The Perfect Dress

by Brown, Carolyn

  “Good,” he whispered as his lips met hers in what started out as a sweet kiss but soon developed into something much hotter as his tongue grazed her lips and begged entrance.

  She opened up to him and turned to wrap her arms around his neck. With her breasts pressed against his chest, she could feel his heart thumping as fast as hers. When the string of scorching-hot kisses ended, she laid her head on his shoulder.

  “And here we sit in pajama bottoms,” she whispered.

  “Darlin’, I learned a long time ago that it’s not what’s on the outside that makes a woman beautiful but what’s on the inside. That said, you’d be gorgeous in an old feed bag tied up in the middle with a piece of twine,” he said.

  “That may be the most romantic thing a guy has ever said to me.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed each knuckle. “I’m not very good at romance, but this feels right.”

  “Yes, it does.” No past relationship had ever felt so right.

  “Anything else we need to talk about?” he asked.

  “Right now I don’t want to talk. I just want to sit here and enjoy the moment.” She closed her eyes.

  When she awoke the next morning, the sun peeked over the edge of the far horizon, which meant it had to be at least six o’clock. Jody was probably already in the kitchen making coffee. Mitzi’s head was still on Graham’s shoulder. His cheek was nestled in her hair and his arm cuddled her. She eased out away from him and started to stand, but he tightened his grip on her.

  “Don’t go,” he muttered.

  “Have to. It’s morning.”

  His eyes popped wide open and he adjusted his glasses. “Well, how ’bout that? We just spent the night together, and I slept like a baby.”

  “Me, too.” She bent and kissed him on the forehead. “But now I’ve got to get home or gossip will have it that we did more than sleep. The girls don’t need that when they’re trying to get a new start.”

  He pulled her back onto his lap and kissed her on the lips. “I’ll see you Saturday. Is eight too early to pick you up?”

  “I’ll be ready.” She nodded as she straightened up.

  “I’m free to text now, right?” he asked as she stepped off the porch.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said.

  She jogged the whole way back to the house only to find the door locked. She rang the doorbell and no one answered, so she hurried to the back door. It was open, and just as she’d suspected, Jody was in the kitchen making coffee.

  As Mitzi made her way inside, Paula came into the kitchen from the foyer. “Well, well! So that’s why the front door was unlocked. I couldn’t sleep, so I came down about two for a cookie. I figured we’d forgotten to lock up after the ice-cream party, but now we know better.”

  “Graham’s place?” Jody asked.

  Mitzi nodded.

  “Great!” Paula and Jody said at the same time.

  Jody pointed to a chair. “Sit down and tell us all about it.”

  “Not much to tell. We’ve got a date planned for Saturday. I get to spend the day with him while the girls do that wedding with Rita. We made out like teenagers. And now I’m going upstairs to take a shower and get dressed for the day.” She crossed the kitchen in long strides.

  “We want more details later,” Paula called out as she left the room.

  “You’ll have them,” Mitzi answered. She could give them a play-by-play of what she and Graham had said, but she’d never be able to describe the emotions she’d felt when they finally admitted that there was something between them—or the way his kisses made her go weak in the knees.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Shopping, or doing anything alone for that matter, was not something that Jody enjoyed. She’d had Paula and Mitzi to do stuff with her until they graduated. Then Jody had moved in with Lyle. Maybe in six months or a year, she’d be more comfortable with it, but today, when she pulled out a cart alone, she absolutely did not like it.

  She made a beeline toward the greeting-card display to buy a birthday card for her mother. Wanda might be a cantankerous old gal, but a person only got one mother. Jody had always sent her a card and, when she could afford it, had the flower shop take a bouquet to her.

  “Well, hello!” Quincy said as he rounded the end of the toy aisle.

  “Hi.” Jody glanced at a little dark-haired girl in the cart. “Who’s ridin’ shotgun with you today?”

  “My daughter, Hazel. It’s my weekend, and we’re out buying food for the next two days,” he said.

  “You never mentioned a daughter,” Jody whispered.

