Dangerous Alterations (6 page)

Then again, Margaret Louise was a master at getting Tori to do what she wanted. And Tori knew why.

Margaret Louise Davis was the kind of friend everyone wished they had. She was loyal and true, encouraging and supportive, a giver in every sense of the word, and she didn’t expect anything in return for her efforts. Ever.

That fact alone was enough to make Tori set aside her personal pity party and heed the woman’s request. And, now that she was there, she was glad. The weekly sewing circle meeting had always been a way to recharge her battery after a busy week at the library. It was an opportunity to catch up on her friends’ lives as well as the gossip making the rounds, and it gave her permission to sit and sew—the one tangible connection she still had to her late great grandmother.

The fact that this week’s meeting was being held at the home of fellow circle member and Margaret Louise’s daughter-in-law, Melissa, was simply the icing on the cake.

In her mid-thirties, Melissa was only one of two other circle members whose age was within a few years of Tori’s. And while Melissa was at a different stage in her life with a husband and seven children, she could empathize with certain circumstances in a way some of the older members couldn’t.

Toss in the opportunity to get hugs from Melissa’s entire brood—including the always precious Lulu—and, well, she was exactly where she needed to be. The stuff with Jeff could wait.

“Victoria, you made it!” Melissa stuck her head out the front door and tugged Tori inside. “Margaret Louise has been telling me about everything going on and I just assumed you’d be hankering for a quiet night to yourself.”

“I’ve been having that all day. Now it’s time to let something besides second-guessing to the forefront for a little while.” Tori breathed in the scent of sugar cookies, talcum powder, and bubbles that clung to her friend’s hair as she passed.

“Second-guessing?” Melissa asked as she took the covered dessert plate from Tori’s outstretched hand and placed it on the counter. “Second-guessing about what?”

She tugged her tote bag higher on her arm then waved off the question with her free hand. “Am I the last to arrive?”

Melissa’s eyes narrowed momentarily only to return to their normal round shape, with a warm smile to boot. “Rose will be along soon. She got sidetracked in some woman’s garden. You know how she is about that sort of thing.”

Tori did. “She’s just like I am with a book and your mother-in-law is with those grandbabies you and Jake have given her.”

“You can’t forget the way that twin sister of mine is with whatever uniformed male has caught her eye at the moment,” Margaret Louise bellowed from the hallway that linked the kitchen with the rest of the house. Stepping all the way into the room, she strode over to Tori and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’m glad you decided to come. We’ve got a lot to talk about if we’re going to head north at the end of the week.”

Melissa clapped her hands. “Are you going?”

“I—I’m not sure just—”

“Of course she’s going,” Margaret Louise interjected. “Dixie has already offered to stay behind and man the library so everything is set. It’ll be me, you, Leona, Rose, Debbie, Beatrice, and Victoria.”

“Margaret Louise, I’m not really sure I—”

“Debbie’s bringin’ chocolaty treats …”

A gurgle sounded from somewhere deep inside Tori’s stomach.

“And I’m goin’ to be making supper both nights …”

She slapped a hand over her abdomen as Margaret Louise continued.

“And it’s not goin’ to cost you so much as a nickel.”

“How do you figure that?”

A smile spread across Margaret Louise’s face like wildfire through dry prairie grass. “You ’member that prize money I got for my sweet potato pie recipe last summer?”

Tori nodded as a matching smile appeared on Melissa’s face.

“I set some of that aside for somethin’ special. I didn’t know what that was or when it would come, but I knew I wanted to wait until it did. And it’s time now, Victoria. Time for one of those girls-only weekends I read about in one of my sister’s travel magazines a while back.”

She looked from Margaret Louise to Melissa and back again. “So that’s where that whole cabin in the woods thing you mentioned last night came from?”

“Sure as shootin’. Though, if you’d been listenin’ to everything I said at the funeral home, you’d have known this then.”

Touché.

“Margaret Louise, I’m sorry. I really am. I guess I just had a lot on my mind.”

“I know, dear. That wasn’t meant as an accusation. Just a fact … like you comin’ to the cabin this weekend.”

