The Mulberry Tree - Page 74

Before Bailey could reply, Alex had grabbed her hand and was pulling her across the seat. Hunched down, they ran around the front of the Toyota, and stayed there until they heard two blasts of Rodney’s shotgun.

“Now! While he reloads,” Alex yelled, then they started running.

They didn’t stop until they reached the highway.

“We’re safe now,” Alex said, “so you can slow down. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Bailey James,” she said, and put out her hand to shake his.

As they stood there beside the highway, eighteen-wheelers whizzing along behind them, they smiled at each other. Then they started to laugh.

“I have never been so scared in my whole life,” Alex said.

“Me neither.”

“You! But you were great. Cool and calm. You must drive like that for a living.”

“I’m a housewife,” she said, and that sent them into new peals of laughter. “I’ve probably driven a total of a hundred and fifty miles in my life.”

“Then that explains it,” Alex said. “Anybody with any experience would have known she couldn’t have done something like that.”

They walked along the highway, laughing together for about a mile, before Mr. Shelby happened along and gave them a ride to Bailey’s house.

Eighteen

When Matt got home that night, Bailey was asleep in a chair in the living room. She had on her

nightgown and bathrobe, her hair still damp from a shower, and he thought she looked about twelve years old. Lately, things between them hadn’t been going the way he wanted them to. It seemed that no matter what he tried, she pulled back from him.

She was involved in something secret with Janice and Patsy, and honestly, he didn’t blame her. Scott and Rick had laughed about how they’d distracted their wives from their “silly little ideas” about opening a business.

“My wife is mine!” Scott had said. “I’m not having Calburn say that I can’t support my family.”

And half a dozen mistresses, Matt had wanted to say, but didn’t.

Rick had been milder, but just as adamant. “Patsy seems to have forgotten how tired she was when she had to get up every morning and go to work.”

“And when she went to work every day, you got stuck with half the housework,” Matt said, feeling no compulsion to hold back from telling his younger brother what he thought.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Rick said. “I just think it’s better if Patsy stays home with the boys.”

Matt had had to stand by and watch the men stop their wives from opening their business, and because of the unwritten male code, he couldn’t tell Bailey what was going on. But she knew. And, worse, when Matt asked for her help with his design business, he knew she thought he was doing the same thing as Scott and Rick.

Matt knew that he was losing ground with Bailey, but he didn’t know how to show her that she could trust him, that he wouldn’t betray any of her secrets—or undermine whatever she wanted to do with her life.

He walked quietly across the room and touched her hair. He wanted to make a pass at her, wanted to make love to her, but with the way she was feeling lately, he was sure she’d turn him down. And he didn’t think his pride could stand that.

Quietly, he bent and picked her up in his arms. “Ssssh,” he said when she started to waken. “It’s just me.”

She snuggled against his chest and went back to sleep, but when he tucked her into bed, she awoke enough to catch his arm. “I did something today,” she said.

“Oh, and what was that?” He sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed her hair back from her head.

“I met Rodney Yates.”

He paused in smoothing her hair. “You should have told me you wanted to meet him, and I would have gone with you.”

She gave a big yawn. “Mmm. Sorry. I should have. He’s kind of crazy.”

Tags: Jude Deveraux Mystery
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