“I’m sure he’s fine-looking,” Bianca continued in her little-girl voice, but Edie put a hand on her arm to shut her up.
“No staring,” Edie repeated. “Got it. As for the whole singing and dancing thing . . .” She gestured at her leg. “If they do that, they’re counting me out, too.”
“Oh, right.” Gretchen brightened. “That makes you even more perfect for my motley wedding party.”
“But—” Bianca began.
Edie squeezed her arm again. One of the reasons that Bianca and Gretchen didn’t get along was that Bianca was convinced she could make everyone love her with a few sweet words, and Gretchen loathed fakeness. It would be best to keep the two apart and, not for the first time, she regretted bringing her younger sister. But she needed Bianca here, sadly. And she liked that she didn’t have to do this alone. “It’s your wedding, Gretchen. It’ll be exactly how you want.”
Gretchen beamed at Edie. “I fully intend on being a bridezilla. I mean, why not, right? A friend of mine just had a big destination wedding and it was awesome, but I think I want to have things here so Hunter doesn’t feel quite so out of his element.”
Edie glanced around at the big house as they walked down a long hall, thankfully not up a staircase. “You could certainly hold a lot of people here.”
“Indeed,” said Bianca, who clearly didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. “There’s a very gothic, old world look to this place that’s positively charming.” Her gaze fell to a Chinese vase on a nearby table and Edie could practically see the dollar signs tallying in Bianca’s eyes. “Have you considered renting it out for weddings?”
“God, no,” Gretchen said, giving the sisters a horrified look. “I barely want to have my own here. Luckily the rose gardens are flat-out magnificent.”
“Your cat?” Edie inquired again.
Gretchen blinked, clearly distracted. “Oh, right. Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind today. Come on up to the bedroom. Igor’s probably commandeering the blankets.”
“Oooh, the bedroom?” Bianca cooed. “We’d love to.”
Gretchen changed direction, heading down an entirely different hall. This corridor had paintings lining one wall and heavily draped windows along the next. Artful end tables rested along the wall every few feet, and each one had a vase filled with roses of different varieties. “This is mine and Hunter’s private quarters,” Gretchen explained as they walked. She gestured at doors as they passed them. “That’s his gym, and over there is his office.” At the far end of the long, winding hall was a huge pair of double doors. “And the bedroom,” she said, heading for it.
Edie’s leg was aching from all the walking, but she did want to see the cat. Most of the time, she liked cats more than people. When Gretchen opened the double doors to the room, she eyed it as she would for her own cats. There was a deluxe cat fort set up in one corner of the room, and a perch set against one of the massive windows, which made Edie happy. Curled up in the center of a massive bed was a beige wrinkly bag of flesh that stretched his long legs as Gretchen went and picked him up.
“Iggy doesn’t mind it here, but he tends to get lost so I try to keep him confined to this room,” Gretchen explained. “The house is just too big, and this room’s practically a thousand square feet as it is.”
Igor, Gretchen’s hairless sphinx cat, looked good, and Edie smiled. He’d been a rescue that Gretchen had taken on a few years ago because Edie already had too many cats, and at the time he’d been skinny and miserable, with a nasty skin infection. Now he was sassy and fat, and as Gretchen held him in her arms and rubbed his wrinkly head, Edie felt a happy pang of seeing a happy cat with a loving owner. She’d put the two together.
“Can I pet him?” she asked as Bianca wandered past, admiring the room.
“Of course,” Gretchen said, “But I’m not sure that he likes strangers, and he hasn’t seen you in years. I know he’s still getting used to Hunter.”
Edie reached out and held her fingers close enough for Igor to sniff. The cat gave them a cursory whiff, then hissed and batted Edie’s hand away with his claws.
Gretchen hauled him away from Edie with a wince. “Yeah, he’s not Mister Friendly.”
“It’s okay,” Edie said with a laugh, wincing at the scratches the cat had left. “He probably smells my cats on me and that’s making him anxious.” She put her fingers to her mouth and sucked on the welts.
“I’m so sorry—”
“I’ve had worse in my line of work. No big deal.” Edie gave her a grin to ease her fears. “It’s a perfectly normal reaction to strange-smelling people invading his space. I’d love to see you and Hunter interacting with him, though. Maybe I could—”
“No,” Gretchen said, depositing the cat back on the bed. “You’re not here to analyze us, Edie. You’re here as a guest. And speaking of, we should probably get back to them. Hunter’s going to wonder where we ran off to.” She smiled, her face softening at the mention of her fiancé.
They left the room and Edie continued to suck on her fingers as Gretchen chatted on about the different wings of the house and the days the cleaning crew came by. Bianca’s big eyes were wide as she drank it all in (no doubt storing information for later use) and Edie was content to let them talk. Her knee was aching something fierce at this point. Four hours in the car in a bent position wasn’t good for it, and now walking around was making it worse. She needed a nice long soak and some Tiger Balm, but the night had barely started. This was why she wasn’t fun at parties.
“Here,” Gretchen said as they turned a corner. “We’re in the red dining room. It’s just down this way. I—”
“Actually,” Edie said, interrupting. She held up her bleeding fingers. “Can I run to the restroom and grab some Band-Aids? I’ll catch up with you guys.” It’d give her a chance to rest her knee before going in and enduring the rest of the evening.
“You want me to go get it for you?” Gretchen asked. “I don’t mind—”
“Oh, no, I can do it,” Edie said quickly, already hurrying down the hall. “I’ll just run to the restroom and catch up with you and Bianca.”
“Go to the kitchen all the way down the hall,” Gretchen called after her. “I keep the Band-Aids in there.”
Edie gave her a thumbs-up as she walked, footsteps determined, down the long hall. She didn’t glance backward until she heard Bianca’s and Gretchen’s voices recede. After a few more moments, she looked backward and sure enough, she was alone. Whew. She sat down on a settee against the wall and rubbed her knee, trying to ease the ache that throbbed under the scar tissue. Stupid knee. Stupid body that had to fail on her.
Her fingers were no longer bleeding after a few minutes, but since she’d bailed for a Band-Aid, she might as well find one. Hauling herself back to her feet, she headed back down the hall again, looking for a door that might lead to a kitchen. One door at the end of the hall looked promising as it had no handle, but instead, swung on its hinge. That seemed like a kitchen door. Edie limped toward it.