A week later, when I went back to Loving Cup with the most recent set of sketches for Will and Stephanie, the place was at fever pitch. Miss Nancy had installed her own assistant in the outer office, and had given herself a bigger, grander office down the hall.
Will thumbed rapidly through the sketches. “Stephanie will call you about any changes,” he said, obviously distracted.
I ground my teeth. Stephanie was no longer contenting herself with a long-distance role in the restoration process at Mulberry Hill. Every other day now, it seemed, when I arrived on the job site, her white Porsche Boxster was parked in front of the pump house, and I could hear the clip of Erwin’s nails on the polished hardwood floors. She’d already cost us ten thousand dollars in last-minute change orders—demanding that the downstairs powder room wallpaper be ripped down and replaced with a limited edition hand-blocked paper that had to be special ordered from Italy—for two hundred dollars a roll, sending the Sub-Zero refrigerator back to the distributor because she’d seen a bigger, glass-fronted number in a decorator showhouse in Buckhead, and insisting that the Stark carpet in the den, which I’d had custom colored to match the exact shade of Erwin’s coat—be changed, because, as she put it, “That disgusting color bears no resemblance to my angel. Erwin is fawn colored. That carpet is brown!”
“I’ve got another assignment for you,” Will said, leaning back in his chair.
“What now?”
“Aw, this is a fun one,” he said, laughing. “No change orders, I promise. We’re gonna have a dove hunt out at Mulberry Hill, and I need you to help make the arrangements.”
“Since when did you turn into the great white hunter?” I asked.
He reached in his top desk drawer and took out a glossy sporting goods catalog. Cabela’s. I sighed. He was gone for good.
“I used to do some bird hunting growing up,” he said. “Till my folks moved to the city, and we couldn’t keep a dog anymore, and I didn’t know anybody with land to hunt on. I’ve been thinking about taking it up again. Get me out of the office, out onto the land.”
“You’ve got the land to hunt on now,” I admitted. “I think my daddy used to go dove hunting out there, years ago. He knew somebody who had permission to go on the property.”
“A big dove hunt used to be a yearly tradition back in the day,” Will said. “Every year they’d have a big hunt breakfast the first day of dove hunting season. The Cardwells invited folks from all around. People really looked forward to it. I’ve been talking to the fellas at Ye Olde Colonial, and they think it would be a good community gesture if I started the hunt up again.”
“Since when do you eat with the breakfast club guys at Ye Olde Colonial?” I demanded. “Aren’t you kind of young for that group?”
“I’ve been stopping by for a while now,” Will said. “Anyway, we can’t have it the first day of hunting season. I’ll be out of town. We’ll do it October 20.”
“I don’t know anything about dove hunts,” I said.
“Don’t you worry about the hunt part,” Will said. “I just want you to take care of the arrangements. Nancy’s already hired the caterer. We’ll have scrambled eggs and grits, sausages, bacon, fried apples, biscuits, all that kind of thing.”
My stomach growled at the mention of all that food. “Sounds good.”
“I need you to line up a tent, not as big as the one for the picnic. I think we’ll only have maybe a couple dozen guys. And tables and chairs. And I want some hay bales scattered around, you know, nothing fancy, really, but folksy. Outdoorsy. It’s gotta look good. I’m gonna invite some business associates. One of the executive VPs from Victoria’s Secret is a big quail hunter, and he’s coming down.”
“October 20,” I said, making a note of it in my planner. “Folksy. Outdoorsy. I think I can handle that.”
“Oh, uh, Keeley,” Will said offhandedly. “Let’s just keep this dove hunt on the Q.T. from Stephanie, okay? As far as she knows, I’m meeting with some out-of-town clients that day. The less said about it, the better.”
“You want me to lie,” I said. “To Stephanie.” That would be a day brightener.
“Not lie, exactly,” Will said. “Just not give her all the details. She’s a city girl, you know, and she doesn’t eat meat. She’s so tender-hearted, such an animal lover, I just think the idea of a dove hunt would upset her unnecessarily.”
“Right,” I said. I wondered if he’d ever noticed Stephanie’s predilection for pricey leather shoes and boots and suede jackets.
I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh. It’ll be our little secret.”
I was getting good at keeping secrets of my own.
The minute I’d driven away from Cuscawilla that night with A.J., I’d started regretting what had almost happened. For all his apologies and sweet words, I knew it was over between us. I’d had too much to drink, and when I sobered up I realized that my hormones had nearly led me back to bed with someone I no longer loved.
I knew I was over A.J., but what I didn’t know was how to break the news to him, or even how to keep him at arm’s length.
Now I was out at Mulberry Hill, checking on the delivery of Stephanie’s beloved bidet. My cell phone rang and I flipped it open.
“It’s me,” A.J. purred. “I’ve been thinking about you all week, baby.”
“I can’t talk,” I interrupted. “I’m in the middle of a business meeting.”
“I think we’ve got some unfinished business of our own,” he said.
Joey, my plumber, was circling the wooden crate the bidet had arrived in, scratching his head and puzzling over the thing.
