The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(12)

She propped up on an elbow and traced the barbed-wire tat on his bicep. “Why barbed wire?” she asked, still breathless.

“My cousin has one and I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” he answered.

“Did he rodeo or what was the story behind barbed wire?”

He brushed a leaf from her hair and shooed away a mosquito with the back of his hand. “He’s a rancher and raises cattle. His family ranches, too, but they raise prizewinnin’ horses in addition to Angus cattle. They live over near Ringgold, Texas. Want to go meet them after church tomorrow? Or do you want to wait and meet the whole family when they show up in church after I sign the contracts?” He kissed her on the tip of the nose. “And for your ears only, darlin’, my mama and my dad know that I’m married and they can’t wait to meet you.”

“Hell, no! That billboard has stirred up everyone in town. They’ll be watching me like a hawk to see if the prayers get answered and I understand Heather is determined that she’s been called to a marriage ministry, whatever the hell that is,” she answered.

She remembered the very first time she looked up and saw him standing just inside the Yellow Rose. That day his curly blond hair, blue eyes, and smile had come close to taking her breath away.

“Can I help you?” she’d asked when she could get words to go from brain to mouth.

“It takes a person with magic in their fingertips to tame my curly hair. I’m expecting miracles from someone as pretty as you,” he’d said smoothly.

Major flirting had taken place and she’d found out that he’d just moved to Cadillac to pastor the church where she and her family had gone their whole lives. He’d found out that she wasn’t married and asked her to dinner the next week. She’d accepted but the date wasn’t sitting across the booth from each other out at the Rib Joint or even at a steak house in Sherman. It was fried chicken on a quilt under a willow tree at the edge of the river.

Bringing her back to the present with a long, lingering kiss, he gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “What were you thinking about?”

“That first time you came into the shop,” she said. “I think I fell in love with you on the spot.”

“I know I fell in love with you the second that you whipped that cape around my shoulders. The touch of your fingertips on my bare skin about set me plumb on fire,” he said.

“We can announce that we got married in May right after my birthday. Mama will have learned her lesson by then and Heather will figure out her marriage ministry is a day late and a dollar short,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Heather has gone overboard with that marriage ministry idea, but if she’s got enough rope she will hang herself for sure. Then it will be finished for good. It sounds more like one of those Internet dating things that have a dot-com behind the name. I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t appreciate that kind of thinking.”

Stella curled up in his arms, not caring if mosquitoes were buzzing around her head. They didn’t sink their little beaks into sweaty people, anyway. At least that’s what she’d always heard, along with the story about cats and water. Maybe one of them was right.

It had been her idea to keep their marriage a secret until the deacons and the hiring committee offered Jed a full-time position, and he’d agreed. From the get-go, they’d planned to announce it as soon as Jed had signed his contract.

“Now what are you thinking about? Your eyes are sparkling in the moonlight,” he said.

“How much I love you.”

“I love you, too, darlin’. I promise I didn’t know about the sign or that you’d been put on the prayer list until this morning. I’ll have it taken down, I promise, and I won’t read your name on Sunday. It’ll all fade away,” he said. “Or we can just announce that we are married and they can pray for the folks in town who are really sick?”

She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. Agnes wanted some excitement and Stella wasn’t ready to tell the whole world she was married to Jed Tucker, the preacher. Their relationship was too perfect and it was only a couple of more weeks before the hiring committee would offer him a two-year contract. Until then he was temporary and could be let go at any given time. And to top it all off, Heather deserved to have to eat a big chunk of crow pie and so did Nancy Baxter.

“Don’t take the sign down. Don’t take me off the list. I’m going to beat that damn hussy at her own game. She thinks she’s going to run me out of town so she can play the piano in church. And darlin’, I can’t wait to meet your family.”

Jed traced her lip line with his finger. “What does the piano have to do with anything?”

“It’s a thorn in her flesh that I’m playing it. So we’re going to let the gossip go crazy. They’ll all feel like fools after you are hired permanently.” She brought his lips down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.

He chuckled. “Gossip is like cats. If you take a mean old tomcat off and dump him in someone’s yard, make sure that you take him across a body of water if you don’t want him to find his way home. Water stops cats and gossips, too.”

She traced his lips with the tip of her finger. “But what about prayers?”

He grabbed her hand and slowly kissed each fingertip. “It’s a moot point right now, isn’t it? You already have a husband. And darlin’, if they don’t want to give me a contract because I’m married to you, there are other churches.”