The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(65)

She stuffed the notepad in the junk drawer. “Are you done?”

“It was different with Star.” Mike filled the room, sucking up her air. “Neither of them had money. They were both ambitious, charismatic, maybe a little ruthless. They understood each other in ways you and David couldn’t.”

“Then why did she leave?” The junk drawer banged as she shoved it in. “If they were such passionate lovers, why did Star run off?”

“He took a job in Wisconsin after she’d begged him not to. She always hated it when he was gone, and she wanted to punish him. I doubt she planned on being gone for long. She sure didn’t count on sliding off the road and going through the ice in that drainage canal.”

Bree wasn’t buying it. “They found a man in the car with her.”

“A drifter. She was always picking people up. My guess is he was hitchhiking.”

She didn’t want to believe his story. She wanted to believe what Myra had told her, that Star had gotten bored with David and left him for good. Shame curled in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know why you keep bringing all this up. It happened years ago. It means nothing to me.”

He knew that wasn’t true, but he didn’t argue. “I’m a religious man,” he said matter-of-factly. “I believe in sin, and I believe in repentance. I’ve made amends as best as I know how, but it hasn’t changed anything.”

“And it won’t.”

His gold bracelet caught a stray sunbeam, and he nodded, not so much at her, more to himself, as if he’d made a decision. “I’m going to leave you alone from now on.”

“Right.” She didn’t believe it. Mike never left anyone alone.

In the old days, he’d avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Not now. And something in his steady gaze threw her off balance. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me stay in touch with Toby,” he said with an unsettling dignity. “I should have checked with you before I told him he could ride his bike in the parade. I have a bad habit of charging ahead without thinking things through.” A matter-of-fact statement, neither hiding his flaws nor beating himself up for them. “The parade steps off at ten. He needs to be in the school parking lot by nine. I’d come get him, but I’m head of the committee, and I have to be there early.”

She studied a worn spot on her sandal. “I can handle it.”

“All right.”

That was it. No salesman’s pitch to win her over. No bribes of Lemonheads, Skittles, or Eskimo pies. He called out a brief good-bye to Toby and then he was gone, leaving her with the uneasy feeling that she was now truly on her own.

Ridiculous. He’d be back. Mike Moody always came back, whether you wanted him to or not.





Chapter Fifteen




I’M NOT GOING!” TEMPLE DECLARED from the gym floor where she was doing a mind-boggling set of one-handed push-ups at Lucy’s feet while hip-hop played in the background. Even Panda agreed that opera didn’t make the best workout music.

“You need to get out.” Lucy dangled the short brown wig she’d swiped from the Evil Queen’s closet in front of the owner’s nose. “Shutting yourself up like this isn’t healthy. Witness your hissy fit yesterday just because I brought a couple of sprigs of honeysuckle into the house.”

“They smelled like Jolly Ranchers.”

“Save your breath.” Panda returned the monstrous weights he’d been lifting to the rack. “She prides herself on being insane.”

Temple rose, switching from push-ups to jump squats. Strands of wet dark hair stuck to the back of her neck and her face glistened. “If you understood what I’m going through, you wouldn’t suggest this. You have no idea, Lucy, what it’s like to be so famous.”

Lucy rolled her eyes just like Toby.

Temple got the point and gave a dismissive wave. “You have secondhand fame. It’s different for me.”

Panda snorted. His sweat-soaked T-shirt clung to his chest, and the hair on his legs lay damp against his skin. It had been only a week, but Lucy could swear his already buff body was starting to show those creepy overdeveloped muscles. When Lucy had inquired why he was torturing himself so much, he’d asked her what the hell else he was supposed to do with his time? The enforced isolation was wearing on him nearly as much as Temple, and as each day passed, both of their moods had grown darker.

“I’ve been on the island for a month,” Lucy said patiently, “and I haven’t had a problem.”

“It’s how you look. People are afraid of you.”

Lucy loved the idea and paused a moment to admire the new thorn and blood-drop tattoo she’d applied yesterday to replace the one that had started to flake. In another couple of days, she’d have to fix her dragon. And maybe add a tattoo sleeve on her other arm … “Nobody expects to see either Lucy Jorik or Temple Renshaw at a Charity Island Fourth of July parade,” she said, “and if nobody expects to see you, they don’t see you.”

When she’d stopped at the farm stand yesterday, Toby had been decorating his bike while Bree examined a bedraggled bee costume that Toby’s grandmother used to wear in parades. “The question is … ,” Bree had said to Lucy as she straightened an antenna, “how desperate am I to attract new customers?”