“Then stop acting like you are sixteen.”
“And you?” Kate looked over at Jamie. “I’m guessing you are about thirty-five?”
“Thirty-six,” Jamie said.
“I’m forty-four,” Kate said. “We were all about thirty when he married each of us.”
Amanda’s chin popped up two inches. “He married you for your money and Jamie to get a kid. He married me for love.”
Kate shook her head slowly from side to side. “Wake up and smell the bacon, girl. Jamie, how much is your mortgage?”
“Four hundred eighty-nine dollars and fifty cents a month,” Jamie said.
“Amanda”—Kate pointed at her—“your five hundred made her house payment so he could use his money to look around for rich women to fleece.”
“No! He wouldn’t do that,” Amanda declared. “If you are so smart, then why didn’t you divorce him? Oh, wait! Because he divorced both of you. When the papers show up, you’ll both feel like fools.”
Jamie pushed up out of the chair and stretched. “I’m tired of this crap. If you were serious about us using your food for tonight, I’m going to make sandwiches for our supper.”
“I was serious, and Amanda, he would never divorce me,” Kate said.
“Why? You are old,” Amanda said.
Kate took a couple of deep breaths. “Because the prenup said that if he divorced me he only got what he brought into the marriage, and that could fit into a suitcase. If I divorced him, then he was entitled to a lot more. He said on the day that he signed it that he loved me so much that he would never leave me. A year later he vowed to make my life so miserable that I would divorce him and give him what was legally his for marrying someone no one else would have.”
“And?” Amanda pressured for more.
“I inherited my mother’s stubborn streak,” Kate said as she headed inside the house.
CHAPTER SIX
Kate spread an old quilt out on the ground and sat down. The past two days had been a time of cool adjustment, sometimes a bit awkward, most of the time simply learning to stay out of one another’s space. She’d already said more than she’d intended to ever share with these women, and she’d given them permission to use her tea and her food. That was enough.
It would take more than listening to the gentle waves lapping against the grassy shore to comfort her that day. She wished that she was back in her office, where the carpet was every bit as plush as the soft green grass beyond the quilt. Once this was over, she would go home, put it all behind her, and never deal with those two snippy women again.
Gracie’s giggles drifted across the slight breeze—she had the spirit of an angel and the smile of an imp. It would take a heart of stone not to be even a little charmed by Miss Gracie. She skipped around the edge of the lake, running back and forth to the lawn chairs Jamie had brought up from the old boathouse for Hattie and Victor.
Kate smiled at the child, and a weight lifted from her soul for a moment.
Jamie sat at the end of the dock with her bare feet in the water. Amanda had propped her swollen feet on a chaise lounge up on the deck. If Kate turned her ear just right, she could hear country music coming from an old boom box that had been in the house fourteen years ago. At least she liked the same kind of music Kate did and not that hard rock stuff.
The hair on Kate’s neck prickled, and a chill chased down her spine in spite of the heat. She glanced up to see Waylon walking down the hill carrying sunglasses by one stem, the brim of his cowboy hat obscuring his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, he was going to tell her that the whole thing had been solved.
“So you are all still here?” He sat down uninvited on her quilt and stretched out his long legs. His short-sleeved, pearl-snap shirt hugged his body and biceps like it had been tailor made. “I figured one or all of you would last about twenty-four hours and then go scampering back to your own places.”
“I don’t scamper.” Kate’s smile at Gracie’s antics disappeared, taking the happiness with it.
He chuckled. “But you still aren’t best buddies?”
“Sure we are. We’re as close as sisters. That’s what happens when you plan a murder together,” she said sarcastically. “I hope you came to tell me that you found out who killed Conrad and that you won’t be showing up here anymore.”
“Your wishes and hopes aren’t coming true this week.”
She didn’t know if it was a physical attraction brought on by that confident swagger that jacked her pulse up several notches or if it was anger that he would even entertain the asinine assumption that she would be involved in a crime.
He set his straw cowboy hat on the quilt and tossed his sunglasses inside it. “The sun was still bright when I left Dallas,” he said. “So, have you always worked in your family’s oil business?”
“I’m sure you have checked into my job, my alibi, talked to my mother, and know where I got my education and that I do not have children or pets,” she answered.
“A little prickly tonight, are you?”
“Wouldn’t you be if someone accused you of murder?”
“Maybe.”
Gracie’s dark ponytail flipped back and forth, and her bright-colored shorts and shirt flashed in the moonlight as she ran from the edge of the lake toward the dock. When she passed Kate’s quilt, she stopped.
“Kate, guess what? I just stuck my toes in the water and Mama said if it ain’t cold we can swim tomorrow.” She threw herself down on the quilt, barely missing Waylon’s hat and sunglasses. “And guess what else? Hattie says we need to go fishin’. Did you know about the festival? It’s got a carnival and rides and a Ferris wheel and funnel cakes and it’s all got to do with fishin’ so we need to practice?” She inhaled and went on. “I’m going to catch the biggest fish for little kids this year and get the prize. Hattie says it’s four tickets to Six Flags and I want to go. Daddy said he’d take me someday, but now he’s gone away and Mama will have to take me, but we will get some extra tickets so you can go with us if you want to.”
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Kate smiled up at her, pausing the entertaining monologue.
“Gracie!” Jamie yelled from the dock.
“I gotta go. ’Bye.” Gracie ran as hard as her little legs would carry her toward the dock.
“Cute kid.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Ever wish you had a couple of children?”
He had no idea how much his question stung. She’d always wanted children, especially a daughter. But a miscarriage six months after she’d married Conrad had ended that dream. The doctor had said that the possibility of ever conceiving a child was a million to one and carrying one to term would have even slimmer chances.
“Do you?” she shot right back at him.
“I married my career and lost two wives because of it. No children. I’m too old to start now,” he said.
“And that is?”