The Third Mrs. Mitchell

“I’m leaving,” her friend called. “See you tomorrow.”

With Lisa went the whiskey. Kelsey stopped in her tracks, shoulders slumped. She could buy her own booze—she had the fake ID Trace had made in her wallet. But she couldn’t get to the liquor store without a car.

So she drifted back to the soccer field, to watch without enthusiasm as New Skye won the game. Wearily, Kelsey followed the crowd to the diner, listened to the same stories she’d heard all day at school, ordering a cup of coffee to mask the smell of liquor on her breath.

And wondered how her life had come to be such a mess.

AS FAR BACK AS Pete could remember, Charlie’s Carolina Diner had been the place for New Skye High kids to hang out after ball games, and tonight was no exception. Judging by the noise pouring out when he opened the door, the home team had won. Teenagers crowded into the green vinyl-covered booths along the walls, shared chairs at the tables, rotated and rocked on the silver pedestal stools at the counter that usually marked adult territory. Working his way through the chaos, Pete took the one empty stool in the back corner, under a framed poster of Elvis.

“Hey, Trooper Pete.” A thick-wristed hand with a Semper Fi tattoo on the back slid a white mug of coffee his way.

“Hey yourself, Mr. B. Standing room only tonight.”

Charlie Brannon nodded. “Soccer game went into double overtime, had to finish with a kickoff. NSH beat ’em three-two. What’ll you have?”

After fifteen years of eating at Charlie’s, Pete didn’t need a menu. “Meat loaf sounds good.”

“You got it.” A broad man with iron-gray hair and a permanent tan, Charlie headed toward the kitchen door, his stiff-legged stride the result of an encounter with a land mine in Southeast Asia in the sixties. He still wore his hair Marine Corps short and held his shoulders as straight as if he were standing at attention. He could bark orders with the best drill sergeants, which was why incidents of actual trouble occurred less frequently at the diner than at the public library.

Pete sipped his coffee, one ear tuned to the talk around him while his brain replayed the sight of Mary Rose standing out there on the interstate in the afternoon sunshine, close enough to touch. With a single smile, the woman had cast a spell over him ten years ago.

And damned if she hadn’t gone and done it again today. He’d been a basket case all afternoon, thinking about Mary Rose Bowdrey. What was his problem that he couldn’t get her out of his mind?

“Hey, Pete. How’s it going?”

He looked up to see Abby Brannon standing on the other side of the counter with his dinner plate in her hands. “Good enough. How about you?”

“Just fine.” She slid his plate in front of him, put out a ketchup bottle and moved the salt and pepper shakers closer. “You want something to drink besides coffee?”

“Tea would be great. Your dad’s looking good today. Is he sticking to his diet?”

Abby didn’t ask if he wanted his iced tea sweet or unsweet. She’d been pouring for customers in this town since she was twelve, and she knew everybody’s preference. “As long as I stand over him like a hawk and watch every bite he puts in his mouth.” Setting down his glass, she blew out a frustrated breath that lifted her light brown bangs off her forehead. “I haven’t been able to bake coconut pies for a month now. He steals a piece—or two or three!—in the middle of the night when I’m asleep.”

Pete grinned. “Too bad. I could go for a piece of coconut cream pie.”

She nodded. “You and me both. But the doctor said he needs to lose at least twenty pounds. So until he does, I guess we’re out of luck. With coconut, anyway. How about lemon meringue? Dad doesn’t like lemon meringue.”

“That’s a close second.”

“I’ll bring you a piece when you’re done.” Pete watched as she moved down the counter, checking on drink refills, laughing with the kids as she handed over checks written out on an old-fashioned notepad. Abby wore the same uniform every day from March through October—a white T-shirt, khaki slacks and running shoes. In the cooler months she wore a white button-down shirt and a dark blue sweater.

Year-round, though, she had nice, full curves that fired a guy’s imagination and got him thinking about something besides frozen pizza dinners eaten in front of the TV, or even the great food she served up at her dad’s diner. Assuming the guy had options in the relationship department, of course. Some did, some didn’t. After striking out at marriage—not once, but twice—Pete put himself very definitely into the second category. And so he and Abby stayed just friends.

She came back with the lemon pie. “Did you hear that Rhonda Harding has moved home from Raleigh?”

