The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(94)

“Who are you talking to?” Jed asked from the dark hallway.

“Just mumbling, darlin’. Happy barbecue ball day. My bags are packed. I’ll put them in the car before Agnes gets here and I get to go home with my sexy husband tonight.”

He raked a hand through his blond curls. “Think I might sneak into the shop today for a haircut.”

“We don’t do men’s haircuts anymore, remember?”

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed her back to his chest. “Not even if I beg?”

She whipped around and kissed him passionately. “Run by anytime between twelve and one. We don’t usually book anyone for that time and I’ll take care of this lovely mop of curls. Do you realize that our children don’t have a snow cone’s chance in hell of having anything but curly hair?”

“I hope the girls are all red haired and pretty as their mama.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Now, I’m off to jog to the church. I’ll see you at noon and then tonight. Just one more day and that blasted sign comes down. It will say something totally different tomorrow morning, I promise.”

“?‘Blessed are they that endure until the end’?” She quoted Scripture.

“I’m working on something better than that,” he whispered.

Piper and Charlotte arrived promptly at eight o’clock to help her load her suitcases and clothing and say good-bye to the house. It was crazy, but they’d done the same thing when they moved from the apartment complex where Charlotte and Stella had shared an apartment and where Piper, Gene, and the boys had lived a few units down.

Piper brought in two colored sheets done in little boys’ ideas of what the sky and dogs should look like and taped them to the front of the fridge. Get well, Miz Agnes was scribbled across the bottom of each. Charlotte put a chocolate cake from Clawdy’s inside the cake keeper on the bar and a gallon of milk in the refrigerator.

“I see you’ve put sweet tea and cans of root beer in here for her, too,” she said.

“I did, and the bed is made with fresh sheets. The bathroom is clean and I think she’ll be just fine here until she can go home. I gave Trixie my keys last night. Y’all want to put yours on the counter?”

Piper laid hers beside the cake. “Good-bye, house. You’ve been good to me, keeping all the ghosts at bay this past six months when I needed a place to stay.”

Charlotte wiped at a tear when she laid hers beside Piper’s. “So long, house. You’ve been a good friend and I’ll never forget the revelations I had in your bathroom.”

“It’s been fun, house, but it’s time for us to take a leap of faith into the future, where neither of my friends will have a key to my new house.” Stella smiled.

“Good God!” Piper threw the back of her hand over her forehead in a dramatic gesture. “We’ve done grown up.”

Piper and Charlotte left and Stella roamed through the rooms one more time. She found herself in the bathroom, making sure all her toiletries were packed, when she found the pregnancy tests hidden safely in an old shoe box full of sponge hair curlers. Taking a deep breath, she pulled one out and held it in her hand. It wasn’t much bigger than a pencil, and yet it held the answer to the question of that one morning’s nausea. She sat down on the potty and followed the instructions.

It was one of those new fancy ones that was supposed to say “negative” or “positive” and then give the approximate weeks of pregnancy. She laid it on the counter, washed her hands, and put the potty lid down.

She picked up the instructions again and reread them to see if it would say “negative” or “not pregnant” or “you are one lucky girl today.” It showed her the clear sign of what it would say and her breath caught in her chest.

Jed had said he hoped their daughters had red hair like hers. Her mama had said that preachers’ kids were hellions. She’d understood that years ago, when that preacher’s kid went to school and bragged about taking her virginity in the back of his truck—and Jed had told her he’d been like that boy when he was a teenager. Lord, what would she do with a son like that? Or with a red-haired, sassy daughter?

You will raise them up to love their mama like you love Nancy and their daddy and hope like hell they turn out right. Agnes’s voice was back in her head. And you will love them with your whole heart.

She shut her eyes tightly and fumbled for the stick, but then she couldn’t force herself to open them. She wanted Jed’s children, lots of them, and suddenly, she realized that she’d be disappointed as hell if she wasn’t pregnant. The nausea was a fluke and the missed period had to be because of all the stress but still, she touched her stomach and wanted a baby to be growing there.

She finally opened her eyes and reached for the phone, hit speed dial for Jed’s number, and said, “Where are you right now this minute? I need to see you.”

“Jogging about half a block from your house.”

“The back door is open and the house is empty.”

“Three minutes.” He chuckled.

“Run faster and get here in two,” she said.

She laid the stick on a paper towel on the kitchen cabinet and met him at the back door. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she rolled up on her toes and kissed him, long and lingering on the lips.