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“With Skeet?”
“He doesn’t talk much. Figured you’d rather move in there than have to deal with my wife. I might as well tell you I don’t like it when she gets upset, and you sure do upset her.”
“She gets upset about the damnedest things.” Skeet shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Not much you can do to talk her out of it either, Francie being Francie.”
“With all due respect . . .” Meg sounded like a lawyer, but Dallie’s calm assurance rattled her in a way the women didn’t. “I don’t want to live with Skeet.”
“Don’t see why not.” Skeet shifted his toothpick. “You’ll have your own TV, and I won’t bother you none. I like to keep the place neat, though.”
Dallie rose from the tombstone. “You can follow us over, or Skeet’ll drive your car and you can ride with me.”
His steady gaze testified that the decision had been made, and nothing she said would change it. She weighed her options. Returning to the church clearly wasn’t an option right now. She wasn’t moving in with Ted. If he didn’t understand why, she did. That left Shelby and Warren Traveler’s house, the inn, Francesca’s guesthouse, or staying with Skeet Cooper.
With his grizzled, sun-cured face and Willie Nelson ponytail falling between his shoulder blades, Skeet looked more like a derelict than a man who’d picked up a couple of million dollars caddying for a golf legend. She pulled her shredded pride together and regarded him loftily. “I don’t let my roommates borrow my clothes, but I do enjoy a little spa party on Friday nights. Manis and pedis. You do mine. I’ll do yours. That kind of thing.”
Skeet shifted his toothpick and gazed at Dallie. “Looks like we got ourselves another live one.”
“Seems that way.” Dallie pulled his car keys from his pocket. “Still too soon to tell, though.”
She had no idea what they were talking about. They set off ahead of her, and she heard Skeet chuckle. “Remember that night we almost let Francie drown in the swimming pool?”
“Sure was tempting,” Francie’s loving husband replied.
“Good thing we didn’t.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Skeet flicked his toothpick into the scrub. “He sure seems to be workin’ overtime these days.”
She’d seen Skeet’s small, stone, ranch-style house when she’d first explored the Beaudine compound. Double-hung windows flanked a front door painted a nondescript tan. An American flag, the only decorative feature, hung listlessly from a pole near the front walk.
“We tried not to mess up your things too much when we moved them,” Dallie said as he held the front door open for her.
“Thoughtful.” She stepped into an immaculately neat living area, which was painted a lighter version of tan than the front door and dominated by a pair of high-end, exceptionally ugly, brown recliners pointed directly at a large, wall-mounted flat-screen television. Dead center above it hung a multicolored sombrero. The room’s only true aesthetic touch came from a beautiful earth-toned rug similar to the ones in Francesca’s office, a rug Meg suspected Skeet hadn’t chosen himself.
He picked up the remote and turned on the Golf Channel. The wide opening opposite the front door revealed part of a hallway and a functional kitchen with wooden cabinets, white countertops, and a set of ceramic canisters shaped like English cottages. A smaller flat-screen television hung above a round wooden dinette table with four padded swivel chairs.
She followed Dallie down the hallway. “Skeet’s bedroom’s at the end,” he said. “He snores like crazy, so you might want to buy yourself some earplugs.”
“It gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
“Temporary. Until things settle down.”
She wanted to ask him exactly when he expected that might be but thought better of it. He led her into a sparsely furnished bedroom with mass-produced Early American–style furniture: a double bed covered in a quilted, geometrical-print bedspread; a dresser; an upholstered chair; and another flat-screen television. The room was painted the same tan as the rest of the house, and her suitcase, along with some packing boxes, sat on a bare tiled floor. Through the open closet door, she saw her wardrobe hanging from a wooden rod and her shoes neatly lined up beneath.
“Francie’s offered more than once to decorate the place for him,” Dallie said, “but Skeet likes to keep things simple. You have your own bathroom.”
“Hooray.”
“Skeet’s office is in the bedroom next door. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t use it for a damn thing, so you can set up your jewelry making in there. He won’t notice, not unless you lose the remote control he keeps on top of the file cabinet.”
The front door slammed, and even the Golf Channel couldn’t drown out the sound of angry footsteps followed by the demanding bellow of Wynette’s favorite son. “Where is she?”
Dallie gazed toward the hallway. “I told Francie we should have stayed in New York.”
Chapter Eighteen
Skeet turned up the volume in response to Ted’s intrusion. Meg pulled herself together and poked her head out into the living room. “Surprise.”
