The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(91)

“Ewww … ,” Temple scoffed. “Big words.”

Lucy shoved away her plate. “You look fantastic everywhere except inside your head.”

“In your opinion.” Temple made a dismissive gesture toward her own body. “You can spin it any way you want, but I’m still fat!”

“When will you not be fat?” Lucy cried. “What ridiculous number has to flash on the scale you carry around in your head to finally make you feel okay?”

Temple licked her fingers. “I can’t believe Miss Porky is lecturing me about weight.”

Panda didn’t like that. “She’s not porky.”

Lucy ignored him. “Your body is beautiful, Temple. There’s not an inch of you that jiggles.”

“Unlike your hips,” Temple shot back, but without any real sting.

Lucy gazed at her untouched plate with disgust. “My hips will be just fine as soon as I can eat like a normal person again.”

Temple turned to Panda. “She’s some kind of alien. How can she gain twenty pounds and not have it make her crazy?”

“I haven’t gained twenty pounds,” Lucy retorted. “Ten max.” But sweet potato fries and sugar cookies weren’t her real enemy. Her enemy was the guilt she felt over the pages she hadn’t written, the family she was virtually ignoring, and the panic she experienced whenever she thought about leaving Charity Island.

Panda pushed back from the table. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m going outside to shoot myself.”

“Do it near the water,” Lucy said, “so we don’t have to clean up after you.”

She and Temple finished their sad excuse for dinner in glum silence. Temple stared out the window, and Lucy picked at the kitchen table’s vomitous green paint.



LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, AS Lucy pulled some weeds by the porch and contemplated a trip to a bar in town so she could work on her reverse bucket list, she heard a car pull into the driveway. It didn’t sound like one of their regular delivery vans. She set aside her trowel and went around the house to investigate.

A woman with short, bright red hair and a stocky figure stepped out of a silver Subaru. She wore a loose-fitting white top, serviceable tan capris that would have looked better on someone with longer legs, and athletic sandals. A chunk of turquoise hung from a leather cord around her neck, and silver rings flashed on her fingers. Lucy nodded in greeting and waited for the woman to identify herself. Before that could happen, the front door opened and Mr. Bodyguard stepped out.

The woman turned away from Lucy to face him. “Patrick Shade?”

He stopped at the top of the steps. “Can I help you?” he said, without answering her question.

She came around to the front of her car. “I’m looking for a friend.”

He nodded toward Lucy. “Unless you’re looking for one of us, you have the wrong house.”

“She’s here. I know she is.”

Their visitor’s stocky build reminded Lucy that Temple had enemies. What if this woman were a disgruntled former client? Or a Fat Island television viewer turned stalker?

Panda kept himself firmly planted between the visitor and the door.

“It took me weeks to find her,” the woman said stubbornly. “I’m not going away.”

He moved slowly down the steps. “This is private property.”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating. She backed against the car, more desperate than threatening. “I have to see her.”

“You need to go now.”

“Just tell her I’m here. Please. Tell her Max is here.”

Max? Lucy stared. This was Max?

But Panda didn’t seem surprised by the woman’s revelation. Was he wearing his professional poker face or had he known all along that the person Temple pined for was a woman?

Of course he’d known. Someone as thorough as Panda wouldn’t let a detail like that escape him.

The woman turned toward the house and shouted, “Temple! Temple, it’s Max! Don’t do this. Come out and talk to me!”

Her pain was so visceral Lucy felt it in her own heart. Surely Temple would hear her and come out. But no sound came from the house, no movement. The door stayed shut. Lucy couldn’t stand it. She cut around the side and entered through the back.

She found Temple upstairs in her bedroom standing off to the side of the front window where she could watch the driveway without being spotted. “Why did she have to come here?” She sounded both fierce and broken. “I hate her.”

Everything Lucy hadn’t understood was now clear. “No, you don’t. You love her.”

A lock of Temple’s hair came out of her clip as she spun around, every muscle of her overexercised body taut. “What do you know about anything?”

“I know this has been tearing you apart all summer.”

“It’ll get better. It’s simply a matter of time.”

“Why did you break up?”

Temple’s nostrils flared. “Don’t be na?ve. Do you think I want the world to know that I—I fell in love with another woman?”

“You’ll hardly be the first celebrity trainer to come out of the closet. I doubt it’ll ruin your career.”