Where There's Smoke

Even if Janellen could have formed an appropriate response, Jody gave her no chance to speak. “What’s the holdup, Janellen?” When she too noticed Lara, her expression hardened with malice.

“At last we meet, Mrs. Tackett,” Lara said, extending her right hand.

Jody acknowledged neither her outstretched hand nor the greeting. She only nudged her daughter forward. “Move along, Janellen. I suddenly feel the need for some fresh air.”

For several moments, Lara was immobilized by Jody’s angry stare. But the chance meeting hadn’t gone unnoticed, and soon she became aware of the studious avoidance of the crowd. Self-consciously she retracted her right hand. As she moved up the aisle, she was given a wide berth. She might as well have had leprosy. No one even looked at her.

At the exit, she paused and glanced back at the stage. Key had joined Mrs. Winston there. Scornfully, Lara turned away. They deserved each other.

Since Darcy was about as subtle as a carnival barker, Key was given no choice but to join her on stage. After making such a production of flagging him up there, it would have aroused curiosity if he hadn’t heeded her request.

As he had moved toward the stage, he had tried to locate Lara Mallory in the crowd, and was shocked to see her talking to his mother.

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He watched as Jody spurned her handshake and brusquely herded Janellen up the aisle. To her credit, Dr. Mallory didn’t quail or lose her composure. She didn’t burst into tears or shout epithets at their retreating backs. Instead she held her head high as she moved gracefully toward the exit.

Key was tempted to charge after her and—do what?

Ask her why she had picked on his brother when there were thousands of randy young bucks in Washington, D.C., just itching to get laid?

See if she could clarify for him the haunting circumstances surrounding his brother’s death?

Demand that she leave town by dawn, or else?

He would look like a damn fool and he didn’t want to give her that satisfaction. Besides, he had a matter to settle with Darcy. Best to get that out of the way before tackling another crisis.

He climbed the steps to the stage. “Just what the hell are you up to, Darcy?”

“Hi, Key!” She was all smiles, and, despite his angry scowl, she manipulated him into an introduction. “Have you met my daughter? Heather, this is Mr. Key Tackett.”

“Hello, Mr. Tackett.” The girl spoke politely, but she obviously had other things on her mind. “Tanner’s waiting for me,” she told her mother. “Can I go now?”

“Come straight home.”

“But everybody’s going out to the lake.”

“At this time of night? No.”

“Mo-ther! Everybody’s going. Please.”

The stare Darcy fixed on Heather conveyed unspoken warnings. “Be home by eleven-thirty. Not a second later.”

Heather protested sulkily. “Nobody else has to come in that early.”

“Take it or leave it, young lady.”

She took it. After bidding Key an obligatory goodbye, she joined a handsome young man waiting for her in front of the stage.

While Darcy had been arguing with Heather over the girl’s curfew, Key had been watching Lara Mallory’s solitary progress up the aisle. There was something very noble about her carriage. Before she went through the exit, she turned and looked toward the stage.

“Key?”

“What?” Only after the doctor disappeared did he turn his attention back to Darcy. Having followed the direction of his gaze, she too was focused on the exit doors at the rear of the auditorium.

“So, our scandalous new doctor put in an appearance tonight,” she remarked cattily. “Have you had the honor of making her acquaintance?”

“Fact is, I have. She patched me up after you shot me.” Key got a kick out of wiping off Darcy’s complacent smile.