“Yeah? I thought she had a good job with one of the research companies up there.”

“She used to, but she and her husband got divorced and her mother’s sick.” Abby glanced at him, her green eyes crinkled in a smile. “Y’all were hot and heavy senior year.”

He shrugged and looked down at the soft peak of lemon filling on his fork. “I had to take somebody to the prom.”

“Maybe you can pick up where you left off. You’ve been living like a monk for a couple of years now, Pete. Time to explore the possibilities.”

“I am not a monk.” His cheeks had gotten warm. “I go out now and then.”

“With women like me—the ones you’ve known since kindergarten and think of as sisters. Not exactly high romantic adventure.”

“I do not think of you as a sister. And anyway, when was your last date, dear Abby?”

She took his teasing with a grin. “I just dish it out. You have to take it.”

“Yeah, right.” As he rolled his eyes, Pete caught sight of the clock over the counter. “Besides which, I don’t have time for—what was it?— ‘high romantic adventure.’ I race on the weekends and weeknights I’m at school with the REWARDS program. Can you put this pie in a box for me? I need to get set up before the kids start coming in at seven.”

“No problem.”

He was on his feet and thumbing through the bills in his wallet when the bell on the front door jingled. A single glance at the new arrival set him to swearing under his breath.

Her again. How bad could his luck get?

She’d pushed the sunglasses up on top of her head. Now he could see the deep blue of her eyes as she surveyed the crowded room, obviously searching for somebody. Not him, of course. Pete gave a second’s thought to the idea that he might escape out the back of the diner before he got caught.

Not a chance. Before he could move, she looked his way. And frowned. Mary Rose wasn’t any happier to see him than he was to see her.

That made him mad…and made him determined to talk to her. He put the cash for dinner down on the counter, stowed his wallet in his back pocket and headed across the room.

“Hello, there.” He had to stand fairly close to her to be heard over the noise, close enough to note the softness of her skin, the cute curves of her eyebrows. “Taking a tour of the old stomping grounds?”

The frown smoothed out into a tolerant smile. “Looking for my niece and nephew, actually. They were at the soccer game and said they were coming here afterward. I was talking to Lydia Gates and didn’t realize how much time had passed. But I’m supposed to get Kelsey and Trace home for dinner.”

“Hard to find anybody in this mob.” Was it his imagination that she smelled like honeysuckle?

“Especially with you standing right in front of me.” Mary Rose kept her smile steady, but she fully intended the insult. Having Pete Mitchell this close was interfering with breath and thought, with sanity itself. Damn the man, anyway. Why hadn’t he eaten at home tonight? Seeing him twice in one day was simply two times too many.

His dark eyebrows lowered as he stepped to the side. “Sorry. I’ll leave you to your search.”

“Thanks.” The tension eased a little as he moved toward the door. She turned around, pretending to look for the kids, but all she could really see was Pete’s face in her mind’s eye—the strongly set jaw, the well-shaped mouth, those serious silver eyes.

“Pete!” Abby Brannon held out a box from behind the counter. “You forgot your pie!” Her voice carried easily over all the noise.

Without seeing him at all, Mary Rose felt Pete hesitate, felt him appraise the necessity of brushing past her to get the box, then having to turn around to face her where she stood in front of the door.

“Keep it for me,” he shouted, his voice deep, a little rough. “I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning.” The bell on the handle jingled harshly as the glass door was opened, then swung closed.

Mary Rose drew a deep breath. Score one for our side. She’d managed to drive Pete Mitchell completely off the premises…a trick she’d never quite managed when it came to her heart.

AS USUAL, Pete got home late. Running the REWARDS program meant that he spent four nights a week at the high school. He rarely had a chance to relax before 10:00 or 11:00 p.m.

Even on a bad day, though, he didn’t begrudge the effort. Respect, Education, Work, Ambition, Responsibility, Dedication and Success—REWARDS—were the watchwords of his rehabilitation classes for juvenile offenders. He’d realized a long time ago that these at-risk kids needed somebody to draw the line between them and the life that would destroy them. A good group of volunteers in the police, sheriff and highway patrol offices joined him in standing that line.

