Passion's Price by Gwynne Forster Page B

Michael Raines. No, sir. I’m staying on Maggie’s good side. How do you think she’ll react if we don’t eat at home tonight?”
    “Oh. I’m sure she’s planned something for you.”
    “I promised to visit Tyra when I came back, and something tells me I was a bit rash in making that promise. What do you say we drive there now? See if she’s home. We don’t have to stay too long, we can eat dinner with Maggie and—”
    “Why not eat dinner with Maggie and then drive over to visit Tyra?” She gave him Tyra’s phone number, and he dialed it on his cell phone. “Hello. May I please speak with Mrs. Whitley?”
    “Just a minute,” a deep male voice said. “I’ll get her.”
    “Hello, Tyra. This is Mike Raines. I promised to visityou and your family on my next trip here to see Darlene. I’m here to keep my word. Darlene suggests we see you this evening after dinner at home with Maggie. If that doesn’t sit well with you—”
    “That will be fine, Mike. I hope you can get here before Andy, our son, goes to bed.”
    He told her that he’d try, hung up and then turned to Darlene. “This is great. By midnight, when we come back home, we’ll be too tired to think about getting busy.”
    She took a sharp turn, glanced toward him and let the Volkswagen speed past seventy. “I hope you know you’re speaking for yourself.”
    He settled back in the soft, leather seat, comfortable and happy. “All right. You bribe Maggie. I’m doing no such thing.”
    “Y’all not gon’ have good weather tomorrow,” Maggie said when they walked into the house. He dropped his bag, hugged Maggie and told her of their plans to visit Tyra.
    “I’m so glad. I think you’ll like Byron. Go on up to your room and put your bags up there.”
    Halfway up the stairs, he called down to Darlene. “What are you wearing this evening?”
    “A long-sleeved red dress. You can come as you are.”
    He got a shower, dried off and lay across the bed. A knock from somewhere in the distance awakened him two hours later. He scrambled into his clothes, rusheddown the stairs and joined Darlene and Maggie for dinner in the dining room.
    “I haven’t been sleeping too well,” he explained. “The minute I touched that bed, I was out. Please don’t think I was being deliberately rude.”
    “We don’t,” Darlene said. “I, for one, guessed right.”
    “It wasn’t my business,” Maggie said. “I figured you were tired and you’d come down when you felt like it, though I was getting kinda antsy about my dinner spoiling.” She patted his shoulder. “I hope you got a good rest.”
    “I did. Thank you.” He stopped eating and looked closely at Maggie, a woman who had openly scrutinized him on sight, then accepted him for whatever it was that she saw in him. “You’re not old enough to be my mother,” he told her, “but you’d make me the kind of big sister that I always wanted. I get a good feeling around you.”
    “Those words mean a lot to me, Mike, more than I can tell you.” She looked away from them, and he knew she was trying to maintain her composure. “What time y’all supposed to be at Tyra’s?”
    “About an hour and a quarter from now,” Darlene said. “I hope you don’t mind cleaning the kitchen tonight.”
    “I don’t. Y’all have a good time, and give Andy a hug for me. I declare he is the most loveable little devil.”
     
    It amazed Darlene that her brother-in-law, Byron, and Mike got on so well—too well, in fact.
    “It must be a relief to be able to discuss your case with someone you trust. My firm pays good money for the services of a good private detective,” Byron said to Darlene.
    She wished Byron had kept his thoughts to himself. The quiet that accompanied her non-response spoke volumes, but she was not about to change her attitude for the sake of pleasant conversation. And as she drove home, Mike commented on it.
    “Byron was embarrassed when you didn’t agree with his comment about working