People had funny ways of talking about her momma. Like she was the elephant in the room they were all trying to ignore. The way her legacy had extended well past her years in Sarsaparilla Falls would probably amuse Sherilynn nowadays.
“Are you reading up on coral?” Stella tilted her head and examined the stack of books piled up on the table next to the computer. “Isn’t it so fascinating? I saw some for the first time on my honeymoon and absolutely fell in love. It’s such a unique living species.”
“I’ve been doing some research on it lately.” Cordelia didnotadd that it was in relation to her deceased husband’s murder. “Biology is a side interest of mine.”
“Beauty and brains,” Gladys said. “No wonder Archer is so smitten with you.”
“Oh.” Cordelia’s face flamed a brighter red than Stella’s scarf. Unlike her momma, she didn’t enjoy the spotlight. “He’s not... We’re just acquaintances, that’s all.”
“Everyone is talking about how he shaved his mustache for you.” Gladys gave her a wicked grin. “And then you told him to grow it back.”
If a sinkhole had opened under Cordelia’s feet right then and swallowed her whole, she wouldn’t have minded one bit. This was one part of small-town life that fit like a pair of heels two sizes toosmall. Why had she decided to leave her anonymous life in Dallas behind again? Her old neighbors didn’t know her name, let alone her business.
Stella laughed and smacked Gladys’s arm. “Leave the poor girl be. She doesn’t need you giving her trouble when she has her hands full enough with my son.” Stella winked at Cordelia and she could instantly see where he’d gotten his charm. “I appreciate you encouraging him to grow his mustache back. He looked like a caterpillar without the fuzz.”
“Ain’t that just a worm?” Gladys asked.
“It suits his face,” Cordelia said.
“Just like his daddy.” Stella patted Cordelia’s arm. “It was lovely to see you. I’ve been telling Archer to bring you by so I could say hi, but he said he didn’t want to scare you off. Like I could ever do such a thing.”
Right. As if Cordelia weren’t currently aware of all of her extremities and exactly what they were and weren’t doing. But through the fog of white noise playing inside her mind on repeat, she felt vaguely annoyed that Archer knew her well enough to make that kind of call. She’d purposely been keeping him at arm’s length.
After Stella and Gladys bid her farewell, she turned back to her computer to finish her research, but didn’t feel much like continuing to follow Dew Valley’s trail. Perhaps running into Stella had caused a tendril of guilt to sneak into her subconscious. But it didn’t feel right investigating the murder of her husband when they were sharing the same space. Especially when Cordelia was holding information that could potentially help the sheriff.
She waved goodbye to Martina and stepped outside to call her momma.
“Is this my darling daughter, Cordelia?” Sherilynn’s overly enthusiastic greeting made the muscles of Cordelia’s back clench.She only did that when she was gearing up for a lecture. “Because I thought she’d been kidnapped.”
“You can’t kidnap adults, Momma. ‘Kid’ is literally in the word.” That wasn’t actually true, but it sounded good when she said it.
“Fine.” Sherilynn blew out a puff of air. “Abducted, taken, what have you. It’s been a week since you dropped that bomb on me then disappeared into the ether.”
“Five days,” Cordelia said.
“As good as a week! Do you know what that’s done to my blood pressure?”
Cordelia couldn’t imagine it had done any worse than those licorice ropes and salty chips she liked to eat by the bag, but being a good Texas daughter, she rarely sassed her momma. “I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. Things have been a little wild around here.”
“Wild how?” When her momma took that tone, the one suggesting that the person on the receiving end better not think of lying, she could make a freight train take a dirt road.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Cordelia injected a brightness into her voice she wasn’t altogether feeling to keep her momma from prying too deep. “Figuring out the logistics of moving and navigating a new job are all difficult prospects.”
“You could just move back here.”
“Momma.”
“I know, I know. You’re an adult, living your own life, which somehow ended up including the running of a cathouse, but I don’t judge. I do worry though. Have you met anyone nice?”
The hopeful note in her momma’s tone made Cordelia cringe. She might’ve raised Cordelia in an unconventional manner, but she was still a Texas momma through and through. The fact that her thirty-year-old daughter hadn’t settled down with a gaggle of kids yet was a serious point of concern for Sherilynn.
“I’ve met lots of nice people. Small towns are full of them.”
“Don’t give me lip, Cordelia Mae. You know what I meant. I swear you can be as obtuse as your daddy.” It had been a few years since Sherilynn had brought up her no-good abandoning ex without prompting, and while Cordelia’s warning signals went on high alert, her momma didn’t mention him with the same anger and bitterness of her childhood. Sometimes progress took a few decades. “I meant have you met any nice gentlemen.” A pause. “Or ladies.”
It had taken Sherilynn a minute to understand the meaning of the word “bisexual.” She hadn’t been hateful or upset about it, just out of touch. She often became awkward around the subject, unsure of how to phrase things without accidentally saying something offensive out of ignorance, but her heart was always in the right place.
“No, I haven’t met anyone yet.” Cordelia pointedly did not mention Archer. She’d already had enough of that during her run-in with Stella. “I’m still getting settled.”
