“Mama, I got barbecue on my shirt. Does that mean I can’t go to church with Hattie?” Gracie whined.
“It will wash. And you sound pretty tired to me to be going somewhere again tonight. Bible school until after lunch and then more than four hours of swimming and playing in the water?” Jamie laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Please, Mama, I want to see Lisa,” Gracie begged.
“And she’s looking forward to seeing you,” Paul said on a trip back out to his truck. “Hattie loves to have the kids around her, and she told me she’d only be half an hour.”
Suddenly a picture popped into Jamie’s mind of Paul drawing her into his arms, brushing her hair back with his big hands, and then tipping her chin up for a kiss. She had to blink half a dozen times to erase the sight. Jamie could not remember the last time that she blushed, but a slow burn started at the base of her neck and shot around to her cheeks. The crazy thing was that not one thing had happened that should cause the hot little crimson circles but her own thoughts. Dammit! She was a widow of only a few weeks, and she had no right to even be thinking about another man, much less one she’d only met that moment.
Jamie nodded at her daughter. “Okay, but on one condition. When you get home, you go straight to bed.”
“Deal.” Gracie grinned.
Amanda’s breath caught in her chest. Conrad used to say that word with exactly the same inflection. Would her son turn out to be like his father? She had to put it out of her mind or she would lose her appetite.
“I believe I saw a few sparks in this room when y’all shook hands,” she whispered for Jamie’s ears only. “You are blushing.”
Kate overheard and whipped around from the stove. “There is a lot of color in your cheeks.”
“I am not blushing,” Jamie protested. “I’ve been out in the sun too much today. And y’all would do well to remember that we’ve all only been widows a few days.”
“I saw what I saw.” Amanda shrugged.
Kate carried her plate to the table. “I thought we were taking the bed to a dump ground.”
Amanda pulled a paper towel from the roll in the middle of the table. “Remember hearing about Gracie’s little friend’s house burning? I gave the bed to her daddy. They offered to take it away and put up the new one for me.”
“Pretty good trade-off, but I would have been glad to help with the moving-out and moving-in business,” Kate said.
Jamie finished her second rib and wiped her hands. “Conrad would be livid about this, you know?”
“Good,” Amanda said. “I hope he is twisting and turning in”—she glanced at Gracie—“in the place where I’m pretty sure he is suffering from the heat.”
“That’s a change of heart from that whimpering girl at the funeral a few days ago,” Kate said.
“The veil has been lifted from her eyes.” Jamie took Gracie by the hand. “This little girl needs to get a clean shirt on.”
Amanda laid a hand on her stomach as the men brought the smaller bed into the house and carried it down the hallway. “I wonder if women in a harem feel like this,” she said.
“Not in your wildest dreams,” Kate said. “They know they aren’t the only ones in the lives of their master or husband or whatever he is to them. Conrad taunted me with constant reminders about how I was too damn ugly to hold a man’s attention. But Jamie only had suspicions, and you were completely in the dark. So, no, it’s not like a harem. They all know one another and know exactly what is going on.”
“He told you that? But you are beautiful and smart and so prim and proper that I feel like a country bumpkin around you,” Amanda said.
“And I feel like a big, ugly sunflower in the middle of a beautiful rose garden when I’m around you and Jamie,” Kate said.
Amanda’s eyes grew huge when the guys hauled out the mattress. “Kate, will I be in trouble for giving away something that goes with the cabin?”
“I don’t think so. When the probate stuff starts, they’ll count every bed and every spoon in the kitchen,” Kate said.
CHAPTER NINE
When Kate was at home in Fort Worth, she and her mother had a standing date every Sunday. They attended church and then had dinner at a restaurant. One week Teresa made the reservations, the next week Kate did. After they had spent an hour and a half together over lunch, Kate would go home and do nothing but relax. In the summer she swam in the pool, usually doing laps like her mother did when she was a little girl. When it was too cold to get into the pool or when she wasn’t in the mood, she watched recorded episodes of her favorite television shows.
If Gracie hadn’t begged them all to go see her Bible school program that morning, Kate would have used the excuse that she had to get some last-minute work done. But she could not stand to think about disappointing Gracie. However, it did make her nervous to step outside her comfort zone and attend a church other than the one she’d been christened in as a baby and had gone to her whole life.
So there she was, standing in front of the mirror in a bright-orange floral sundress she’d bought on a whim when she had been looking at cruise brochures. Her mother would be so speechless that she wouldn’t be able to utter “I told you so” if she could see Kate dressed like that. A lady wore appropriate clothing to church. She had an image to uphold, one that included a tailored suit, panty hose, and high heels. The image did not have time for a casual sundress and sandals.
She ran a brush through her shoulder-length blonde hair one more time, reapplied lipstick, and picked up her purse. She found Jamie and Gracie already in the living room and breathed a sigh of relief. Jamie wore a cute little denim skirt that skimmed her knee and a sleeveless chocolate-brown knit shirt—and cowboy boots. Gracie was in one of her sundresses and white sandals. Her hair was pulled up into a side ponytail with a big white bow at the top, and Kate wanted to pick her up and swirl her around the room until they were both dizzy.
“You got all dressed up,” Jamie said.
“Not really.” Kate smiled. “I was afraid I’d be underdressed. My mother wouldn’t even sit beside me if I wore this to our church.”
“It’s not what you wear on your body but what you have in your heart.” Amanda appeared from the kitchen with a casserole dish in her hands. “Remember, Hattie said if we were staying for the potluck, we should bring something. I made a fruit salad this morning.”
“Are you staying?” Kate asked.
“Of course.” Amanda nodded. “I never turn down a big dinner like that. Since we all live in one house, this covered dish will take care of as many of us as want to stay.”
Gracie clapped her hands and did a wiggling dance in the middle of the floor. “Can we stay, Mama? Lisa says they always stay and now I can play with her more, and Mama, can she go swimming with me someday and maybe even have a picnic on the dock?” She stopped for breath and then went on. “And we could even play Barbies on the deck and . . .”