I stopped blotting my dress with the edge of the shawl and looked at him with as much dignity as I could muster. Which wasn’t much, considering I had bits of Brie dangling from my earrings.
“You don’t have to be so snotty,” I said quietly. “It was an accident, you know. I certainly didn’t mean to…”
“Hurt me,” Daniel said. He reached out and straightened the strap of my dress, which had slipped off my shoulder.
“You’re soaked,” he said, with the ghost of a smile that made me shiver even more. “I think your dress is shrinking.”
I looked down and made a valiant effort at hiking up the top. A piece of shrimp toast was plastered to my left breast. I brushed it away. “The dress is ruined,” I said. “And it isn’t even mine. Six hundred dollars. Down the drain.”
He looked shocked. “Really?”
“It’s BeBe’s. She loaned it to me. It was brand new.” I shrugged. “Oh well. Is there a dustpan and broom in the kitchen?”
“Probably,” he said. “I need to get this cleaned up before somebody else slips and gets hurt. Why don’t you stay here and wave people away while I get the stuff?”
“All right,” I said.
A minute later he was back with a mop and a broom and a garbage pail.
“I can’t sweep in this dress,” I said apologetically as he got busy cleaning up the glass.
“I’m surprised you can even walk in it,” he said, glancing up at me.
“I knew I should have stayed home tonight,” I said, rubbing my arms for warmth.
“I heard you bought the townhouse,” Daniel said, dumping the glass and broken china into the trash can. “Have you moved in yet?”
“Sort of. Most of my stuff is over there. But I’m still sleeping at the carriage house.”
He raised one thick eyebrow in a question.
It was a question I didn’t feel like answering just then. Or ever.
“OK,” I said briskly. “Look. Send me the bill to have the tuxedo cleaned. It was all my fault. Guess I’ll go catch a ride home. See ya.”
I gave him a cheery little finger wave.
“I saw your uncle leave over an hour ago,” Daniel called after me.
I turned around slowly. “He had an emergency. But Merijoy can get somebody else to give me a ride back to town.” I started walking again. I could feel a run zipping its way up the back of my left leg. My toes squished in the wet sandals.
“I’m going back to town,” Daniel said. “If you want to ride with me.”
“I thought you were serving a midnight buffet. It’s not even eleven yet.”
“Another caterer is doing the breakfast,” Daniel said. “And I’ve got the Guale van. I have to drop it off at the restaurant and pick up my truck there. So you’re on my way.”
“Do you have room?” I was thinking about the Alsatian milkmaid. Michelene.
Now he looked annoyed. “Did I just offer you a ride? Of course I have room. Now, yes or no?”
“All right. Yes. Thanks.”
“Good. Meet me out front in ten minutes. I just need to make sure everything’s been loaded into the van.”
I spent the next ten minutes back in the powder room, trying to rinse the champagne out of my hair and repair my makeup.
It was mostly a lost cause. I’d only brought along lipstick, and there hadn’t been room in the tiny evening bag for a comb or brush.
By eleven o’clock, I stood, huddled under my damp shawl, near the front steps to Beaulieu. I heard a mewing and looked down. A tiny black kitten brushed back and forth against my sandal. He’d probably mistaken me for a vat of Little Friskies.
I let the cat lick a bit of crab dip from my shoe. Don’t get yourself worked up, I cautioned myself. You’re a mess. He has a girlfriend. He’s just giving you a ride out of pity.
Who was I kidding here? The hell of it was, I’d take anything, even a dose of pity, from Daniel Stipanek.
He pulled around to the front door in the big white van with the words “Guale—A Southern Bistro” painted on the side. He hopped out, came around, and opened the passenger-side door for me. He might hate my guts, but he was still too polite to let a lady open her own door.
“Thanks,” I muttered, hoisting myself up and onto the seat. He got in behind the steering wheel, glanced over, and grinned wickedly. I looked down. My skirt was hiked up almost to my crotch.
“My pleasure,” he said, looking away quickly.
“What does your girlfriend think about your leaving the party early to give me a ride home?” I asked.
He gave me a blank look. “Girlfriend?”
I placed the shawl over my lap, draping it so it reached down to my knees.
“I thought you were dating a woman who works at the restaurant,” I said.
“Not any more.” He threw the van into gear and sped down the shell road in a cloud of dust.
I pursed my lips together tightly and clasped my hands in my lap. So much for my effort at polite conversation.
Daniel pulled out onto the pavement at Skidaway Road and barely slowed down for the stop sign. We were almost to Thunderbolt before he spoke again.
“You’re really something, aren’t you?”
I stared straight ahead.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He pounded the dashboard with his fist. “You know damn well what I mean. What was that crack about my girlfriend? Have you had BeBe checking up on me again?”
Well, duh. BeBe was my best friend. Of course I had her checking up on him.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “I happened to notice you talking to that blond waitress tonight. You looked pretty cozy. I just assumed…”
“You just assumed she’s a bimbo, because she’s blond and a waitress, and therefore I must be screwing her,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “Well, you’re not even half right. We dated a few times. Michelene is no bimbo. She’s really quite bright. She has a degree in art history. We just didn’t have much in common. My being a lowly cook and all.”
I bit my lip. It had been a mistake to think things could ever be right again between us. Daniel still had a chip the size of a two-by-four on his shoulder. Nothing would ever change that.
“I didn’t think that,” I said stiffly, and then stopped. I could feel tears welling up.
Before I could let out a sob, though, Daniel swerved the van hard left, across two lanes of oncoming traffic, and into the parking lot at the Skidaway Liquor Store. He slammed on the brakes, and I slid clear across the leather seat and nearly into his arms.
“Damn it, Weezie,” he said, his voice husky. He pulled me to him. “Let’s stop playing games. I’m lousy at this. I don’t give a damn about Michelene. Or anybody else. I dated her because I knew BeBe would run and tell you. I wanted to make you jealous.”
“Why?” I pulled away from him.
“I guess I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. But it’s no good.” He was kissing my neck. “You taste like champagne.”
I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair. Something stuck to my thumb. It was fishy smelling. “I think you’ve got caviar in your hair.”
He laughed and kissed me hard, this time on the lips. “God, I missed you,” he said, framing my face with his hands.
“I missed you too,” I said. “I was stalking you for a while there. Driving past the house at Tybee.”
“I saw you once,” he said. “I almost called you that night, but I was too stubborn.”
His hands roamed over my body, and I didn’t make a move to stop him, even though we were parked right out in front of the liquor store, with people pulling up in their cars and walking right past us.
I heard another laugh, muzzled because his face was between my breasts.
“What is it now?” I asked.
He held up a tiny pea-shaped object between his thumb and forefinger. “Caper. We keep this up and we’ll have our own midnight buffet.”
“We keep this up and we’ll get arrested for public indecency,” I pointed out. “It’s not that I want you to stop, sweetheart. It’s just that I think there are better places to do this.”
“You’re right,” he said reluctantly. “My place or yours?”
“My place,” I said, without hesitation. “The townhouse.”
He looked surprised.
“I didn’t want to stay there alone,” I said haltingly. “I thought it was because of Caroline. But I think maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it was me. I just wasn’t ready yet.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me closer. Then he turned the key in the van’s ignition. “Is that something I could help with?”
“Would you?” I asked, a little shy. “Would you spend the night with me at my new house?”
“Depends,” Daniel said, pulling back onto Skidaway Road in the direction of town.
“On what?”
“On what you’re serving for dessert. I’ve already had my appetizer, you know.”
I reached over and started popping the tiny mother-of-pearl studs on his tuxedo shirt.
“Oh, it’ll be sweet,” I promised. “Very, very sweet.”