The Barefoot Summer(2)

She glanced down the row again. The little girl held her red rose as if it were a piece of delicate china. The expression on the face of the woman beside her left no doubt that she wanted to get this whole thing finished as much as Kate did. The pregnant girl had wrapped her wrinkled handkerchief around the stem of her rose and now wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

“Let us pray,” the preacher said.

Praise the Lord, Kate thought as she bowed her head, but she did not shut her eyes. She stared straight ahead at the shiny black casket with the reflections of the mourners, real or obligatory, right there before her. Their faces distorted in the casket’s curvature, but what she saw was sorrow, disgust, confusion, acceptance, and something akin to indifference.

“Amen!” the preacher said, and Kate mouthed the word even though she had no idea what he’d petitioned God for that afternoon. He could have begged the Lord to open up the ground and swallow Conrad Steele’s wife right there on the spot, or he might have read that week’s grocery list, but she could definitely say, “Amen,” if it got her out of the heat.

The preacher nodded toward her. “And now, Mrs. Steele, do you have any last words or something you want to say before we conclude the service?”

She shook her head, stood up, and hoped her slim skirt wasn’t stuck to her sweaty thighs as she took the red rose the funeral director had handed her when she arrived and laid it on the top of the casket.

“Yes, I have something to say.” The pregnant girl laid one hand on her baby bump and pushed up out of the chair. “Conrad was an amazing husband, and I cannot believe he’s gone.” She burst into another round of deep sobs.

“Sweet Jesus!” Surely the heat had fried Kate’s brain cells. That kid couldn’t be married to Conrad, and yet the scenario didn’t change, no matter how many times Kate blinked.

The older woman quickly stood up and wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s all right, Amanda, darlin’. Just give your flower to Conrad and please stop crying.”

“I can’t. He was such a good man, and now he’ll never see our baby grow up,” she wailed.

Kate’s eyebrows shot up so high that it gave her an instant headache. Conrad had married without divorcing Kate and the woman was pregnant? She was still staring at the lady when the Hispanic woman popped up and her hands knotted into fists.

“You can’t be married to Conrad! I am his wife.”

Kate inhaled and let it out slowly, but then couldn’t make herself suck in more air. Her chest ached and her hands went clammy as the scene played out in slow motion.

“You are lying!” Amanda threw off the older woman’s arm and stomped up to the other woman until she was nose to nose with her. “I married him seven months ago. You might be his ex-wife, but you are not his wife today.”

“I have the marriage license showing that I’ve been married to him for seven years. With no divorce, so if he married you last year, kiddo, you aren’t even legally married. This child right here is his daughter.” Her dark eyes flashed.

Kate’s mother sighed. “I told you he was bad news.”

“Holy smokin’ hell!” Kate finally gasped.

“Okay, ladies.” Detective Waylon Kramer stepped between them. “You can both take a step backward. Neither of you are legally married to Conrad. This lady right here”—he pointed to Kate—“is his legal wife of fourteen years.”

“You can’t tell me that. I have a marriage license. Amanda Hilton and Conrad Steele were married the last day of December last year,” Amanda argued.

“So do I,” the dark-haired woman said and poked herself in the chest with a forefinger. “Jamie Mendoza and Conrad Steele were married the last day of December seven years ago.”

Waylon glanced at Kate.

She shrugged. “The last day of December fourteen years ago.”

“You”—Amanda raised her voice to only an octave below what it took to break glass—“are his sister. And that old woman beside you is his mother. He showed me pictures of you awful people together—his mother liked you better and gave you most of the money. He only got a little bit from his trust fund, which would be mine if something ever happened to him. And I need it for this baby.” Her hands went to her rounded stomach.

“Old woman!” Teresa gasped.

Kate bit back a nervous giggle. Nothing was humorous about anything that was going on, but that pregnant redhead had no idea that she’d just opened the cage to the scary Teresa Tiger, who could rip her throat out with nothing but icy words.

“I am his legal wife, and there is no trust fund,” Kate said.

“Bringing up money at a funeral,” Teresa muttered under her breath. “This is worse than The Jerry Springer Show. If I’d birthed that son of a bitch, I would have thrown him in the river before he was a week old. Old woman, my ass!”

“You are both wrong. Come on, Aunt Ellie. We’re going home and we’ll get a lawyer to sort this out.” Amanda set her mouth in a firm line.

At least that annoying sobbing had stopped. Kate didn’t give a baby rat’s rear end about her late husband, and when that woman woke up and realized that she’d married a con man, she might change her tune.

“Your rose,” her aunt Ellie reminded her.