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“Of course it’s all right with me.”
Dexter smiled and took a seat at the end of the table.
“You’re not working today?” Torie said with forced politeness.
“I’m on my way. I’ve been staying late every night for weeks, and I decided to take some time off. What about you two?”
“I gave Lady Emma a driving lesson.”
“You don’t drive?” Dexter asked.
“She does now,” Torie replied.
“Only a very charitable person would describe what I was doing as driving.” Emma gave Dexter a lighthearted description of what had happened on the road, but instead of laughing, he encouraged her. Once again, she thought how nice he was, and, at the same time, she began to wonder if a match between Torie and Dexter was quite as outlandish as everyone seemed to think. They were both intelligent, attractive people, and each of them had something the other needed. Dexter’s stability could easily turn to stodginess as he grew older. And Torie seemed to need an anchor in her life.
The conversation drifted to other topics, and gradually some of Torie’s stiffness eased, until Emma began to believe she might even be enjoying Dexter’s company. That changed when Emma made the mistake of mentioning that Torie had stopped smoking.
Torie glowered, then stuck her finger in Dexter’s chest. “I’ve been planning to quit for months. It has nothing to do with you! Got it?”
He regarded her steadily. “I certainly do.” Ignoring the French-manicured fingernail implanted in his shirt-front, he turned to Emma and asked about her plans for the day.
With one eye on Torie, Emma told him she’d hoped to go to Austin. “I wanted to spend a few hours at the University of Texas library, but Kenny seems to have disappeared.”
“I’ll be happy to take you,” he said.
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Our main office is in Austin, and there are some people I need to see. I can do that while you’re at the library.”
“Are you certain about this?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t wanted to.”
“Well, then, I’d quite love to. You don’t mind, do you, Torie?”
Torie frowned. “Why should I?”
Torie was obviously displeased, and Emma hesitated. Then she remembered her driving lesson and decided she wasn’t the only person who needed to look the devil in the eye. It might be good for Kenny’s sister to discover that not every woman found Dexter unappealing. “Excellent, then. I have my notebook in my purse, so I’m ready to go.” She thanked Torie for the driving lesson, then let Dexter lead her from the diner.
Torie scowled as she watched the door close behind them. Fine! She hoped the two of them bored each other to death.
Through the plate-glass window, she caught sight of Ted Beaudine. He walked up to Dexter and Emma, and they all chatted for a few minutes. The next thing she knew, Ted was climbing into Dex’s Audi, too, and all three of them were heading off to Austin. Without her.
“You want more coffee, Torie?” Mary Kate Pling called over from the counter.
“Uh, no. No, thanks.” She leaned back in her chair and thought about how much she liked Lady Emma. Still, nobody would ever call her drop-dead gorgeous. So how had it happened that she had just managed to drive off with Dex and Ted, while Torie Traveler, unanimously regarded to be the most beautiful girl in town, had been left behind?
She scowled, gazed down into her empty mug, and chalked her bad mood up to nicotine withdrawal.
Kenny was furious. “What do you mean, Emma went off to Austin with Dex?”
Torie climbed out of his pool and wrapped a towel around the three scraps of amethyst nylon that were passing for her bathing suit. “Ted went along, too.”
“Is that supposed to make it all right?”
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this? They’re all adults.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t stop her. At the very least, you should have gone along to chaperone. Why didn’t you do that?”
