Where Azaleas Bloom (8 page)

“Donnie, you’re going to turn my head with talk like that.”

“That’s the idea,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “Flo,
do you not have any idea what a treasure you are?”

She honestly couldn’t say that she did. “A treasure?” she
echoed doubtfully.

“You’re an amazing mother. You raised Helen to be an incredible
woman, and you did it with no help from anyone. I’ve seen the way that
granddaughter of yours looks at you. She adores you. You’re the best friend
Frances and Liz could ask for.” He grinned. “And you do one heckuva
two-step!”

“I just hope that last one doesn’t land me in the hospital with
another broken hip,” she said, trying to lighten the moment from the unexpected
emotional intensity of his words.

“Not with me there to hold you,” he promised. “I won’t let you
stumble, much less fall.”

“Donnie, how is it that some woman didn’t snap you up years
ago?”

He winked at her. “I was just waiting for you.”

“I don’t believe that for one single minute. I’ve seen the way
all the women my age hang around the post office hoping to catch your eye.”

He laughed. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No, I’m not, which makes me wonder, why me?”

His expression turned thoughtful as he considered her question,
rather than brushing it off as many men would have.

“Because you weren’t trying, I suppose,” he said eventually.
“I’ve always been drawn to a challenge. My first wife ran a pretty good race
before she let me catch her. Since she died, I’ve never been interested in
easy.” He shrugged, his expression even more serious. “Or maybe I was never
ready for anything before now.”

Flo reached for his hand. “I’m glad you were ready when I came
along.”

“Me, too.” He hesitated, then added, “And that’s the thing,
Flo. I’m wondering when you’re going to tell your daughter about us. As much of
a kick as I get out of all these secret dates of ours, I want things out in the
open. I’m proud to be with you. It worries me that you don’t feel the same way
about me.”

Flo’s mood instantly deflated. “Don’t ever think such a thing.
I do care about you. That’s exactly why I’m keeping quiet. I know my Helen. She
won’t approve,” she said flatly.

Donnie frowned. “Why not? I’m a couple years younger, so what?
Why wouldn’t she approve of me?”

“It’s more than a couple of years,” she corrected. “It’s
twelve, but your age isn’t the problem.
You’re
not
the problem. It’s me, or I should say it’s the situation. Helen has a little
trouble thinking of me like this.”

Donnie looked perplexed.
“This?”

“Being intimate with someone,” she explained. “It freaks her
out.”

His eyes widened. “You’re kidding. Helen’s a worldly woman.
Surely she knows people our age still have active libidos.”

Flo allowed herself a smile. “She may know it intellectually.
She may even accept it when it comes to other seniors, but not her mama.”

“Well, it’s not exactly like she has a real say,” he said, then
frowned. “Or does she?”

“Of course not. I just didn’t want to stir that particular pot
till I had a real reason to.”

“But Erik knows?” he asked. “Isn’t that tricky for him?”

Flo sighed. “It’s put him in an impossible situation,” she
agreed. In fact, between that and Donnie’s reaction just now, she knew it was
time to open this particular can of beans with her daughter. If only she’d seen
something besides complete shock in Helen’s eyes the other night when she’d so
much as mentioned having a date, she thought with real regret. Then maybe the
prospect of telling Helen she was involved in an increasingly serious
relationship wouldn’t terrify her so.

“I’ll tell her,” she said, though she couldn’t seem to make
herself sound excited about it.

“Want me with you when you do?” he asked. “She’s less likely to
overreact with me right there.”

Flo laughed at his optimism. “If you believe that, you don’t
know Helen. She’ll just use the opportunity to cut off your… Well, let’s just
say it’s a bad idea.”

Donnie looked a little taken aback by that. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “I’m not expecting it to go well.”

In fact, she had a feeling it was going to take a real effort
to keep Helen from trying to have her committed. Or maybe the real worry should
be giving her surprisingly stuffy daughter a heart attack.

* * *

On Tuesday morning Lynn heard a key turn and then the
opening of the front door. Since the kids were already at school, it could only
be one person—her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

Annoyed by his presumption, she bolted into the living room and
stopped him in his tracks. Hands on hips, she stood right in his path and looked
him in the eye. “Hand it over.”

Ed looked genuinely taken aback by her attitude. “Hand what
over?”

“The key. You have no right to be walking in here anymore.”

“It’s my house,” he protested, his eyes flashing with
unmistakable temper.

“Not until the court changes something,” she retorted, then
leveled a look directly into his eyes. “Then again, it may belong to the bank
soon, and we’ll both be out of luck.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Your sleazy attorney hasn’t been paying the mortgage—that’s
what it means.”

