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The town erupted with the news that Spence had chosen Wynette. For the next three days, people hugged each other on the street, the Roustabout poured free beers, and the barbershop blasted out old Queen anthems from an ancient boom box. Ted couldn’t go anywhere without men pounding him on the back and women hurling themselves at him, not that they didn’t do that anyway. The good news even eclipsed Kayla’s announcement that the contest bidding had reached twelve thousand dollars.
Meg barely saw him. He was either on the phone with Spence’s lawyers, who were due to fly in any day to finalize the contracts, or he was involved in Operation Avoid Sunny. She missed him dreadfully, right along with their less-than-satisfactory sex life.
She was doing her own avoidance dance with Spence. Fortunately, the local citizens had joined the effort to keep him away from her. Still, the uneasiness she’d been carrying around for days wouldn’t go away.
On Sunday after work she made a detour to the swimming hole to cool off. She’d developed a deep affection for both the creek and the Pedernales River that fed it. Although she’d seen photos of the way a sudden rainstorm could transform the river into a raging corridor of destruction, the water had always been gentle with her.
Cypress and ash grew near the creek’s bank, and she sometimes caught sight of a whitetail deer or an armadillo. Once a coyote came out from behind some buttonbush and looked as startled to see her as she was to see it. But today the cool waters failed to work their magic. She couldn’t get past the disquieting notion that she was missing something important. It dangled in front of her, a piece of fruit she couldn’t quite reach.
A cloud rolled in, and a scrub jay scolded her from the branch of a nearby hackberry tree. She shook the water from her hair and dove under again. When she came up, she wasn’t alone.
Spence loomed above her on the riverbank, the clothes she’d abandoned hanging from his big hands. “You shouldn’t go swimming by yourself, Miz Meg. It’s not safe.”
Her toes dug into the mud, and water lapped at her shoulders. He must have followed her here, but she’d been too preoccupied to notice. A stupid mistake that someone with so many enemies should never have made. The sight of him holding her clothes made her stomach knot. “No offense, Spence, but I’m not in the mood for company.”
“Maybe I’m tired of waiting for you to be ready.” Still holding her clothes, he sat on a big rock by the river’s edge next to the towel she’d left there and studied her. He was dressed for business in navy pants and a long-sleeved blue oxford dress shirt he’d begun to sweat through. “It seems every time I start to have a serious conversation with you, you manage to slip away.”
She was naked except for a sodden pair of panties, and as much as she might like to think of Spence as a buffoon, he wasn’t. A cloud skittered over the sun. She clenched her fists under the water. “I’m a happy-go-lucky person. I don’t like serious conversations.”
“Comes a time when everybody has to get serious.”
The way he slid her bra through his fingers gave her chills, and she didn’t like being frightened. “Go away, Spence. You weren’t invited.”
“Either you come out or I’m coming in.”
“I’m staying where I am. I don’t like this, and I want you to leave.”
“That water looks damned inviting.” He set her clothes next to him on the rock. “Did I ever tell you I swam competitively in college?” He began taking off his shoes. “I even thought about training for the Olympics, but I had too much else going on.”
She sank deeper into the water. “If you’re seriously interested in me, Spence, you’re going about this the wrong way.”
He pulled off his socks. “I should have been up front with you earlier, but Sunny says I can be too blunt. My mind works faster than most people’s. She says I don’t always give people enough time to get to know me.”
“She’s right. You should listen to your daughter.”
“Cut the bull, Meg. You’ve had plenty of time.” His fingers worked at the buttons of his blue oxford dress shirt. “You think all I want is a roll in the hay. I want more than that, but you won’t stay still long enough to hear me out.”
“I apologize. I’ll meet you in town for dinner, and you can say whatever you want to.”
“We need privacy for this discussion, and we won’t have that in town.” He unfastened his cuffs. “The two of us have a future together. Maybe not marriage, but a future. Being together. I knew that the first time I met you.”
“We don’t have a future. Be real. You’re only attracted to me because of my father. You don’t even know me. You just think yo
u do.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He took off his shirt revealing a gruesomely hairy chest. “I’ve been around longer than you have, and I understand human nature a lot better.” He stood. “Look at you. Driving a fucking drink cart at a third-rate public course that calls itself a country club. Some women do just fine on their own, but you’re not one of them. You need someone picking up the check.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” He came toward the riverbank. “Your parents brought you up soft. It was a mistake I didn’t make with Sunny. She worked at the plant from the time she was fourteen, so she learned early on where a dollar came from. But that’s not the way it was with you. You had all the advantages and none of the responsibility.”
There was enough truth in his words to sting.
He stopped at the riverbank. A raven called out. The water rushed around her. She shivered from the chill and from her vulnerability.
His hands dropped to his belt buckle. She sucked in her breath as he pulled it open. “Stop right there,” she said.
“I’m hot and that water looks real good.”