He hadn’t exaggerated when he told Abby he didn’t have time for romance. Besides, he did have female companionship—Miss Dixie was sitting on the back of the couch, staring out the window with her tongue dangling, when he pulled up in front of the house. She disappeared when he hopped out of the Jeep and started down the walk, but as he reached the front steps he could hear the frantic squeals and pants and barks she used as a greeting.

As soon as he had the door open, the little beagle was leaping at his legs, almost as high as his waist. Grinning, he caught her up against his chest.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Dixie, darlin’.” She licked his face up one side and down the other, with a couple of swipes at his mouth for good measure. “Yeah, I know it’s been a long time. I got off work late, couldn’t get home before class. But I’m here now, so you get yourself outside while I make you a little snack.”

At the back door, she wiggled out of his hold and headed with obvious relief for the far corner of the yard. In just minutes she was back inside, though, licking up the small scoop of food that was her reward for a day spent all alone, slurping at her refilled water bowl. Business taken care of, Pete pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge and went out onto the back deck, leaving the door open so Dixie could join him when she finished.

Slouching down on the forty-year-old glider that was the only thing he’d asked for from his grandmother’s house when she passed away a few years back, he twisted the top off the beer and took a generous swig.

Man, what an afternoon. Seeing Mary Rose twice in the space of four hours had done a number on his brain. What if it happened again? Was he going to have to sneak around town like a burglar for fear of running into his first ex-wife?

Most of the time, Pete tended not to worry too much about the future. With his job, the future could come to a screeching halt at any minute; that was the reason his second marriage bit the dust. His second wife hadn’t wanted to open the door one day to the news that her husband had died in the line of duty. Pete had accepted Sherrill’s need to escape that uncertainty in the same way he accepted the uncertainty itself. Que sera, sera.

But tonight, the idea of turning a corner in the grocery store and facing down Mary Rose Bowdrey had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Really dumb,” he told Miss Dixie when she hopped up beside him on the glider. “She’s just a girl I knew a long time ago.”

Dixie stretched out beside him, inviting a rub on her very full stomach.

“Okay, so I knew her really well.” Pete stroked his knuckles along the beagle’s midline. “I couldn’t get enough of her. She was like royalty—I never expected to be with somebody so…so perfect. Totally blew my mind when she walked up that day on the golf course and asked me for a lesson.” He chuckled as he thought about it. “We both knew she didn’t mean golf.”

But then he sighed. “Major mistake, Dixie, darlin’, getting involved with somebody that different.” He finished the last of the beer, set the bottle on the deck and stretched out on the glider with Dixie on his chest. “Major mistake getting involved at all. I’m sticking with you, girl.”

The dog closed her eyes in bliss as Pete wrinkled her ears, massaged the special spot under her chin, scratched along her back. “You’re just glad to see me when I get here, aren’t you, Dix? You don’t spend your time worrying about me, and your only requirements are a full tummy and a soft place to sleep.” He let her settle against his shoulder and propped his chin on the top of her head. “No expectations, no regrets. You’re the only kind of female a man like me needs, Miss Dixie.”

Pete closed his eyes and got a vision of Mary Rose’s pink lips and blue gaze, the defiant lift of her chin as she stared him down in the diner.

He sighed again. “Let’s just hope I can remember that little piece of wisdom when the time comes.”

CHAPTER TWO

AS FAR AS Mary Rose was concerned, dinner with her parents was an exercise in holding her tongue. And her temper. And her breath.

“The roast is delicious,” she told Kate after a bite.

“A bit rare, I think,” their mother commented. “Your father likes his meat well-done.”

Judging from his focused assault with knife and fork, Mary Rose thought John Bowdrey probably liked his roast just as he’d found it. Time for a change of subject. “The game looked pretty intense, Trace. Were you playing a particularly good team?”

Without taking his eyes off his plate, Kate’s son shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.” He was a handsome boy, tall and rangy, with his father’s blond hair cropped close. When Mary Rose had seen him last winter, he’d been the bright, enthusiastic kid she’d always known.

Then, the week after the annual family ski trip in January, Trace’s dad had moved out of the house and announced his intention to divorce Kate. Mary Rose would never have guessed, witnessing L. T. LaRue’s behavior in Colorado, that he had desertion on his mind.