Ed’s eyes widened with shock. “That can’t be.”

“He’s missed two payments. I have the bank notice to prove it.”
She shook her head. “Why you trusted that man to handle the divorce for you and
to deal with these bills is beyond me. Everybody in town knows Jimmy Bob has
questionable ethics.”

“It’s not as if there are a lot of alternatives,” he said, then
added defensively, “Besides, I’ve known Jimmy Bob forever.”

“Then you really should have known better.”

“Lynn, I swear to you, I’ve given him the money right on
schedule.”

“Then you might want to take that up with him,” she said,
adding, “If you can find him.”

“Now what are you talking about?”

“Helen went looking for Jimmy Bob herself last week. His office
is closed, and he seemed to have taken off for parts unknown.”

Ed looked so genuinely stunned by that news, Lynn almost took
pity on him.

“That’s why you were in such a dither to get in touch with me,”
he concluded, as if a lightbulb had finally come on to illuminate a perplexing
problem. “I came over here to tell you never to come to the office again. Noelle
said you were really upset. She just about took my head off when I got back this
morning.” He shook his head. “Women sure do stick together. I thought that woman
would walk through fire for me.”

Lynn hid a smile that would only get Noelle in more hot water.
She couldn’t have been prouder of her, though. “Something you might want to
remember, since so many of your clients are women,” she reminded him
instead.

He looked momentarily taken aback by that, but he could hardly
deny that there was validity to her warning. Rather than acknowledging such a
thing, though, he went back on the attack.

“I know you took money from petty cash, too,” he accused.
“That’s business money. What the hell were you thinking?”

“That I might want to buy groceries for our children,” she
said, not bothering to deny the accusation. There might not have been any proof,
but she thought it might give him second thoughts to realize just how desperate
the situation he’d left her in had been.

“You get support payments,” he countered. “How are you
squandering that money?”

“I
was
getting support payments,”
she corrected. “Those stopped, too, apparently around the same time Jimmy Bob
went missing. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?”

“Jimmy Bob wouldn’t steal from a client,” he said emphatically,
though there was a hint of doubt in his eyes. “Especially me. As I said, we go
way back.”

Lynn shrugged. “All I know for a fact is that the mortgage
hasn’t been paid and I haven’t had support checks.”

“I’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said tightly. “And I’ll have
a check sent over for the support money.”

“Send it to Helen. She gave me a loan the other day.”

“You told her about this?” he asked, looking alarmed.
Obviously, he was smart enough to know what Helen could do with something like
this in court.

“What else was I supposed to do? She’s my lawyer. You were off
who knows where, and I had exactly twenty-four dollars and change in the
bank.”

“You know she’s going to make a ruckus about this,” he said
wearily. “Dammit, Lynn, what were you thinking?”

She didn’t bother responding to that. She’d already
explained.

He sighed heavily, then drew himself up. “How are the
kids?”

“Scared,” she told him candidly. “Lexie’s a wreck because she
knows things are bad around here. She wants to get babysitting jobs so she can
help out.”

“Good for her. She needs to develop a sense of responsibility,”
he said, missing the point entirely.

“She’s fourteen, Ed. A sense of responsibility is important,
but she should not be worrying about her family being homeless if she doesn’t
chip in a few dollars.” She skewered him with a look. “Not when her father is
going out of town on golf vacations every other minute.”

“So you’re saying she hates me now,” he said, clearly feeling
put upon. “Thanks for that.”

“If she hates you, it’s your doing, not mine, but I don’t think
you have to worry about that.”

“Really?”

“You’re her dad. She adores you,” she said. “But she’s feeling
very conflicted about that. She’s already cut your parents out of her life, and
nothing I’ve said has changed her mind about that. If I were you, I’d spend some
time with her, reassure her and Jeremy that you still give two figs about the
two of them, even if you don’t care about me.”

He wilted a bit more under her stare. “I do care about you,” he
corrected softly. “I may not be in love with you anymore, but I do still care.
And I never meant for things to get this messed up. I honestly wish it hadn’t
turned out this way, Lynn. You didn’t deserve this. Neither did the kids.”

She could see the genuine regret in his eyes. “I believe you
mean that, but you made this choice, Ed. I wish to heaven I could figure why you
weren’t willing to work on our marriage. Sure, we had problems. No relationship
is perfect, but if you’d explained how unhappy you were, maybe I could have
changed, maybe even fixed things.”

He shook his head. “This couldn’t have been fixed,” he said
flatly.

