“You’ll never guess what I heard about Silas and Libby Baldwin,” Nicole was saying, carefully stacking the soaps into a plastic tub.
“What?” Aunt Camellia turned. “They’ve been married, what, almost two years? Are they expecting?”
“Divorcing is more like it,” Nicole said. “Poor Silas had the papers served to him yesterday while he was working at the bank. He’s heartbroken.”
Tansy and Astrid exchanged a knowing look. Libby had been a mean girl in high school—a mean girl who’d regularly targeted their little sister, Rosemary. Silas was a nice guy, too nice for someone like Libby. Still, Tansy hoped they’d both emerge relatively unscathed.
“Speaking of divorces.” Nicole unwound more ribbon, then paused. “Libby’s sister, Kate. And Harald Knudson.”
“It’s official? I’d heard rumors but...” Auntie Mags shuddered. “The man is monstrous but this last one seemed equally delightful so it appeared to be a match made in heaven.” For all her indifference, she was studying Camellia with concern.
“She talked him into that fancy vacation house on the coast and that sports car, and now she’s getting them both in the divorce.” Nicole wrapped the ribbon around her finger and sighed. “She and Libby stopped at the salon on their way out of town to celebrate their freedom.”
“How...classy.” There was no missing Auntie Mags’s sarcasm.
Nicole’s voice lowered as she leaned forward. “You know I don’t spill clients’ secrets—”
Tansy was relieved to see she wasn’t the only one that had set everything aside to listen to Nicole. She hated that she was this curious.
“Kate didn’t paint a pretty picture about the Knudsons’ homelife, let me put it that way. She mentioned all the trouble Leif’s been in, suspended from school and all. And he’s hanging out with those Dwyer boys.” Nicole said “Dwyer boys” with outright disapproval. They were synonymous with trouble. From shoplifting to causing fights to selling marijuana. And while Nicole’s mother, Willadeene Svoboda, had never been able to prove it, she blamed the Dwyer boys for the rock chucked through her salon’s plate glass window. Tansy couldn’t help but notice the timing of the incident. Willadeene, the worst gossip in the county, had made some unkind comments about the boys’ mother taking off and then, two days later, the beauty salon’s window was shattered. It’d cost an arm and a leg to replace.
Poor Leif.Tansy thought about the floppy-haired teenager she’d brushed past in the grocery store, his eyes glued to his phone. Being a teenager was hard enough. Being a teenager with Dane and Harald to guide him?
“Kate sort of hinted around about Harald, too. Drinking too much and getting into a temper and yelling at everyone.” She shrugged.
Tansy glanced at her aunts. Auntie Mags remained aloof but Aunt Camellia looked angry.
“Kate even hinted that, maybe, she and Dane...you know.” Nicole made a gagging sound. “Mom had a field day with that one.”
Tansy’s stomach clenched. What? And Willadeene Svoboda heard about this? This was bad.
“Kate and Dane?” Aunt Camellia asked. “What about them? Didn’t they go to high school together?” She frowned.
“Kate was a year ahead of Tansy and Dane. Libby was in my class.” Astrid shook her head. “You’re not saying...”
“I’mnot saying it. Kate is. To my mom. So, we all know how that’s going to go.” Nicole held up both her hands. “It caught—and spread—like wildfire.”
Tansy was certain, of all the people on earth who disliked Dane Knudson, she was top on that list. But even she was having a hard time believing this. Yes, Kate Owens was beautiful and, probably, tempting, but she’d been married to Dane’sfather. She swallowed. Dane was a self-absorbed, attention-seeking, pretentious ass, no arguing that. But this? If this was true, it was unforgivable—and straight-up diabolical.
Aunt Camellia crossed her arms over her ample bosom, her cheeks going deep red. “You’re telling me that Kate Owens is telling everyone Dane and she had a...a...dalliance?” She snorted. “She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nicole chewed on the end of a strand of bright pink hair. “Just awful. And my mother is no better.”
“Those Owens girls just love stirring things up.” Aunt Mags glanced at Astrid, then Tansy. “Libby was the one that made high school so unbearable for little Rosemary, wasn’t she?”
Tansy nodded. Kate and Libby could be pictured in the dictionary next to the termmean girl.
Astrid spoke softly, giving Tansy an apologetic look. “Not to defend Dane here, but I have a hard time believing even he’d stoop this low.”
Aunt Camellia shook her head. “He most certainly would not.”
Tansy was surprised by how vehemently her aunt jumped to Dane’s defense. Then again, Aunt Camellia always championed the underdog. Instead of saying something that might upset her aunt even more, she went neutral and said, “It sounds like Dane and Harald need to be spending less time trying to make money and more time repairing their family.” But she had to add, “Leif is the one I’d worry about. That kind of talk? True or not? No one wants their family slandered that way.”
“Believe me, I know.” Nicole and her mother did not get along. They probably only saw each other because their grandmother had left the beauty salon to them as equal partners. Not long after her grandmother’s passing, Willadeene had let everyone know how her mother and daughter had teamed up to rob her of her inheritance. It forever put a wedge between Nicole and her mother.
“It is shameful to know this is what people are talking about.” Aunt Mags shook her head. “But this wouldn’t be the first shameful thing associated with the Knudson family name. It likely won’t be the last.”
Tansy had to laugh. “Wow, Auntie Mags, tell us how you really feel.”
