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Maggie bobbed her head back and forth between her cousin and Caden, not liking the camaraderie they had together. “Oh, of course you two would know each other.”
“Caden was just at the clinic this afternoon,” Erin explained. “I can’t say which client, of course.”
“Of course not,” Maggie mocked with a false smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Erin squinted in confusion before shaking her head. “How do the two of you know each other?”
“We met in passing years ago,” said Maggie before Caden gave his answer. Lord only knew what he’d come up with. For reassurance she nodded and faced Caden.
Clueless, Erin pursued. “Where?”
“Oh, my mother owns a beauty pageant.”
“That makes sense,” Erin said with a nod. Maggie ignored the disdain in her cousin’s voice. Always with a nose in a book, Erin looked down on beauty pageants. “Welp, let’s get these inside. These old ladies are getting restless.”
“You’re having a wedding shower for an old lady?” Caden asked after letting Maggie walk through the door first.
Maggie stepped aside to keep the same pace. “Don’t let Auntie Bren hear you call her that.”
A howl of laughter came from the parlor room, where Maggie suspected another group of ladies were playing dominoes. Maggie’s image of little blue-haired grandmas crocheting or baking oatmeal cookies had been diminished the evening she brought over some cupcakes to the Southwood Elder Care Center and found a group of allegedly respectable churchgoing folks playing strip poker. Fortunately for her sake, she got there just after the first hand was dealt. Maggie shivered and focused on Caden. He still held the boxes of cupcakes.
“Sorry, let’s put these over here.”
They headed off down the hardwood floors into the kitchen area. Framed photos of prize-winning rosebushes and magnolia flowers hung from the eggshell-painted walls in gardenia-white frames. The kitchen stood off to the left, attached to a garage where the door opened. Maggie’s sister Kenzie appeared just as someone called out from the other room. Just as they were crossing the kitchen’s arched threshold, the group of ladies spotted them.
“Is that the man from outside?”
“Bren,” someone else gasped, “did your girls get you an exotic dancer?”
Footsteps shuffled against the floors toward them. Maggie spun around in time to watch her aunt and her friends advance on Caden before he had a chance to catch up with them. Lifting the cupcake boxes out of his hands, Maggie set them on the table before leaning against the wall with her sister and cousin to watch the frenzy.
“I’ve seen firemen and police strippers but never a, what?” Kenzie cocked her red head to the side. “A businessman?”
“We should just call him Mr. Southern Charmer,” Erin giggled.
Poor Caden. Even when someone goosed him, he jumped. His eyes pleaded with Maggie’s, and he mouthed the words do something. So Maggie pulled out her cell phone and selected a song from her playlist. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” seemed appropriate.
“Maggie, stop,” said Kenzie in between bouts of laughter. “Clearly the man is not a stripper.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Mrs. Dalbert is tossing dollars at him and he’s not collecting them. And wait a minute. Wait. I know him. Isn’t that Caden Archibald from Savannah?”
“Is he?” Maggie feigned her answer with a scratch at her chin.
“Ladies.” Kenzie clapped her hands together. “Let’s try to remember our places?”
“I found mine,” Mrs. Osborne said, cuddling under Caden’s arm.
Caden took it in stride. As the women began to reclaim their common sense with the help of Erin clapping her hands together, the path cleared for Caden to come into the kitchen. Like a pied piper, Erin led the ladies into the parlor.
“So you were going to leave me out there, huh?”
Maggie glanced around the kitchen to see what else needed to be done. “I would have said something if your clothes started coming off.”
“Does having my shirt untucked count?” He turned around, and sure enough his shirttails were out of his pants. As he readjusted himself, Maggie took the opportunity to admire his backside.
Damn, the man was fine.