“Wasn’t it at least worth trying?”

“That’s all I did for all those years,” he said. “I tried.”

Lynn regarded him with a perplexed expression. “Being married
to me was hard for you from the beginning?”

“I’m sorry, but yes. You wanted so much. You gave so much. I
never knew what to do with all that.”

Lynn couldn’t imagine how giving a husband all your love could
be such a trial, but it hardly mattered. “That’s beside the point now,” she
said, resigned to accepting his view of things. “This is where we are, and we
have to figure out how to make it work with the least collateral damage to the
kids.”

“I agree, and I’ll get all these financial things straightened
out. I promise.”

There was real sincerity and at least a hint of a genuine
apology in his voice, but Lynn had grown cynical about his promises. She’d
believe this one when it was kept, and not a moment sooner.

8

W
hen Lynn walked next door on Tuesday
evening for the Sweet Magnolias margarita gathering, she was relieved to find
that Helen had arrived ahead of her. Though Helen seemed to be engrossed in
supervising younger women in the fine art of making margaritas, Lynn was able to
pull her aside.

“Did Ed get a check to you today to reimburse you for that
loan?” Lynn asked.

Helen nodded. “Surprised the heck out of me, to be honest.
How’d you know?”

“He stopped by the house to scold me for upsetting his
secretary and for stealing from petty cash,” Lynn said, fighting a grin. “I
guess I stirred up more of a hornet’s nest than I’d realized. Noelle apparently
gave him quite an earful.”

“Good for her,” Helen enthused.

“I know. Yea, sisterhood!” Lynn said. “And when I told Ed why
I’d done it, I think I could have knocked him over with a feather.”

“No doubt,” Helen said. “He was still looking chagrined when I
saw him. He delivered the check personally and assured me it would never happen
again.”

“Did you believe him?”

Helen shrugged.

“Me, neither,” Lynn said. “Oh, he looked shocked by what Jimmy
Bob did, disappearing the way he has and not making payments, but having him as
the fall guy is probably very convenient. We only have Ed’s word that he
actually gave that money to Jimmy Bob in the first place.”

“My thoughts, as well,” Helen said.

“Any leads on Jimmy Bob’s whereabouts?”

“Unfortunately, no. And we go to court on Friday for another
hearing. I have no idea what to expect. Could be a last-minute postponement or
an absent lawyer. I can tell you the judge won’t be happy if Jimmy Bob just
fails to show up. Hal Cantor hates having his time wasted, especially by an
attorney who should know better.”

“That could work in our favor, couldn’t it?” Lynn asked
hopefully.

“In the long run, possibly, but short-term he’ll have no choice
but to grant Ed a continuance. He won’t allow him to continue without legal
representation. I’d like to get this settled once and for all so you can get
your life back on an even keel.”

“No one wants that more than I do,” Lynn said fervently.

Helen glanced around, clearly looking to make sure they were
still alone. “Can I ask you something? Do you know why Ed wants this divorce so
badly?”

Lynn frowned at what seemed to be an obvious question. “He
doesn’t love me anymore. He’s made that plain. Earlier he all but told me I’d
expected too much from him from the beginning.”

“Is there another woman?”

Lynn hesitated, then shook her head. “Not that I know of. To be
blunt, our sex life never exactly burned up the sheets, so it’s not as if it
suddenly cooled down. And even if I were the stereotypical clueless wife, don’t
you think someone else in town would have dropped a hint by now? Grace usually
finds out everything.”

“Could be whoever he’s seeing isn’t local,” Helen speculated.
“He has been going out of town a lot, supposedly on golfing trips, right?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Lynn said. “It kinda surprised me,
because Ed wasn’t into golf at all when we got married. He only took it up
because of business. A lot of clients like going to the club to play. I think
the day Ed joined that country club was the proudest day of his life, barring
none. Not even our wedding day or the birth of our kids ever seemed to mean as
much to him. He equated getting in with success. Not that it was any big
surprise, since his father was a founding member.”

Helen nodded, her expression thoughtful.

“What are you thinking?” Lynn asked, puzzled by this whole line
of questioning.

“Nothing, really,” Helen insisted. “You know how nature abhors
a vacuum. My mind’s the same way. When I’m missing a piece of a puzzle, I can’t
help trying to find things that might fit.”

Lynn had no idea what to make of that, but before she could
pursue it, the front door opened and more guests poured in, including Flo
Decatur. Helen took one look at her mother, muttered an excuse to Lynn and
marched purposefully in Flo’s direction. Two seconds later, Flo’s eyes were
flashing sparks and she’d latched onto her daughter’s arm and dragged her
outside.

