Free Dead End by Stella Cameron Page B

about him, and since I’m here, I might as well speak my mind. Those people kept their distance from folks they considered beneath them, and that was just about everyone in Toussaint. When that Marc was growin’ up he was the kind of boy who was too smart for his own boots. Couldn’t run around with the other kids because his pappy wouldn’t have stood for it, but he was good at going behind his pappy’s back and showin’ them ways to get into trouble. Instigator, that’s what he was. And his family thought he was a saint. He made a play for Precious, y’know.” She breathed in deliberately, expanding her lungs and expelling the air in long streams.
    “Now Mama,” Precious said, smoothing the sides of her hair, which was wound into a puffy pleat at the back of her head. There was a ringlet in front of each ear.
    “Don’t you ‘now mama’ me. That pervert put his hands down the front of your cheerleadin’ top and don’t you deny it. You came home crying about it.”
    Precious wiggled a little. “Boys will be boys,” she said. “And that was a very long time ago.”
    As Precious’s doctor, Reb knew that the cantaloupe-sized breasts that thrust from the woman’s chest wall were in good part manmade adornments and from a crop not more than ten years old.
    “I don’t care,” Oribel said, “I’m worried about you Reb. Agreein’ to go out for dinner with that man. Goodness knows what he’s got in mind.”
    Precious sniggered. Reb congratulated herself on her control in not telling them what she thought about those who read private messages.
    “Father Cyrus would never forgive me if I didn’t tell him what’s goin’ on,” Oribel said. “I’ll have to get back to the parish house.”
    “You will not talk about my business,” Reb said, growing annoyed. “There’s no need. I’ve known Marc just about all my life. He used to put up with me following him around when I was a little kid.”
    Oribel raised her chin and looked Reb over. “Well, you ain’t no little kid now, and when that man looks at you he’s got hot eyes.”
    “
Hot eyes?
”
Reb shook her head. “You need to get out more. You’ve never even seen us together.”
    “I saw the way he watched you when you left Father’s house yesterday. That’s why I had to come, to warn you. But now I can see he’s movin’ in fast and there’s no time to waste.”
    “You’re making more out of the card you shouldn’t have read than is actually there.”
    Once more Oribel sniffed. Then she burst into tears and returned to the glider. She would not be consoled. Precious flapped ineffectually around her, waving a hand like a fan.
    “You think I’m too old to know what men are like,” Oribel said. “Well, you’re wrong. I know better than anyone. Oh, why did that man have to show up here after all this time and take after you, Reb? What can he want?”
    Precious sniggered some more. “He wants what they all want. I never met a man who wasn’t horny.”
    “No!” Reb said, appalled. “He’s looking for his sister.”
    “His sister,” Oribel said, her tears drying. “Why, that doesn’t make any sense. She was gone from here years ago.”
    Standing up and tugging at her skirt again, Precious looked disbelieving. “Is that what he told you? That’s a line I don’t think I ever heard before. I never set eyes on that sister of his, or I don’t remember if I did. But I’ve heard about her. A lush who slept around.”
    Reb couldn’t bear all this. “Please don’t talk like that. You’ve said you didn’t know her. Why malign a stranger?” Chauncey Depew’s adultery with Amy was never directly mentioned.
    “There’s got to be another reason why he’s here and runnin’ around after you,” Precious said.
    “I examined Bonnie after her accident,” Reb said.
    That brought a fresh gale of tears from Oribel, who trembled and rocked on the glider.
    “I’m sorry,” Reb said, wishing she hadn’t come home. “Of course, you