There was a part of her that knew she should protest—the part that was more than a little terrified at the notion of leaving Dixie in charge of the library for two whole days, front and center.

But the things that could go wrong in a forty-eight hour time period were
possibilities
. The fun she’d have with her friends in a remote mountain cabin for one whole weekend was all but an absolute certainty.

“You know you want to,” Melissa teased.

“Jake is okay with all of the kids?”

The woman’s dirty blonde ponytail bobbed up and down. “Everyone except the baby. I mean, he said he’d keep her but I can’t leave her behind. She’s too little.”

She couldn’t help but smile. Melissa was truly an amazing mother. “And Leona is okay with this?”

“If she don’t want to be left out of the fun, she’s gonna have to be.” Margaret Louise pushed off the linoleum floor with her toes and swiveled around, the squeak from her sneakers nearly lost in the sound of Rose’s knock. “Well look at you, Rose Winters, aren’t you quite the sight.”

Rose peeked through the screen door and scowled. “What are you talking about, Margaret Louise?”

Melissa nudged the door open and gently wiped a smudge of dirt from the elderly woman’s wrinkled face with a practiced hand. “Don’t you pay my mother-in-law any mind, Rose. You look as beautiful as always.”

“What? What did you just rub off?” Rose groused.

“Just a little souvenir from an evening of fun you’ve sorely earned after the treatments you’ve been having.”

Tori stepped forward, brushed a kiss on Rose’s cheek, then mouthed a thank-you in Melissa’s direction. “So? Who’s the lucky recipient of your gardening know-how this time?”

In a flash, any and all embarrassment disappeared from Rose’s demeanor, pushed aside by the pride and joy she displayed every time her expertise in the garden was referenced. “I’d like to say I was able to help Lynn, but I think it’s safe to say she taught me a thing or two I hadn’t known.”

Tori’s mouth gaped open in time with Melissa’s. “
Lynn
taught
you
something about gardening? Is that even possible?”

“I thought I was versed in all the flowering plants that can be grown in this part of the country, but she introduced me to a few I hadn’t known.” Rose pushed past Margaret Louise to place her own contribution to the circle’s dessert lineup on the counter. “It’s just like I’ve always said … it’s never too late to learn new tricks.”

“You’re right.” Linking her arm through Rose’s, Tori gestured toward the hallway. “Well? Shall we join the others?”

Rose patted the bulging bag on her arm. “I brought Lynn’s pillow to show everyone. She let me borrow it for the evening.”

Slowly, Tori matched Rose’s steps down the hallway, Margaret Louise and Melissa following behind at a respectful distance. “This pillow. Does it have a purpose other than providing a small reminder of home during outpatient procedures?”

“It’s called a comfort pillow and it’s used primarily by women who have had a mastectomy … like Lynn. When they’re driving, it protects the incision from impact with the steering wheel. When the surgery is recent, it can lessen the pain when they cough or sneeze.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize there was an actual use for them.” They rounded the corner into Melissa’s family room, the welcoming smiles from the rest of the circle members confirming, once again, the wisdom behind Margaret Louise’s gentle shove. Already, Tori felt better, the stress Jeff’s presence in town had created all but disappearing into the land of it-doesn’t-matter.

“Victoria! Rose! We’re so glad you came.” Debbie Calhoun patted the empty sofa spots on each side of her body. “I saved a place for both of you.”

Rose lurched forward, extricating her arm from Tori’s grasp in the process. “I’ll take the end closest to the lamp. Makes threading my needle a bit easier.”

“You can thread a needle faster than I ever could.” Debbie scooted a hairbreadth to the side set aside for Tori and allowed Rose to get situated. When she had, Debbie scooted back. “Victoria, I heard Jeff is in town. I imagine that’s making you miss Milo all the more. You holding up okay, hon?”

It was just like Debbie to know that buried beneath the happiness Tori derived from being there was the cloud of Jeff’s presence and Milo’s absence. It was one of many reasons the thirty-something wife and mother of two was the successful business owner she was. That innate sense had served her well in getting her bakery off the ground and into everyone’s mind as
the
place to go in Sweet Briar.

