The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(82)

Chapter Eighteen




THE SUV DISAPPEARED FROM SIGHT. Bree quickly turned back to the shelves that lined the farm stand and began rehanging the bumblebee Christmas ornaments on the tree branch display she’d erected above her pots of lip balm, beeswax candles, and flower-shaped soaps. She hung them crookedly, not trying to balance the arrangement.

As Toby went off to get a drink, Lucy tried to figure out what had just happened. “Do you and Panda know each other?”

The branch display began to tilt precariously. Bree grabbed two of the ornaments and moved them. “I’ve never met him.”

“But you know him?”

Bree shifted another ornament. “No.”

Lucy didn’t believe her. “You’d think by now you could trust me a little.”

Bree moved the soap basket a few inches to the left. Her shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath. “I used to live in his house.”

Lucy was stunned. “The Remington place?”

Bree fumbled in her pocket for her cigarettes. “Sabrina Remington West. My full name.”

“Why didn’t you ever mention this?”

Bree gazed toward the trees in the general direction of her old house. She was quiet for so long that Lucy didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally she said, “I don’t like talking about it or even thinking about it, which is crazy, because I think about it all the time.”

“Why’s that?”

Bree shoved her hands deeper into the pockets. “I have a lot of memories attached to the house. Complicated ones.”

Lucy understood complicated memories.

“I spent every summer there when I was growing up,” Bree said. “I stopped coming when I was around eighteen, but the rest of my family used it for years until my father died and Mother went into a nursing home. Finally it got too expensive to maintain, so my brothers put it on the market.”

“And Panda bought it.”

She nodded. “I knew about him, but we’d never met. It was a shock finally seeing him.” She examined her broken fingernails. “It’s hard to think of someone else living there.” She regarded Lucy apologetically. “I should have told you, but I’m not used to confiding in people.”

“You didn’t really owe me an explanation.”

“Not true. Your friendship has meant more to me than you can ever imagine.” Once again, she started patting her pockets. “Damn it, where are my cigarettes?”

“You left them at the cottage, remember? You’re trying to stop.”

“Shit.” She sagged into the pale yellow Adirondack chair and said, almost defiantly, “I knew Scott was having affairs.”

It took Lucy a moment to adjust to the change of subject. “Your husband?”

“In name only.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “I was flattered when he fell in love with me, but we’d been married for barely two years before he started screwing around. I found out right away.”

“That must have hurt.”

“It hurt all right, but I made excuses for him. He had an advanced degree. I’d left college after my freshman year to marry him, so I decided I wasn’t smart enough to hold his interest. But it kept happening and, believe me, all of those other women weren’t smart.”

“What did he say when you confronted him?”

She set an elbow on the chair and curled her hand tightly around the end of the arm. “I didn’t. I pretended not to know.” Her voice was full of pain. “Can you imagine? How gutless is that?”

“You must have had a reason.”

“Sure. I didn’t want to give up my life.” She stared blindly toward the road. “I’m one of those women the feminist movement passed by. I had no career ambitions. I wanted what the women I saw around me had while I was growing up. A husband, children—good luck with that. Scott refused to even talk about kids.” She rose from the chair. “I wanted a beautiful house. Never having to worry about money. Knowing exactly where I fit. I wanted that security so much I was willing to sell my self-respect to get it. Even at the end … A year ago …” She stopped, hugged herself, her expression bleak. “I wasn’t the one who walked out. He walked out on me. I was still hanging on, the faithful doormat wife.”

Lucy’s heart filled with pity. “Bree …”

Bree refused to look at her. “What kind of woman lets herself get treated that way? Where was my pride? My backbone?”

“Maybe you’re finding it now.”

But Bree was too caught up in self-loathing to accept comfort. “When I look in the mirror, all I feel is disgust.”

“Clean off your mirror and take another look. I see an amazing woman who’s building a good business and also taking responsibility for a kid who’s not exactly easy.”

“Some business. A broken-down farm stand in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s not broken-down. Look around. This is the Taj Mahal of farm stands. The honey is the best I’ve ever tasted, new customers are stopping all the time, you keep adding more products, and you’re making a profit.”

“Which I’m plowing right back into new jars and Christmas ornaments, not to mention soap molds and a few gallons of cocoa butter for the lotions. What happens when Labor Day comes and the tourists leave? What happens when winter’s here and Toby stages a full-out teenage rebellion?”