Sugar on Top (8 page)

“Didn’t need to,” Holden said, not even sparing the folder a glance. “I have already appointed a new commissioner.” His eyes went to the defense. “I suggest you stock up on Benadryl, Miss Glory, because I see a lot of peaches in your future. Your first meeting as presiding chair will be a week from Wednesday.”

“Over my dead my body will a woman of her reputation head up an event so treasured by this town and these people,” Kitty said, her hand rising dramatically to include the packed room. “Last time she was allowed to be a part of the pageant, a judge was disqualified, my son was chased out of town, and for the first time in pageant history, there was no crowning ceremony. No Miss Peach.”

Someone from the back of the room gave a hearty, “Amen.”

“This pageant is about inspiring young woman, instilling in them a sense of inner grace and strength—”

“By telling them they need some tool in a tux to feel validated,” Glory heard Cal mumble from his pew. Unfortunately so did Kitty.

“A true Southern belle can’t present
herself
, now can she?” Kitty skewered him with a look that would make most men cry.

Not Cal—he leaned back, calm and completely in control. “I don’t know, my daughter’s been walking just fine on her own since she turned one.”

“To be escorted by one’s peer is tradition,” Kitty argued. “And we need to maintain our traditions, Mr. McGraw.” Ignoring him completely, she turned back to the bench and flapped a glossy presentation folder in Judge Holden’s direction. “If you read my new guidelines for the Harvest Fest, you’ll see my first order of business is to move the Sugar Pull to my property; that way the tractors can be on display for Cotillion.”

For Glory, Miss Peach had been so far out of her class and social standing, her decision to enter had been a shock to the community. Not only did she lack the daddy for the daddy-daughter dance at Cotillion, she also lacked the upbringing. Walking into Ms. Kitty’s historical plantation home with its dual staircases, circular domed ballroom, and museum-quality décor would be intimidating for any girl. For a girl like Glory, it was like walking into her own personal hell. And that was before she’d been caught with Damon.

“We need someone of strong morals and even stronger spirit,” Kitty went on and Glory was surprised to discover how a simple reference to her character could still cause her to burn with shame. How she felt the overwhelming urge to slip inside the protective bubble of the man sitting a few feet away. “They need roots, your honor, deep in the community, that can be traced back generations.”

“Excellent point,” Holden said, as though he’d just had a life-altering epiphany. “Which is why I have decided to place Cal McGraw as co-chair, since he seems to have such strong opinions on the matter.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Cal said, jumping to his feet, because it was obvious he didn’t want his life altered. Not like this. “Hell, no. I am here in a supportive capacity only, not on trial.”

“You sure about that, son?” Holden asked, standing and picking up his golf bag. “Because we can always take a field trip out to the parking lot and have you explain to everyone here about how that tractor-sized dent ended up on the back of your truck.”

Cal had already missed his meeting with the inspector by the time he walked out of town hall and into the suffocating morning heat. Summer in Georgia was like living in a sauna; the weight in the air clung to his skin and shrink-wrapped his shirt to his body as he made his way toward his car and tried to shake off what happened back there. At least make sense of whatever was going on between him and Glory. A harder task than he imagined.

Boots clicked on the sidewalk behind him. Afraid that it was Glory rushing out to wrap her arms around him in a giant thank-you hug, which would make him feel all noble and protective, he picked up the pace until he reached his truck.

He was sticking his key in the lock when an irritated—and definitely not female voice—asked, “What the hell was that?”

And then Jackson was standing beside him, one broad shoulder propped up against the cab of Cal’s truck. He’d put his deputy’s hat back on—but his deputy’s code of ethics, Cal wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Cal returned. “Aggravated assault of an officer? That’s a dick move and you know it.”

Jackson blew out a breath. “I was just messing with her. I would have dropped the charges but she jumped the gun and called the judge.”

“Since when do you use the badge to screw with people?”

“About the same time you started screwing with trouble,” Jackson said, crossing his arms. The innuendo in his tone pissed Cal off. “And showing up with coffee for the defense. Blindsiding me in there was a dick move.”

“You made a bad call. Brett went all protective, asked me to stand in for him, and I got suckered into wasting my morning in a courtroom where I was punished for something I had nothing to do with. End of story.” The coffee he’d thought of all on his own.

“So that’s it?”

Jackson had a way of looking through all the BS and sniffing out the truth; it was what made him the perfect sheriff. So Cal worked hard to school his expression, keeping it carefully blank.

“Yup. That’s it.”

He knew working alongside the tantalizing and tempting Glory for the next four weeks and keeping his dick in check was going to be hard. Keeping an emotional distance was imperative, though—even when she was wearing a flowy sundress with cute cowgirl boots, which stirred in him something a whole hell of a lot more than mere lust.