In the months since, Trace had become sullen and uncooperative. His grades had plummeted from high A’s to barely passing. Worry over him, and over Kelsey’s rebellious attitude, had worn Kate to the bone. Mary Rose wasn’t sure her sister even realized the full extent of the problem. There had been a distinct tang of alcohol in the air around Kelsey at the soccer game this afternoon. The girl hadn’t been obviously drunk, and Mary Rose hoped that whiff of liquor had drifted from the friend trailing Kelsey. That would be the easy way out.

But she’d learned long ago that the easy way out rarely was. “It must be getting close to prom time. Are you going this year, Kelsey?”

Across the table, her niece shook her head, her blond hair gleaming with gold under the soft light of the chandelier. “It’s just a stupid dance.”

“It’s the most important dance of the year.” Frances Bowdrey pressed her napkin carefully to her lips, then gave her granddaughter a bright smile. “I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to go.”

When Kelsey didn’t answer, Kate did. “She’s only a sophomore, Mama. She’ll go next year.”

Their mother rarely took no for an answer. “Oh, I’m sure some nice junior boy would be happy to take such a pretty girl to the prom.”

Kelsey stared at her grandmother for a moment, her brown eyes wide and wild, her cheeks flushing deep red. Then she pushed sharply away from the table and, without a word, stalked out of the dining room. Her footsteps pounded up the staircase and along the upstairs hall, ending with the slam of her bedroom door.

Eyes round, eyebrows arched high, Frances looked at her older daughter. “What was that all about? Are you going to allow her to leave the table without being excused?”

“Mama…” Kate pressed her fingers to her lips for a second. “Surely you remember…Kelsey’s boyfriend Ryan broke up with her last week. He’s a junior. They would have gone to the prom together.”

Frances pursed her lips. “That’s no reason to be rude.”

“Of course it is.” Ice clanked on crystal as Mary Rose set her glass down a little too hard. “Being dumped is the world’s greatest tragedy for a fifteen-year-old.” She hadn’t liked the experience as an eighteen-year-old, with Pete Mitchell, either. And then there was Kate’s situation. “I should never have brought the subject up. I’m sorry, Katie.”

Her sister shook her head. “You didn’t know. I think I’d better try to talk to her. Please go on with your meal.”

Neither Trace nor his grandfather needed those instructions—judging from their unswerving attention to their plates, they hadn’t even heard the conversation. Mary Rose played with her mashed potatoes and listened as Kate climbed the stairs and walked down the hall. She heard a knock, but there was no sound of Kelsey’s door opening.

“Well.” Her mother buttered a small piece of biscuit and put it delicately in her mouth. After a sip of tea, she looked at Mary Rose. “Wouldn’t you rather come home with your father and me? I’m sure our house is more restful.”

Mary Rose had lost her appetite completely; she pushed her plate away and laid her napkin beside it. “I didn’t come to rest, Mother. I came to give Kate some help. That will be easier if I stay here.”

Trace put his fork down. “I’m going up to my room.”

Beside him, his grandmother put her hand on his arm. “The appropriate way to leave the table is to ask if you can be excused.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Whatever.”

But when he tried to stand, Frances kept hold of his wrist. “Trace LaRue. You will ask politely to be excused.” Watching resentment and temper flood into Trace’s brown gaze, Mary Rose wondered if her mother had pushed too far.

Then John Bowdrey looked up from his dinner. “Do as your grandmother says, Trace.” His stern tone would not be argued with.

Trace’s shoulders slumped. “Can I be excused? Please?”

Frances smiled and patted the back of his hand. “Of course, dear. Run and do your homework.”

Mary Rose wondered if her mother heard the boy’s snort as he left the dining room. “This might not be the best time for etiquette lessons, Mother. Trace and Kelsey have enough problems just handling their lives these days.”

“Etiquette makes even the worst situation easier.” Frances got to her feet. “Shall we clear the table?”

“Sure.” Mary Rose wasn’t surprised when her father simply got to his feet and left the dining room without offering to help. Her mother had him well trained—domestic responsibilities were strictly female territory.

Kate had used her fine china for dinner, which meant hand washing all the plates and the sterling silverware that went with them. Trapped at the sink in Kate’s ivy-and-white kitchen, up to her wrists in suds, Mary Rose was held hostage to her mother’s commentary on the state of Kate’s life.

