Rough: Daunting Temptation (Coral Gables Series Book 1) (31 page)

A glance at her watch showed that her grandmother was probably still in the bakery. At five o’clock in the evening, a few passersby were still rushing from one shop to the other. Although Kate hadn’t been here for years, she knew the drill. The high school football game would be on tonight, so any unfinished shopping had to be completed before then. Because in Texas, people believed in only three things: the dear Lord, the right to bear arms, and football. In most cases, however, the order was different. Football, for many, was ranked before actually attending any church services. As for the weapons, they generally remained unchallenged in the number one spot. Even Bessie, a pious, God-fearing woman with a penchant for cakes with pretty icing, kept a shotgun in the closet next to the guest bathroom. She was one true-blooded Texan lady, though she’d never really cared much about football.

Kate, on the other hand, had not allowed herself to become infected by the religiosity of her grandmother
or
by the Texan infatuation with weapons. Her only vice had been her enthusiasm for high school football.

The one to blame was her first boyfriend, who’d been a starting linebacker on their school’s team. As Kate had found out years after graduation, he’d even turned pro as a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys.

Kate narrowed her eyes and shook herself. Hugh Lindsay was the last person she wanted to think about right now. He was just one more memory she wanted to keep as far away from as possible. She took a deep breath, gathered her scattered thoughts, and finally got out of the car. She locked it before walking into the bakery.

When the little bell rang above her, she had to smile in spite of everything. That sound was so familiar. She’d heard it throughout her childhood, every day after school when she’d come in to help her grandmother or just wanted to scrounge for a piece of cake. The smell, as well as the furnishings, were the same as they had always been. It still looked like a little French patisserie. Everything seemed a bit old-fashioned to Kate now, but that was just part of the atmosphere of the bakery with its various kinds of breads, delightful-looking cakes, dainty pastries, and homemade chocolates. A quick glance around at the mostly female clientele gathered around the small tables showed Kate that these sweets were still selling like hotcakes. She couldn’t help but smile, and it was at that moment that a graying, curly-haired woman stuck her head out from the door to the back room with a loud squeal.

“My Kate is here!” The shrill sound didn’t only frighten Kate, but also most of the other guests who instantly whirled around to inspect the intruder. Despite the fact that Bessie Hammond had reached the proud age of seventy-three years, she swept through the little shop in no time, drying her hands on her white apron as she went, and enveloped Kate in her arms.

Kate hugged her back, inhaling the familiar scent of rose water and yeast. Her grandmother’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement, little wrinkles appearing around the corners, but even so, she still looked at least fifteen years younger than she was, which was partly due to her full cheeks. Kate smiled, wondering if those pleasant, round cheeks were the result of working around tempting cakes and cookies all day long.

“That bastard didn’t deserve you!” Bessie cried. It was typical of her to state the obvious without wasting any time on pleasantries. “I've never liked Steven, anyway. Be glad you got rid of him!”

Kate opened her mouth to reply, but Bessie went on, “Kate, you’re terribly thin! Isn’t there any decent food in Los Angeles?”

Sighing, Kate thought of the tremendous effort she’d put into renouncing sugar and unhealthy carbohydrates to sustain the perfect figure for her old job in fashion. Bessie, on the other hand, loved hearty, simple fare and truly believed that a meal without butter should be deemed torture.

“I’m okay, Grandma.”

Bessie patted Kate’s hand and clicked her tongue. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. Now that you're home I’m gonna fatten you up again in no time.”

Kate ventured a small, noisy protest that her grandmother simply ignored, roaring to the entire room, “Look at that! My Kate is back! Hatty, hasn't she become terribly thin?”

And that’s how Kate found herself seated at a small white-topped table with Bessie's oldest friends, who all behaved like clucking hens, feeding her every sort of cookie, chocolate, and cake in the place. Of course this was all very comforting, but at that point Kate would’ve preferred to drive to her grandmother's house, unpack her things, and lie down for at least a week.