Needles and machines stilled around the room as all eyes turned in Tori’s direction. Waiting.

“I—I’m doing fine, I guess.”

“What’s this bloke like?” Beatrice Tharrington, the youngest of the group, inquired from her chair beside the hearth. Other than Tori, Beatrice was the only non-southern voice in the room. The fact that the nanny’s accent reflected her ties to England made her stand out even more.

“I don’t understand the question.” It was a lame response, but it bought her time. Time to take a few deep breaths and search for the calm that was suddenly playing a game of cat and mouse.

“What does he look like?” Beatrice clarified.

A safe question. One she could answer with simple facts. “He’s tall, about six-foot-two.” Tori pulled her wooden sewing box from her tote bag and set it on the coffee table, then reached back into the bag for the pink and blue material she’d brought along. “His hair is sort of dirty blond, I guess, and his eyes are a dark brown.”

“With that odd little sparkle that the truly dangerous ones have,” Leona interjected. “You know the kind. They lure you in with their charm and then wreak havoc on your life.”

She looked from Leona to the onesie pattern she’d selected for Nina’s baby-to-be and back again, the woman’s spot-on description catching her by surprise. “You say that like it’s happened to you, Leona.”

An unfamiliar tint of red blanched across Leona’s face right before it sunk behind the magazine designed to keep her busy while everyone else worked on sewing projects.

Intrigued, Tori opened her mouth to lure Leona back into the conversation only to shut it again when Margaret Louise cast a look of warning in her direction.

Hmmm … Could this be why Leona had never settled down? Was this life-wrecking charmer the reason behind her friend’s hatred of Chicago? She had to wonder. And wonder she did—

“What’s the rest of him like?”

Beatrice’s soft voice cut through the parade of questions flooding her mind, begging to be asked.

“Him?” she echoed absentmindedly.

“Jeff.”

She swallowed. “There’s not much to tell, really.”

“What does he do for a living?” Rose prompted from her spot on the other side of Debbie.

It was a safe question. “He’s a fitness trainer. For the biggest gym in Chicago.”

“A fitness trainer?” Debbie asked as the corners of her mouth nearly rose to her eyes. “A
fitness trainer
? And the two of you were
engaged
?”

A chorus of laughter rang up around the room.

“Hey!” she protested. “I’m in shape!”

Margaret Louise shook her head slowly. “And that is one of the many questions I’ll have when I’m standin’ before those pearly gates.”

She shot a questioning look at Leona’s twin. “You’ve lost me.”

Gesturing from her plump form to Tori’s slender body, Margaret Louise grimaced playfully. “Don’t get me wrong. I know I like to eat. Goes along with the cookin’ and all. But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you turn down a second helpin’ of dessert in all the time I’ve known you, Victoria.”

“My metabolism is just fast. That’s all.”

“It’s okay, Victoria, I adore you too much to despise you.” Margaret Louise cast a wink in her direction. “But I must say, I’m with Debbie. Seems kind of funny a fitness trainer would fall for a girl with such a sweet tooth.”

Tori leaned forward, opened her sewing box, and scanned her various thread colors for a pastel pink and a pastel blue. Finding the perfect shade of each, she pulled them out and settled back against the sofa. “Trust me, he was always trying some new health food out on me. And I, being the quick-to-please girlfriend I was, went along with it.”

A slight nod from behind Leona’s magazine didn’t escape her notice, but she let it go. There would be time to question her friend later. In private.

“Then I hope you pigged out on every decadent delight you could find after he hurt you the way he did.”

She had to smile at Beatrice. Barely into her twenties, the young woman rarely said much let alone something even vaguely resembling a derogatory statement in another person’s direction. “Once I was able to eat again, Beatrice, I did exactly that.”

Leona lowered her magazine just long enough to steal a glimpse in Tori’s direction. “How long were you unable to eat, dear?”

“Too long,” she answered honestly. “But that’s all behind me now. Moving here … to Sweet Briar … was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I bet that little moppet he had with him at the wake last night is glad you moved.” Rose pulled a comfort pillow from her own bag and rested it on her lap. “Was she the one he was canoodling with at your engagement party?”