  “I was waiting for our first date to tell you the story of my life,” he said.

  Jody went over to the cart. “How old are you?”

  Hazel held up four fingers.

  “Do you like to read?”

  She nodded her head so fast that her dark hair fell into her cute little round face. “Nanny readed to me, but not at Daddy’s.”

  “That would be at her mother’s—she has a full-time nanny,” Quincy explained.

  “Her mother?”

  “Remarried,” he said.

  “Will you read to me?” Hazel asked.

  Jody couldn’t bear to tell the child no, but she couldn’t say yes. She quickly looked at Quincy for an answer.

  “Miz Jody has things to do today. Maybe another time,” he said.

  Hazel’s lower lip shot out. Her chin quivered, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “I can’t stand to see her disappointed. It’d be easier if she threw fits, but she doesn’t. That silent weeping tears my heart out,” Quincy said. “I’ll read to you soon as we get home. You can pick out the book.”

  Jody was not an impulsive person. She’d lain awake at night agonizing over moving in with Lyle for two solid weeks. When Mitzi invited her to be a partner in The Perfect Dress, that was the only spur-of-the-minute decision she could remember making. But seeing Hazel so sad turned her heart into a big blob of mush.

  “I’ve got the whole day free. I’d love to read to Hazel if you don’t mind. Where do you live?” Jody said.

  “I won’t turn that offer down,” Quincy said. “The directions are complicated. Why not just follow me? That would be easier,” he said. “And thank you, Jody.”

  She wiped away Hazel’s tears with a tissue she pulled from her purse and said, “Don’t cry, sweetheart. I’ll go home with you and read as many books as you want me to, then your daddy can read to you after that.”

  Hazel ducked her head and grinned. “ABC?”

  “Whichever ones you want.” Jody hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

  Quincy had been right about the directions to his place. She followed him all the way to the Celeste city limits sign. At the next section-line road, he made a sharp left. In less than a quarter of a mile, the pavement turned to gravel. She was glad that she had the windows rolled up, because she drove the rest of the way to a dead end in a cloud of dust.

  He might be a big oil man, but the house was far from a mansion. A rather small, long, low ranch house with a wide porch around three sides, it was painted pale yellow. Lantana and petunias bloomed in the flower beds on either side of the walkway, and the lawn looked soft and green. That meant there was a sprinkling system, because in July the unrelenting heat had already turned most of the town’s grass brown. Jody slung the door open and stepped out.

  “Welcome to my home,” Quincy said as he set Hazel on the ground.

  A big yellow cat came out to greet them, rubbing around Hazel’s legs and causing her to sit down with a thud on the grass. She wrapped both arms around the cat and kissed it on each ear.

  “Meet Ophelia.” He reached into the back seat of the truck and picked up two bags of groceries. “She likes the cat better than me or her mother.”

  Hazel shook her head. “Filly can’t read.”

  “She can’t say Ophelia so she calls her Filly. Crazy thing is that I’ve got to doing the same thing. And the cat does
n’t mind. I’ve had her for ten years. Might be the only cat that’s ever been in divorce court,” he chuckled.

  “I want to play outside,” Hazel said.

  “You mind?” Quincy asked Jody.

  “Not a bit. We can read later.” Jody sat down on the porch steps.

  “It’s almost dinnertime, sweetheart. Want to help me cook?”

  Hazel shook her head and carried Filly to the porch, where she sat down beside Jody. “No. Can Jody eat with us?”

  “Of course she can.” Quincy bent to kiss her on the top of her head.

  “She’s really articulate for a four-year-old.” Jody stroked Filly’s fur.

  Quincy set the bags beside the door, then sat down beside Jody and Hazel on the porch. “She’s been like that from her first words. Sometimes she gets things a little mixed up but not often. And she’s never met a stranger, which is why I never let her out of my sight.”

  Hazel smiled up at her dad. “Daddy, can we keep Jody?”

  “For a little while today. How about we go make dinner and then Jody might read to you until you fall asleep for your nap?”

  Hazel nodded and then held out her hand to Jody. “Mac and cheese and hot dogs?”

