“Oh, I remember.” He gave a smirk. “I saw him tailing you every time you moved at that fashion show.”
She inched back, not sure what part of that to react to. That Danny was tailing her—or Peter was…jealous?
“He was trying to get me to reconcile with his sister,” she told him. “And remodel some rooms in his Destin house.”
He gave her a “get real” look. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s it, Viv. Come on. The dude could barely wipe his drool around you.”
Peterwasjealous. She gave him a purposely coy smile, unnaturally tickled by the reaction.
“You have nothing to worry about,” she said, keeping a tease in her voice because it was fun. Come on—Peter McCarthyjealous?
Take that, fourteen-year-old Vivien.
“I’m not worried,” he said with the same cool confidence he’d exhibited with the feuding mothers on the deck. “But that guy’s slick. I’d get paid up front if I were you.”
Danny Sullivan wasn’t slick. He was good-looking, loaded, and charming, yes. Was thatslick? Maybe to Peter.
She gave his arm a playful jab. “I will. And I’ll takeyouout to dinner with my first client fee just to prove it.”
“Can’t wait.” He stole the lightest, fastest kiss and headed down the stairs to his car, leaving her standing in the hot Destin sun thinking about him…and Danny.
Well, it was going to be aninterestingsummer.
Maggie Lawson sat stiffly at the outdoor dining table after Peter left. But the echo of their conversation hung in the air, as thick as the Florida humidity with the sickening smell of a broken friendship.
For the past two days, Maggie and Jo Ellen managed to either avoid each other or be surrounded by their kids and family. But this conversation had to happen if they were to achieve their goal of finding the missing pieces of the Roger and Artie puzzle.
Still, it was shocking to realize that, all these years later, they had plummeted to this level after being the best of best friends. Well, Artie did it, of course. If he’d have kept his bigethicalmouth shut…
Maggie tamped down the thought, far too intelligent to think that Artie was alone in carrying the blame. Obviously, Roger had a part, too. He’d committed the criminal acts and, more importantly, had ordered Maggie to never speak to a Wylie again.
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and finally looked across the table at a woman she’d once called a soul-sister, and not just because they’d lived in a house together with the same Greek letters on the door.
JoandMagswere the proverbial peas in a sorority pod.
And then they’d met their husbands at the University of Georgia. First, Roger, a frat boy who’d come to a Tri-Delt party and swept Maggie right off her feet. Then, a few months later, Jo Ellen met Artie, the senior nerd who’d tutored her when she was struggling with a political science class.
The four of them were close right up until they graduated and married. But Jo Ellen longed for her cold and miserable Ithaca, so Artie applied to Cornell Law School.
Even a thousand miles apart, expensive phone calls, handwritten letters, and Christmas cards kept Maggie and Jo Ellen connected. When they were both pregnant at the same time with Vivien and Jo’s twins, they shared the experience. All along they exchanged baby stories, recipes, life updates, and grade school pictures as their families grew up.
Then one winter, Maggie heard about a beachfront cottage that they could rent for a whole summer and she had a wild idea for the Wylies to squeeze in that house with them.
Roger had to go back and forth from Atlanta during the week, but Artie was a professor with the summers off. They all came from Ithaca for one whole summer, which turned into seven summers and the best memories with two families joined like one.
Once. Long ago.
Pushing the memories away, Maggie lifted her gaze to meet Jo Ellen’s soft brown eyes, rimmed with sadness. Grief? Probably. Artie had died less than a year ago. But that sadness was surely because of what had become of their once great and mighty friendship.
Jo looked downright weary, though she’d aged pretty well. Some deep lines, some soft jowls, but still that sweet, pretty Yankee girl who showed up in Maggie’s dorm room in the fall of 1965, carrying a suitcase full of optimism and kindness.
Right now, she was composed, with her delicate fingers curled around the handle of her coffee cup. She stared back, not with anger, but with something far worse—pity.
Maggie bristled at it.
“I don’t know why I thought this would go any differently,” Maggie muttered, keeping her voice low. “You defend him like it’s your personal crusade.”
Jo Ellen sighed, shaking her head. “Because it is both—a crusadeandpersonal. Good heavens, he was my husband. I loved him, and I can’t believe he ever did anything to hurt anyone.”
