Abby Gaines - Her Best Friend's Wedding

Merrillee looked at her watch. “At ten past eight?”

“Can’t handle the pace, city girl?” Jesse teased.

Rats.

She resisted the urge to point out that, since annexation, Cordova was part of the city. “I’ve been putting in some long hours at the lab.” She excused herself as she pushed her chair back. “By the way, Merrillee, you have baby spit on your shoulder.”

Okay, so that was petty.

“Would you like some cod-liver oil to help you sleep, honey?” her mom asked. Mary-Beth believed cod-liver oil solved every conceivable problem. Sadie had once tried to explain that despite its high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, it wasn’t a cure-all, and in fact its high vitamin A content made it nutritionally risky, but her mom didn’t want to know.

Sadie turned down the offer, along with the predictable next offer—a cup of hot cocoa—and hurried upstairs. As she left the room, Merrillee was dabbing with her napkin at the ever-present stain on her shoulder.

Safe in her old bedroom with the door closed, Sadie donned her pajamas—red tank and plaid cotton pants—in case anyone wanted proof she was tired.

Her bedroom window looked onto Meg’s. As kids, they’d held up signs to each other, illuminated by flashlight when necessary. After Sadie left for boarding school, their nighttime communications were limited to vacation periods, but they’d continued nonetheless. When Sadie and Meg graduated to cell phones, they’d sat in the chair they each had by the window, feet propped on the sill, so they could see each other as they whispered conversations after lights-out.

They’d been closer than sisters.

Now Meg’s curtains were closed. Surely she and Daniel hadn’t gone upstairs already? And surely Nancy wouldn’t put them in the same room? Sadie’s stomach twisted.

She hadn’t asked Meg if she and Daniel were sleeping together yet. Meg’s job often took her away overnight, so Sadie was unsure if her friend’s absences were due to that, or to staying at Daniel’s. Normally they talked about everything—at least, Meg shared all the details of her more exciting life. This time, Sadie hadn’t asked and Meg hadn’t told.

Trey’s truck was still parked out front. Behind it was a faded red Buick LeSabre.

Did Trey have a girlfriend over? The only person Sadie knew who’d driven a LeSabre that color was the minister at Cordova Colonial Presbyterian. His daughter had been in Meg’s class.

She couldn’t imagine Trey dating the minister’s daughter. And it probably wasn’t the same Buick.

But what if it was? And what if the reason Nancy had invited the minister over was that Meg and Daniel—

“Shut up,” Sadie ordered herself. “Meg’s never dated anyone longer than six weeks. This won’t be any different.”

She plunked herself into the chair and opened the novel she’d started reading last night—Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. She’d read it years ago, but she and Daniel had been debating Dostoevsky’s views on the evils of rationalism, and she wanted to refresh her memory.

She couldn’t settle…. After three pages she closed the book and fished her old bird-watching binoculars out of the depths of the closet. But she was at the wrong angle for next door’s dining-room window.

“Blast,” she muttered.

She had to know who was visiting.

Back to the closet, this time for the gray hooded jacket with the broken zipper she’d left behind on her last trip home. She pulled it on over her pajamas. If she got caught leaving the house by the back door she’d say she was stepping out to smell the flowers.

They would buy that.

As it turned out, her family was having a riotous good time discussing the twins’ eccentric social-studies teacher and Brett’s son’s grass allergy—Gerry didn’t believe in it, but he wouldn’t dare say that tomorrow night when Brett was here. No one noticed Sadie sneaking out.

Meg’s dad had built the backyard gate between the two houses so the two girls could visit without having to go near the road. It hadn’t been used in a while, judging by the creak of the hinges.

The Kincaids’ dining room was the downstairs front room on this side. Sadie skulked past the kitchen and bathroom…then started to worry that shortsighted Mr. Fargo across the street might phone the cops. She stopped acting suspiciously and walked boldly up to Nancy’s prize gardenia bush. She would snap off one of the white blossoms and use it as her excuse for loitering.

She chose a bloom and twisted. Nothing happened.

Sadie jiggled the stalk from side to side. Still nothing.

“Come off, you stupid damn flower.”

This plant had stems of steel.

Next time she came spying, she’d bring pruning shears.

At last the blossom broke off, losing a few petals as it came free. Sadie took a deep, relieved sniff of its heavy perfume. Armed with her alibi, she headed for the front corner of the house.

Like her mother’s, Nancy’s dining-room window was covered by a semisheer curtain. Sadie heard Nancy’s voice through the smaller, open window at the top. It sounded like… Had she just said church?

With a swift glance across the road to check that there was no sign of Mr. Fargo, Sadie crouched beneath the window. She dropped the gardenia and gripped the ledge. Slowly she raised her head.

Four pairs of feet rested beneath Nancy’s reproduction Louis XVI dining table. Through the mesh of the curtain Sadie distinguished Meg’s sandals and Daniel’s loafers—hooray, they weren’t in bed together. She risked rising a bit higher. Nancy’s black pumps and a pair of sneakers. Male or female?

“What the hell are you doing?” said a deep voice from behind her.

INSTINCT MADE SADIE duck down, then, as she came up again, she banged her head on the window ledge.

“Ow!”

“What’s going on?” Trey’s hand closed around her arm. He dragged her aside, mercifully out of view of the window.

Sadie rubbed hard at her head. “That hurt.”

“Why are you spying?”

She tugged herself free so she could chafe her arm where he’d gripped her. “Where did you come from?” she countered.

“I live here.”

“No, you don’t.” Sadie knew he had a house on the other side of Cordova. Five whole minutes away.

He sighed. “You’re still a know-it-all. Okay, my mother lives here and she considers it my home, even if I don’t.” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans and stared her down. “What are you doing?” he asked again.

Devoid of a rational answer, Sadie played for time. “You still didn’t tell me where you came from.”

“I was on the porch. I heard someone cussing out the plants.”

The flower she’d had so much trouble detaching. She bent and snatched it up. “I was in my room and I smelled this amazing scent, so I came down to pick a gardenia.”

He glanced at her parents’ house. “You did well smelling those with your bedroom window closed.”

“How do you know my window’s closed?”

He rolled his eyes. “Then after you got your flower…” he prompted.

“Then, Miss Marple, I heard an unfamiliar voice, so I thought I’d see who your mom had visiting.”

“Uh-huh.” His gaze flicked over her pj top, which unfortunately had shrunk in the wash. It was too tight across the front and the gap between top and pants bared an inch or so of midriff. “Hmm,” he said.

As if she hadn’t heard enough of hmm. Which she now understood didn’t mean wow.

“I’m going home,” she said crossly. “Good night.”

The gleam in his eyes reminded her of the few times he’d paid her enough attention to bait her back in their teens. Mostly they’d ignored each other—the jock and the science geek had nothing in common.