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Emmett reached across the bar and took her hand. “It’s also possible that he’s known all this time. Your father isn’t a saint, Maddie. You’re old enough to know that.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. He was right. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then a thought struck her and they flew open again. “Mama!”
She reached for her picnic basket, where she’d stored her keys and her phone. There were half a dozen astonished text messages on her screen, but she ignored them all. Someone had to warn her mother.
“Maddie,” Emmett warned. “Do you want to be the one to tell her?”
“No. But I don’t want those gossiping harpies to be the ones to tell her, either. Damn Lydia. She did this on purpose.” She dialed the house as quickly as she could, hoping her call would get there before anyone else’s.
“Hello? Madelyn, dear?” It wasn’t her mother’s voice; it was her grandmother’s.
“Granny, where’s Mama?”
“She’s still in the Bahamas on that girls’ trip.”
Maddie breathed a sigh of relief. Her mother’s cell phone wasn’t the kind that would work in another country.
“She gets home tomorrow. What’s the matter, Madelyn?”
“Lydia slipped a video clip of Grant and Logan Anthony arguing into the movie at the library tonight.” Maddie hesitated, not wanting to tell her grandmother the truth, either. She’d had two children, but Norman was her only son, and she doted on him the way Maddie’s daddy doted on her. “Apparently they were arguing about Logan being Daddy’s illegitimate son.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all I know. You’ll have to ask Grant about the rest. I think Lydia did that to get back at the family for the incident at Ivy’s concert. And maybe at me because I’m not her partner in crime any longer.”
Her grandmother drew in an audible breath and sighed. “I’m sure she had plenty of reasons in her own mind, twisted and wrong as they might be. She’s always been your friend, but I’ve never understood why.”
“She’s not my friend anymore, Granny. I’m not friends with anyone who deliberately tries to hurt my family like that.”
“Good girl.”
“The whole town knows, or will know, by the time Mama gets back from her trip. What are we going to do?”
“I’ll speak with Helen when she returns. I know you love your father, dear, but I’m not entirely certain that your mother will be . . . surprised.”
Maddie was the surprised one. “You don’t sound shocked, either.”
“There are very few things that happen in this family that I don’t know about, Madelyn. Your father’s indiscretions are among them.”
Indiscretions? Plural? She just shook her head. This was bigger than Logan, she hated to admit. Logan was just from back before her father learned to be more careful.
“Thank you for calling. I know that was difficult for you to do. No one wants to be the bearer of that kind of news. I’ll take it from here. You try to enjoy your party. Good night, Madelyn.”
“Good night, Granny.” Maddie turned off her phone and let it drop into her lap. Her father was a cheater, his business rival was really his son, and, apparently, Granny and her mama knew about it the whole time. What the hell was going on with her family? And what about her best friend just turning on her like that?
“I’d offer you a drink,” Emmett said, laying his plastic gun on the counter, “but I don’t think you’d take it.”
“No, but thank you. At this point, I think it would be adding more fuel to the fire instead of numbing me the way I’d want it to. If I punch Lydia in the face, I’ll get arrested. And I’m not ready to face Judge Griffin again so soon.”
“I know,” Emmett conceded with disappointment, “but it’d be worth it to watch someone punch her.”
Maddie shook her head. Lydia had messed with the wrong family. “She’ll get hers. I’m absolutely certain of that. She can’t keep messing with people the way she does. I should’ve known she was up to something when she volunteered to help. She never volunteers to do anything. She just wanted access to the computer.”
“You couldn’t have known what she was up to.”
“Yeah, but I know Lydia. She was my best friend. I never expected her to turn on me and treat me the same way she treats everyone else. I guess it’s inevitable. Really, when I stopped being so mean to people, I guess I turned on her. I’m sure that’s how she sees it.”
“People see what they want to see and use that to justify their actions. Doesn’t make it true, or what they did any less despicable.”
