“It has been fun, Lettie. Thank you, ladies, for the good meal and the fun.” Cricket stood up and got a firm grip on Nadine’s arm to help her down the bleacher steps. “We’ll all get to meet again at the book-club meeting on Friday, so this is a good week.”

“I heard you’re bringing a new thing that has bacon and whiskey involved,” Nadine said. “I can’t wait to try it out.”

“It’s Jennie Sue’s recipe,” Rick said.

Cricket gave him another of her looks, and he just laughed it away.

“So what are you bringing, Jennie Sue?” Lettie asked. “The new member should show her worth by showing up with something in her hands.”

“And it can’t be a vegetable tray, because I’m bringing one of those,” Nadine said.

“Make it something sweet, like cookies,” Amos said.

“Cookies or cake or both,” Jennie Sue said.

“Then make it a cake. I love cake,” Amos suggested.

“How about my praline caramel cake?”

“Sounds wonderful,” Amos said.

“Need some fresh pecans to make that cake? We’ve got lots in the freezer. Pralines always have pecans, right?” Rick asked as they made their way down the steps and headed toward their individual vehicles.

“Would love a quart.” Jennie Sue nodded. “Just put them in with my vegetable order and add them to my bill.”

“Sure thing,” Rick said. “Good night, y’all. It’s been a great day.”

There was definitely something to be said for small towns, the folks who lived there, and their traditions.

Chapter Six

With a bucket of hot soapy water in one hand and a tote of cleaning supplies in the other, Jennie Sue started at the back of Nadine’s house. She’d barely gotten one room done when Nadine yelled that she was going down to the church to help with a funeral brunch. She’d be home at noon. Jennie Sue took time to get a bottle of water and her MP3 player from her purse. She chose a playlist of country music and went to work on the second bedroom.

Percy would have fussed for hours if he’d seen the dust on the ceiling fans and the half dozen dead flies between the window and the screen. Just as she thought about one of his last tantrums, Miranda Lambert started singing “Mama’s Broken Heart.”

Every word sounded just like Jennie Sue’s situation. The lyrics talked about powdering her nose, lining her lips, and keeping them closed, but the line that really hit home was when Miranda sang that she should start acting like a lady. She played the song five times as she worked and then listened to “Gunpowder & Lead,” and anger boiled up inside her. If Percy had hit her, her daddy would have done just what the song said about loading a shotgun. But her mother would have been a different matter. A little infidelity—that was just a man, right? Going on the run from the IRS—that was only protecting his sorry hide, right? Verbal abuse if one of the cans of green beans had been shifted over to the side where the corn was kept—well, Jennie Sue promised to love, honor, and obey in her vows, right? And he did keep her in pretty jewelry, a nice apartment, and a car, right?

She forced herself to focus on the work and forget about the past, but it wasn’t easy. Her playlist stopped when she finished up in the two bedrooms and hung the sheets on the line. She took the earbuds out and put the MP3 player back in her purse. Before long she was humming an old Travis Tritt tune, “Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares),” and giggling. She really hoped that someday Percy found himself backed up in a corner with a woman who was messy, who hated to clean, and who didn’t give a damn what he wanted or thought. She hoped that he had a quarter to call someone. It just better not be her, because she didn’t care anymore. Today she had a job and new friends.

“Hey, are you gettin’ hungry?” Nadine yelled as she pushed into the house. “It’s hotter’n Lucifer’s little spiked tail out there. Let’s have a beer and take a break; then we’ll drag out leftovers for lunch. Wait till I tell you what all I learned at the brunch today.”

“Gossip at a funeral brunch?” Jennie Sue asked.

“Honey, you can find it anywhere.” Nadine twisted the lids off two longneck bottles of beer, handed Jennie Sue one, then collapsed on the sofa, propping her feet up on the coffee table. “Sit down. You’re workin’ too fast. You got to pace yourself to make the job last all day.”

Jennie Sue sat on the other end of the sofa and sipped the icy-cold beer. “Who died?”

“Laura Mae Watson’s sister. She ain’t lived here in years, but Laura Mae wanted her to be buried next to their parents. Since there wasn’t many at the funeral, and it was a nine o’clock service, we decided to do a brunch. Who in their right mind has a funeral that early in the morning? Ten o’clock is early enough for folks to have to get dressed and put on makeup, don’t you think?”

Nadine didn’t wait for an answer. “There wasn’t but three floral sprays in the church, and those were from the immediate family. Won’t even be hardly enough to cover the grave. Whole thing, including the graveside service, was over in an hour; then we served the family for an hour, did cleanup, and visited a spell.”

She drank a third of the beer, burped like a three-hundred-pound trucker, and grinned. “Pardon me, but that tasted so good that I’m not even sorry. I also heard that your mama and her Sweetwater Belles are going to some fancy spa out in Arizona for a week. And the last is that you and Rick Lawson had an affair in high school. You came home to pick up where y’all left off, and that could be the reason your husband left you.”

Jennie Sue had just taken a gulp of beer, so when she snorted, it came out her nose and ran down her face. Thank goodness a box of tissues was sitting on the coffee table, or she’d have been cleaning beer stains from Nadine’s cream-colored sofa for hours.

“That’s not true,” Jennie Sue gasped. “No wonder Mama is escaping to the spa for a week. Why would people say that? We might be friendly, but we didn’t have an affair, and that’s not why Percy left me.”

Scratch that great feeling of belonging she’d had the night before. With that kind of talk flying around, she couldn’t wait to get out of town. But before she did, she had to go to the grave where Emily Grace was buried. She had to have closure before she left Bloom, or she’d never be able to get a fresh start.

Next week, she would definitely get some résumés written up and make a trip down to the Abilene employment office to see if anyone was looking for a woman with a business degree. Maybe she could even borrow Lettie’s truck and drive over to Dallas to one of those job fairs that was always listed over there.

Nadine took another sip of beer and went on. “They say that you goin’ to work for us has aged Charlotte ten years. I just want you to know that we didn’t mean to cause trouble like this. It isn’t a secret that the Wilshires and the Cliffords haven’t spoken a kind word to each other in decades, but we sure wouldn’t want to do you no harm. We like you, Jennie Sue.”

“Well, I like you, too, and this is my decision. Mama will come around. It might take twenty years.” The poor old darlings weren’t at all how her mother had drawn them all these years. She already dreaded leaving the funny, kindhearted sisters.

Nadine finished off the beer. “Honey, I’m ninety. I won’t be here in twenty more years. Oh, and the last little tidbit says that Dill has broken it off with Darlene. She’s heartbroken, but he’s probably got another woman in his eye. No one knows who it is right now, but there’s lots of betting goin’ on. I put five bucks on the new chamber-of-commerce secretary that just moved here from Midland. Dill kind of goes for red-haired women.” Nadine clamped a hand over her mouth. “That’s your daddy. I shouldn’t have told you that. Blame it on the beer and the heat. My brain ain’t firin’ on all the cylinders today.”

Jennie Sue patted her on the arm. “It’s okay. I’ve known about his ladies for years. What I’ve never been able to understand is why, with Mama’s temper, she puts up with it.”