Bowled Over by Victoria Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

by chairs or blankets.
    Valetta just shrugged. Kathy greeted
her
pleasantly and smiled at the others while ignoring Jaymie. Daniel appeared startled. She had told him about her and Kathy’s feud, but he likely hadn’t realized the depth of it. She was going to take the high road and ignore Kathy’s provocation. It was a lovely day, and she would not let it be spoiled.
    That was the mantra she repeated to herself over and over, even as every little thing the woman did bugged her. Kathy edged her picnic basket closer to Jaymie’s blanket until it was sitting partially on it. She left the park for a few minutes and returned with a lawn chair, which she plunked down directly in front of Jaymie, so her view would be of Kathy’s butt when the race started. She tossed a cookie to a squirrel, “accidentally” throwing most of the crumbs on Jaymie.
    Daniel got up to join Brock in throwing a Frisbee to Eva and William, Brock Nibley’s kids, and Jaymie finally leaned over to her friend and muttered, “Valetta, if Kathy doesn’t stop it, I am going to have to say something. Can’t you see what she’s doing?”
    Valetta frowned. “I know, I know. Do you want me to talk to her?”
    “Would you? I don’t want a scene, but I don’t want to steam about this all day.”
    Valetta got up and circled their group of blankets to bend over and talk to Kathy. The other woman shook her head, shrugged, then twisted in her seat, giving Jaymie a poisonous look. She got up and walked around her chair, standing on the edge of Jaymie’s blanket, hands on her hips in a defiant stance.
    Her plain face set in a grim expression, Kathy said, “So, you have to poison my friends’ minds about me too, now, right? You have to try to turn everyone against me.”
    Valetta, twisting her bony hands together, said, “Kathy, that’s not—”
    “You just hate me
so
much,” Kathy went on, ignoring their mutual friend.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kathy,” Jaymie said, standing up. “I don’t
hate
you.”
    “Oh, come
on
. You hate that I’m the only one in this town who doesn’t kiss your precious Leighton ass.”
    Jaymie, stunned, opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Daniel, seeing the confrontation, began to walk toward them.
    “And now you’re trying to hook a millionaire,” the angry woman said loudly, gesturing toward Daniel. A nerve jumped in her forehead, and her whole body trembled.
    “That’s ridiculous,” Jaymie retorted. She would
not
get angry, she just wouldn’t! They had coexisted in the same small town for years with just a subversive feud that amounted to little more than nasty gossip and snide remarks, but now, for it to flare out into the open…what was going on?
    “You’re too flipping lazy to go out and get a job like everyone else, so you’re chasing down the only rich guy available,” Kathy taunted, her lips curled back from slightly buck teeth in an unpleasant sneer. She tossed her ponytail. “It’s pathetic. You just want to stay home, play tea party and marry a millionaire.”
    “Kathy Cooper, you have no right to speak to me that way,” Jaymie said, her cheeks flaming with a mortified blush that was spreading down to her neck. “You should really watch what you say to me, you know,” Jaymie said, her voicetrembling, “or you’ll be sorry.” How she’d be sorry, Jaymie didn’t know, but she was humiliated and furious and had to say something.
    Craig Cooper, his expression dark, strode toward them as Anna approached Jaymie’s party hand in hand with her little daughter. The confluence of new arrivals broke up the argument. Craig angrily whipped his wife’s blanket off the ground and folded up her chair. He grabbed her arm, talked to her in low tones, and moved a ways away, setting up their spot off the walkway, just down from Jaymie’s group.
    “What was that all about?” Anna asked.
    “That was one more incident proving Kathy Cooper’s hatred of me,” Jaymie said,