“No. He’s too stupid for Lucy. But Terri might take him. She’d like a man who ignored her. So if he wants to dump his cowgirl, why’d he bring her with him? Why not leave her home with his mom and dad? He still lives with his parents, doesn’t he? I can’t imagine that Roger would ever leave them and their money. Roger never struck me as the type to go out and get a job.”
“As far as I know, he’s still livin’ with his folks, and he’s been hurt too bad to have a job. But I can’t say why he brought his big, gorgeous wife with him. There’s no love lost between ’em. She looks down her nose at Roger like this.”
To Madison’s disbelief, Adelia tipped her head back and looked down her nose at Thomas. There was a lot said in that gesture, and when Madison saw it, all the blood seemed to drain from her head. No wonder Roger was angry with her if she was looking at him like that!
“And how does Roger look at his wife?” Thomas asked.
“Like she’s ain’t even there,” Adelia said. “If it was me and a man looked at me the way Roger looks at that beautiful creature, I’d throw him in a vat of boiling oil. Or maybe I’d take his canes away and hit him with ’em. Or maybe—”
“So how’s Dad?” Thomas asked.
“Enjoyin’ it all. I think he’s half in love with that tall girl. He said that your mom didn’t want to spend another summer here, but now they’re glad they came. Last night that girl Robbie threw a fit and ran out of the dinin’ room. And later after the tall girl went to bed, Terri was all over Roger. And I can tell you that he wasn’t pushin’ her away.”
“And who was the tall girl with?”
At that Madison almost stepped from behind the pantry and told him what she thought of him.
“Nobody. She went to bed.”
“By herself?”
“All by her lonesome,” Adelia said. “You interested in takin’ her husband’s place? She looks hungry to me.”
“You think the world is hungry,” Thomas said, pushing away his empty plate.
“They are. Hungry for food of one kind or another. So how long you plannin’ on stayin’ here this time?”
“Not long. I have exams to study for.”
“A genius like you?”
“Unlike my brother, I don’t pay someone else to take my exams for me. I’m going to bed now. I was up most of the night studying, then I drove here. Tell Mom and Dad I’m here, but don’t let anyone wake me.”
“That include Miss Robbie?”
“Most especially that little tart.” Standing, he stretched, then asked Adelia if she’d ask Charlie to get his suitcase out of the car.
“He’s still asleep now, but he’ll get it when he gets up.” With that she turned and left the kitche
n.
Madison, still wedged into the small space, was aware that she was now in the kitchen alone with Thomas. Of course he didn’t know she was there, but she did. She held her breath for fear that he’d hear her, and she didn’t move so much as an eyelash.
After a moment of standing by the table, his back to her, he walked to the door, and Madison almost let out her pent-up breath. But he stopped in the doorway, his back still to her. “Next time you want to snoop, you should hide where your shadow doesn’t hit the floor,” he said; then he left the room.
For a moment, Madison stood paralyzed. Then, slowly, she turned her head and looked at the kitchen floor. High above her head was a little window, and with the angle of the early morning sun, it had caught the back of her head and made a round shape on the floor. To someone unfamiliar with the kitchen, the shape on the floor wouldn’t have been noticeable, but Thomas Randall had spent a lot of his life in that kitchen and he knew every shadow.
Feeling very foolish and wishing she could die from embarrassment, Madison moved out from between the pantry and the refrigerator, then stepped into the kitchen. For a moment she didn’t know what to do. Should she find the man and apologize? Explain to him that she hadn’t really been snooping? Or should she just go to Frank and tell him that she absolutely positively had to return to Montana now.
Madison looked down at the fishing pole still clutched in her hand. On the other hand, she could just get out of the house and spend a day by herself near a stream somewhere and not think about Thomas Randall or her husband or any other man in the entire world.
In the end, fishing won out. She grabbed half a dozen biscuits from the sheet that had just been taken from the oven, and with a defiant little smile, she also took six slices of bacon, a couple of napkins, and left the kitchen. On the way out, she saw Adelia and the skinny little woman she’d seen with her yesterday, the one who seemed to be named Pretty, and Madison waved to them as she headed in the direction that Brooke had pointed out to her last night.
Thomas stepped through the trees and stopped dead in his tracks. Ahead of him, standing in his favorite fishing spot, the spot that had been his since he was six years old, was . . . was . . . Botticelli’s Venus was the first thing that came to his mind.
Standing with her back to him, she looked like something from a fishing magazine that would be titled “Lust Fantasies Issue.” She was tall, slim, curvy. She had on snug, worn jeans and green thigh-high waders. Above the boots was a round, firm rear end that curved up into a tiny waist that was encircled with a wide leather belt. She had on a denim shirt and a vest that must have been his brother’s years ago, as it was too small for her. It reached only halfway down her back.
She had yards of honey blonde hair that hung down her back in huge waves, and when she swirled the pole around, her hair floated about her like some erotic cloud.