Torie tapped the toe of a studded leather T-strap sandal on the floor. "Between Spence, Sunny, and Ted, you're making things too complicated, Meg. You need to leave Wynette. And unlike everybody else, I happen to like you a lot, so this isn't personal."
"I don't dislike you," Emma said.
"I do," Birdie said.
"I don't dislike you either," said Shelby. "You have a very nice laugh."
Kayla gestured toward the embellished skeleton-key necklace Meg had assembled a few hours earlier. "Zoey and I love your jewelry."
Birdie puffed up like an angry parakeet. "How can y'all say anything nice to her? Have you forgotten about Lucy? Thanks to Meg, Ted got his heart broken."
"He seems to have recovered," Emma said, "so I'm prepared to overlook that."
Shelby opened her purse, a pink and brown paisley Juicy clutch, and pulled out a folded piece of paper that Meg quickly realized was a check. "We know you're short on cash, so we have a little something to help you get a fresh start somewhere else."
For the first time since Meg had met her, Torie seemed embarrassed. "You can consider it a loan if it makes you uncomfortable."
"We'd appreciate it if you took it," Emma said kindly. "It'll be best for everybody."
Before Meg could tell them all to go to hell, the restroom door swung open and Sunny sauntered in. "Is there a party?"
Shelby quickly slipped the check back in her purse. "It didn't start out that way, but we got to talking."
"And now we need your opinion." Torie deliberately turned to the mirror and pretended to look for mascara smears. "Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie? Which one would you go gay for?"
"I say Angelina Jolie." Kayla pulled out her lip gloss. "Seriously. Any woman who says she wouldn't is either a liar or in deep denial. That woman oozes sex."
"In your opinion." Zoey, who'd been so morally righteous earlier, began fussing with her hair. "I'd choose Kerry Washington. A strong black woman. Or Anne Hathaway. But only because she went to Vassar."
"You would not go gay for Anne Hathaway," Birdie protested. "Anne Hathaway's a great actress, but she's not your sexual type."
"Since I'm not gay, my sexual type isn't the point." Zoey grabbed Kayla's lip gloss. "I'm merely commenting that if I were gay, I'd want a partner with brains and talent, not just beauty."
Emma straightened her sunflower shirt. "I must admit that I find Keira Knightley oddly compelling."
Kayla retrieved her lip gloss. "You always go for the Brits."
"At least she got over her thing for Emma Thompson." Torie tugged a paper towel from the dispenser. "What about you, Meg?"
Meg was more than a little sick of being manipulated. "I prefer men. Specifically hunky Texas men. Do you have any ideas?"
All around her, she could hear mental wheels grinding as the crazy women of Wynette tried to figure out how to respond. She headed for the door and left them to ponder.
By the time she'd returned to the table, she'd reached three conclusions: Ted's problems with Sunny were his own to resolve. She would handle Spence on a day-by-day basis. And nobody was going to drive her out of this horrible town until she was good and ready to leave.
Chapter Thirteen
M eg saw Ted on the course the next day, but he was playing with Spence and Sunny, and he steered clear of her drink cart. When she got home that evening, she found a delivery truck parked at her front steps waiting for her. Ten minutes later, she'd sent the truck, along with its load of furniture, on its way.
She stomped into the hot, airless church. People kept trying to give her things she didn't want. Last night Shelby had slipped the getaway check into her purse, leaving Meg to tear it up. And now this. Granted, she needed furniture, and when she'd spotted the portable air conditioners, she'd almost set aside her principles. Almost, but not quite.
She threw open the church windows, turned on the fans, and poured a glass of iced tea from the refrigerator. This was the second time in a week that somebody had tried to pay her to leave town. If she let herself think about it, she'd get depressed, and she didn't want to be depressed. She wanted to be angry. After a quick shower, she pulled on shorts, a tank, slipped into a pair of flip-flops, and set off.
Stone pillars marked the entrance to the Beaudine estate. She wound through a grove of hardwood trees and crossed an old stone bridge before the road branched into a series of meandering lanes. The main house was easy to identify-low and sprawling, built in the Texas hacienda style of limestone and stucco with arched windows and doors framed in dark wood. Behind a low wall, she glimpsed a spacious pool, pool house, courtyard, gardens, and two smaller buildings in the same hacienda style, probably guest cottages. This wasn't so much an estate, she realized, as a compound, and everywhere she looked, breathtaking views spread before her.