LITMIR.BIZ

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      Cal shook his head. “Laura’s trying to dig a little deeper and figure out what’s going on before she stirs things up by going to either her parents or the principal. Want me to have her give you a call, let you know if she finds out anything?”

      “Absolutely,” J.C. said. “And I’ll get back to you or to her, if I come up with any answers.”

      Cal nodded. “I know living in a small town can have its drawbacks, but in situations like this, I see all the advantages. People genuinely care. They get involved. It’s a great environment for raising kids.”

      J.C. grinned. “So there is a positive side to all that meddling, after all.”

      Cal laughed. “That’s the way I see it, anyway.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get home. Maddie’s probably hit a wall and is ready for backup with handling the little kids’ baths by now, and then I have some sleuthing to do with my stepdaughter.”

      “Good luck with that,” J.C. said sincerely. He knew better than most what it was like trying to get information from a teenager. From what he’d observed, they were better at protecting their sources than any experienced journalist had ever been.

      * * *

      Laura had been feeling restless ever since her talk with Cal and Nancy and her failure to track down Misty before school let out. Over time she’d found that the two best solutions for this kind of mood were ice cream or what she liked to think of as shopping therapy. And she had a coupon in her purse for Raylene Rollins’s boutique on Main Street that might satisfy at least one urge. If a shopping splurge didn’t pan out, Wharton’s was just across the town green and had the best hot-fudge sundaes around.

      Inside the store, which was known for its smart fashions, she headed straight for the sale rack. On a teacher’s salary, full price was out of the question.

      “Looking for something special?” Adelia Hernandez asked her as Laura checked out what was available in a size eight. “Or are you just browsing, hoping for a great deal?”

      Laura grinned. “You know me too well, Adelia. I can’t resist a bargain, and I have a coupon from the paper burning a hole in my purse.”

      “Then let’s find something to spend it on,” Adelia said eagerly. “A pretty date dress, maybe?”

      Laura rolled her eyes. “I can’t even remember the last time I had a date that required anything fancier than jeans.”

      Even though she’d been drawn to teaching in a small town much like the one she’d grown up in halfway across the country, she’d suspected the lack of social life would be one of the disadvantages. At the time, fresh out of college and still deeply scarred by her first great love back in high school and its disastrous outcome, having a social life hadn’t really mattered to her. These days, though, she was coming to regret the serious lack of available professional men. The men who asked her out, while perfectly nice, were, for the most part, not intellectually stimulating.

      “You’re obviously looking in all the wrong places,” Adelia said, though even as she spoke, her expression turned rueful. “Not that I’d know. I only have one toe into the divorce process. Dating is way, way down the road, somewhere past never, for me.”

      “I was sorry to hear about your marriage breaking up,” Laura said carefully, eager to change the subject but not sure if she was being too personal with a woman she knew only casually.

      Adelia gave her a wry look. “But not surprised? I know everyone in town was aware that Ernesto was cheating on me, but they were all too polite to say anything.”

      “I’m not sure there’s a good way to broach that particular subject,” Laura told her. “What do you say, ‘Hi, how are you? By the way I spotted your husband out with someone else last night.’”

      Adelia chuckled. “You’re right. I doubt Emily Post covered anything quite like that in her etiquette books.”

      “At least you can laugh about it now,” Laura said approvingly. “That has to be progress.”

      “Yeah, on the days when I’m not furious, bitter and resentful, I’m a barrel of laughs,” Adelia said, tempering the remark with a smile. “But the truth is, every day is better than the day before. I can thank my kids and this job for keeping me focused on the future, rather than the past. And my attorney has been a godsend. Helen’s not letting Ernesto and his dirtbag lawyer pull anything.”

      Laura nodded. “I’ve heard Helen is an amazing ally in a situation like this.”

      “The best,” Adelia confirmed as she plucked a dress out of the size-twelve section of the rack. “This is an eight, and it would look fantastic on you. This soft sage-green would be perfect with your coloring. It’ll bring out the green in your eyes and the blond highlights in your hair.”

      Laura studied the simple, A-line design of the linen dress. On the hanger it didn’t look like anything special, and she’d never before worn any shade of green. She’d always thought it would make her skin look sallow. “Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully.

      “Trust me,” Adelia said. “You’ll thank me the minute you see yourself in the mirror. Go. I’ll keep looking, in case there are more size eights that have been misplaced on the rack.”

      Two minutes later, Laura was gazing at herself in the dressing room mirror with astonishment. The dress skimmed over her curves, slimming her hips, caressing her breasts and showing off just the right amount of cleavage with the V-neckline. The sage-green did, indeed, turn her eyes emerald. Her cheeks bloomed with unexpected color.

      “Holy cow,” she murmured, just as Adelia arrived with the perfect flowered silk scarf to add a splash of extra sophistication and style.

      “Told you so,” Adelia said with a satisfied grin as she adjusted the scarf in various ways to demonstrate the possibilities.

      “Could you come to my house and dress me all the time?” Laura asked, only half kidding. She never put outfits together with the pizzazz Adelia had accomplished in minutes. It seemed every time she complimented one of her friends on a new look, the credit always went to Adelia. No wonder Raylene’s store was doing a booming business these days.

      “Find yourself a hot date and I’m there,” Adelia promised with a chuckle. “I yearn to live vicariously.”

      “I haven’t even looked at the price tag,” Laura lamented. “I’m going to cry if this is beyond my budget.”

      “It’s on sale and you have a coupon,” Adelia reminded her. “And who can put a price on looking as smashing as you do?”

      “You’re really good,” Laura complimented her as she changed back into her clothes and then followed her to the register. Though she winced at the total, she handed over her credit card with barely a whimper.

      She consoled herself with the thought that the shopping excursion had been so successful, she no longer needed that hot fudge sundae. Good thing, since to pay for this, she’d be dining on cereal or peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for dinner for the next month.

      * * *

      After years of coaching and teaching at Serenity High School and a good long while being married to Maddie and dealing with stepchildren and their own two little ones, Cal thought he had some pretty finely tuned instincts when it came to those children lying to him as Katie was doing right now. He’d asked her to hang out with him in the kitchen after the dinner dishes had been put into the dishwasher. She’d reluctantly stayed behind.

      They were sitting at the kitchen table now, and she was doing her best to avoid looking him in the eye as she skirted every question he’d asked so far.

      “You’re being very careful to sidestep what was a direct question,” he told his stepdaughter eventually. “Let me try again. Do you have any idea why Misty is skipping Ms. Reed’s English class?”

      “Shouldn’t

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