Especially then. Because all it would take was one look from her and he’d be toast. Those big mossy eyes would look up at him like they had in the courtroom and he’d start feeling like some kind of hero. And his hero card was tapped out—keeping his daughter’s world spinning in the right direction was a full-time job.

Jackson must have been satisfied with Cal’s level of sincerity because he clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to hear because trouble seems to follow that woman wherever she goes. And I’d hate to see your family get swept up in her tornado of destruction.”

Although he appreciated his friend’s concern, he had to acknowledge that Jackson was a bit jaded on the topic of troublesome women. Like Cal, the sheriff had married a woman who was sexy, high maintenance, and always looking for an adventure. And like Tawny, Jackson’s ex-wife found her adventure in some other guy’s bed. But most of his issues were rooted in what happened back in high school.

“Tornado of destruction.” Cal laughed. “Your dad’s the mayor. You’re the sheriff and Kitty is still running this town by way of intimidation. I don’t think your family suffered all that much.”

“She ruined Damon’s life, man. He hasn’t been back since that summer.”

“Damon was a grown-ass man who should have known better than to mess with a student.”

And Cal was a grown-ass man who knew better than to mess with trouble in a pair of cowgirl boots.

S
everal hours later, Glory sat at the back of the Fabric Farm, measuring tape in hand, staring at the magazine cutout Payton placed on her sewing table and hoping to God the girl was joking. Out of the thousands of dresses to choose from, Payton had picked the most revealing option available. It was backless, cleavage-central, and stopped way too high to even be considered mid-thigh.

“Is that what you need me to measure you for?” Glory asked, wondering how, out of all the women at Quilting Night, Payton happened to come to her sewing station for help.

“Yup. It’s just like my mom’s. Look.” Payton pulled out an aged photo from her backpack and held it up. It was of a very young, very beautiful former Mrs. McGraw wearing a pink sash, tiara, and yes, a very similar dress. “This was when she was crowned Miss Georgia State back in college. My dad was her escort. It was their first date.”

Which explained so much, Glory thought, feeling less and less confident about her offer to help.

“My mom said she’d order me this one.” Back to the magazine photo, only now Payton was clutching it to her chest, her smile so bright it broke Glory’s heart. “But she can’t come up this weekend.”

“That must be hard,” Glory said softly. She didn’t know a lot about Payton and Tawny’s situation, but she’d heard enough through Brett to understand that it wasn’t the ideal mommy-daughter relationship—and that often Payton came in a devastating second after Tawny’s new family.

“No biggie.” Payton shrugged, but her eyes said it was beyond a biggie. “Except the website says this dress takes three weeks for delivery so she needs to order it now, only she doesn’t know what size to order.” And didn’t that say so much. “I need it soon so that my escort can get a matching bow tie for the Miss Peach Pageant.”

“I didn’t know you were entering the pageant,” Glory said causally, wondering if Cal had any clue of her intentions.

“Yup.” Payton smiled. “Were you ever a Miss Peach? Is that why they made you the new harvest commissioner?”

“No, not really my thing.”

Although that hadn’t always been the case. As a girl, Glory had big dreams about being crowned Miss Peach and having her daddy show up. He’d present her to the town at Cotillion and tell everyone who would listen how proud he was of his girl. Then Glory would remember that she wasn’t his girl, and that her daddy didn’t have a name or a face, and her days of dreaming about crowns and Cotillions were over.

Well, they had been until about six hours ago. And Glory had a feeling this time around Miss Peach would end with the same disappointing results.

“Really? Mom and I have been waiting for me to be old enough for like forever,” Payton said, accentuating every syllable of the last word. She opened up her backpack and pulled out a Miss Peach application, complete with a résumé, head shot, and essay. “I got my head shots done a few weeks ago when I went to visit my mom in Savannah. She even helped me with the application, but I wrote the essay all on my own. Last week. It’s attached to the back.”

Glory looked over the application, smiling at the hearts dotting the
i
’s, and flipped to the essay and…it was all coming together now. Payton’s essay was titled,
FROM MISS GEORGIA STATE TO MISS PEACH: A FAMILY CONNECTED THROUGH PAGEANTS,
and the look on her face was one that Glory knew well.

She flipped back to the application, noticing that one of the guardian signatures was blank. “Your dad didn’t sign this.”

Payton paused before answering. “Is that a problem?”

