Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [57]
“The adobe’s been restored wonderfully. And the rose garden is spectacular.”
“They should be. They cost enough.”
Just the opening I needed. “What’s going to happen now? Wasn’t the winery mostly Giles’s business?”
Her weathered face seemed to lengthen, and her lips and eyes narrowed to a thin line. I remembered the look. Suddenly I felt fifteen again.
“That still hasn’t been decided,” she said, her voice short. “Is there something I can do for you?”
I felt my face turn red. “No, like I said, I was just coming out to see if Bliss was working the horses . . . ”
“She won’t be doing that for a while. She’s not happy about it, but I won’t have her taking any chances with the baby.”
I nodded. “Yes, I understand. I guess I’ll go, then.”
She looked straight into my eyes, a cold steel gray that didn’t show a hint of her years. They were the same eyes that gave me no sympathy when, tears in my own hazel eyes, I fell off my barrel-racing pony for the fifth time. Your own fault, she’d said at the time. God gave you thighs for a reason. Use them to stick to your pony the next time. “That would be best. Give my regards to Dove.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her back stiff as an oak trunk, she strode toward her Jeep, then stopped and faced me. “Benni, no matter what Bliss says, please don’t come out to the stables again without my knowledge. We have a strict routine with the horses, and new people make them nervous.”
My face was hot enough to fry eggs. “Yes, ma’am.”
On the drive back, Gabe’s annoyingly smug voice silently reprimanded me for my snooping. That’s what you get, it said. Are you embarrassed enough to mind your own business now?
At home, I took a quick shower and changed into new black jeans, my dressy Tony Lama boots, and a teal-colored silk tank top with a lacy V front. With black and silver Navajo earrings, I didn’t look quite as much like I’d just come in from cleaning horse stalls.
And why, pray tell, is that suddenly important to you? I asked myself in the mirror as I fiddled with my curly hair, now past my shoulders, first braiding it, then pulling out the braid and touching it up with a hair pick to show off its thickness. I darkened my eyelashes with mascara and even gave a perfunctory swipe of blush to my cheeks. After staring at myself in the mirror for a truly embarrassing amount of time, I made a face at my reflection.
“You’re pathetic. There’s no way you can compete with her looks and style.” I looked down at Scout’s sympathetic gold eyes. “Is there?” His tail thumped twice on the carpet.
I grabbed his muzzle and shook it gently. “You didn’t have to agree so quickly, Scooby-doo.” After feeding him and giving him a rawhide chew, I headed downtown. It took me fifteen minutes to find a parking space, not unusual for a Saturday evening when there is a downtown event. Two blocks away, the Zydeco band Varise’s Red Hot Daddies perched on the steps in front of the mission. The party was already in full swing when I reached the line to enter the roped-off area. After getting my hand stamped and receiving my authentic “Zin and Zydeco—the Only Way to Go” wine-tasting glass, I headed for the food booth set up by Momie Fontenot’s Authentic Cajun and Creole Cookin’.
The tantalizing smell of the spicy Cajun sausage persuaded me to eat before I attempted to find Gabe. I took my paper plate of red beans, dirty rice, sausage, blackened chicken, and hot cornbread to one of the long picnic tables they’d provided behind the twenty or so wine-tasting booths. I sat down next to a group of four people dressed completely in black except for their zebra-patterned vests trimmed with sequins and matching Mardi Gras masks. One of the females had a long black feather boa trailing down her back. But this was a mostly casual affair, and T-shirts with silly sayings outnumbered the Mardi Gras costumes: “Forgive Me for I Have Zinned,” “It’s So Good, It’s Zinful,” “Zin-sational!” “Zinners Wanted.”
Up front the band had announced their next number, a wild dance song called Valse a Beausoleil, and the zebra clan left to start dancing on