“I can’t imagine what she was thinking, letting L.T. leave like that.”

“He didn’t give her a choice, Mother. From what Kate says, I gather he announced he was moving out, picked up his bags and did just that.”

“She should have stopped him, for the children’s sake.”

Mary Rose blew her bangs off her forehead and scrubbed at a spot of gravy. “How would she have stopped him? Thrown herself in front of his car? Grabbed hold of his knees, weeping and pleading? Kate has some pride, for heaven’s sake.”

“There are ways to hold on to a man who wants to stray.” Frances Bowdrey’s voice was tight, low.

When Mary Rose turned to stare, all she could see was her mother’s straight back. “Mother? What—?”

Trace came into the kitchen. “Didn’t Mom say there was cake?”

His grandmother turned. “I believe she made a German chocolate cake. Have a seat in the dining room and we’ll bring in dessert and coffee.”

He shook his head. “I’ll just take a piece to my room.” Despite her repeated protests, he got a plate, cut a two-inch-thick slice and poured a glass of milk, then disappeared again.

Mary Rose followed her nephew down the hall. “Trace, is your mom still talking to Kelsey?”

“Never did. Kelse wouldn’t open the door. Kate’s in her own room.” Taking the stairs two at a time, he left her standing at the bottom.

“What a mess this is.” Frances spoke from just behind Mary Rose. “I think I’d better talk to Kate. She’s got to do something.”

“Mother…” Mary Rose put a hand on Frances’s arm to keep her from climbing the steps. “Dad’s waiting on his cake. Why don’t you fix his coffee and the two of you have dessert? I’ll talk to Kate.”

Obviously torn, the older woman glanced upstairs and then toward the living room, where her husband sat with the newspaper, his foot crossed over his knee, jiggling in a way they all knew well. “You’re right. But be sure to tell Kate I’ll call her tomorrow. There are things she needs to hear.”

I doubt that. But Mary Rose kept her skepticism to herself as she climbed the stairs.

WITH RELIEF, Kelsey heard Kate’s door open and shut, and the murmur of voices behind it. She’d been afraid Aunt Mary Rose was coming up to talk to her about this afternoon. About booze and teenagers and the evils thereof.

And she would really hate to have to tell her favorite aunt to go to hell, especially on her first night in the house.

She glanced at her backpack on the floor at the foot of her bed. She had two tests tomorrow, and a boatload of homework waited for her attention.

Tough shit. Rolling off the bed, Kelsey grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of her sweater drawer and stuck her head out into the hallway to be sure the coast was clear. A second later, she was closing Trace’s door quietly behind her.

“Ooh, cake.” She tossed him the cigarettes and snatched up the remains of his dessert. “You ate all the icing, jerk.”

“That’s the best part.” He lit a cigarette for each of them, passing hers over as he went to open the windows. “Was that Auntie M coming upstairs?”

Kelsey drew in a deep lungful of smoke. “Had to be. Grandmother wouldn’t be so quiet.”

“I wish she’d stay out of our business.”

“M?”

“Gran. Drives me crazy, the way she’s always giving me orders. How’d we get such a witch for a grandmother, anyway?”

“I take great comfort from the fact that she’s not really ours.” Kate had married their dad when Trace was a baby, after their real mother had disappeared. So the Bowdreys weren’t actually their grandparents at all, not by blood anyway.

“That’s right. We turn eighteen, we never have to see her again.”

“Hell of a long time to wait.”

“Tell me about it.”

They smoked together in peace for a few minutes. Trace’s room was at the back corner of the house above the screened porch, with windows on two walls and big trees blocking the outside view. Kate had let him paint the walls and ceiling black and put up wildly colored posters—not rock groups, but totally weird computer-generated artwork. Some of the posters glowed in the dark; Trace’s room was an eerie place to be with the lights out.

“I got Janine’s ID finished,” he said, rummaging through the papers piled deep beside his computer desk. “Looks good to me.”

He handed over a North Carolina driver’s license with a picture of her friend Janine Belks, currently a sophomore in high school, but recorded on the license as age twenty-two. Kelsey nodded. “You’ve got those holograms down cold. I don’t think the guys at the license bureau could tell the difference.”

“Just be sure you get the money before you give it to her, okay? I don’t like getting ripped off.”