The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(66)

Until last night, Lucy had intended to go to the parade alone, but after Temple had thrown the Scrabble board across the sunroom and Panda had threatened to dump Lucy in the lake if she didn’t stop making nooses for his French waiter pig, she’d modified her plan. “The brutal fact is, you’ve only been here a week, and you’ve both turned into bad-tempered, snarly bitches. Not that either of you had that far to go.”

Panda’s towel snapped as he threw it across the gym. “I’m the easiest guy in the world to get along with. But Lucy’s right, Temple. If you don’t take a break soon, somebody is going to die. And it won’t be me.” He grabbed a water bottle and chugged.

“Do you really expect me to stake my future on the dubious protection of a wig? I’m not doing it.” Her jump squats gave way to side planks.

Lucy sighed. The Evil Queen was demanding, temperamental, and difficult, and Lucy should hate her guts, but the social worker inside her couldn’t. Beneath all that bluster was a lost soul trying to cope with a life that had gone out of control, a lost soul who understood exactly how crazy she was but couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

Lucy and the Evil Queen had a lot in common, although the Evil Queen knew what she wanted to do with her life, and all Lucy knew was what she didn’t want to do—knock on more doors begging for more money and more legislation that would help children. Which made her the lowest of the low.

Panda set the bottle aside and gazed at Lucy. “What if her disguise was more than a wig?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean …” Panda turned to Temple. “Your pal, the president’s daughter, has had lots of experience hiding her identity, and I don’t mean just her current stomach-churning disguise.” He took in Lucy’s now-neon-pink dreads. “If you persuade her, I’m sure she’ll share her secrets.”

An hour later, the three of them were on their way into town. Temple slouched in the backseat, her long hair concealed under the short brown wig, her face shielded by sunglasses and an unremarkable straw sunhat. Lucy wore her black tank, the one embellished with a skull and roses; a pair of denim Daisy Dukes she’d frayed and spiced up with safety pins; her nose ring and two eyebrow rings. Panda wore his black Nike ball cap, his hair curling slightly from beneath the bottom edge. Lucy had asked him to ditch his aviators because they made him look too much like Secret Service.

Temple’s gray yoga pants fit a bit more loosely than when she’d arrived, but not her purple knit top, which stretched tightly across her middle, thanks to the small pregnancy pillow Lucy had secured beneath it.

Beachcomber Boulevard was closed to traffic for the parade, and Panda looked for a parking place on a side street. “Remember what I said, Temple. You don’t leave my sight, not even for a second. Lucy, you’re Temple’s cover, so you stick with her. Don’t talk to anybody, but if something happens, Temple’s your pregnant friend from back east.”

“My story is better,” Lucy said. “She’s one more woman you knocked up and plan to abandon first chance you get.”

Panda ignored that. “Don’t even think about trying to give me the slip, Temple. If you have to use the Porta Potti, we all go.”

Temple pushed down her sunglasses and gazed at the back of his neck over the top rim. “I would die before I used a Porta Potti.”

“I’m with you on that one,” Lucy said.

Temple glanced nervously out the car windows at the people passing on the sidewalk, some of them carrying lawn chairs, others pushing strollers. “You’re too paranoid, Panda. I haven’t worked this hard to blow it on street food.”

“Reassuring, but that doesn’t change the rules.”

Lucy tugged on the waistband of her shorts. Despite living in a house with nothing but diet food, she’d managed to regain the weight she’d lost before her wedding. She turned to inspect Temple’s disguise again and saw her compressed lips. “Will you knock it off?”

Temple frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The exercise you’re doing right now. Squeezing your thighs or contracting your stomach or something like that.”

“I’m doing my Kegels.” Temple gave a condescending smirk. “And if you cared about your pelvic floor, you’d be doing them, too.”

“I swear to God,” Panda declared, “if my next job involves a woman—even a female gerbil—I’m not taking it!”

Lucy smiled and propped her elbow on the seat back. “Here’s the good news, Temple. When Panda is around, no one looks at anybody else.”

“Exactly why Lucy and I need to go off by ourselves,” Temple declared.

“Oh, yeah, that’ll work,” Panda said dryly. “The second you two are out of my sight, you’d both be mainlining funnel cakes.”

So true. Which explained Lucy’s weight gain. Being surrounded with nothing but diet food left her so unsatisfied that she gorged herself when she came to town. So far she’d avoided Panda’s threatened body searches by turning out her pockets and patting herself down in front of him. To her relief, he hadn’t pushed her.

“Your paranoia is a sickness,” the Evil Queen declared as Panda eased into a tight parking space. “You should get therapy.”