“Well, Celia!” Bonnie Kelsey dropped down beside her on the bench. She cocked her head to the side and gave her an odd look. Bonnie swiveled her legs until their knees were touching, and she took Celia’s hand and squeezed it.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, looking around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. They were early though, and DeeDee and Jenn, their opponents, hadn’t yet shown up.

“I’m fine,” Celia said. “Sophie’s fine, too. They may even let her come home today.”

“Oh yes, well that’s a blessing,” Bonnie said. “But, well, I meant, how are you? I’m actually surprised you came this morning. You can talk to me, you know. I’m totally discreet.”

“Why would I cancel our doubles match?” Celia asked, puzzled.

“Oh, no reason,” Bonnie said. She patted Celia’s knee. “You’re such a trouper. That’s what I love about you, Celia. Such a positive outlook on life.”

“Bonnie,” Celia said, a note of warning coming into her voice. “I have no idea what you’re getting at. So you might just as well tell me.”

Her tennis partner had the grace to blush and look away. “I’m not one to spread gossip,” she said, fiddling with the clasp of her tennis bracelet.

As if, Celia thought. She’d met Bonnie Kelsey and her dippy husband, Matthew, at a cocktail party at the country club the week after she’d arrived in Passcoe, and after three margaritas and two trips to the lady’s room in the space of three hours, she’d gotten filled in on the sexual and social history of every single person in the room. Sex, lies, and innuendo were the coin of the realm in the small world of Bonnie Kelsey.

“I know that,” Celia said, trying to sound reassuring. “But if it’s something that concerns me, don’t you think I should be made aware of it?”

Bonnie bit her lip as though trying to make up her mind.

Tell it, sister, Celia thought. Before I have to choke it out of you.

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of this,” Bonnie started. “Or maybe the person who told it to me got the names mixed up. Although usually, this person is pretty reliable. And the parties involved do have a history…”

“Please just tell me, for God’s sake,” Celia said through clenched teeth.

“And you’re sure you won’t get upset?” Bonnie asked.

Celia’s hand was just itching to reach out and yank the bitch’s ponytail as hard as she could.

“I’ll be fine,” Celia said, trying to sound soothing. “It’s always better to know than wonder, right?”

“Riiight,” Bonnie said.

“The way I heard it,” she said hurriedly, “was that Grady Witherspoon—I guess you don’t know him—he doesn’t really run in our circles? Anyway, he’s retired from the service, the navy, I think, and moved back to town and he’s renting Miss Sallie’s daddy’s farm. He and Gail have fixed up the old homeplace really cute, I hear…”

“Bonnie?” Celia said, about out of patience. “How does this affect me?”

“Right. As I was saying, apparently Grady and Gail were watching television last night; it was after dark, and they heard music coming from the field down by the old corncrib. And he’s had a lot of trouble with the local kids going down there and doing drugs and vandalizing things and so forth. So he got his shotgun and a flashlight and walked down there to check it out. And when he got down there he saw this big old shiny red convertible, and there were two people in it, and they were, uh, well…”

Shiny red convertible? As in that horrible old car of Mason’s? The one Sophie called his fun car? What was it, a Camaro, or a Mustang, something like that?

Celia tried to keep her composure. “What were the couple doing, Bonnie? And who were they?”

Bonnie clutched both Celia’s hands in hers. “Oh honey,” she said, her pale blue eyes brimming with tears. “It was Mason. And Annajane Hudgens. And according to Grady, who I believe, because he is a decorated veteran after all, he caught the two of them. In the act.”

“In the act?” Celia needed to be absolutely sure she understood exactly what Bonnie considered the act to be.

Bonnie nodded her head vigorously.

“As in?” Celia prompted, wishing Bonnie would let go of her hands.

“You know,” Bonnie whispered. “It. They were naked and they were doing it.” She lowered her voice again, just to make sure Celia comprehended. “F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

*   *   *

Somehow, Celia managed to keep her composure. But her mind was whirling, going a thousand miles an hour.

The son of a bitch! She should have known something was up between him and Annajane. She’d seen his face at the wedding—just for a moment—right before Sophie got sick—he’d had that awful deer-in-the-headlights look. She’d chalked it up to nerves at the time. But then afterward, when Annajane had commandeered her spot in the ambulance, conned Mason into driving her home from the hospital, Celia should have put a stop to things right then and there. She should have seen that Annajane was still carrying a pathetic torch for Mason.

But she’d had no reason to doubt Mason’s faithfulness. He was honest to a fault, disgustingly loyal. Look at the way he kept resisting Jerry Kelso’s perfectly acceptable offers for Quixie. The man just loved a lost cause. She would have to do something about Annajane Hudgens, and she would have to work fast. In the meantime, she needed to throw some water on this particularly volatile piece of gossip.

“Mason and Annajane?” she heard herself say, with a careless laugh. “Are you serious, Bonnie?”

Bonnie looked at her as if she’d just sprouted another head.

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Celia said. “I don’t know this Grady person, Bonnie, but I can tell you right now he needs to get himself some new glasses. Mason positively could not have been out in some cornfield doing the deed with Annajane last night. Because he was right there at home with me last night, and I don’t like to be indelicate, but honey, for all intents and purposes, it was our wedding night. I fixed the two of us an intimate little dinner, and then I modeled that little black lace number—you remember the one Jessica Satterthwaite gave me at the lingerie shower?”

Bonnie, the stupid cow, just nodded her head, wanting desperately to believe her story.

Celia rolled her eyes heavenward. “Well, I hate to think what she spent on it, because Mason took one look at that thing and he was like a man possessed.” She gave a self-conscious little giggle.

“I made the mistake of modeling it in the kitchen.” She rubbed her backside for effect. “All I can say is, thank heaven for throw rugs.”

Bonnie’s eyes widened. “You did it on the kitchen floor?”

“The kitchen floor, the living room sofa, the recliner in his study,” she giggled again. “I think we figured out a new position that La-Z-Boy definitely wouldn’t approve of. And that was just the first floor.”

“But,” Bonnie sputtered. “That red convertible. The old Chevelle. There’s no mistaking it. Everybody in town knows that car. Mason’s daddy gave it to him for his twenty-first birthday.”

“Well that explains it,” Celia said. “Mason keeps the convertible in the garage at the plant, and he leaves the keys under the floor mat. Anybody who works at the plant could have decided to borrow it. Anybody at all. Who knows, maybe your farmer friend mistook Davis for Mason?” She raised an eyebrow, daring Bonnie to contradict her. “Everybody knows what a wild hare Davis is.”

“That’s true,” Bonnie agreed. “Davis does have a reputation.”

Celia spotted their doubles opponents walking toward them, racquets slung over their shoulders. “Here come the girls,” she said. “Let’s forget all this nonsense and play some tennis, all right?”

DeeDee and Jenn never knew what hit them. Celia’s typically restrained brand of country club tennis was abandoned. She proceeded to mop up the courts with the other two women with an unexpected combination of killer serves and slashing backhands. She made suicide dives for impossible shots, played the net, and roamed the back court, rifling volleys right back in the other women’s teeth. The final score was brutal: six-one, six-love.