“No rush,” she said.
“I’ve loved every minute of this evening.” His phone rang.
“Mama’s here!” Gracie shouted simultaneously.
The two women came through the door talking while he answered the call. He listened for a minute and then said, “I’m on my way.” He crossed the room in a couple of long strides. “Glad everything is fine, Amanda. Victor has gotten his car stuck in the mud down at Hattie’s. They saw my truck parked outside when they came home from getting ice cream and they need help.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Kate sucked in the fresh air when they were on the porch. “You never get this in the city.”
He wrapped his hand around hers. “What?”
“Stars this bright or this scent after a rain.”
“It’s the smell of wet dirt.” He stopped when they reached his truck and pulled her close to his chest. “I wish we’d met sooner, like when we were in our twenties, and that we’d had a whole yard full of little kids like Gracie. You would have been an awesome mother, Kate.”
“But we weren’t these people back then. We might not have even liked each other at that age. Look who I ended up picking later.”
“I would have liked you at any age.”
“Really?” Kate cocked her head to one side.
“Absolutely. Though you are right. Right out of college, neither of us would have enjoyed tonight the way we did. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.”
Watching her stand on the porch and wave until he was out of sight kicked his pulse into high gear.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It seems like we’ve been waiting for hours.”
Amanda checked the time on her phone. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet. We’ve only been here ten minutes, Jamie. They have to get settled and get the preliminary talkin’ done. Don’t be nervous. If not, then we’ll go back to what we were doing, right? You have a teaching job in Dallas. I’ve got the shop. It’s not like we are going to have to stand on the street corner and beg for quarters.”
“You are so right,” Jamie said, fidgeting with a speck of lint on her skirt. “But Gracie is so happy here. I wish they’d call one of us into the meeting and get it over with.”
“Don’t think about time. Think about us sitting outside in the hallway on metal folding chairs. To me, it feels like we’re in trouble,” Amanda said.
Jamie smiled. “I was so shy, I never had to sit in the hallway. My teachers are probably still in shock that I grew up to become a teacher myself.”
“Humph! Don’t try to put that bullshit on my plate. The way you bowed up to me at the funeral, and with your temper, I ain’t believin’ a word of that,” Amanda said.
“I was shy in high school. I learned to stand up for myself in college. How about you?”
“I was not a model student, so I did spend my fair share of time sitting on a chair just like this or in detention hall. I liked the latter much better.”
“Why?” Jamie asked.
“Most of the time they assigned a teacher who’d rather be doing anything else but watching a bunch of unruly kids, so they’d leave the room. We’d break out the cards and I won enough money playing poker to buy after-school Cokes.”
“Really?” Jamie gasped. “I figured you for a shy little thing like Kate and I were.”
“Not until later, after Aunt Ellie got me straightened out in the church.”
“Amanda?” Victor poked his head out the door. “We’re ready for you.”
“Wish me luck,” Amanda said.
“You don’t even need it.”
“Thank you.”
Amanda had dressed in her best maternity slacks and shirt, styled her curly red hair in a twist, and applied makeup. The job might not bring in the money that she’d made at the bank or even the clothing store, but it would be perfect for a single mother with a child. And Bootleg was a better place to raise a baby than in an apartment right in the city.
“Please have a seat,” a lady she recognized from the church said.
The wing-back chair that Amanda sank into was a whole lot more comfortable that the metal chair out in the hallway. She waited while they shuffled through her résumé and recommendation letters she’d gotten from the bank, Aunt Ellie, and Wanda.
“I am Andrea Drysdale, the president of the Board of Education,” the woman said. She introduced three of the other five members, finishing, “You already know Victor, who has highly recommended you for this position.”
Amanda nodded at each of them. “I’m pleased to meet you all. You all know how I came to be in Bootleg, right?”
“We do,” Mrs. Drysdale said and then lowered her voice. “And off the record, we’re glad to hear that the man who conned Iris is dead. We aren’t going to let anything that he caused or did influence our decision. Do you have any questions about this job?”