“Uh-oh,” Maddie Maddox murmured in Lynn’s ear. “Somebody’s in
trouble.”

Lynn chuckled. “Really? Helen? What could she possibly have
done to tick off Flo?”

“I’m not sure, but I think it might have something to do with
Helen figuring out that her mother has a boyfriend. I imagine Helen objects.”
She grinned. “What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall for that
conversation. Two stubborn, immovable women on a collision course.”

Lynn gave her a conspiratorial look and suggested in jest, “We
could open the windows. It’s a nice night.”

Maddie gave her a long look, then burst out laughing. “You’re
going to be the perfect addition to this crowd.” She winked. “Let’s do it.”

Lynn instantly regretted the impulsive suggestion. “I was
kidding.”

“I know, but it’s a great idea,” Maddie said. “It’s a little
stuffy in here, don’t you think?” She turned to Dana Sue and Raylene for
support. “Sweetie,” she said, directing her words to Raylene. “Let’s open some
windows. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Raylene said. “I’ll help. Lynn, could you get
the ones in the dining room? I think we’ll settle down in there as soon as
everyone’s here and has a drink in hand. I’ll be so glad to have the addition
finished, so we can spread out, but for now the dining room will have to
do.”

At Maddie’s obviously disappointed expression, Dana Sue
regarded her curiously. “What?”

“Helen,” Maddie muttered. “On the porch with Flo.”

Dana Sue’s eyes immediately lit up. “You wanted to eavesdrop,
didn’t you?”

“Well, of course I did,” Maddie admitted without even a second
of cursory hesitation. “Don’t you?”

“I would love to know what set Flo off,” Dana Sue conceded.
“But I can wait. The second they come back inside, we’ll give them each a
margarita and pry the juicy details right out of them.”

A slow grin spread across Maddie’s face. “That’ll work.”

Lynn shook her head, amused by the workings of their minds. “I
think I’ll go open those windows for Raylene.”

“And I’ll go help with the margaritas,” Maddie said. “The
sooner we get this party started, the sooner we’ll find out what’s going
on.”

Feeling a stirring of intense loyalty, Lynn wondered if she
shouldn’t warn Helen about all the speculation going on. Then, again, Helen,
Maddie and Dana Sue had been friends forever. Helen had to know they were going
to pump her for information the second she showed her face. And, she thought,
Helen was one tough cookie. If she didn’t want them to know anything, she
certainly knew perfectly well how to keep her mouth firmly shut. She’d probably
kept more confidences in this town over the years than any other resident, even
when her tongue had been loosened by a couple of margaritas!

* * *

“You’re dating Donald Leighton!” Helen’s incredulous
words carried all the way into the living room, bringing conversation in there
to a halt.

“Oh, my,” Frances murmured. “Flo finally told her.”

“About time,” Liz said. “I have no idea why she was so
secretive in the first place. In this town Helen was bound to find out sooner or
later.”

Frances gestured in the direction of the porch. “Did you not
hear Helen’s reaction just now? That’s exactly why Flo didn’t want to say a
word. Maybe I should go out there and try to calm them down before things get
any more heated.”

Maddie stood up. “That’s okay. I’ll go.”

She had the tone of a martyr in her voice, Lynn noticed, but
she seemed awfully eager to be the one to intervene. Dana Sue immediately
latched onto her hand and pulled her right back down on the sofa.

“Stay out of it,” Dana Sue instructed. “They need to work this
out for themselves. They’re two adults and, more important, they’re mother and
daughter.”

Lynn chuckled at Maddie’s obvious disappointment, but she did
stay where she was.

“So,” Sarah McDonald said in a deliberately upbeat tone, “Flo
has a boyfriend. I think that’s fantastic.”

“She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her,” Liz confided. “Donnie
treats her like a queen. Why, she told me he brought her breakfast in bed just
the other day.”

Maddie groaned. “Oh, my. I hope she doesn’t mention that to
Helen.”

“Why not?” Liz demanded. “I think it was sweet.”

“It
was
sweet,” Maddie confirmed.
“Helen won’t be focusing on the gesture, though.”

Liz looked perplexed for a minute, then chuckled. “Ah, it’s her
being in bed that will trouble Helen.”

“And all that implies,” Frances said, looking amused. “I
thought you young women were more evolved than that. I can’t say I want to have
a man in my life these days, but if Flo does, I say more power to her!”

Lynn noticed that Maddie’s expression had turned thoughtful.
Apparently, Dana Sue noticed it, too.

