Riverbend Reunion(44)

“No need to hurry,” he said. “You can always use my truck.”

It seemed like a whole new set of hot little sparks every single time she even glanced over at Wade, and the few times they locked eyes, the electricity between them got even steamier. She was thirty-eight years old, for God’s sake, not sixteen, and that meant she had to be an adult and get this attraction under control.

“What time do we need to be there?” Wade asked.

“Fifteen minutes until eleven so we can all go in together, and Haley says we’re sitting near the front.” Jessica scooped the scrambled eggs into a bowl and carried them to the table. She liked sitting down with everyone three times a day for meals, but eating with just the two of them that morning turned things more intimate and personal.

“Then we don’t have to eat in a hurry,” Wade said as he took the biscuits out of the oven. “And we can even do a little work before we have to get ready and go. We’ve got enough of the pews torn apart that we need to figure out where to measure for the actual bar. I’m still two ways about where to put it. I keep second-guessing myself on where to place it. Got any ideas?”

Jessica thought about the two places they had talked about and finally said, “I like it against the wall into the fellowship hall. That way if we ever draw in a big enough crowd to have a live band on weekends, we’ll have a stage for them to use.”

Wade nodded as he toted the rest of the food across the room. “Probably for the best, and when we don’t have a band, we can put the jukebox and a couple of tables on the stage, and the mechanical bull off to the end like we talked about.”

Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Did we agree to buy a bull?”

“Lily and Daisy will be disappointed if we don’t,” Wade answered with an extra sparkle in his green eyes. “I’m betting Lily will want to be first.”

“I wouldn’t take that bet for anything. That girl is fearless.” Jessica put a forkful of eggs into her mouth. Family—related or not—that’s what made it easy to put down roots.



Risa awoke with a sense of dread and almost told Haley and her daughters that they would either skip services that morning or go to a different church. Then she considered the example that she would be setting for her girls, took a deep breath, pasted on a smile, and went downstairs to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. If she let Stella intimidate her, it would be just like all those years when she was a teenager and trying to make her mother love her, and the years she lived under the shadow of Paul and his mother. The first thing she’d told Lily and Daisy when they crossed the Kentucky state line into Tennessee was that no one was ever going to tell her what to do or make the rules for her life again. She was on her second cup of coffee when Haley arrived with Lily and Daisy right behind her.

“Mornin’, y’all. Mama, do we have to go to church this morning?” Lily asked. “Granny Stella is going to be a handful if we do. I know I got to respect my elders, but it’s getting awful hard to keep my mouth shut and my language all sweet and ladylike.”

“Might as well get it over with,” Daisy said as she headed for the refrigerator. “I love Sunday morning, when we get cold cereal for breakfast.”

“What do you mean, ‘get it over with’?” Lily asked.

“She’s full of hissy fits. Hand me that chocolate cereal, please,” Daisy said. “She’ll have a special one for when we show up in church after we didn’t bow down to her demands when she issued the ultimatum she did. The fit will just get worse and worse with time. Way I figure it is that we might as well nip it in the bud this morning.”

Lily handed her the cereal and took two bowls from the cabinet. “You’re probably right. Maybe we should dress like the women who stand on street corners”—Lily wiggled her eyebrows—“she’s accusing us of being.”

Risa was about to take a sip of coffee and jerked her head around so fast that she spilled part of it on her faded nightshirt. “When did she accuse you of that?”

“Last night when I went back to the concession stand for a root beer,” Lily answered. “She was helping get the wagon cleaned up, and she said she wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t use the Sunday school rooms for ‘other things.’” She air quoted the last two words. “I don’t think she was talking about Bible classes.”

Risa stiffened her back and set her jaw. “What did you tell her?”

“That Jessica was living in the evangelist’s room, that Mary Nell was using one of the others for an office, and that we had turned another one into a storage room, but”—Lily shrugged—“that when me and Daisy got eighteen, we might think about her suggestion.”

“Good Lord!” Haley sputtered.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Daisy got the milk from the refrigerator and sat down beside her sister. “I’d wear a hooker dress if I had one, but Granny Martha didn’t let us go to church without being dressed like ladies. You got anything flashy that I might borrow, Haley? We’re about the same size.”

“I work in a school, so no, I don’t have clothing like that,” Haley answered, and Risa could see her bite back a grin. “The flashiest thing I have would be a red sundress that’s got big yellow sunflowers on it. You are welcome to borrow it if you want.”