“Honey, you look exhausted.”

“You just need a proper sleep …”

Kate briefly considered crawling under the table in order to disappear and maybe get that recommended sleep.

“You should eat more!”

“Don’t waste one more tear on that man, Kate. Bessie told us everything! If you ask me, he's not worth your misery.”

Of course
Bessie had told them everything. Kate stuffed her mouth with a glazed cherry tart and lowered her eyes. She’d come to Hailsboro in the first place so as not to have to think—or talk—about Steven. So she had no desire to discuss
this
topic at
this
table with
these
women—the biggest gossips in the town. As Kate savored the sweet taste of cherry, in her mind, she was making up wonderful methods of torturing her grandmother, who could have, for once in her life, refrained from gossiping. At least not about her own granddaughter. But Kate knew this town too well, so she was sure every resident would know about her failed relationship by Church on Sunday—at the very latest.

“All men are pigs.” Helen explained.

“That's right,” Hatty agreed. “Surely you know my cousin Emma? The one who moved to Virginia with her husband when he got a job there? She gave up everything for him, always had his back! But as soon as she hit menopause, he left her for his secretary.”

Bessie snorted and stared at her oldest friend. “Well, she can be glad he waited that long! Charlie left Megan as soon as she had the baby. Megan was only in her mid-twenties when they got divorced!”

Kate rolled her eyes at her grandmother’s story. She felt a certain authority to speak on that topic. Especially since that baby had been
her
. She muttered, “Mom and Dad didn’t love each other anymore, Grandma.”

“Nonsense!” Bessie shrieked. “It’s ‘in good times and in bad.’ Not ‘just until somebody gets tired of marriage.’”

Kate wisely kept quiet. She’d been hearing this argument on repeat since her childhood so she knew once Bessie got started, she couldn’t be stopped. Kate listened silently to the old ladies bash the male sex, especially her ex-fiancé, as a leaden weariness crept up all her limbs.

“My sister’s best friend’s daughter had a similar experience,” Hatty said. She sighed heavily, which caused her full cheeks to puff up and then shake like Jell-O for a few seconds. “She came home from their kids’ parent-teacher conferences to find her husband in the act, with his lover,
in their bed
…”

Bessie’s mouth opened in horror.

“They have three children together,” Hatty said, her face turning red in sheer outrage. “They were married for eight years and lived together for ten! How could she have failed to notice he was gay?”

A collective gasp traveled around the table and somebody squeaked in alarm.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Helen said, “Just be glad
that
didn’t happen to you, Kate.”

Kate had heard enough. She pushed back her chair and it screeched across the tiled floor. “Grandma, I'm pretty tired. Could I have the keys to the house, please?”

“Of course, darling.” Her grandmother looked at her expectantly. “Don’t you want to wait until I’m done here, so we can go home together?”

Kate nearly made a face, but instead merely shook her head in silence. While the ladies went on talking about promiscuous husbands, Kate grabbed the front-door key to her grandmother’s house and retreated with a muttered farewell.

Leaving the bakery, she felt as if she’d just narrowly escaped a battlefield. One thing was for sure: she would
not
, under any circumstances, go to Church on Sunday.

***

A few days later, Kate was lolling around on her grandmother’s couch in a pair of baggy sweatpants and a stained T-shirt, watching a big-budget action movie on TV while spraying Kraft Easy Cheese straight into her mouth.

So far she’d lacked any motivation to get out of her gloomy hole and instead had been hiding out in Bessie’s old house, not attaching any importance to her appearance, neglecting her personal care, and, for the first time in years, enjoying Bessie's wonderful delicacies. It was perhaps due to that last activity that Kate noticed she’d already gained a few pounds, but that interested her now as little as the current weather outside. In Los Angeles she’d always been as neat as a pin, never missed a single gym session, and even got up an hour earlier than she needed to every day in order to put on makeup. With vigilant eyes, she’d counted calories and tracked carbohydrates as if they were armed criminals. But what had she ever gotten out of that?