Hell yes, it was a problem. First, there was no way she could accept Payton’s application behind Cal’s back. Sugar was a small town, he was bound to find out, and when he did, he would hate her. And she wouldn’t blame him one bit. Second, and most important, he’d kissed her, and even though she’d said it was just a kiss, Glory didn’t take kisses lightly, especially not kisses like that, so
Yes, Payton, this is a problem of epic proportions.

“My mom signed it,” Payton explained ever so innocently. “And it says at the bottom that I only needed
a
guardian’s signature, not both. Just one, see? And I got one.”

Glory read the fine print, and just her luck, it did say that.

“Payton, I can’t accept this without your dad’s signature on it. I need to know that he’s okay with you being in the Miss Peach Pageant.” It was clear today that Cal was definitely not the type of father who supported pageants, let alone some guy escorting his daughter around town in a low-cut dress. He also didn’t seem open to the idea of Payton going on a date—ever.

“But he won’t sign it,” Payton said quietly. “He’ll freak out like he always does and say this is all about some boy.”

“Is this about some boy?”

“No.”

Glory raised a brow and Payton smiled, flipping her hair off her shoulder in a move that was all teenage confidence and big britches. “I think an upperclassman might offer to be my escort.”

“You mean Brand Riggs?” Glory ventured, and if saucer-sized eyes and mouth forming the perfect O of shock weren’t confirmation, then Payton’s behavior over the past few months would have been. Especially since all-American, all-state, and let’s-take-it-all-the-way varsity quarterback Brand Riggs seemed to always be hanging around the Fabric Farm whenever Payton joined her grandma for Quilting Night. And if that weren’t obvious enough, Payton always needed to get something from the car at the exact moment Riggs pulled up.

“Now you see why I have to go,” Payton pleaded, then her eyes went. “Plus, my mom promised to help me with my makeup and the talent portion and show me how to walk when I’m presented. Every girl in her family did this. It’s my destiny.”

Glory wasn’t so sure about the destiny part, but it was obvious that this pageant meant more to Payton than a cute boy and a crown.

“Didn’t you ever want something so bad that you’d do anything to get it?” Payton asked, and Glory thought back to being a teen, and wanting to feel special and valued and, okay yes, wanting it so bad that she was willing to lie and sneak around to get it.

And look where that got her.

“Have you tried talking to your dad about how much this means to you?”

Payton shot her a look that was all
duh
and disbelief. “Have you been in a room with my dad?” No, but she’d been in his truck, and what she’d learned about him, she’d liked. A lot. But she didn’t think that was what Payton meant, so she remained quiet. “He doesn’t talk, he dictates.”

“He’s also the co-chair of the Harvest Council so he’s going to see your application.”

“I know.” Payton blew out a dramatic breath. “Which is why I was hoping you could hold on to it.”

“No way.” Glory held out the application but Payton pushed it back in her hand.

“Just until my mom comes out to pick me up. She promised she’d talk to him, make everything okay. The cutoff date for applications is next Friday and she won’t be out until Saturday, and if I wait until she comes…there isn’t time and I won’t be able to enter, which is why I came with my grandma tonight so I could give you my application. My mom was supposed to talk to him this weekend, explain how much this means to us, but…”

She was a no-show. Glory got it. More than she wanted to admit.

“Fine,” Glory said, and the minute the word left her mouth, she felt awful. A big part of her job as a nurse was discreetness, but this felt different. It felt like a lie and she didn’t like lies. As far as she was concerned, omitted truths were just as harmful, but she also understood why Payton wanted this so badly.

To a fourteen-year-old girl whose parent had left for greener pastures—and another shiny new family—the pageant was a way of reconnecting with her mom, giving them common ground, and giving Payton something that Tawny could take interest in. Something that her new family couldn’t provide. Another Miss in the family.

“Just until next Friday.”

“Ohmygod! Are you serious?” Payton launched herself at Glory, giving her a hug that went a long way toward easing the guilt. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Glory pulled back, getting eye to eye with Payton, wanting to be sure that they were clear on things. “I’m not going to hide it from your dad. I will simply put it in with the stack of others, but if you and your mom don’t talk to him by next weekend, then I will point yours out. Understood?”

The teen nodded excitedly.

“I want to be clear, though,” Glory added, hating that she felt like she was betraying Cal somehow. “Your dad is amazing and he loves you and I still think that you should come clean and tell him how important this is to you.” Payton opened her mouth to argue and Glory held up a hand. “So I am only agreeing to this because there is a time issue, not because I think your dad shouldn’t know or have a say. So, if Cal isn’t okay with it, you forfeit your spot. Period. No begging, no arguing, no pitting your parents against each other.”

Payton busied herself checking her cuticles. A telltale sign that that was
exactly
what she was planning on doing if things didn’t go her way.

