Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #5)(92)

"He's had the locks changed, and I want to be back in my own place." She didn't mention the surveillance camera he intended to finish installing today. The fewer people who knew about that, the better.

"Yes, well, we can't always get what we want," Birdie said, channeling her inner Mick Jagger. "Are you ever planning to think about somebody other than yourself?"

"Mom! It's good she's going back. Why do you have to be so negative?"

"I'm sorry, Haley, but you refuse to acknowledge what a mess Meg has made of everything. Yesterday, at Francesca's . . . You weren't there, so you can't possibly-"

"I'm not deaf. I heard you on the phone with Shelby."

Apparently the code of silence had a few holes.

Birdie nearly upset her drink as she got up from her chair. "We're all doing our best to clean up your messes, Meg Koranda, but we can't do it by ourselves. We could use a little cooperation." She grabbed her jacket and strode away, her red hair blazing in the sun.

Haley crumbled her cookie inside the wax-paper square. "I think you should go back to the church."

"You seem to be the only one." As Haley stared off into the distance, Meg regarded her with concern. "Obviously, I'm not doing a great job dealing with my own problems, but I know something's bothering you. If you want to talk, I'll listen." 

"I don't have anything to talk about. I need to get back to work." Haley grabbed her mother's abandoned soda cup along with the macerated cookie and returned to the snack shop.

Meg headed back to the clubhouse to pick up the drink cart. She'd left it near the drinking fountain, and just as she got there, a very familiar, very unwelcome figure came striding around the corner of the clubhouse. Her designer sundress and Louboutin stilettos suggested she hadn't shown up for a round of golf. Instead, she beat a determined path toward Meg, her stilettos tap-tap-tapping along the asphalt, then going silent as she stepped into the grass.

Meg resisted the urge to hold up her fingers in the sign of the cross, but as Francesca came to a stop in front of her, she couldn't repress a groan. "Please don't say what I think you're going to say."

"Yes, well, I'm not precisely on top of the world about this, either." A quick flick of her hand pushed the Cavalli sunglasses to the top of her head revealing those luminous green eyes, the lids dusted with bronze, and silky dark mascara embracing her already thick lashes. What little makeup Meg had begun the day with, she'd sweated off hours ago, and while Francesca smelled of Quelques Fleurs, Meg smelled of spilled beer.

She looked down at Ted's diminutive mother. "Could you at least hand me a gun first so I can kill myself?"

"Don't be foolish," Francesca retorted. "If I had a gun, I'd have already used it on you." She swatted at a fly that had the audacity to buzz too close to her exquisite face. "Our guest cottage is detached from the house. You'll have it all to yourself."

"Do I get to call you Mom, too?"

"Good God, no." Something happened to the corner of her mouth. A grimace? A smirk? Impossible to tell. "Call me Francesca like everyone else."

"Peachy." Meg slipped her fingers into her pocket. "Out of curiosity, is anybody in this town even remotely capable of minding her own business?"

"No. And that's why I insisted from the beginning that Dallie and I keep a place in Manhattan. Did you know Ted was nine years old the first time he came to Wynette? Can you imagine how many of the local peculiarities he'd have picked up if he'd lived here from birth?" She sniffed. "It doesn't bear thinking about."

"I appreciate the offer, just as I appreciated Shelby's offer and Birdie Kittle's, but would you please inform your coven that I'm going back to the church."

"Ted will never allow that."

"Ted doesn't get a vote," Meg snapped.

Francesca gave a small coo of satisfaction. "Proving you don't know my son nearly as well as you think you do. The guest cottage is unlocked, and the refrigerator is stocked. Don't even think about defying me." And off she went.

Across the grass.

Down the cart path.

Tap . . . tap . . . Tap . . . tap . . . Tap . . . tap . . .

Meg reviewed her miserable day as she pulled out of the employees' parking lot that evening and headed down the service drive toward the highway. She had no intention of moving into Francesca Beaudine's guesthouse, or Shelby Traveler's, or the Wynette Country Inn. But she also wasn't staying with Ted. As angry as she might be with the meddling women of this town, she wouldn't thumb her nose at them, either. No matter how awful they were, how intrusive and judgmental, they were doing what they believed was right. Unlike so many other Americans, the inhabitants of Wynette, Texas, didn't understand the concept of citizen apathy. They also had reality on their side. She couldn't live with Ted as long as the Skipjacks were around.