A loud clap of thunder awoke Allie with a start. She grabbed a pillow and crammed it over her head, but the next lightning flash only heralded a rolling thunder that sounded as if it was dumping a load of potatoes on top of Audrey’s Place. Her phone rang right at the end of the noise. She pushed back the covers and threw the pillow in the direction of the rocking chair.
“Why in the hell are you calling me?” Allie growled into the phone.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Lizzy laughed. “Breakfast is ready and I don’t want to eat alone and I didn’t want to come back upstairs. Mama and Granny have already left for the store. Crawl out and come on down here. I made crunchy French toast.”
Allie’s stomach growled. “I’m on the way.”
The sun peeked from behind a bank of dark, fast-moving clouds, sending a few rays through the glass in the front door. Allie stopped long enough to stretch and feel the warmth on the foyer floor against her bare feet.
Lizzy stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Your toast is getting cold while you play in the sun. Weatherman says we’ve got more bad weather on the way later this afternoon. Be glad you are at least working inside over there at that abominable place.”
So much for hoping that Lizzy was ready to bury the hatchet. She had an agenda up her sleeve, and that was the reason she’d made Allie’s favorite food. Suddenly, her favorite breakfast didn’t sound so good after all.
Lizzy did give her time to sit down and at least get the first bite in her mouth before she pulled out a chair across the table from her, sucked up enough air to deliver a Sunday-morning sermon, and started talking. “I knew you weren’t sick. You flat out lied to get out of spending time with Grady. And all for nothing because I’ve already heard the gossip this morning, and your little Lucky Penny bubble is about to bust wide open.”
“What in the devil are you talking about?” Allie asked.
“Blake’s brother arrived last night and the two of them and Deke went bar hopping up near Wichita Falls. Deke brought a tall blond hussy home with him. I did have such hopes for him turning his life around when he started coming to church pretty regular, but now that the infamous wild Dawson has become his new best friend, I swear, he’s on a joy ride straight to hell,” Lizzy said.
“Are we being judgmental this morning?” Allie was sure glad the gossips hadn’t been hiding outside the window when she and Blake had been tangled up in his sheets.
“I’m stating pure facts and I’m tellin’ you that…”
“What if I told you I spent yesterday afternoon having hot pig sex with Blake Dawson?” Allie asked.
Lizzy slapped the table hard enough that her coffee sloshed out. “Now look what you made me do. Sometimes, you make me so mad I could shake you, Alora Raine.”
Allie shrugged. “It’s a sister thing or maybe it’s a middle-child thing. Do you think maybe you should see a therapist for your control issues?”
Lizzy jumped to her feet and grabbed a fistful of paper towels. “It’s not a middle-child thing. Fiona doesn’t make me as mad as you do. There’s no way you really slept with Blake Dawson. One, you’re too smart to do something that crazy, and two, he’s a one-night-stand kind of guy. You’re not wild enough to be his type.”
“Deke says the same thing, so I guess if Lucifer’s protégé and God’s right arm say it’s so, then it must be true.” She continued eating her breakfast but down deep she wondered if Toby and Blake had brought home women from the bar, too.
“Go on and ruin your life again,” Lizzy huffed. “I’m trying to warn you, but I can only be the watchman. I can sit in the tower and tell you what I see coming, but I can’t make you steer clear of it.”
Allie picked up her empty plate and headed to the sink with it. “Well, sister, you enjoy the view from your tower. I’m heading over to that abominable place to paint. See you at supper.”
Allie parked beside a truck but didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, figuring it was Toby’s. A streak of lightning so close that the air crackled sent her running to the porch. She slipped inside the front door to the sounds of people talking in the kitchen. She quickly removed her yellow slicker, hung it on the coatrack, and replaced her rubber boots with her work boots.