Love, Lies and Texas Dips Read Free Page A

motto, because she did. She kind of wished the whole world lived by the credo “Don’t mess with Jo Lynn Bidwell,” though it was pretty much unwritten law at PFP that most girls seemed inclined to obey. At least, the ones who knew what was good for them.
    There was one woman, though, who intimidated Jo Lynn, and it wasn’t a prep school rival or any competitor she’d ever encountered on the pageant scene, but rather Bootsie Bidwell, her mother, who just happened to be this year’s chair of the GSC debutante selection committee. And Jo Lynn didn’t want to cause an early-morning stink with her mother for strolling in at breakfast time, even if she’d spent the night only yards away in the family’s guesthouse with theGolden Boy of Caldwell Academy whom she had every intention of marrying one day.
    Jo used her key to open the door to the main house and stepped into a rear hallway near the utility room, just past the butler’s pantry, where kitchen deliveries were received.
    She heard the familiar noises of pots and pans clanking in the granite and stainless steel kitchen as the Bidwells’ longtime cook prepared brunch, always served promptly at eleven. Jo figured Cookie was getting double pay for sticking around and feeding the fam on a holiday when even the housekeeper, Nan, had been cut loose for Labor Day. But Jo liked having Cookie around, since it meant the house would smell like cinnamon and spices all day.
    Deciding it best to slip in unnoticed, Jo removed her shoes, dangling them from her fingers as she tiptoed past the kitchen and scurried across the foyer, the marble floor cold beneath her feet. She briefly glanced up at the impossibly high painted ceiling—Bootsie’s ode to Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel—and took the curving stairwell up to her bedroom as quietly as possible, avoiding the floorboards that creaked beneath the Oriental runner just outside her parents’ bedroom. She had one hand on the knob of the door to her bedroom suite and was about to turn it when a voice from behind startled her.
    “I believe you missed your curfew,” Bootsie said, her honeyed drawl laced with sarcasm.
    Please. Like I actually have a curfew .
    Jo Lynn slowly turned to face her. “Good morning, Mother.”
    Her mom gave her a slow once-over, and Jo knew she looked a mess. Her makeup no doubt was smeared, and shewore the same pair of hip-hugging D&G jeans and pleated white shirt she’d had on last night when she’d gone out to eat with Dillon, only now she looked severely wrinkled. Her fabric flats were damp with dew. In stark contrast, Bootsie appeared her typical unruffled self, the model nouveau riche mummy, perfectly dressed in tailored pearl gray Chanel slacks and sage green silk side-wrap blouse. She’d always been the best-dressed mother on the pageant scene, and Jo rarely saw her with a hair out of place.
    Jo Lynn shifted on her feet, uncomfortable beneath Bootsie’s critical gaze.
    “Good thing I’m not doing pageants anymore, huh? I wouldn’t even win Miss Junior Oil Refinery looking like this,” Jo cracked, then pressed her lips together, waiting out her mother’s silence. Such a lengthy pause meant Bootsie’s brain was making a list of Jo Lynn’s imperfections, like she’d done back in Jo’s pageant days.
    “You do look a mess,” Bootsie said finally, crossing her arms and tilting her head. “But I guess that’s what happens when you don’t sleep in your own bed.”
    Aw, hell, here it comes .
    Jo Lynn squirmed but couldn’t escape.
    “Did Dillon stay over?” her mother asked, point-blank. “And don’t lie, because I heard a noise a few minutes ago and I caught his car pulling out of the drive.”
    “It was no big deal really,” Jo muttered, glancing down at her feet. “We fell asleep in the guesthouse watching movies.” Well, it was the truth. She just left out the part about them mashing, because no mother alive wanted to think her daughter put out for