Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove #8)(28)

“No, she shouldn’t,” Teri inserted. “I asked your supervisor to give you your break so you and I could talk.”

“Teri!”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Fine. I should’ve known you wouldn’t leave well enough alone.” Christie slapped the sales items in a white plastic bag and handed it to Teri, then collected payment. When she’d finished, Christie checked her watch. “This isn’t going to take long, is it?”

“That depends on you,” Teri responded.

They decided to eat at the fast-food place near the store. Once they’d ordered, they were fortunate enough to find a vacant table, although the place was busy. Christie opened her container of chicken nuggets and the small peel-away top on the dipping sauce. Teri watched her sister with a look of envy.

Teri was being careful about her weight because of the pregnancy, so she’d ordered a Caesar salad. Her weight gain at her last doctor’s appointment had been substantial. Okay, her diet hadn’t been ideal. She cheated a bit now and then. Nevertheless, she didn’t deserve to gain seven pounds in a single month. She’d protested loudly, but her obstetrician had dismissed her cries that the scale had been tampered with. Reluctantly Teri tore open the low-fat dressing packet and poured it over the romaine lettuce.

“I guess this has to do with James,” Christie said with the air of someone resigned to an unpleasant conversation.

“Well, actually…”

“He told you, didn’t he?” Her sister bit savagely into a nugget.

Something had obviously happened between her sister and James, during their encounter last week, and Christie assumed Teri knew all about it. James, of course, hadn’t said a word.

“Well…”

“First,” Christie stated emphatically, leaning forward. “I wasn’t drunk.”

“Okay,” Teri murmured, wondering how to ferret out information without letting on that she had no idea what Christie was talking about.

“He’s got to stop doing this.”

“I agree,” Teri said firmly. “This can’t continue.”

Christie looked more than a little surprised to find Teri taking her side. “It’s embarrassing, you know.”

“Absolutely.”

Christie leaned even closer and lowered her voice. “When James parks the limousine at The Pink Poodle, everyone stares out the window and asks questions. It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out he’s there because of me.”

This was beginning to make sense. “You mean he never goes inside?”

“Never.” As if her appetite had completely abandoned her, Christie pushed away the remaining chicken nuggets. “You wouldn’t believe the way Larry and the others were gawking.”

“I can imagine.”

“Eventually James moved around to the side of the building where I’d parked my car.”

The scene was taking shape in Teri’s mind. “So, when you came out, he figured you’d had too much to drink.”

“But he was wrong,” Christie insisted. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Teri nodded sagely.

“Besides, I thought he’d left. One of the guys said he saw the car drive away. How was I supposed to know he’d only moved it?” Christie reached for her napkin and began to shred it. “If waiting for me wasn’t bad enough, he followed me home.”

“Did anyone from The Pink Poodle see?”

Christie shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not.” She gazed at the strips of paper, then wadded them up. “Tell him something for me, will you?”

“Ah…I, uh…” Teri would rather not serve as a messenger between them, although she was certainly eager to keep track of what was going on.

Before she could argue, Christie raised her hand. “All you have to do is tell James I don’t want to see him again.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Her sister’s hesitation was brief. “Positive,” she muttered. “I don’t like him,” she continued as though convincing herself. “He’s a stuffed shirt…. All that formality drives me insane.”

Teri frowned. That wasn’t the impression she had.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Christie said.

“Look at you how?”

“Like…like you don’t believe me.”

She gestured vaguely. “I can’t help remembering how worried you were when we found out James had been kidnapped.”

Christie swallowed and glanced away. When she did speak, her voice was almost a whisper. “He might be stuffy, but he’s a real gentleman, you know?”

“Yes,” Teri agreed softly. She remembered her own reaction to James at their first meeting. So tall and frightfully thin, so formal and reserved. In the beginning his manner had irritated her until she realized what a good friend he was to her husband. He cared for Bobby, looked after him and saw that her absentminded husband reached his appointments on time. Bobby needed James, relied on him. And James had been a friend to her, too. Not only that, his actions during the kidnapping were nothing short of heroic, as Rachel could attest.

“Just a minute,” Teri said. “I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying here. Because—as we’ve discussed before—you don’t seem to like men who treat you with respect.”