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“Yeah, how about that? Strange things happen.” She tried to ease her arm from his grip, but he was hanging on tight.
“C’mon, Delta. We jes got here. People . . . people wanna see us.”
“I’ve seen everyone I want to.”
“Everything all right here?”
Delta almost laughed. It was Principal Kiefer, older, grayer, but just as cloyingly sincere as always, worried about “his students” and propriety, which was funny as hell as she’d heard he’d had an affair with Bailey’s mom, the true reason for the Quintars’ divorce.
“Everything’s fine,” she assured him.
She took a few moments to say good-bye to Zora and Bailey, who in turn said how glad they’d been to see her, and then she headed out the main door. The night was cool, the air was slightly crisp, and she could feel the weight of impending rain in the air. Roses nodded their weighty heads at her as she walked the path toward the parking lot and remotely unlocked the doors to her Mercedes.
She stood beside her car for long minutes, thinking. Didn’t want to go home just yet.
Then Amanda suddenly shot out of the double doors of the golf club and raced to a Lexus near to Delta.
“What’s wrong?” Delta asked her automatically.
“My brother’s been in a car wreck,” she bit out, as she jumped behind the wheel and screeched out of the lot. Her husband—ex-husband—followed after her and stood at the top of the steps, along with several others who must’ve seen Amanda tear out as if her hair were on fire.
Chapter 12
Zora swilled down the truly awful white wine they were pouring as she watched the Tanner/Amanda/Delta debacle unfold. At least Delta hadn’t pressed her on what Amanda meant. That would’ve been all she needed. To have to recount her own dalliance with Tanner. Great.
Her attention had been divided while it was going on, however, as she’d been buttonholed by Rhonda Clanton, er, Sharpley, and her husband, Eric, a man as earnest and gung ho as his wife, which was saying a lot. She’d wanted to be in on the drama over Tanner, but Rhonda and Eric had been so insistent and enthusiastic that Zora had been forced to pay them some attention. She’d listened with half an ear at the back-and-forth conversation the two of them were having. They were both full of affirmations. Life was just so good, so full of possibilities, didn’t Zora think so?
It made her head hurt.
But the catfight she’d been expecting between Delta and Amanda hadn’t come to be. Delta had walked away, and then shortly thereafter, Amanda had received a phone call and zipped out the door after her.
Zora was trying to edge away from Rhonda and Eric as, with a sad clown face, Rhonda said, “Poor Mr. Timmons. His dad just died yesterday. It’s awful. They were really close, and Mr. Timmons was taking care of him.”
Zora said politely, “That’s too bad.”
“Parkinson’s,” Eric told her, equally sad-clown-faced.
“But maybe now he and Ms. Reade can get together!” Rhonda said with an uplift to her voice. Her expression was elastic. Sorrow one moment, joy the next. Like a switch she could turn on and off.
Eric chided, “Oh, don’t go playing matchmaker again.”
Rhonda nudged him with her elbow. “I told you. They’ve been almost together for years. Maybe now it’ll finally happen. Brian—I mean Mr. Timmons—is free, and she’s never been married, either, so . . .”
“Well, financially, it’s a good time. That’s a big inheritance,” said Eric.
“Oh, don’t talk about that,” Rhonda said with a giggle. “It’s true love for them.”
Zora finally heard something of interest. “What’s a big inheritance?”
“Oh, you know, Mr. Timmons’s dad owns that company that makes fences, or something?” Rhonda looked at Zora expectantly.
“Fences?” Zora asked blankly.
“Columbia Fence,” said Eric. “Commercial fencing. You’ve probably seen their signs around.”
She thought about it. Yes, she’d seen the small plaques embedded in the sides of chain-link fencing all over the area.
Eric put a hand up to his mouth and leaned toward her, saying in an aside, “Big, big bucks.”