  “Sounds great to me.” Jody got to her feet and allowed Hazel to lead her into the house.

  “Make yourself at home,” Quincy said. “Hazel’s room is the first door on the right down the hallway. I’m not much of a cook, but I do a fine job with what she always wants for dinner. But maybe for supper we can take you out for something a little better, like pizza.”

  “We’ll see. I might need to get back to the shop,” Jody said, just in case she decided to leave before too long. She kept going through the small foyer, the living room, and down the hall to where Hazel took her into a pretty room all done up in pink and lace. The child patted the cushion in a rocking chair, and Jody sat down, expecting Hazel to crawl up in her lap with a book. But instead, she showed Jody every toy in her room, including a dozen books.

  What in the name of all the saints in heaven are you doing? Jody’s mother’s voice popped into her head. Have you lost your mind? This man could be a serial killer who lures his victims in with that little girl.

  Hazel handed her a baby doll. Jody hugged it to her chest and set the rocker in motion with her foot. “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” she began to sing to get her mother’s voice out of her head.

  “How I wonder what you are.” Hazel picked up a doll and sat down in a child-size rocker beside Jody. “Up above the world so high,” she sang and then started the song all over again as she cuddled her doll.

  Jody felt a presence and looked up to see Quincy leaning on the doorframe. “Shhh,” she said. “You’ll wake our babies.”

  Hazel kept rocking and singing while Jody carried her doll to the miniature cradle and laid it down. As gently as if she were covering a real baby, she pulled a little blue blanket up over the sleeping doll. Following her lead, Hazel took her doll to the canopy bed and laid it on the pillow, then covered it with the edge of the bedspread.

  “You’re good at this. I’m surprised that you don’t have kids of your own,” Quincy whispered.

  “How do you know I don’t?” Jody asked.

  “I asked Lyle when I bought the property,” he answered. “He and his new wife both had a burr in their saddles the day we signed the papers. Something about a bridal fair?”

  Hazel put one tiny hand in Jody’s, quieting her urge to laugh, and the other in Quincy’s and pulled them both toward the kitchen, where boxed macaroni and cheese and hot dogs awaited. “He and his new wife were at the event and . . .” She told him the story of what Tabby had done.

  “After what he did to you, I’d say that doesn’t begin to be enough humiliation,” Quincy chuckled.

  “Maybe not, but it sure was a step in the right direction,” she said. “Well, Miz Hazel, this looks like a fine meal your daddy has made for us.”

  “The best.” Hazel patted the chair beside hers. “You sit here. Daddy sits here.” She pointed to the one on the other side. “Dinner is ready now.”

  “I ate a lot of this but not with hot dogs. Usually with pork ’n’ beans right out of the can,” Jody said as she waited for Quincy to prepare Hazel’s plate.

  “Oh?” Quincy raised an eyebrow.

  “My mother isn’t much of a cook.”

  Quincy raised a palm. “Enough said. I was raised in foster care from the time I was six years old. And we always had dinner and supper, not lunch and dinner.”

  “Us, too,” Jody said. “I guess you’re a self-made man, then?” she asked as she made herself a hot dog with mustard and relish.

  “Started at the bottom when I was eighteen. Had a few lucky breaks and worked hard. It isn’t an overnight success story, but here I am at forty, and I still like a dinner like this,” he said.

  “Thank you, Jesus, amen,” Hazel said loudly and then picked up her hot dog with both hands and took a bite from the end.

  “Her nanny is religious,” Quincy chuckled.

  “So’s my mother.” Jody laughed with him.

  Paula was only going to look around in the baby stores that Saturday morning and then get back to the store. Mitzi had gone to Dallas for the whole day with Graham, and they weren’t on schedule at the shop, so Paula had planned to spend the afternoon doing some catch-up work.

  The smell of baby powder wafted across the first store she walked into. She wondered how they’d done that until she saw a little boy dumping a whole container out on the floor. The manager, a tall lady with pink-and-blue streaked hair, and the child’s mother found him at the same time. The mother started to apologize profusely, and the manager kept reassuring her the whole time she swept up the mess that it was all right.

