Enticing Emily (Southern Scandals 3)

“Sure. Let’s go check out the food stands. There are some pretty good smells coming from that direction.”

Clay agreed, then gave Emily another of his endearingly shy smiles. “Will you come with us, Miss Emily?”

“Yes, please do, Miss Emily,” Wade seconded, a teasing glint in his brown eyes.

“Thank you, but I’d better not. I’m judging a baking contest in a few minutes and I don’t want to be too full to enjoy it.”

Clay looked disappointed, but Wade only nodded. “Then we’ll be seeing you around.”

He and his son both thanked her again, which was becoming rather embarrassing since she’d enjoyed the ride almost as much as Clay had. And then Wade and Clay headed toward the food stands. Clay looked over his shoulder to wave at Emily. Wade didn’t look back.

With a somewhat wistful sigh, Emily turned away, only to be immediately hailed by someone she knew. And she braced herself for the inevitable questions about why she had looked so cozy with the police chief and his son.

A FIGHT BEGAN when April Penny’s chewy-chocolate-cherry brownies lost out to Earlene Smithee’s peaches-and-cream trifle in the baking contest.

Emily wasn’t certain exactly what happened. One moment she was announcing the winner, and holding up the blue ribbon to be awarded to Mrs. Smithee. The next, she was standing beside the table of baked goods with peaches-and-cream trifle spattered on the front of her dress while April Penny and Earlene Smithee tried to claw each other’s eyes out.

Emily hadn’t realized that Wade Davenport was nearby until he came forward to break up the fracas.

“Okay, ladies, let’s cool down a bit,” he said, trying to step between the brawling matrons.

He got hit in the cheek with a handful of chewy-chocolate-and-cherry brownies.

“She rigged the contest!” April Penny shouted, pointing at her opponent with a chocolate-stained hand. “She always makes sure she wins.”

“You just can’t admit you lost—again!” Earlene retorted, her flushed face dotted with peaches.

April launched herself at her rival. Wade caught her neatly in one arm, preventing her from reaching her intended target.

“April, the contest was not rigged,” Emily said, trying to be heard over the scandalized chattering around them. “It couldn’t be. We had no idea who’d baked what until we opened the envelopes after the judging was finished.”

The two other judges, a tiny, gray-haired schoolteacher and a nervous-looking town councilman who’d been standing well back from the flying food and fists, both nodded fervently.

April sniffed, giving Emily a cold look. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you had something to do with this. A McBride would do just about anything to keep me from winning.”

Swiping ineffectively at the mess on the front of her dress, Emily shook her head, trying very hard to hold on to her temper. She reminded herself that she was in a public place. That she detested ugly scenes. And that she had no intention of sinking to April’s usual level. “You’re wrong, April,” she said evenly. “Earlene won fairly.”

April had always had a reputation for losing all discretion when in a temper, but her eyes were wilder than Emily had ever seen them when she snarled, “I suppose you expect me to take the word of a McBride. Cheating is just another talent of your whoring, murdering clan. And, according to Sam Jennings, you fit right in with the rest of them. Found any extra thousands lying around lately, Emily?”

A gasp came from the crowd of scandalized onlookers. Emily didn’t have enough breath even to gasp. April’s vicious verbal attack had knocked it right out of her. No one had ever spoken to her that way in public before! Or in private, for that matter. A red haze of anger clouded her vision and she moved instinctively forward. She didn’t have to take this, she thought, her entire body quivering with rage.

Someone caught her arm. “Emily,” her Aunt Bobbie murmured warningly. “Take a deep breath, dear.”

It took several deep breaths, and a few more soothing words from her sympathetic aunt before Emily could regain control of herself. With one last, scathing look at April, she deliberately turned her back on the other woman. “Thank you, Aunt Bobbie. I’m fine now.”

Muttering beneath her breath, April shook off Wade’s restraining hand. “I’m getting out of here.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Wade agreed, his voice cooler than Emily had heard it before.

April turned on one too-high sandal heel and stalked away, her rounded hips swaying markedly in her too-tight denim shorts.

“That woman,” Earlene sniffed, tossing her bleached-blond head. “She’s hated me ever since I beat her in the Miss Honoria pageant twenty years ago. You’d think she’d get over it, but no. She’s still trying to outdo me.”

She walked away, surrounded by friends and sympathizers.

“Well, our ungracious loser didn’t sound overly fond of you, either,” Wade murmured to Emily, moving to where she stood with her aunt.

“April’s maiden name was Hankins,” Emily explained, her voice still a bit higher pitched than usual. “There’s a rather unpleasant history between the Hankins and the McBrides.”