“You’re too damn mean to get cancer.” Stella smiled for the first time that morning.
“That’s the gospel truth, darlin’. And Violet is too big of a bitch to get it, but if she does, I’m joining that angel crew and praying for her.” Agnes chuckled.
“You’d pray for Violet?” Piper gasped.
“I’ll pray that the devil comes on and claims her soul before she milks all the attention she can get out of her disease. The Good Book doesn’t say you got to pray nice prayers.” Agnes giggled.
“Well, shit!” Piper muttered. “I lost an opportunity there.”
Agnes nodded and went on, “Heather is not stupid, Stella. Chances are if you get married, you’ll have to leave Cadillac; then she takes over as piano player at the church. That’ll put her a notch higher in this new scheme she’s cooked up called the marriage ministry. Who in the hell ever heard of a marriage ministry? Ministry is standing up there in the pulpit and preachin’ like Darla Jean does at her church and like Jed Tucker does at his.”
Darla Jean was the preacher at the church on the corner, just up the street from the Yellow Rose. Everyone in town knew that she was a former call girl. When she inherited an old grocery store from her uncle, she was in a quandary about whether to put in her own escort business or to start a church. One look at the storefront said that it wouldn’t do for an escort business but it would make a right nice church, so she took it as a sign from God.
“I’m not leaving Cadillac,” Stella said. “And what is a marriage ministry?”
“Heather has this crazy notion that she’s sent to earth from heaven to get all the women in the world married and happy. She probably thinks she’ll get rich with her idea. Since you are a spitfire and you don’t take no shit off nobody, then it would be a feather in her cap to get you married off first, plus it would put her in the piano seat at the church. Hell, honey, if she can succeed in her mission, then all the little wallflowers will flock to her side and she’ll be right important. She might volunteer to play for all their weddings as a side bonus. Besides, she can’t stand you because you don’t drop down on your knees and kiss her ring,” Agnes explained.
Charlotte laid her knitting to the side again. “Remember, they’ve got God on their side, and now that I think about it, you are really getting into the”—she held up her hands and made quotes in the air—“old maid status.”
Stella raised her voice at least five octaves. “Old maid, my Texas ass! I’m not close to thirty and you and Piper are as old as I am. Are y’all old maids?”
“Well, according to our mamas that’s getting to the age when you should be starting a family or at least wearing an engagement ring,” Charlotte said.
“Some folks don’t start families until they are forty these days,” Stella reminded her.
Piper waved a hand in the air. “We need to take a lesson from the cat family. Tomcat comes along and screws the mama cat when she’s in heat and then goes on his way. Mama cat has the babies and raises them, kicks them out of the laundry basket or wherever the hell she has them when they are old enough, and that’s that. She don’t have to worry about no son of a bitch breakin’ her heart. And while I’m at it, Stella, you need to make things right with Nancy. Things go on too long, they fester, and believe me, if something happened to her tomorrow, you’d be sorry that it ended with y’all mad at each other.”
“You finished on that soapbox, Piper? If you are, climb down and let me have it,” Agnes said.
“I’m done,” Piper said.
“Okay, here’s my take, Stella Joy. If you want to get married, then find a husband and do it. If you don’t, tell everyone who is prayin’ for you to get married to climb on a rusty poker and go straight to hell. It’s your decision and you do it in your time and your way to whom-so-damn-ever you please. But it’s been slower than molasses in December around Cadillac lately, so I’m ready for some excitement. So don’t tell anyone that you ain’t goin’ to abide by their prayers until we have some fun with this,” Agnes said.
Stella wasn’t in a very forgiving mood right then and nothing about this whole situation was funny. She fought back another batch of tears and braced herself for her full day of customers. Everyone was already talking about the sign at the church. If they saw her crying, it would add fuel to the fire. She really, really wanted to make a phone call, but the person she needed to talk to was in meetings with his phone turned off.
A rooster crowed and everyone but Agnes looked toward the window.
“That’ll be the ring sound for my phone. I hate it when a phone plays music, so I set mine to sound like a rooster. I figure someone must have something they want to crow about or they wouldn’t be callin’ me.” Agnes fished it out of the bib pocket of her denim overalls and put it to her ear. “What have you got for me?” she asked without saying “hello” first.
“Uh-huh. Just what I thought. Don’t you worry none. The FBI can pull out my teeth with rusty pliers and I wouldn’t rat you out. You just stay in the enemy camp and keep me informed. I’ll do the rest. ’Bye now.” Agnes put the phone back in her pocket.