“It’s a bidet,” I told Joey.
“What’s that?” A.J. asked.
“A bidet,” I told Joey, who was still awaiting enlightenment. “It’s for feminine hygiene. You know, like in Europe, they have them?”
“I’ve been to Europe,” A.J. said, annoyed. “Stop trying to change the subject. I want you. Right now. Naked…”
I felt my face go scarlet. “I’m talking to the plumber right now,” I said urgently. “I’ll have to call you back.”
Half an hour later A.J. called again. Joey had uncrated the bidet and was trying to decipher the installation directions, which were in French.
“Here’s what I want,” A.J. continued. “You. Naked. Chocolate. Are you getting the drift here?”
“Excuse me, Joey,” I said. “I think this is the, uh, lumberyard, about those studs I ordered for the shower enclosure.” I took the phone and walked rapidly downstairs.
“I’m the stud you ordered, all right,” A.J. growled.
“Stop this,” I whispered. “I’m trying to work. I’m up to my eyeballs in plumbers and plasterers and electricians. Will is out of town for the next few days, and when he gets back, I’ve got to have the chandeliers hung and the master bath finished, and I’ve got a damn dove hunt to organize now. I cannot see you tonight.”
“So Will’s out of town?” A.J. said. “I’ve got an idea. What do you say I meet you out there at his place tonight. Say, eight? I’ll stop and pick us up a nice bottle of wine, and some dinner. You can tell me about your bad old day and the mean old carpenters. And then we can take that fancy bed of ours out in the pump house for a test drive.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I could feel my already elevated blood pressure spiking. “You are not coming anywhere near this place tonight. I am not meeting you, and we are definitely, positively, not getting anywhere near my client’s personal bed.”
“Your bed then,” A.J. said.
“No.”
“Mine.”
“God, no.” The thought of bumping into Drew and GiGi gave me the willies.
“Cuscawilla.”
“No!”
“I’m running out of real estate here, darlin’. Hey, I know. The shack. Nobody goes out there anymore. It’s got a gate and it’s locked up tight. But I know where Kyle keeps the key.”
“Yuck!” I said. “Look. I really have a killer day ahead of me. I can’t see you tonight. I’ll call you. I promise.”
He hung up.
Fifteen minutes later I was back upstairs, trying to salvage some college French to help Joey with the bidet installation. The cell phone rang again. Joey gave me an annoyed look.
I took the phone out into the hallway.
“Phone sex,” A.J. said. “I’ll start. First, I unzip—” I closed the phone, turned it off and put it outside in the Volvo. Turning off A.J., I thought ruefully, would not be this easy.
Hours and hours later, Austin came over with Chinese takeout. We sat in my living room eating moo goo gai pan while we dissed about all the terrible design dilemmas on Trading Spaces. And I told him about A.J. I knew he would tell me I’d made a hideous mistake, but Austin was the only person I could talk to about A.J.
“Once you take up with that rascal again, where will it end?” Austin wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “The thing is, I know what he did to me was selfish and demeaning. And I know I’m pathetic and needy. I know it! But that night, after the picnic, at Cuscawilla, I was this close…”
Austin shook his head slowly. “Why?” was all he said.
“Something he said. In the pump house. He was looking at that old beauty queen photo. You know, the one with Mama. He’d never seen a picture of her before. And I told him what Sonya said. About how I was her, made over. And he stopped me cold. He said I’m not like her. I wouldn’t do what she did, lie and cheat and run around. And I just loved him for that right then. Because he was right. I’m not like her. And then he said the thing that made me open my eyes. He said he isn’t like his daddy. He’s known for a long time about Drew’s womanizing, and he’s always resented him for it. And he asked me to give him another chance. So he can prove that’s not who he is.”
“Very touching,” Austin said.
“You don’t believe it?”
“No. But don’t go by me, honey. I will never understand straight men as long as I live.”
“So that’s what did it. He basically talked his way into my heart.”
“And your pants,” Austin said. “But you didn’t go all the way. Why not?”
“It didn’t feel right. I wasn’t…swept away? I can’t really explain it. And then, somehow, A.J. got on the subject of the good old days, and how we used to go out to the shack and fool around…”
“You didn’t!” Austin said.
I went right on. “And A.J. mentioned that Kyle has finally talked Drew and Vince Bascomb into selling those cabins and all their lake lots.”
“Interesting,” Austin said, nibbling on a bit of chicken. “Did you happen to tell him what Sonya told us about his father and all those other couples using Bascomb’s camp as their little love nest?”
“No. But when A.J. mentioned Mr. Bascomb, I just got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know, I had this image of all of them sneaking around. Rutting, like Sonya said. It was just so lurid.”
“A real passion killer,” Austin said sympathetically. “Thank God you came to your senses.”
“The other thing A.J. told me is this. Mr. Bascomb has an inoperable brain tumor. Austin, he’s dying. A.J. says that’s the only reason he agreed to sell. Because he’s broke and he’s dying.”
I sighed. “I think I’d better go talk to him, while I still can.”