Free Tangled Truth by Delphine Dryden Page A

if he hadn’t
recognized the look. It was Eva’s nervous smile, the same edgy, lopsided twitch
of the lips, and it was more than a little eerie to see it on a face that
looked so much like he suspected Eva would in thirty years. She was still quite
beautiful, the former Mrs. Godfrey, with the figure of a much younger woman and
skin that had been jealously guarded from the sun. But Drew hoped Eva would
never have the look of suspicion and potential for malice that made her mother
look almost ugly despite the good bone structure and fine features.
    “It may be,” he acknowledged, “but in my case it means I own
a company that employs consultants. And they deal with computer systems at
other companies. As long as they’re doing good work, and as far as I know they
are, then we all still have jobs.”
    Eva, clearly mortified, interjected. “Mom, who did you hear
that from? It wasn’t me. Are you talking to Dad again?”
    “Emailing now and then,” her mother replied with a careless
laugh, as though email correspondence was a frivolous game. “I still can’t
stand to look at him or talk on the phone unless I absolutely have to, but
somehow it’s not so bad through email. It’s like it isn’t really him.”
    “Like Monopoly money,” Drew volunteered. Eva glanced at him
with a quick smile, but it was pretty clear the analogy was lost on her mother.
    “I know Dad is familiar with Drew’s company, we’ve talked
about it. I can’t think why you got the impression he was unemployed.”
    “Well, it isn’t as though your father is the most
trustworthy source of information. I hate to say mean things about him behind
his back…”
    Drew said it in his mind before Eva’s mother actually spoke
the word. But …
    “But you know, I wouldn’t have put it past him to
exaggerate, to make the whole thing sound better. More respectable.”
    It was like an optical illusion, he decided, fascinating by
the difference between Ms. Damron’s genteel, almost coy tone and the implied
sting of her words. Her quick sidelong glance at Drew however, strongly
suggested she wasn’t really talking about the respectability of his employment.
She suspected him of something. It was clear from her posture, from the tight
set of her lips as she maintained her false smile. She might not know what it
was she suspected yet, but she obviously wanted to find out. Drew wondered if what
he and Eva had enjoyed over the past few weeks even remotely approached
whatever level of depravity Ms. Damron imagined.
    “Drew is perfectly respectable, Mom. Dad didn’t have to make
anything up. I’ve never known him to make things up.”
    “You remind me so much of him sometimes,” her mother said,
in a fond tone that almost hid the implied insult. Almost. Drew was leaning
toward mean, not merely crazy, as a diagnosis. But he was still undecided.
    “Thank you,” Eva said, as if she’d been paid a compliment.
Gracious. Drew admired her spirit, even as it unnerved him to see her playing
this dysfunctional part so very well. “So are you flying home tomorrow, or
staying in town for the holiday?”
    “Flying home tomorrow. My sister Barbara lives here,” she
explained to Drew. “In fact she would have been here tonight, but she had to go
make sure the nativity scene at her church was still intact. They’ve had a rash
of vandals. Should I even ask if you’re planning to attend a late service
tonight, Eva?”
    “Mom, don’t start. Please? Let’s have a nice dinner.” Eva
was starting to look stiff again, with all her guards up. Drew hadn’t seen her
looking so cold since before their first date. She looked astonishingly like
her mother, he realized.
    “Do you attend church, Mr. Brantley?”
    “Mom!”
    “Where exactly did the two of you meet, again? Eva’s father
wasn’t clear.”
    Things were escalating fast, despite Eva’s valiant attempts
to keep the conversation light and pleasant. She’d been pretending all evening
long that her mother