The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(93)

“You aren’t going to make her tell you anything more?” Piper asked.

Nancy shook her head. “It’s need to know. Right now I just need to know how many steaks to thaw out for her birthday.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Every dryer was blowing hot air, the styling station chairs were full, two women on the sofa leafed through magazines, and two others sat at the table eating ice cream on a stick. The noise level wasn’t as loud as it had been when there was lots of gossip flying around, but it was a far cry from being quiet in the shop that Wednesday afternoon.

Then Gene plowed into the shop, slammed the door behind him, and yelled across the whole room at Piper, “What in the hell have you done?”

It took a few seconds, but every bit of conversation stopped. Not a single magazine page turned, and the lonesome cricket that Stella had tried to track down for two days stopped chirping.

Piper laid down the curling iron and met him halfway across the room, right in front of the yellow sofa. “This is my place of business. We will step outside or go to the back room, but this is not the place to yell at me,” she said softly.

He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not going anywhere. You really did move in with Rhett Monroe, didn’t you? The stories are true.”

She looked him right in the eye without blinking or tiptoeing. “What I do or do not do is none of your business.”

“It is when it affects my sons, or are they my kids? Do I need to get a DNA test run to see if I really owe child support?” he asked coldly.

“I’ll take care of that for you next week,” she said. “Anything else?”

“I want to know where you live. It’s my right.”

“No, it is not. The divorce papers say if I move from the county with the boys, I have to let you know. If I take them out of the country for a vacation, I have to make you aware of when we leave and when we return if it interferes with your visitation dates, which are now on my calendar. Other than that, where I live is my business, and since I live in Grayson County, I don’t have to tell you jack shit, boy.”

One of the women started clapping and the others followed suit.

Gene tried to glare at all of them, but there were too many. “I’ll have you declared unfit and take the boys away from you,” he hissed.

“Tell me the court dates and I’ll be there to fight you, but since your hours have been cut at work, you might want to be aware that if you lose, you get to pay the court fees as well as all the lawyer fees,” she said.

“The house is empty,” he shouted.

“Yes, it is. The locks will be changed this week. I’m leasing it to a new teacher and his family. They will be moving in the first week of August, so you might not want to be breaking and entering or you’ll wind up in jail.”

“My mother will not be babysitting for you ever again. The boys can’t go with them this next weekend if you are going to be like this. I’ll have her call you,” he said.

“I can pay a sitter. I was just letting your mother have them because she asked. Now if that’s all, I’ve got to get back to work, and I’ll see you the weekend after next on Friday at six right here. And then you will bring them home to me Sunday at six right here.”

He stormed out without another word.

Piper took a deep breath and went back to her station. “Sorry about that. Some men are . . .”

“Just born stupid,” Carlene said from the sofa.

“You got that right,” Piper said.



Stella roamed through the house that had been her home for more than a year. It wouldn’t be difficult to leave it and move into the rambling old two-story white parsonage on the south side of the church. The ground floor was bigger than her entire little brick house, and there were three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

The furnishings were old and worn and the whole place needed a coat of paint, inside and out. The hiring committee had told Jed that they wouldn’t be out money on the parsonage but it would be a good sign in their books if he invested some of his in renovating the place.

He might need a gold star in their books when they found out he’d married Stella Baxter, so she’d already picked out paint colors and had no doubt that all her friends would gather for something like an Amish barn raising if her mother and daddy offered to furnish the food.

She was eager to move and ease into her new role as Jed’s wife—more than ready to sit with him in a restaurant or on the front pew in church where the preacher’s wife sat while he delivered his sermons. She wasn’t ready for him to crawl out of her bed in another hour, put on his running clothes, and jog across the backyard to the next street over. And she damn sure wasn’t ready to dance with another man at that damn ball the next night out at Violet’s barn.

Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of Jed’s name being drawn out with another woman’s. She really should wait to pee on the stick in the bathroom until the whole thing was over. Knowing wouldn’t help and she damn sure couldn’t tell anyone if it was positive. If Jed knew that she was pregnant, he’d take the microphone out of Heather’s hand and announce it to the whole world so they wouldn’t have to be coupled with anyone else.

“Agnes would be disappointed if we don’t follow her instructions to the letter, and I really don’t look good in black hair.” She managed a smile through the tears. “Piper cried a lot when she was pregnant, so is that a sign?”