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“He’d hardly pop that into the conversation without some sort of prompting,” An’gel said. “Frankly, I don’t think he’s married. I never have thought he was the marrying kind. Variety is his stock-in-trade when it comes to women.” She glanced around at her fellow board members, all of whom except her own sister seemed suddenly fascinated by the contents of their glasses. “You can set your caps at him all you want, but Hadley will outrun you all.”

“Fine words coming from you, An’gel.” Reba plunked her glass on the counter none too gently. “He sure did seem interested in you, or didn’t you notice?”

“Yes, he gave you pretty marked attention.” Arliss stared hard at her.

An’gel kept a tight rein on her temper, although she had halfway been expecting such a scene. “That was simply Hadley showing off. He has always liked to tease, and he knew it would annoy me.”

“Call it what you like,” Barbie said. “He paid more attention to you than he did to anyone else.”

An’gel spoke sharply. “I wasn’t aware it was a competition.” She regretted the tone immediately. Barbie and Arliss smirked at her while Reba glared. Lottie and Dickce giggled.

An’gel would have a few words for her sister as soon as they were on the way home. She was furious that Dickce had shared in their mirth.

“Thank you for hosting the meeting, Barbie,” An’gel said. “We must be going now, so many things to do at home.”

Dickce set her glass in the sink after a quick look at An’gel. “Yes, lots to do, always. See you later, ladies.”

As An’gel and Dickce let themselves out the front door, An’gel could hear loud laughter coming from the kitchen. She resisted the urge to slam the door. When they reached the car, she held out her hand for the keys. Dickce handed them over right away.

An’gel focused her attention on driving. Unlike her sister, she preferred a more sedate pace, although to her that simply meant driving only a few miles over the speed limit, rather than ten or fifteen.

She spent the first five minutes of the drive with a critique of Dickce’s behavior, during which Dickce remained silent. When An’gel finished, Dickce said, “I don’t care what you say, Sister, it was funny. If only you could have seen your face when Hadley paid such attention to you. You looked like you didn’t know whether to crawl under the rug or grab Hadley and kiss him.”

An’gel did not find that amusing. “I suppose you would have kissed him, then? I wanted to slap his face.”

“Then you should have.” Dickce appeared unperturbed by An’gel’s fit of pique. “Hadley knew, of course, that you would respond exactly as you did. That’s why he singled you out. With any of the others, well, they would have taken it as a sign that Hadley was madly in love with them. He knew you wouldn’t believe any such thing.”

An’gel considered that for a moment and felt her irritation begin to fade. “It pains me to admit it, but I think you’re right. They’re all man-hungry, and there aren’t that many good-looking, well-off men in our age group in Athena for them to choose from.”

“It’s going to be interesting having Hadley back,” Dickce said. “No telling what some of them will get up to trying to entice him into either an affair or marriage.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t destroy the garden club,” An’gel said as she turned into the driveway at Riverhill. “If they’re all spitting and scratching at one another over Hadley all the time, we’ll have nothing but trouble.”

Benjy stared at the disarray in the flower bed, aghast, then turned to Peanut and Endora, sitting on the lawn nearby. He eyed the dirty paws of both animals and shook his head.

“Miss An’gel is going to be furious with you. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t send you both back to the shelter, and me along with you.”

He knelt on the ground in front of the two miscreants, who stared at him as if they had no idea what he meant. Benjy pointed to the flower bed and the five azaleas the two had dug up. “Miss An’gel planted those today, and I can’t figure out what the heck possessed you to do this.” He shook his head. “I guess I should have kept you inside with me and not let you run loose. You’ve both been really bad.”

Peanut hung his head and whimpered. Endora looked at Benjy and meowed, as if she were apologizing. She moved closer to Peanut and rubbed her head against his. The Labradoodle whimpered again.

Benjy had to suppress a laugh at these examples of contrite behavior. He couldn’t be angry for long with Peanut and Endora. They were behaving the way animals do, and animals got into mischief. But he also knew Peanut was smart, and that if he scolded the dog, Peanut would remember and not dig in the flower bed again.

“Listen, here, Peanut.” Benjy waited until the dog raised his head to look at him. Benjy pointed to the azaleas and the holes in the bed. “This is a bad thing. Don’t do this again. Bad, bad, bad.”

Peanut whined, and Benjy scratched the dog’s head. “I know you’re sorry, and now you know better.” Peanut barked.