Unemployment and singlehood. Well, that second bit was thanks to Steven’s escapades, but still…

Here she was now, in her early thirties, back in this small town, switching from one cable channel to the other. And from time to time she pulled some chips out of her tangled hair.

Just as Kate’s mind was inching toward thoughts of her engagement being sold down the river, Bessie swept into the room. “Kate, you promised to come with me to the town meeting tonight.” The older woman put on her beloved pearl earrings and let her eyes wander through the wreckage of the living room.

Kate's eyes followed the disapproving gaze of her grandmother as it traveled from the empty potato-chip bag on the coffee table to the half-empty bottle of Coke to the cookie crumbs on the carpet to the dirty plates and glasses everywhere. Kate shrugged her shoulders and sprayed the rest of the questionable cheese into her mouth.

With full cheeks, she said, “Grandma, I'm really tired. I’d rather stay here.”

“It's half past six in the evening, Kate. What exactly are you tired from?”

Nagging
, Kate thought. She pulled the crocheted blanket on her lap higher. “Grandma …”

“You'd better get some fresh air before you end up like Eddie Sullivan! Not only did the man have to be freed from his home by a crane, but his body was covered in pressure ulcers. It’s said that his rump consisted only of raw meat. I don’t want to imagine what the smell was like …”

The cheese in Kate’s mouth suddenly tasted like mud. Images of the old Eddie Sullivan formed into a real horror movie in her mind and she was suddenly in danger of throwing up on her grandmother’s floral couch cushions.

“Up, up! You’ve got five minutes to get changed …”

“Town meetings are so boring,” Kate argued, putting the empty can aside and straightening up a little.

“Today we’re discussing this year's Christmas decorations,” Bessie disagreed, excitement showing on her face. “That’s anything but dull.”

Kate pulled a face. “Grandma …”

“Kate Stuart, you're thirty, not thirteen, so stop moaning!”

Her granddaughter sighed reluctantly. “Fine! But don’t complain if I fall asleep!”

Less than enthusiastic, Kate slipped up the stairs and took a quick shower before blow-drying her wet strands and pulling on a pair of jeans. In contrast to Bessie, and most of the other women in town who always dressed to the nines for this crazy-important meeting, Kate opted for a white t-shirt and a blue sweatshirt. She came down the stairs in her socks and slipped into sneakers, pretending not to notice Bessie's sullen gaze at Kate’s choice of attire.

On the walk to city hall, Kate was subjected to countless stories about the marriage of Hatty's grandson Terry to some slut from a state up north. Kate listened in silence while Bessie explained that Terry's wife, her name was Sonia, had left him for a car dealer in a neighboring town, but then crawled back after almost three weeks because the car dealer, whose name was Russ, had gotten enough of her. Clearly outraged at this, Bessie explained that Terry had taken his wife back, because their young son Lenny should, after all, grow up with both parents.

Kate trotted along beside Bessie, her hands buried in the pockets of her sweatshirt, and tried not to pay much attention to her grandmother’s chatter. She had no desire to deal with the problems of Hatty’s grandchildren, who she didn’t know anyway, and was more focused on how she’d survive the evening, dreading having to listen to the problems of Hailsboro residents for several hours. Mostly the meetings were about whether someone could put up a sign for their shop on the sidewalk, or whether someone’s new garden fence matched the fences of the nearest neighbors. Then, not only women, but also men, would be gossiping about the latest events and eating cookies and cakes that someone inevitably brought. And that last part could go on for hours.

“Come on, hurry up, Kate.” Bessie rushed down the sidewalk after a glance at her old watch. “We're running late. I don’t want to have to sit at the back.”

Kate rolled her eyes, because sitting at the back would have made it fabulously easy to sneak out after half an hour.