Season of Sisters (25 page)

"Oh, Maggie." Grace rose from the table.

Holly rushed toward her friend. "What's happened?"

"My babies. They hate me." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "My babies hate me."

As Maggie buried her head in her hands and sobbed, Holly cast a pleading look toward Grace. Ben stuck his head in the door and waggled his eyebrows. Grace shook her head, then put her arm around Maggie's waist and steered her toward the kitchen table as Ben made himself scarce. Knowing Maggie, Holly grabbed a box of tissues off the counter and shoved one into her friend's hand.

"Put the kettle on, would you, Holly?"

"I can't believe they hate me," Maggie wailed.

Grace pulled a chair away from the table. "Sit down, dear, and tell us what happened."

"It's Mike. Of course, it's Mike. Who else would be so cruel as to turn my boys against me?" Maggie melted into her seat, then wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and started sobbing all over again.

In the midst of a vu moment, Holly wondered how many boxes of tissues Grace had in the house. "Maggie. What happened?"

"He called last night. Jake Randall took me on a picnic and I slipped in the mud so I was in the shower when Mike called and Jake told him that's where I was and Mike took it wrong and he called the boys and asked what the hell is your mother doing and they think I'm a slut and it's not me it's their dad and they won't listen to me because they are just like him and I'm so angry at them. I am angry at all of them."

That was just the start. For the next half hour while drinking two cups of tea and devouring three pieces of cake, Maggie rambled and vented and wailed and wept. The story that emerged both stirred Holly's ire and broke her heart. She didn't know what to say to offer Maggie comfort.

Grace managed to sum up the situation eloquently. "In this moment, I am reminded of an old saying. Men have only two faults." She patted Maggie's hand. "Everything they say..."

Holly and Maggie finished it with her, "...and everything they do."

The resulting laughter lightened the mood and Maggie's consumption of tissues slowed considerably. "I'm so glad I came over here. Y'all have made me feel so much better. I just knew you would."

Holly licked chocolate icing off her fork. "I wish we could do more. Would it help any if Grace or I talked to your sons, tried to explain your position?"

"You mean those thick-headed, dim-witted, lame-brained boys I've devoted my life to? Thank you, but no. I'm not even certain I'll talk to them again myself." Maggie wrinkled her nose. "Now, let's change the subject. How did the portrait sitting go?"

"Oh, it was wonderful," Grace said. Enthusiasm lit her eyes and colored her voice as she described the activities of the evening. Talk turned to the anniversary party and the three women spent the next half hour discussing details and making plans for the coming weekend. They declared the task of finding the perfect dress for Grace to be the first priority.

At ten o'clock, Holly called it an evening, reminding the others that tomorrow was a workday for her. Maggie, too, decided to take her leave, and since her car was parked in the driveway behind Holly's, she backed out of the driveway first.

As Holly waited on Maggie, Grace approached her car. Eyes gleaming, she knocked on the driver's-side window. Holly thumbed the button and the window lowered.

"It's time, Holly. Remember my idea? I know just what I need to do to accomplish number four on my Life List. Why don't you come with me. It'll qualify as your number twenty-one. It'll be a two-for-one deal."

In the face of Grace's excitement, Holly didn't know whether to nod or run. "I'm almost afraid to ask. What wicked action do you have in mind?"

"Nothing as exciting as sex in a storeroom, I'm afraid," she said with a devilish grin. "Still, it qualifies and I think it'll help Maggie's morale. How about it, Holly? Want to help me heist Mike Prescott's sails?"

Chapter 11

Moonlight spilled across
the placid surface of Lake Texoma as the weekend died away, fading into the tranquil peace of a Monday morning. On the hillside surrounding the marina, air conditioners droned, while from down on the water came the occasional squeak of Styrofoam dock supports and lap of gentle waves. Drooping strings of yellow dock lights joined halogen lamps perched atop wooden poles to provide pockets of illumination amid the shadows. The night was sleepy, silent, and, Holly thought, more than a little scary.

