The Barefoot Summer(29)

“If you’ll bring it in, too, it would be a big help,” she said.

Paul smiled again. “You got it. To get to sleep on a real bed, I’d move a whole houseful of furniture.”

Amanda yelled from the kitchen again, “Hey, Paul, you can have all the bedding, too, but you’ll have to wash it.”

“Thank you.” Paul raised his voice, but his eyes were on Jamie. “This is the answer to a prayer. I am very grateful.” Then he nodded toward Jamie. “You are Gracie’s mother, right?”

“Yes, I am.” Jamie nodded.

“She’s all Lisa has been talking about.” Paul’s smile got even wider at the mention of his daughter.

“Well, Gracie is quite taken with her new friend, too.” Jamie was reluctant to return to the kitchen.

I’m not going to propose to him. I just want to get to know him better if his kid and mine are going to be friends, she argued with the voice in her head.

Kate pushed open the sliding doors into the kitchen and raised an eyebrow at Jamie. “What is going on?”

“We’re giving away the bed. You got a problem with that?” Amanda answered quickly.

Kate shook her head and yawned. “I do not. What time is it?”

“Six thirty, and barbecue is on the stove if you are hungry,” Amanda answered.

“Good grief! I was working down on the dock and time got away from me,” Kate said.

The guys came out with the bed and loaded it onto their trucks. Then they took in the new bed and a bassinet filled with cute baby things. Ellie wanted to get home before dark, so she hugged Amanda and hurried off while Jamie finished getting Gracie’s plate ready.

“I would have helped tear down and unload for this supper.” Jamie held up a rib.

“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.”