"I don't."
"I mean, ass," she said affectionately, "that your role in your relationship with your brothers is just as important as theirs. You use them to get yourself off the hook with men."
"Off the hook with what men? They've scared half the men in town away, and the other half they won't let near me."
Liddy hooted in disbelief. "And you name me one man in town that ever seriously interested you. Just one, Piper."
"That's not the point."
"It's exactly the point. Which isn't to say Andrew and Benjamin aren't utter pains in the ass at times." She flipped back long, blond hair with one hand, blue eyes twinkling. "And, of course, you know I wasn't including Clate Jackson among the men from town."
"So?"
"Piper, I swear, I don't know why your brothers haven't tied a rock around your ankle and pitched you into the bay by now. Speaking of pains in the ass! So," she said, "I am not blind, I am not stupid, I am not naive. I saw the sparks flying between you and Jackson yesterday at the hospital."
"You imagined—"
"I saw. And so did Andrew and Benjamin."
Piper blanched. "They told you?"
"Are you kidding? They're pretending if they don't say anything, what they saw won't be real. That's nonsense, of course. What they saw was real enough. They'd just feel a whole lot better if they remotely trusted Clate Jackson to do right by you."
"Do you trust him?"
They exited Piper's house through the front door. Liddy stopped in the walk and gave her sister-in-law a sly grin. "After seeing him, I figure trust is probably not real high on your list of priorities involving our rich Tennessean. This is something I understand. I won't say your brothers do. The double standard and all that."
Piper couldn't stop a flush of embarrassment at Liddy's obvious conclusion that her sister-in-law and Clate Jackson had been to bed together.
"Oh," Liddy squealed, sliding into her car, "I love being right."
When they arrived at the hospital, Hannah was chomping at the bit to go. She got dressed while Piper spoke to her doctor, which irritated Hannah no end. She could see to her own medical affairs, thank you. But Piper insisted.
The doctor, no youngster himself, said he could find no physical reason why Hannah might have passed out. Without coming right out and saying so, he indicated his belief that she'd simply dozed off at the wheel, and it seemed less frightening and embarrassing to her to claim to have passed out.
Hannah sat up front with Liddy and scowled around to Piper in back. "That old fool told you I faked passing out to save face, didn't he?"
"He was really very polite about it."
"I'm old, not stupid. I know the difference between passing out and falling asleep. And who on earth would I want to save face for? You all have seen me at my best and my worst since you were tots."
This was true. Piper sighed. "It doesn't matter, Hannah. You're out of there."
"Yes." She sat back with satisfaction, hands folded on her lap. "Thank you for bringing me my clothes, Piper. You found everything all right?"
"Not everything," Piper said cryptically.
But not cryptically enough. Her sister-in-law glanced suspiciously into her rearview mirror, and Piper tried to keep a neutral expression. As circumspect as Liddy was, she wasn't above tattling to her husband and brother-in-law that sister Piper and aunt Hannah hadn't quite told them everything.
When they arrived at her townhouse, Hannah announced that Piper should stay for a while. "I'm feeling a little wobbly." This, Piper knew, was pure fiction. Even if true, Hannah would never admit to feeling lousy unless it suited her. "A night in the hospital will do that to anyone." She shuddered. "Modern medicine."
Liddy was in no mood. "It's better than leeches."
Hannah gave her a cool look. "I suppose you have a point. But I believe in promoting good health through preventive care, and resorting to needles, pharmaceuticals, machines, and carving knives only when absolutely necessary, and not just to pay the light bill or provide new boats for the doctors."
"Since when have you become so cynical?"
Hannah gave an airy toss of the head, apparently forgetting she was supposed to look wobbly. "Since this morning when I insisted on seeing my bill before I left. One night in the hospital! One night! A family of four could have lived on that much for a year in nineteen seventeen. And did."
Liddy glanced at her. "I suppose you would know. Look, I have specific orders not to leave you two alone. Piper doesn't have her car, and yours is in the shop."
"But she can call you, can't she? Or her father or one of her brothers?" Hannah smiled sweetly, but was immovable. "There's always that nice man who bought my house. He has a lovely car."
"You're making this hard on me." Liddy appealed to her sister-in-law. "Piper, you know Benjamin and Andrew are going to think you two are up to something."