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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Heidi and Carine left the restaurant through the side door with heavy bags of leftovers and a quarter-bottle of wine tucked into Carine’s overstuffed tote.
Heidi was having a difficult time coalescing an opinion about the evening. Without a doubt, the outing had been pleasant enough. Carine had been quirky and funny. She’d whispered scandalizing stories about her mother’s friends between bites of her dinner. When she wasn’t being thoroughly amusing, she switched silkily into business mode to summarize the jargon-heavy pile of Shora paperwork. She shot straight from the hip, told the good and the bad of the deal, and didn’t flinch when discussing the money details.
Heidi appreciated that. Far too often, people made the mistake of treating her like a wilting flower in discussions about finances, but those people learned soon that money was her second-best thing.
Her first-best thing was knowing the precise angle to deploy a tongue for maximum impact.
However, what made Heidi’s usually resolute brain spin was how Carine behaved regarding the two of them being seen together in public. During the band’s second set, Carine had whispered behind her wine glass, “Why do you keep scooting your chair away from me?”
Heidi had responded, “You’re practically on my lap.”
“Did I wrinkle your pants?”
“No, but you’re certainly aiming to wrinkle your reputation.”
Carine had snorted and topped off her wine. “’Kay.”
Heidi hadn’t known what else to do but to drop the subject. However, outside in the fresh air and away from piqued ears and probing eyes, she could speak more candidly. “By tomorrow morning, half this county’s going to think you’ve turned over a new leaf.”
“Or they’ll think I was the leaf that got turned over.” Carine idled in front of the neighboring boutique’s wide display window and peered at a pair of pink peep-toe pumps.
They were pretty but essentially useless for anything but posing in a semi-reclined position. Heidi had seen fashion doll shoes with more stability.
“I like having half a county get their gossip right every so often,” Carine said.
“And what precisely would they be getting right?”
Carine straightened up, hitched her tote strap higher on her shoulder, and slowly turned to meet Heidi’s gaze. She stared and nibbled the corner of her lip for a long while.
The lip-bite would have gone well with the pumps, Carine’s hussy prairie dress, and the spanking bench Clay had hidden in his attic.
“Don’t you like me, Heidi?”
“Do Ilikeyou?” Heidi got her moving toward the street parking. The wind direction had changed, and there must have been a garbage dumpster nearby. The scent wasn’t permeating the scene with the kind of atmosphere Heidi enjoyed. “What isn’t there to like about you? You don’t say mean things about my unusual family dynamics or criticize my driving. And every now and then, you can follow an instruction. Rarely lately, though. I’m not sure what’s going on with that.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Carine’s car was the nearest.
Heidi waited for her to open the back door and nestle her bags into the well behind the passenger seat.
“Tell me what you meant, then,” Heidi said.
“Are you always this needling? You always make folks spell things out?”
“You know damned well I do. I’m a numbers woman, and I always make people tell me exactly what they want me to know. I’m not a psychic, and guessing can lead to disastrous outcomes.”
“Did you do that to Tim?”
“I didn’t have to. Tim and I have always understood each other without having to say too much.”
“Except about that one thing.”
Heidi clenched her jaw. The objection had been right there, ripe for the picking, yet she hadn’t anticipated quickly enough that Carine might use it.
Carine shrugged. “But I guess you didn’t know what you didn’t know, right? Didn’t know what you wanted until you were sure there was something not quite right with what you had?”
