The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(99)

“Hear, hear! To Stella and Jed,” Rosalee yelled, and everyone tossed back a few gulps of whatever was in their cups.

Nancy had already started to the front of the building, accepting hugs on the way. When she reached the center, she hugged Stella and then Jed before she reached for the microphone. “I know you’re ready to get this show on the road, but I have to join Everett in saying that I’m so happy tonight. And the fact that that damn sign—and yes, I did cuss, because it has been a damn thorn in my side for weeks—will be down come morning makes this a double blessing.”

“Hear, hear! To the damn sign coming down. Now let’s start the dancing,” Agnes hollered, and the catcalls, foot stomping, and applause came close to raising the roof right off the Prescotts’ old weathered sheet-metal barn.

Trisha Yearwood’s voice came through the speakers as she sang a slow country two-stepping song, “How Do I Live.” Jed wrapped his arms around Stella. Her arms went around his neck and the wide gold wedding band flashed in the light of fifty flickering candles.

In the middle of the song, Stella felt a bump on her shoulder and her father leaned over and whispered, “I’m right proud to have that damn preacher in our family. Don’t know of a man that I’d rather keep company with.”

“I love you, Daddy,” Stella mouthed.

The barn was full of gorgeous women clad in lovely dresses, but none could hold a candle to Piper in her dark-green chiffon-over-satin dress with the shorter underskirt. It had been beautiful in the dressing room, but tonight Piper was absolutely stunning. It had more to do with the way Rhett held her possessively close and the way he kept whispering in her ear than the dress, but still, when he swirled her around and the chiffon moved so gracefully . . . well, the happiness Stella saw on her friend’s face made her go misty-eyed. She had to blink several times when she saw him singing along with the words saying that without her there would be no sun in his sky.

Stella glanced to her left and there were Boone and Charlotte, who wore the lovely pale-green halter dress with a rhinestone clasp that did indeed show off enough cleavage to draw the old stink eye from Heather. Boone, bless his heart, would never know that Charlotte had had second thoughts, and that was good because he was truly in love with her.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jed said and then sang along with the lyrics asking how would he live without her, how would he breathe without her, how would he ever survive without her.

“Only if I can use the penny to buy some hot sex tonight,” she said as she brushed away one tear that found its way down her cheek.

“I think that could be arranged, Mrs. Tucker,” he said.

“I was thinking about how beautiful and happy my friends are right now,” she answered.

“They’re not as pretty as you, darlin’. I swear when I saw you in that gorgeous lace dress with all those buttons, all I could think about was undoing them one at a time and kissing you after each button. You are stunning, my bride.”

“I’ll look forward to it, but darlin’, I’m your pregnant wife now.” She smiled up at him.

He bent forward, kissed her on the earlobe, and whispered, “Stella Baxter Tucker, you will be my bride until the day you die. And if you go first, walk real slow, because like this song says, I can’t live without you and I’ll be joinin’ you on those steps up to the pearly gates within twenty-four hours. Did you tell your mama and daddy about the baby?”

Every word of the song, his hands on her back, his soft sweet words set loose a roller coaster of emotions so deep that she wanted to hold them close to her heart forever. “Not yet. I want us to have a little while, just a day or so when it’s ours alone.”

“Let’s tell them together after the party tonight. I don’t think I can wait a day or two,” he said.

“And to think I was afraid you’d be disappointed.”

“Never. I want lots of kids, and this is the icing on the cake.”

Piper tapped her on the shoulder. “I understand why you couldn’t tell us and I forgive you.”

“Me, too.” Charlotte poked her on the arm.

Jed took a step back and let the three of them have a group hug just as the song ended. Three gorgeous women, one in ivory lace, two in shades of green, with three tall, handsome men surrounding them as the song ended with the lyrics asking, “How do I live?” Friendship, family, a wife. He couldn’t live without them, but most especially Stella. His heart would stop beating without her.

The whole barn rocked with another round of applause and then “Good Hearted Woman” started playing and Everett grabbed Nancy for a second dance as the people started a reception line to greet both the bride and groom. Heather and Violet sat at the back of the barn and seethed, but Rosalee and Agnes were first in the line.



Heather was mortified that the Sunday morning newspaper called her glorious ball a barn dance and didn’t mention her marriage ministry at all, and the article, barely two inches long, was buried under the obituaries. The fifteen-second news clip on television right before the weather the night before showed Rhett Monroe carrying Agnes Flynn to the door of the barn with a short sentence about Duck Dynasty not having a thing on Cadillac, Texas, with its fancy barn dance and camouflage Hummer limos. There wasn’t a single picture of Heather or a mention of her marriage ministry. It all gave her a raging headache and she didn’t make it to church.