“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“The garden’s next.” He picked up a replica of the arbor leading from the sidewalk to my front yard, bending the material a bit to adjust the curve.
I realized, suddenly, that Will and I weren’t so different. My passion centered around fabric, clothing, texture, and color, while his revolved around the structure, shape, light, and environment of buildings. The thing we had in common was our love of design.
Oh boy. A warm feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt like Alice, weightless as she fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
“Is Gracie home?” I asked, to distract myself from the moment as much as anything else. “I’d, um, love to see her latest sewing project.”
Will turned to me, quirking that eyebrow again. “She’s on her way back from the dress rehearsal that never happened,” he said as he set the small-scale arbor down on the worktable.
I held up the book. “I was a little stymied without this. It has all the names of the girls and their corresponding dresses.” I turned to head back to the front door, but Will had other ideas. He took my hand, stopping me and giving me a thoughtful, serious stare. “Let me ask you something, Cassidy.”
His touch sent a zing up my arm, straight into my heart. “I really should go,” I said, my words catching. I had to escape now, before it was too late. I gripped Trudy’s notebook, lifting it in explanation.
“One question. It’s been on my mind, and I need to know.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Was he going to ask about the magic in my family? Did he suspect the truth about Gracie? “S-sure,” I said, but all I could focus on was the feel of his skin against mine.
He paused for the briefest second, like he was debating whether or not to ask his question. Then he said, “Did you… know Macon Vance?”
Just like that, my skin went cold and my hackles went up. He didn’t trust me. “No!” I pulled my hand away and backed up a few steps. “Before I walked into the country club that morning, I’d never even heard of him.”
A quick shadow of doubt crossed his face before he chased it away, but not before the truth dawned on me. He was wondering if I’d been a notch on the golf pro’s bedpost. And if I had been, was I really the kind of person he wanted hanging around his daughter?
“Let me set the record straight,” I said. “I didn’t know him. I never saw him alive.” I ticked my statements off on my fingers. “I didn’t sleep with him. And I didn’t kill him.”
“I had to ask, Harlow.”
There he went, using my first name. I’d become so accustomed to him calling me Cassidy, that when he called me Harlow, it just felt wrong. And serious.
“No, you didn’t.” I skirted around him, wanting nothing more than to leave. Now. If he believed I was capable of any of those things—from sleeping with Macon Vance, player extraordinaire, to murder—there wasn’t much to talk about. “You have no reason to believe I’d do any of that.”
“People are talking.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. “What do you mean?”
“He was killed with your scissors, and you know his reputation. I just needed to hear it from you, Harlow.”
I spun around. “Stop calling me that.”
He stared at me. “What?”
“Harlow.” Tears pricked behind my eyelids. I blinked them away, trying to get myself under control.
It was hard enough knowing half the town thought I might have had something to do with Macon Vance’s death, what with the murder weapon belonging to me, and all, but Will? How could he think I’d be involved with someone who slept around, or who had lived in the same town as his only child, but hadn’t tried to get to know her? “Just stop.”
“It’s your name,” he said, looking completely baffled by me.
“He was a player and blackmailer.” I laid my palm against my chest, indignant. “You’ve known me since… since…” Since April, which really wasn’t all that long and took the wind out of my sails. “You really think I’d go out with someone like that?”
In the blink of an eye, he was in front of me. Every step he took toward me sent me shuffling backward. Finally, my back was against the front door, his lean, cowboy body angled to my left, leaning against the door. He trailed his fingers up my right arm, sending a little shiver over the surface of my skin. He bent his head slightly, murmuring in my ear. “I don’t.”
“Then why…”
He moved closer, his body against mine, his lips brushing the side of my neck. My breath hitched and my eyes fluttered.
“I had to hear it from you.” He shifted his weight, resting his hand on my shoulder. My purse slipped down my arm, and Trudy’s notebook dropped with a thump.
I jerked, startled, and looked down. It lay open on the tile floor, just like Anna said it had been on my coffee table. Will murmured something into my neck, but my eyes were glued to the notebook. Something about it…
“Cassidy,” he said, his voice louder, his breath no longer on my skin.
I grabbed his forearm, grateful he’d gone back to calling me Cassidy, and equally grateful to be distracted by Trudy’s book. “Look.” I bent down and scooped it up, keeping it open. “There are pages gone.”
“Uh huh.” He bent his head again, his breath like a whisper against my hair.
My eyes fluttered again, and I froze, trying hard to stay in control. “Will Flores,” I said when I found my voice again. “You just questioned whether I could have killed a man—stabbed him with my sewing shears—and now you’re… you’re…” I sucked in a breath, chasing away the zinging reaction my body was going through.
“Righting that wrong,” he finished.
“Yes, but… but…” I put one hand against his shoulder, pushing him back. “Anna Hughes…”
“I don’t want to talk about Anna Hughes,” he said, his fingers trailing up my arm again.
“But she… t-took th-this from m-my house…”
“Not surprised,” he said. “Loretta Mae was always right.”
My mind hiccuped. I pushed him back again, another chill racing over my skin as air passed between us. “What do you mean?”
His eyes smoldered as he looked down at me. “She told me the day she met Anna to watch out for her, and she was right.”
“She was?”
“It’s like Loretta Mae was a little psychic.”
I started, my temples pulsing, partly wondering what Meemaw knew about Anna Hughes that we didn’t, and partly wondering if Will’s comment was purely innocent. “Yeah.” I swallowed another mouthful of nerves, hoping I’d sounded noncommittal.
He went on. “Anna’s come on to me more times than I can count, always with some rationale.” His voice took on a sarcastic edge. “She deserved better than she got. She was a prisoner in her own life. If she was going down, she might as well go down with a smile on her face.”
My hackles went up. How dare Anna make a move on my— My mind screeched to a halt. My what? A minute ago I’d been up in arms that Will could think I’d have anything to do with Macon Vance. And now I was ready to march right back over to the Hughes house and give Anna a good what for.
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“But the notebook,” I said, holding it back up. I flipped through it. All the dress notes seemed to be there, from what I could tell, so who knew what the missing pages smack in the middle of the book had on them.
“These weren’t ripped before,” I said, realizing that I did have to march back over to Anna’s house, but instead of telling her to back off Will Flores, I had to find out what was on the missing pages. From the way my gut clenched, I suspected it was the reason Trudy was in the hospital… something to do with whatever prison Anna Hughes felt she was in.