Free Cake on a Hot Tin Roof by Jacklyn Brady Page B

with her eyes, I felt kind of bad for Violet. Apparently, Big Daddy’s on-camera schtick was no act. He really was a jerk.
    Violet’s face burned, but she pivoted away without another word…and plowed straight into a tall young woman with pale blond hair. Ivanka Hedge stumbled backward into her fiancé, Richard Montgomery III, with a cry of alarm. Violet growled something that might have been an apology but probably wasn’t, and kept going.
    Luckily, Richard, an elegant but plain-faced man of around thirty and slightly balding, kept Ivanka from falling, but the look on her face made it clear that she wasn’t happy.
    Then again, neither was I. I started toward her, an apology on my lips, but she sailed past me with a little moue of distaste.
    My heart sank like a stone. There went my chances of making a good first impression.
    If I’d disliked Big Daddy Boudreaux before, I positively loathed him now.
    I craned to see where Ivanka had gone, but I’d already lost sight of her.
    “You lookin’ for the ice princess?” Big Daddy asked in my ear.
    I scowled over my shoulder and moved a step away. “If you mean Ivanka Hedge, then yes. Did you see where she went?”
    Big Daddy looked out over the crowd and jerked his chin toward a set of doors leading onto the balcony. “Over there with my wife. You want to talk to her?”
    “Yes. Thanks. If you’ll excuse me—”
    He raised one hand over his head and slipped the other around my waist. “Hey, Ivanka! Over here!”
    I gaped at him in horror and extricated myself from his grasp. “That’s not necessary,” I said as nicely as I could. I smoothed my dress, readjusted the parts that had gotten skewed, and looked up to see both Ivanka and a shorter, softly rounded woman with a pale complexion and burgundy hair in a wedge cut, pointedly ignoring Big Daddy’s summons. That must be the Susannah I’d overheard Judd and Mellie talking about.
    Interesting that neither woman paid attention to him.
    “Thanks for nothing,” I muttered.
    Big Daddy waved that beefy hand through the air, dismissing me, my concerns, and Ivanka all at once. “Listen, darlin’, she’s not worth getting yourself all worked up over.”
    Said the man with the bulging bank accounts.
    I had a sour taste in my mouth, but I spooned a little more syrup into my smile for Miss Frankie’s sake. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    “I’m serious. She’s a friend of my wife’s. I know what she’s really like. You wouldn’t like her.”
    “Well, hard to say if I never meet her,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”
    He grabbed my hand and pulled me around to face him. “Listen, darlin’, let me give you a word of advice. You can make yourself crazy chasin’ after people who don’t give two hoots about you. Don’t do it. Just be yourself. That’s what I do.”
    That wasn’t exactly a selling point. At that moment, Big Daddy Boudreaux was the last person I wanted advice from.
    I heard his big booming laugh following me as I walked away, and I made a silent pledge to avoid him for the rest of the night. I had a feeling that Big Daddy was going to be a problem. I just wish I’d known then how much trouble he was going to cause.

Nine

    Finally free of Big Daddy, I hurried after Ivanka and Richard, still hoping to wrangle an introduction. I got held up a couple of times, first by Isabeau, who wanted to check on a couple of details related to serving the King Cake at midnight, and next by Estelle, who wanted to show me the pictures Ox had asked her to take for the blog.
    By the time I’d asked Estelle to check on the napkins and placated her by slipping her memory card into my evening bag, I’d lost sight of the happy couple again. Luckily, Mrs. Big Daddy hadn’t moved, so I decided to take my chances with her.
    I made my way through the crowd and stopped in front of her wearing my friendliest smile. “Mrs. Boudreaux?”
    She ran a squished-bug glance over me. “Yes?”
    “I’m Rita