The Begonia Bribe Read Free

double-checking her list from home when her phone rang.
    “Cam, how’s everything going?” Evangeline asked.
    “So far, so good.”
    “I was just thinking about that comment from Nell. Can your dad come to tonight’s dinner?”
    Cam sighed. If she were more honest with herself, she would have seen this coming. “I can check whether he’s available.”
    When she hung up, she called him.
    “Daddy?”
    “Hiya, sunshine. How’s shakes?”
    “Pretty good, but you’ve been given a special VIP invite for our supper tonight.”
    “It’s not one of them fancy things, is it?”
    “You know it is. It’s for the judges, main sponsors, media, and executive staff.”
    “Who’d want a gaffer like me at a fancy supper party?”
    “The request came from Nell Norton. She says . . .”
    “She was a friend of your mother’s. I remember.”
    “I think she’s just feeling sentimental—she’s married . . .” Cam wasn’t sure what made her blurt it, except it seemed her dad was a hot commodity among women over fifty.
    “Well, of course. I remember Byron, too.” Cam thought that was Nell’s husband’s name.
    “So you’ll come?”
    “It would be antisocial not to, it seems.”
    “Thank you, Daddy. I’ll have Annie pick you up about quarter to seven.”
    “You do that,” he said before he hung up.
    Cam shut her phone and stared at it.
    * * *
    S he refilled her coffee cup and then went upstairs to see Annie. Her best friend was already planning on attending the supper party in order to take pictures, so Cam didn’t think it would be a problem.
    “You want a hot date tonight?”
    “I might. Who’s asking?”
    “My dad.”
    “Is he taking me to Disney World?” Annie jumped up and down as she said it.
    “Just the same old party you were already going to.”
    “Well, I suppose it ups my value to show up with a hot guy on my arm.”
    “Excellent!” Cam knew her dad was one of Annie’s favorite people, so unlike with the other favors she asked—and there were a lot of them—she didn’t feel too guilty. “I told him you’d pick him up at quarter to seven.”
    “Nice! An excuse not to be there too early.”
    Cam shrugged. “I owe you one, in any case.”
    Annie grabbed her chin and looked upward. “You owe me nine million and forty-three.”
    “Probably.” She gave Annie a hug. “You really are the best,
best
friend ever.”

CHAPTER 2
    T welve guests had grown to thirty faster than Cam could say “pretentious pageant,” and she found herself in the awkwardly familiar spot of greeting guests in the Patricks’ foyer. Both times she’d done this before, people had died, no matter how much she didn’t want to think about that. Instead of guests wafting in with the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine as they had then, they now carried the sweet aroma of the gardenia that framed the Patricks’ front walk.
    Evangeline and Neil Patrick were shuffling about in the day room upstairs where the reception would be, and Cam expected Lydia Fennewick, the pageant chair and a friend of Evangeline’s, to arrive from the guest house any minute.
    The first other guests to arrive were Trish Tait and Jenny Andrews, volunteers who would be helping with the pageant. Cam was glad. They’d make excellent minglers as the more prestigious guests arrived. Both were socially skilled, attractive, and committed to the pageant’s success. Cam sent them up the stairs to wait for the other guests.
    Clancy Huggins, one of the judges and host of
Green Living
, arrived next with a pretty woman Cam didn’t know.
    “Mr. Huggins! Welcome! I’m Camellia Harris, the event coordinator.”
    “Miss Harris, lovely to meet you in person. And this is my dear friend, Jessica Benchly.”
    Cam had half expected to hear the name Jessica Rabbit, with the unrealistic proportions and beauty of the woman, though Jessica Benchly was dark haired with large dark eyes. She casually hung on Clancy’s arm. Dear friend could have been literal