What else could she expect when arriving with vandalism on her mind?

"I can't believe I'm doing this," she muttered, as she tucked her hair beneath the baseball cap Grace brought for purposes of disguise. "I'm a teacher, a role model for children. Nowhere on my Life List does it say anything about committing a felony."

"Oh, hush." Wearing a stylish ash blond wig from her chemo days, Grace keyed open the trunk of her six-year-old Ford and gestured toward the bag of supplies they'd purchased at the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart half an hour earlier. "You remind me of my youngest granddaughter. Child whines more than a circular saw."

"I'm not whining." Holly retrieved the sack from Grace's arm, wincing as the cans inside clinked together. "I'm expressing legitimate reservations. We could get into real trouble for this."

Grace shut the trunk with a quiet snick. "Maybe. But we're not going to get caught, and even if we did, Texas is a community property state. The boat is still half Maggie's. If she says we acted at her behest, who's to say we'd be in any trouble at all?"

"But we're not acting at her behest, and if she knew what we are up to she might just tell us to jump off a dock."

"Balderdash."

Holly swallowed a laugh. "Balderdash, Grace? Getting a bit spicy with the language, aren't you?"

"Put a sock in it, Weeks."

That response stopped Holly in her tracks, causing her tennis shoes to slide across the gravel. Loudly.

"Hush! You're going to ruin this before it ever gets started."

Yeah, that's the idea.
But Grace Hardeman, criminal-in-the-making, would not be denied. The woman was a terrier. A terrier with gray hair, a Madonna smile, hot pink sneakers, and breast cancer. How the hell was Holly supposed to argue with her?

Ben Hardeman had proved to be no help. When he drove Grace to Holly's home in the middle of the night, she had asked him to talk some sense into his wife. "This is an idiotic idea," Holly had said. "Never mind the criminality of it. She has no business doing mischief like this. You've got to stop her."

The man just laughed. Laughed! "Holly, Holly, Holly. Don't you know me well enough by now to know I've tried? Anything short of locking her in the closet wouldn't stop her. Look at her. My Gracie is sparkling. Even if I could change her mind, which I don't believe is possible, I'm not about to attempt anything that might douse her light."

"But this is the silliest scheme."

"Yes, and I think we have your Life List to thank, don't we?"

That, Holly hated to say, was one of the reasons she had such reservations about the entire idea. For the first time, she understood how Justin must have felt about the bungee jumping. Her list was also the reason why she'd agreed to accompany Grace. She felt responsible. This wasn't at all the way she'd intended to satisfy her number twenty-one.

At that point, Ben had given her a hug. "Don't worry. As Grace loves to tell me and as I'm slowly beginning to understand, it's her life. Whether we like it or not, you and I and everyone else needs to let her live it the way she wants."

Thinking about it now as a fishy scent drifted on the night air, Holly muttered, "Somehow I don't think the local law is going to listen to that argument when we're caught in the act of committing a felony."

"Felony, shmelony. We're doing a little redecorating, that's all. Besides, aren't you the one who put 'Do Something Wicked' on her to-do list first?"

"Wicked, yes. Criminal, no. I can't believe I let you talk me into this. What if there's a night watchman? What if they have guard dogs? What if someone lives on his boat and he gets up in the middle of the night to pee and he sees us?"

"If someone lives on his boat, he has a bathroom, a head, and he's not likely to do his business off the bow of his boat. As to the watchman and the dogs, I checked into it and it's not a problem."

Which didn't say the dogs and watchman didn't exist, Holly noted. Glumly, she said, "If we get caught, I'll lose my job. It'll make the paper, you just watch. I can see it now. 'Teacher of the Year Given the Boot Due to a Boat.'"

"Or how about 'Big Mouth Causes Murder at Lake Texoma—and We Don't Mean Big Mouth Bass.' Now
be quiet!"

