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I broke free of those thoughts by looking up at my Lancelot again. “You know, there are some trees around here big enough to hide behind while I show you another one of my talents.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. You said we could be daring later, and it’s later.” I splayed my hand on his chest. “So. There’s this tongue thing—”
“Boone,” his mother called.
Daring time was going to have to wait until later.
* * *
Jordan had assignedus to a table with Anna and Waylon, Anna’s grandmother, Doris, and her friend Nadine Cleaver, along with Pris, and Grace and Dirk.
But Pris was sitting at another table with Rusty and Callie, at least for the time being. It looked like Rusty had grown on Callie, but that didn’t make sense, given her comments about him from before.
Boone asked Grace and Dirk again about the Caribbean. Maybe a tropical getaway was in our future? Then he shifted gears to chatting with Nadine Cleaver, the owner of the house next door. He’d promised I would find her entertaining, and he wasn’t wrong. It took her only five minutes into the meal to tell Boone, “I hope you’re taking care of her between the sheets. She’s got good baby-birthing hips.”
Baby-birthing hips? Really?
Boone’s coughing fit wasn’t good enough for her, so she asked a second time, which forced me to tell her things were fine between us. Next to me, Anna didn’t react at all, as if this was normal dinner conversation with a Clear Lake octogenarian.
When Boone got his coughing under control, his hand meandered a path up my inner thigh. “Only fine?” he whispered in my ear.
I retaliated by sliding my hand under the tablecloth to tease his dick. I gave it a stroke, followed by a good squeeze, and whispered back. “You know me. I get all those F-words mixed up. I meant fantastic.”
Fifteen minutes later, Nadine pointed her fork at Doris. “There are a few interesting ones here.”
“Maybe you should stick to ones your own age,” Doris said.
“All the men my age are already in the ground, or almost all. Besides I want one with some lead still left in his pencil.”
Dirk smirked but didn’t look up. I raised my water glass to hide my smile. Boone coughed again, unable to handle this conversation. He’d been right that Nadine was something else.
“Where’s your sister, Priscilla?” Nadine asked Boone.
He shrugged. “Probably getting into trouble, if I know her.”
I knew exactly where Pris was, so I put my napkin on the table, ready to go fetch her. If I knew Pris, she’d enjoy these old ladies.
“I want to ask if she’s heard from my nephew, Lee. That boy was supposed to be back by the end of the summer.”
I settled the napkin back in my lap. Lee was the last thing Pris wanted to talk about. It now seemed likely that she’d avoided our table precisely to avoid a question like this from Nadine.
Dirk ventured into the conversation. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Everybody from your family keeps leaving town to get away from you,” Doris said.
“What do you mean everybody?” Nadine asked.
“First Tressida, and now Lee,” she replied.
Tressida. That name was oddly familiar.
“You can’t count Tressida,” Nadine insisted. “She shouldn’t have married him in the first place.”
It hit me. I’d seen the name Tressida multiple times in my Lee materials. Would that unravel what Lee had been searching for in the library? It wasn’t a what, but a who.
When the conversation moved on, I whispered into Boone’s ear, “Who was Tressida?”
