Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,57
to her cheeks, and Lucy waved her sister to the sofa. “You too, Paris. Dogs are supposed to lower our blood pressure. Don’t share any fleas, though.”
“She has no fleas,” Sugar said absently. “The vet says she’s clean as a whistle now. No fleas, no—do not try to change the subject.”
“I won’t. What happened?”
“Vivian put a PI on us to dig up our dirty laundry.”
“Wow, she is a determined old biddy, isn’t she?” Lucy patted Paris and made kissy noises at the dog. “We don’t care what she found, do we, Paris?”
Sugar looked at her. “Lucy, Vivian knows about your dishonorable discharge. And if you think she’s going to keep that quiet, you’re not being realistic.”
“Personally, I don’t give a shit. No one knows why, do they?”
“He called it a problem with an officer. So no, it’s not known that you practically took the guy out who tried to—”
“Anyway, I don’t care if the whole world knows,” Lucy said. “I shouldn’t have been cowed at the time the thing blew up. I should have screamed from the rooftops what really happened.” She shrugged. “I know I embarrassed you, Sugar, but the fact is, I can’t worry about that. I didn’t like that creep, and I sure wasn’t looking for him to try to force himself on me, off base or not.”
Sugar took a deep breath. “I wanted a fresh start for us. This is not it.”
“What’d the old bat dig up on Maggie?”
“Nothing. Her problem with Maggie seems to be jealousy.”
“Like we didn’t know that from day one.” Lucy laughed. “Who would you rather be, happy-go-lucky Maggie or unhappy Vivian?”
Sugar shook her head. “I want more for Maggie than a vicious woman who’s gunning for her.”
Lucy shrugged. “Let Maggie decide. Frankly, I don’t think she’s going to give a damn. She’s got Lassiter, and to be real direct, I think she’s moved in with him. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it, because Maggie was always real hard on us about not living in sin, giving away the milk for free, not letting a man—”
“Just about everything Maggie ever told me was helpful,” Sugar said. “If she wants to make a new life with that big rancher cowboy grandfather, I vote yes.”
“Okay, then,” Lucy said, trying to soothe her sister. “So what do we care about old Viv? The worst has come out. So we’ll never make the social register of Pecan Creek. Do we really give a flip?”
Sugar shook her head. Drank some wine. Shook her head again.
“What else was there?”
“Nothing,” Sugar said. “That was about it.”
Lucy felt pretty certain her sister was holding back on her. It was typical of Sugar to try to protect her. “Sugar, when Vivian talked to me, she did everything but threaten to feed Maggie to the wolves. She threatened my job, told me she was going to take Maggie’s mayorship.” Lucy shook her head. “Which is stupid, because Maggie will be a wonderful mayor. Sometimes Vivian hurts Pecan Creek more than she helps it, in my opinion.”
Sugar nodded. “Jake is nothing like her.”
Lucy leaned back and picked her magazine back up. “See? Everything is fine. Even Paris is happy here, aren’t you, girl? The vet says you’re a princess now.” She kissed the dog on the nose, and Paris put an adoring paw on her leg. “Spoiled rotten. You can be one of the Shady Ladies of Pecan Creek with us. But if Vivian thinks I’m going to wear a hair shirt, she’s going to find out that hair shirts are not my fashion aesthetic. You wear the fur, and I’ll wear the short skirts, Paris. I say if we’ve got it, we ought to flaunt the hell out of it.”
Sugar got up and walked around the room, staring at the artifacts Vivian had staged the house with. Lucy watched her sister, troubled. “Sugar, why did Jake tell you all this, anyway?”
“I think he didn’t want me to be broadsided by his mother. There were other little details, like the fact that Kel saw us sunbathing topless when he was on our roof one day, and—”
Lucy shook her head. “Had to have been a shock to his tiny-brained system. Where’s Jake now?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
Lucy nodded. There were lots of things her sister didn’t talk about—and Jake was going to have to learn that if he really wanted Sugar, he was going to have to muzzle his busybody mother.
She looked at the cute, spiky red shoes and red patent