would convince him to go along with the harebrained story she’d concocted on the fly?

She needed to prepare herself for whatever happened tonight, but shaving her legs was all that came to mind.

The water cooled. She towel-dried her hair and combed through it with her fingers. Her jeans were too dirty to put back on, and she’d perspired through her shirt, but with nearly all her things at the schoolhouse, she didn’t have much left to choose from.

She rejected the black sheath she’d worn to Trav’s funeral and the bright pink leopard-print jumpsuit her fellow midwives had once bought her as a joke. That left the full-skirted, off-the-shoulder crimson cocktail dress that was her staple for holiday parties.

Something about that red dress . . . She needed armor, and it felt brave, like a battle flag. She slipped it over her head and shivered as the chilly fabric slithered over her naked body. The skirt was full, letting plenty of air creep up her legs and beyond. As soon as she got to the schoolhouse, she’d put on some underwear.

Gathering her dirty clothes, she glanced at herself in the mirror. With no makeup, finger-combed hair, and the bright red cocktail dress, she looked like a hungover party girl creeping home at dawn from a long night snorting coke with an indie film director.

She slipped into the scuffed silver ballet flats she kept by the back door and got in her car. Much too quickly, she arrived at the schoolhouse.

Inside, she could smell something cooking.

“In here,” he called from the kitchen.

She followed the sound of his voice. He stood at the kitchen counter in jeans and a navy FIFA World Cup T-shirt, the detritus of salad-making in front of him, along with a wine bottle and two full glasses. He gave her an admiring once-over. “Very nice.”

“I’m changing.”

“Later.” He held out one of the wine goblets. “This is a very good cabernet.”

She slugged down the entire glass and held it back out for a refill.

“I anticipated that,” he said.

“What?”

“Your pressing need to abuse alcohol.” He refilled her glass. “I like the way you dressed up for me.”

“My clothes were dirty, and I’m changing as soon as I eat.” Between the wine and the sumptuous smells coming from the oven, she was suddenly hungry. Hungry enough to almost forget she wasn’t wearing underwear.

“Lasagna for dinner.”

“Frozen?”

He looked offended. “You underestimate my culinary skills.”

“Definitely frozen.”

His mouth twitched. “Grab some plates.”

*

She looked like the wanton fourth wife of a dissolute Greek shipping magnate. The red dress and bare feet. That extravagant chaos of inky hair against her olive skin. A woman too confident to bother with makeup. And those breasts . . . He’d seen a lot of breasts, but these were exceptional. He’d long suspected they weren’t entirely symmetrical, which made them even more perfect.