Riverbend Reunion(61)

“Yes, and thank you,” she said with a nod.

He reached out a hand, and she put hers in it. The tingle didn’t shock him that time.



At first Jessica didn’t notice Stella and Lulu in the Dairy Queen ice cream place, but pretty soon she could feel the heat of someone’s eyes on her and turned to see Stella glaring at her.

“Ignore them,” Wade said out the side of his mouth as he stepped up to the counter and ordered a double dip of chocolate mint.

“I’ll have a chocolate brownie sundae with the whipped cream and the cherries on top,” Jessica said. Then she whispered, “It’s hard to ignore someone who is shooting flames at me.”

The lady brought their order and Jessica reached in her purse, but Wade quickly laid a bill on the counter and said, “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, but—” Jessica started.

“Friendship has no buts,” Wade told her. “Let’s go sit in that booth over there.” He pointed to the other side of the room from Stella.

“Nope,” Jessica said. “Risa doesn’t let that woman control her life, so I’m not going to, either.” She marched across the room and stopped at Stella and Lulu’s booth. “Good evening, ladies. Did y’all decide you needed something cold after this blistering-hot day?”

“We always come here for ice cream after Wednesday night church services.” Lulu’s face turned scarlet in a deep blush. “I shouldn’t even eat ice cream when I’m trying to lose weight, but I always drive Stella to church, and she likes to come here afterwards.”

“Are you following me just to make me miserable because of what happened at the old church last night?” Stella asked through gritted teeth. “If you are, you can go home to your honky-tonk and tell my daughter that I’m still working hard to make it impossible for y’all to ever open that place.”

“Bless your heart,” Jessica said.

“Explain yourself,” Stella growled.

“I feel sorry for you. What we’re doing has already been researched by my lawyer, and there’s nothing you can do about it, Stella. I don’t like you. You’ve been mean to my friend and her girls, and it will take a lot for me to ever forgive you,” Jessica said. “Now, my ice cream is melting, and it would be a sin to let even one bite of this beautiful sundae go to waste while I was talking to you. So again, bless your heart, and I hope you take that exactly like I mean it.”

“Well!” Stella huffed. “Shame on you for talking to your elders like that.”

“Shame on you for treating your only child like she’s dirt,” Jessica said with a fake smile on her face. “Now, Wade, I’d like to go over to the other side of the place after all. I want to enjoy my ice cream, not watch it melt from the hot, glaring eyes of these women.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wade chuckled and led the way to an empty booth across the room.

Jessica slid into the seat and dug deep into her sundae. “Sometimes, my temper gets the best of me. I’m sorry if that offended you, but I’m not sorry that I said it.”

“Honey, if I hadn’t had an ice cream cone in my hand, I would have clapped for you. I agree that the way Stella is behaving is a shame,” Wade said.

“Someday she’s going to be sorry.” Jessica filled her mouth with ice cream, but not even the cold could take away her hot anger.

“My mama used to say that sometimes it’s too late to do what you should have been doing all along,” Wade said and then bit into the top scoop of his mint chocolate ice cream cone.

Jessica took another bite and noticed that both Stella and Lulu had their cell phones out. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that tomorrow, folks all over town would be gossiping about what she had told Stella and would be wondering if she and Wade were dating—or maybe even sleeping together. To paraphrase what Rhett Butler had said in the Gone With the Wind movie Jessica had watched with her mother several times, frankly, she didn’t really give a damn what any of them thought.





Chapter Thirteen


Three weeks seemed like forever in one way. In another, the time had gone by so fast that, looking back, Haley had trouble believing it wasn’t just yesterday that Jessica had come home and they had all met out at the church parking lot. She flipped through a magazine that morning as she and Mary Nell waited in the waiting room for a nurse to stick her head out the door and call her name.

Name?

She laid her hand on her stomach and thought about what she should name the child. Should the whole team vote on it like they had when they named the bar last week? No, the name should be her choice, and hers alone. That decision made, she turned her thoughts toward her own name. Had her sister given it to her, she wondered, or had her mother? Frannie must have filled out the birth certificate, because Vanessa Haley did not sound like a name her mother would have chosen after naming her own child Frances Irene.

“Are you nervous?” Mary Nell asked.

“Very much so,” Haley answered, “but at least I wasn’t sick this morning, so the first trimester must be coming to an end.”

“Do you have a good idea of exactly when you got pregnant?” Mary Nell asked.

“Not really,” Haley answered. “I kind of figure it was the last night we were together, but it could have been before that. I thought I’d missed the first period because of stress.”