“So, if he says no, it is the official ruling of this committee and there will be no Miss Peach for you this year. Deal?” Glory stuck out her hand.

“Deal,” Payton relented. “Who are you going with?”

“No one.”

“What?” she said horrified. “You can’t walk in there stag. It just isn’t done.”

Didn’t she know it?
Glory had thought of that the second she’d walked out of that courtroom and realized just what being a co-chair would entail. Then she remembered how Cal showed up for her, and wondered what it would feel like to walk into that Cotillion on his arm. To show up to the biggest event of the year with Sugar’s most respected bachelor, and for once feel like she belonged, like she was starting out on top instead of defending her right to be there.

Then she thought about how he’d disappeared before Glory could even utter a simple thanks, pushing through the crowd as though there was a family emergency. And who knew, with his grandma maybe there was. But somehow it felt as though he was running from her.

She looked down at her tape measure and finally thought about how she was going to measure his daughter for a dress that was more hoochie than high-class and said, “Nothing’s wrong with going stag.”

“Uh-huh,” Payton said, so not convinced.

“Can I give you a piece of advice?”

“I guess,” Payton said skeptically, as though advice from someone pathetic enough to go stag wasn’t a good idea. And it probably wasn’t. But Glory was pretty sure the girl would agree to the Ten Commandments if it meant Glory keeping her secret for a while. “The kind of guy you bring home to your dad should be someone who is sweet and respectful. A guy he would be comfortable giving his permission to take you out. A guy who”—and here went the part that Glory had wished someone had told her—“will respect you and treasure you and treat you like you matter. Because you do.”

And that guy was not Brand Riggs. A guy who was notorious for his aggressive offense and fast hands—on and off the field.

“Thanks,” Payton whispered and gave Glory another hug—and it felt great. She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “Do you think you can help me with my measurements?”

“Sure,” Glory said, a rush of warmth filling her chest at their little moment. “And if you ask me, the blue dress on the other page would look amazing on you. It is sophisticated, understatedly elegant, very Miss Peach. Plus it matches your eyes.”

“It does, huh?” Payton picked up the magazine and studied the more age-appropriate floor-length gown, which said sweet, respectable, 100 percent Daddy-approved, then said, “Maybe next year. This year I want to make a statement.”

It made a statement all right, one that was going to give Cal a coronary. That dress wasn’t interested in courting sweet or respectable; it was all about finding trouble—with the school’s most famous player.

“What in God’s name were you thinking?”

Glory closed her car door and did her best to ignore the welcoming committee. In the barn, dressed in peach coveralls and the most bedazzled ball caps known to man, were Jelly Lou and her Pit Crew Mafia: MeMaw, Dottie, Hattie, and Etta Jayne. Bills pulled low over their eyes, grease marring their faces like war paint, they stood around the Pitter, tools in hand looking like an official NASCAR team—except with orthopedic shoes. Bright white ones.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Glory said, thinking over her hellish day.

“Asking me and Hattie to take your grandma to her therapy so we’d both miss your hearing,” Etta Jayne said, shooting Glory “the eye.”

Glory looked over at her grandmother, who was looking back awfully disappointed.

Glory didn’t do well with disappointing people, especially people she loved. Which was why she failed to mention the special hearing with Judge Holden today. Yes, Jelly Lou did have a physical therapy session which she couldn’t miss, but Glory didn’t want any of the Pit Crew Mafia speaking up and costing Jelly Lou the Sugar Pull—or Glory her shot at landing that new position at the hospital.

And okay, lying was hard enough, but doing it in front of the few people who looked at Glory as if she mattered was not going to happen.

So she pulled an extra shift at the hospital, avoided checking in on Jelly Lou until she had gone to bed last night, hoping that she could talk to the judge, work something out in private, and pray her grandma never found out.

Only she had. That much was clear.

“I’m sorry, Grandma.”

“No, dear, I am,” Jelly Lou said with heartfelt understanding, rolling her chair closer. “I can’t believe they have you planning the pageant.”

“It’s just a pageant.”

Glory resisted the urge to check if her pants were on fire for that lie.

“We both know that it’s not just a pageant.” And it wasn’t, but it had really been a long time ago and Glory had moved on. She was ready for the town to move on. “I’m going to tell the judge the truth. There is no way he can expect you to oversee it.”

“No, Grams. Please don’t. I am fine.” Glory must not have looked fine because all five ladies looked at her with so much pity Glory wanted to cry. But since that would only get Jelly Lou disqualified, she threw back her shoulders and said, “I promise, I’m over it. It was years ago; no one probably even remembers.”