  “Clay, why did you do that?” the very pregnant mother asked.

  Paula recognized Kayla immediately. Hoping that she hadn’t seen her, she tried to sneak out of the store unnoticed. But she’d only gone a few steps when Kayla called out. “Well, hello, Jody—or is it Paula? I remember meeting you at the party store, but I’m rattled over this mischievous son of mine, and I never can remember names very well, anyway.”

  “It’s Paula.” She turned around and even managed to smile. “Kayla, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could come up with a scent that really smells like baby powder for these places? Customers would flock in and buy more than they planned.”

  It wasn’t Kayla’s fault that she was married to a philandering fool. But that didn’t stop Paula’s stomach from knotting into a pretzel at the sight of her enormous baby bump.

  “Sounds like a great idea to me. If you come up with something that doesn’t involve hot wax or spray, let me know,” the manager said. “What can I help you with today?”

  “I’m just looking around,” Paula said.

  “I’m ready to check out.” Kayla pushed a cart full of little boy things to the counter. “And please add that baby powder that my son wasted to the bill.” While the lady with the pink-and-blue hair ran her items across the scanner, Kayla turned around to Paula. “So is one of your friends pregnant? Clay, put down that baby oil and hold your hands behind you, or else get into the cart.”

  “I’m just looking for something to take to a baby shower at church.” Paula didn’t even feel guilty about the little white lie. She was tempted to tell the woman that she would be having Clay’s half sister, but that would be opening a can of worms that should be left closed for all eternity. “I thought you’d be eager to get back to West Texas, as close to your due date as you are.”

  “I’m waiting on Clinton to finish up a job this weekend. He’s up in Sherman, but he’s going to pick me and Clay up tomorrow and we’re all going home together. He’s such a sweetheart. He wouldn’t let me drive over here by myself to help Rita take care of Granny’s things.”

  “It would be quite a drive from Amarillo,” Paula said. “I used to live in Tulia, so I know.”

  “We actu
ally live in Canyon,” Kayla said. “And yes, I’m so ready to go home. Rita and I are finished now with our grandmother’s stuff, and I’m so happy to get back home.”

  A voice inside Paula’s head told her not to meddle, but she ignored it. “I thought your son was staying with his grandmother?”

  “He was until last night. She had plans for the weekend, so Clinton brought him to Whitewright to me, then he went on back to Sherman for his job,” she explained. “Looks like I’m ready to pay out. It’s good to see you again.”

  Fanny Lou’s old saying came to mind: Might as well be hung for a hog as a piglet. “Nice seeing you, too,” Paula said. “You’re staying in Whitewright, then?”

  “Yes, Rita and I’ve been staying at Granny’s place, but the only thing left now is a couple of old beds. No problem, though. It’s only one more night.”

  “Sherman isn’t that far away. You should go over and stay in the same hotel with Clinton. That way when he’s off shift, you could spend time with him,” Paula suggested, wondering how Kayla was so stupid that she didn’t even think of why Clinton wouldn’t want her and Clay to stay in the hotel with him. But then she shouldn’t brand Kayla with that word when Paula had been dimwitted enough to believe his lies.

  “That sounds like a great idea. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Clay loves to swim and Clinton mentioned the hotel having a pool, and like you say, when his shift is done we could at least be together,” Kayla said.

  “Two hundred forty-nine dollars and fifty-two cents.” The lady set several bags on the counter.

  Paula bought a baby rattle and a pretty little pink dress after Kayla left and then hit four more baby shops afterward. She stopped by a drive-through for takeout on the way back to Celeste. The gauges on her dash said that it was ninety-eight degrees and one o’clock when she got back to the shop. Hoping that Jody was home when she arrived, she hurried into the cool house by way of the back door, dropped two armloads of bags on the kitchen table, and yelled up the stairs.

  “Jody, you here?”

  The pink phone, sitting on a small end table right beside her, startled her when it rang loudly. She picked it up and answered, “The Perfect Dress.”