Grace led the way down the hill toward the Grand-pappy Point marina, where soft security lighting illuminated hundreds of boats floating peacefully in their slips. Holly anxiously scanned the mix of sailboats and motor-boats for signs of life. Doing this at all showed a definite lack of intelligence. Doing it in good weather was insane. Three o'clock in the morning or not, somebody was likely to see them.

"Why did I ever open my mouth about my list," Holly grumbled beneath her breath. Louder, she mocked, "How about a bit of not-so-petty larceny? What's a little vandalism to a half-million-dollar boat? Five to ten at the Big House, that's what."

Grace glanced over her shoulder. "I don't think it cost that much. He bought it used, remember, plus he did some refurbishing."

"Like that makes a difference." Holly lifted her eyes to the night sky and sighed.

Ahead of her, Grace stopped in front of a numbered slip, pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, switched it on, and checked a small scrap of paper in her hand. A faint click carried to Holly as the light blinked off, then Grace said, "This should be it. I'll check the stern and confirm this is the
Second Wind,
just to make sure, then we can get to work. Which color do you want to use, Holly? Pink or red?"

She wanted to use her feet. To run away. "Pink." The lighter color seemed like the lesser crime.

Grace slapped a paintbrush onto Holly's palm. She envisioned allowing it to drop off her hand and onto the dock where it might slip into the crack between two boards and fall into the lake with a gentle splash.

Then Holly remembered the anguish on Maggie's face as she stood in the doorway of Grace's kitchen Friday night and the hurt that had flashed in her eyes when that little girl called Maggie's husband Uncle Mike. Her grip tightened around the brush handle.

As Grace handed her a can of paint, Holly's gaze strayed toward Mike Prescott's boat. From out of nowhere, she recalled the light of pain in Mike Prescott's eyes as he watched his wife climb into her car to leave that day out at his aunt's farm. The hurt wasn't all one-sided.

Holly wondered what an observer would have seen in hers and Justin's expressions when she turned down his proposal, when she saw him with Jenna Larson.

"It's the
Second Wind,
all right," Grace said. "The mercury vapor security lights are brighter than I expected, but if we remain in the shadows as much as possible, I think we'll be all right."

Holly exhaled a heavy breath. Her emotions rocked like the boat beneath her feet as she climbed the boarding ladder and stepped onto the
Second Wind.
Silently, she helped Grace aboard. She had tried hard not to think about Jenna. Doing so gave her a sour feeling in her stomach and queasiness wasn't the best thing to bring aboard a boat. She believed Justin's protestation of innocence. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the problem hadn't changed. Jenna Larson would still make a perfect wife for Justin. Holly would still be a perfectly terrible choice for him. She and Justin might be talking again, friends again, but the underlying situation hadn't changed one little bit.

Justin wanted to marry and start a family. Holly didn't dare marry and have children.

That truth broke Holly's heart.

Justin might be back in her life for now as her friend, but it wouldn't, couldn't, remain that way forever. Someday he'd find a wife and their friendship would never be the same.

The thought of Jenna as that wife scraped her heart raw. And in the meantime, Holly would remember that smug smile on Jenna Larson's face until the day she died.

"Whatever happened to the church lady?" she asked in a conversational tone as she followed Grace along the starboard side of the yacht.

"Not so loud," Grace cautioned in a whisper. "Let's get to work. Quietly, though. Remember that water carries sound. What church lady?"

"The woman who went after Ben."

"Oh." Grace used the chrome railing for balance as she stepped toward the bow. She set her Wal-Mart sack on the deck. "She married the choir director and moved to Montana. Get to work, Holly. Let's not waste time."

Holly cupped her hands around her eyes and attempted to peer through the boat's tinted windows. Not surprisingly, she couldn't see a thing.

"What are you looking for?" Grace asked as she pulled a can from her plastic sack. "Do you expect to find evidence that Maggie is right and Mike does have a paramour?"