“She started feeling better a couple of hours ago,” Cal interjected. “Must not have been the flu after all.”
Jane turned far enough to give him a faintly pitying look—she wasn’t going to support him in his lies—but he pretended not to see.
Jim picked up an X-Man comic from the counter and regarded it quizzically. “Book-Of-The-Month-Club?”
“Jane reads them for relaxation. You want a beer, Dad?”
“No. I’m on my way to the hospital.”
Concern drove away the caustic remark Jane had been about to make regarding the comic. “Is something wrong?”
“How about a sandwich?” Cal said too quickly. “Jane, make Dad and me a couple of sandwiches.”
“I’ll be happy to make your father a sandwich. You can fix your own.”
Jim raised one eyebrow at his son in an expression Jane suspected meant something like, After all these years, is this the best you could do for a wife?
She refused to be cowed. “Are you having some tests done? I hope you’re not ill.”
Cal shot forward. “You’ve got some dirt on your face, sweetheart, from that walk you took at Annie’s. Maybe you’d better go upstairs and get cleaned up.”
“There’s no big mystery about it,” Jim said. “I’m a doctor, and I have patients to visit.”
For a moment she couldn’t move as the magnitude of the mistake she’d made once again drove its way home. She whirled on Cal. “Your father’s a doctor? How many more family skeletons do you have locked up?”
Her own heart might be breaking, but he seemed amused. “I know you were hopin’ for a moonshiner, sweetheart, but I guess this just isn’t your lucky day. Although, come to think of it—Dad, didn’t you tell me your great-grampa had a still someplace up in the mountains?”
“That’s what my father told me.” Jim studied Jane. “Why do you care?”
Cal didn’t let her reply, which was a good thing, because the lump in her throat had grown too large to permit speech. “Jane’s sort of a hillbilly groupie. She’s a city girl herself, but she likes all that backwoods stuff, and she’s been real disappointed to find out we wear shoes.”
Jim smiled. “I guess I could take mine off.”
A woman’s voice, soft and Southern, sounded from the foyer. “Cal, where are you?”
He sighed. “In the kitchen, Mom.”
“I was passing by, and I saw the gate open.” Like Cal’s father, the woman who appeared in the doorway looked too young to have a thirty-six-year-old son, and she also seemed much too sophisticated to be the daughter of Annie Glide. Pretty, trim, and stylish, she wore her light brown hair in a short, trendy cut that curved behind her ears and emphasized a pair of clear blue eyes. Discreet frosting camouflaged whatever strands of gray had emerged. Her tall figure set off slim black trousers topped by a loosely cut fleece jacket in grape-colored wool with an abstract silver pin on the lapel. In comparison, Jane felt like a street urchin with her dirty face and leaf-flecked hair falling willy-nilly.
“You must be Jane.” She walked forward, one hand extended in welcome. “I’m Lynn Bonner.” Her greeting was warm, but as Jane took her hand, she received the impression of a deep reserve. “I hope you’re feeling better. Cal said you were under the weather.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“She’s thirty-four,” Jim announced from his spot next to the counter.
Lynn looked startled, and then she smiled. “I’m delighted.”
Jane found herself warming to Lynn Bonner. Jim sat down on one of the counter stools and stretched out his legs. “Cal said she’s a hillbilly groupie. She sure is gonna love you, Amber.”
Jane saw Cal shoot his father a puzzled look. She noted a faint trace of insolence in Jim Bonner’s tone that hadn’t been there before, but his wife showed no reaction. “I’m sure Cal told you we just got back from a combined vacation and medical conference. I was so sorry you weren’t feeling well enough to join us for dinner last night. We’ll make it up on Saturday. Jim, if it doesn’t rain, you can grill.”
Jim crossed his ankles. “Shoot, Amber, since Jane here likes hillbilly ways so much, why don’t you forget grilling and make her some of those Glide family specials. We could have beans and fatback, or how ’bout some of that souse like your mama used to fix. You ever eat souse, Jane?”
“No, I don’t believe I have.”
“I can’t imagine Jane wanting that,” Lynn said coolly. “Nobody eats souse anymore.”