“You wondering how you’d react if your mother suddenly took up
with a man?” Dana Sue inquired, clearly amused.

Maddie nodded. “She’s beautiful. She’s still a vital woman. And
she certainly has opportunities to meet plenty of men at these art shows of
hers. I wonder why she hasn’t looked at another man since my dad died.”

“Maybe she has,” Dana Sue teased. “Maybe she’s just more
discreet than Flo.”

Maddie scowled at her. “I did not need to hear that.”

Dana Sue shrugged unrepentantly. “I was just saying…”

“Well, don’t.”

“Or maybe your father was her soul mate,” Lynn suggested
hesitantly, thinking of Mitch and Amy. Maybe some people were meant to have only
one significant love of their life. If you lost a partner like that, would you
ever really be emotionally ready to move on?

“You’re not thinking about Paula now,” Raylene said to Lynn
after assessing her expression for a minute. Raylene’s eyes were sparkling with
merriment when she accused, “You’re thinking about Mitch.”

The revealing remark caught everyone’s attention at once, and
every single Sweet Magnolia in the room instantly shifted her focus to Lynn.

“You’re seeing Mitch Franklin?” Maddie asked, then slowly
nodded. “I can see that. He’s a terrific guy. Good for you.”

“We’re not dating,” Lynn protested. “We’ve seen each other a
few times here and there. I’m doing a little part-time work for him, that’s all.
And how did this get to be about me? Let’s go back to discussing Flo.”

Raylene shook her head. “It was always going to get around to
being about you. I warned you about that.”

Lynn sighed, resigned to a few more intrusive, if well-meant
comments.

“You think he’s still hung up on Amy, don’t you?” Maddie
guessed. “He was deeply in love with her, that’s for sure. But I don’t think
he’s the kind of man who’ll pine forever. And don’t they say that a man who’s
been in a happy relationship usually yearns for another one, at least
eventually, because he knows just how good married life can be?”

“A nice spin,” Lynn said. “But given my problems these days,
I’m not sure any man with half a brain would take me on.”

“A knight in shining armor would,” Raylene corrected. “And
that’s who Mitch is. As Maddie said, he’s a genuinely good guy—one of the
few.”

“Other than our husbands,” Annie Townsend said loyally. “We all
landed the cream of the Serenity crop.”

Lynn noticed that Laura Reed, who was about to marry local
pediatrician J. C. Fullerton, looked increasingly troubled by the
conversation.

“Laura, is something wrong?” Lynn asked.

“I’m trying to decide whether or not to mention something,”
Laura told them.

“Something about Mitch?” Raylene asked.

Laura nodded. “You know before J.C. and I got together a few
months ago, I wasn’t really dating all that much. Sometimes I’d go out for a
drink on Friday nights with some of the other single teachers. There was a time
there, it must have been not too long after Amy died, when Mitch was always at
the bar, drinking alone and drinking way too much.”

Lynn stilled at the news, her heart thumping unsteadily. “Mitch
drinks a lot?” she asked with real trepidation.

“I’ve never seen him touch so much as a beer,” Raylene said,
frowning at Laura. “That can’t be right.”

“I’m just saying it’s what I saw,” Laura said defensively. “And
it was more than once. I haven’t been back there in quite a while, so maybe
that’s in the past. That’s why I wasn’t sure whether to mention it.”

“No, you should have,” Lynn said stiffly. “It’s something I
needed to know.”

What Laura couldn’t possibly have known was that Lynn had way
too much experience with alcoholics. Her dad had been one. He’d been a mean
drunk, too.

She thought back to the horror of those days. Sure, it had been
more verbal abuse than physical or, she liked to believe, her mother would have
walked out the door and taken Lynn and her sisters with her. In Lynn’s opinion
she should have gone anyway, just the way Sarah McDonald had gotten away from
her first husband. Walter Price hadn’t been a drunk, but he’d been verbally
abusive. He’d shaped up and was now married again, but it had taken the shock of
Sarah’s leaving to force him to change. Nothing had ever sobered up Lynn’s dad.
He’d died of liver complications a few years back. Ironically and sadly, her
mother had died before him.

Still, Lynn couldn’t be around a man who was drinking heavily
without a knot forming in her stomach. She told herself it was good that she’d
found this out now, before she’d allowed herself to get any more involved with
Mitch. Though she’d personally seen no indication that he had a drinking
problem, with two impressionable kids in the house, it wasn’t a risk she was
willing to take.

Working for him was one thing, but anything else? No, she
decided regretfully, it simply couldn’t be.