This man really was a Tennessee Williams wet dream, she thought, as a film strip slowly unwound in her head. She could see him in the shabby library of a decaying plantation house, his white shirt damp with sweat from a lusty encounter with young Elizabeth in the brass bed upstairs. He had a cheroot clamped between his teeth as he thumbed impatiently through an old diary trying to discover where his great-grandmother had buried the family silver.

Her body felt warm and languid, and she had to suppress the urge to rub against him like a cat.

The burst of loud laughter that came from the pool pulled her back to reality. She looked over in time to see five of Bobby Tom’s women shove him into the water fully dressed. When he didn’t immediately come up for air, she gritted her teeth. “I’m forcing myself not to run over and pull him out.”

Dan chuckled and took his foot down from the bench. “Relax. You have even more money invested in Jim Biederot than in Bobby Tom, and Jim’s just lassoed one of the chimneys so he can climb the side of the house.”

“I’m definitely not cut out for this job.”

Bobby Tom rose to the surface, blowing water, and pulled two of the women in with him. She was glad Molly’s bedroom looked out on the side of the house instead of the back.

“Tully told me Jim climbs the house every year,” Dan said. “Apparently, the party wouldn’t be the same without it.”

“Couldn’t he just put a lamp shade on his head like everybody else?”

“He prides himself on originality.”

A burly defensive lineman lay down on the concrete at the side of the pool and began to bench press a shrieking young woman. Dan pointed his beer can toward them. “Now there’s where your real trouble’s gonna start.”

She stood so she could get a better view and then wished she hadn’t. “I hope he doesn’t hurt her.”

“That wouldn’t matter so much as the fact she’s not his wife.”

At that moment a tiny fireball with a shining mane of Diana Ross hair charged from the rear of the patio toward Webster Greer, a 294-pound All-Pro defensive tackle.

Dan chuckled. “Watch and learn, Phoebe.”

The spitfire screeched to a stop on a pair of stiletto heels. “Webster Greer, you put that girl down right this minute or your ass is gonna be grass!”

“Aw, honey—” He dropped the redhead onto a chaise lounge.

“Don’t you ‘honey’ me,” the spitfire shrieked. “You want to find yourself sleeping in that bowling alley you built for yourself in our basement, that’s just fine with me, ’cause you sure as hell won’t be sleeping with me.”

“Aw, honey—”