But when Annette’s hand reached for the dress, Martin’s hand got there first. For a fraught minute, the winner of their silent tug-of-war remained in doubt, but he emerged victorious. Brandishing the hanger well over Annette’s reach, he took a moment to catch his breath.
Annette eyed him balefully, nursing her hand as if he’d broken it, when Rose knew for a fact Martin hadn’t hurt her. Wouldn’t hurt her. Not in the slightest, not ever.
He shook the dress, his spoils of battle. “Sweet Bea?”
“Yeah, Dad?” His daughter’s disappointment had shifted into muffled hilarity at the sight of her father and Annette fighting over a hanger in the middle of a classy department store. “Congratulations on your victory, by the way.”
He gave a little bow. “Thank you. I had a worthy opponent.”
“Fierce. Committed.” Bea kept a straight face. “One might even say vicious.”
Annette appeared mollified, although she kept eyeing the stack of discarded clothing in Bea’s dressing room in a way Rose recognized all too well.
“I haven’t chosen your graduation gift yet. If you really want this, I’ll get it for you. Save your grandmother’s money for a more”—he read the price tag with a sigh—“practical college wardrobe.”
Bea had ceased breathing. “Really?”
“Really.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead, and she didn’t even try to stop him. “If this dress makes you feel confident and powerful and beautiful, then you need to have it. And then we need to leave this store. Immediately.”
After he’d paid for the dress, handed the hanger to Bea, and headed for the door—minus one member of their group, although Martin apparently hadn’t noticed that yet—Rose leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I told you to stay at the other end of the mall, no matter what Annette said.”
He threw up his hands. “When we arrived, she told me she only felt comfortable using the facilities in this store. That they had stalls equipped for women who needed extra support to stand. What kind of monster would refuse her?”
Annette was a marvel.
“Do you remember her using the bathroom?” Rose asked. “At any point while we were here?”
He stopped dead. “Hold on. Maybe she…no. No, she never left Bea.”
“She really didn’t.”
His mouth had dropped open. “Oh, God, she played me. She totally played me.”
She really shouldn’t smile. Martin had been so patient all morning as Annette and Bea dragged him to makeup counters and jewelry displays and racks upon racks of gorgeous, expensive, midnight-black clothing. To Bea’s credit, though, she’d been thrifty with her maternal grandparents’ birthday money to this point.
And shortly, if Annette had her way, Bea was going to discover she had very few items left to buy.
“She definitely played you,” Rose agreed. “You don’t know the half of it yet.”
When Rose had asked Martin about the origin of this little expedition, he’d lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug and said Bea and Annette must have exchanged numbers at some point over dinner.
“My daughter admires Annette’s style,” he’d said. “Yours too. When she got the money for a new wardrobe, she wanted guidance from both of you, and she called Annette to plan a group shopping trip.”
Then he’d changed the subject very quickly. Too quickly.
Hmmm.
Maybe Martin wasn’t the only one who’d been played. Rose had the distinct impression that he—and maybe even Bea and Annette—had been trying to make a point today. Trying to demonstrate how well the four of them meshed as a group.
As a kind of family, even.
She swallowed, hard.
Clever. Very clever.
When it came to subtle maneuvers, however, he’d just been outclassed.
His head suddenly jerked in a frantic scan of the store. “WhereisAnnette?”