“Well?” Stella asked.
Agnes’s grin was so wide that it wiped out dozens of wrinkles. “Just as I thought. Heather says the sign stays until God drops a husband into your lap. And they have decided to call out that verse about those who help themselves, so they intend to help God. But don’t you worry. We will outwit the whole damn lot of them.”
“What have they done?” Stella asked through clenched teeth.
“They’re having a bake sale on Monday to raise money,” Agnes said.
“And?” Piper asked.
“They’re going to give it to the church and hope God drops a husband down from heaven for Stella, right?” Charlotte asked.
“Nope. They’re going to take all the money and purchase ten-dollar money orders to give away to bachelors,” Agnes reported.
“Why?” Piper raised both eyebrows.
“Ain’t that what you charge your men customers for a haircut?” Agnes asked.
“No!” Stella threw her hand over her mouth.
“Want my advice?” Agnes asked.
Stella nodded as she slowly removed her hand. “Yes, ma’am.”
Agnes smiled. “They’ll have the sale on Monday, count up their money that evening, and go buy money orders down at the post office on Tuesday. It’ll be Wednesday before they start finding men to parade through here for haircuts, so Tuesday evening after the post office closes for the day, you put a price increase notice on your door. Effective immediately, due to hell freezin’ over, haircuts will now be fifteen dollars or twenty dollars or, hell, a hundred dollars. How many men’s haircuts do y’all do in a normal week?” Agnes asked.
“Maybe one or two. Ruby only charges eight dollars, so most of them go there,” Piper said.
“Promise me right now that what is said in the Yellow Rose stays in the Yellow Rose, just like that Las Vegas sayin’,” Agnes said.
Piper, Charlotte, and Stella all nodded seriously and said in unison, “We promise.”
Agnes clapped her hands and giggled like a schoolgirl. “We’ll teach them to mess with us. Now, Piper, let’s get my hair done. I want it to look real fine for church on Sunday. I may play dumb and offer to take something to their bake sale.”
“Not fudge,” Stella gasped.
Agnes giggled like a little girl. “I think folks are on to me with the fudge. It was just too damn temptin’ not to put laxative in it when I knew Violet would gobble it right down. No, I’m thinking a dozen pecan tarts from over at Clawdy’s. Besides, not a thing they’ll cook will be as good as Cathy’s pecan tarts. As much as I love Nancy’s banana bread, it’s not as good as tarts.”
Stella hugged Agnes. “I love you, Agnes Flynn.”
“Us redheads got to stick together.” Agnes beamed. “We’ll outf
ox that bunch of bitches, darlin’. Don’t you worry about it.”
Stella felt a hot burn filling her cheeks but there wasn’t a blasted thing she could do about it. She couldn’t tell her best friends that she was already married or that she couldn’t tell anyone for another four weeks or her new husband might have to leave Cadillac and she didn’t want to leave her friends, the shop, or, dammit, her mama, even if she was mad at her. And besides all that, Heather was not about to run her out of town.
CHAPTER THREE
A semicool breeze from off the river ruffled the willow branches, making a lovely canopy above Stella and the sexy man beside her. She could hardly catch her breath after a bout of wild, passionate sex. His naked body was sweaty and hot, both physically and sexually, and somewhere out there in the Red River a catfish splashed in the water and a night owl joined with the bullfrogs and crickets in a concert.
She propped up on an elbow and traced the barbed-wire tat on his bicep. “Why barbed wire?” she asked, still breathless.
“My cousin has one and I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” he answered.
“Did he rodeo or what was the story behind barbed wire?”
He brushed a leaf from her hair and shooed away a mosquito with the back of his hand. “He’s a rancher and raises cattle. His family ranches, too, but they raise prizewinnin’ horses in addition to Angus cattle. They live over near Ringgold, Texas. Want to go meet them after church tomorrow? Or do you want to wait and meet the whole family when they show up in church after I sign the contracts?” He kissed her on the tip of the nose. “And for your ears only, darlin’, my mama and my dad know that I’m married and they can’t wait to meet you.”
“Hell, no! That billboard has stirred up everyone in town. They’ll be watching me like a hawk to see if the prayers get answered and I understand Heather is determined that she’s been called to a marriage ministry, whatever the hell that is,” she answered.
She remembered the very first time she looked up and saw him standing just inside the Yellow Rose. That day his curly blond hair, blue eyes, and smile had come close to taking her breath away.
“Can I help you?” she’d asked when she could get words to go from brain to mouth.
“It takes a person with magic in their fingertips to tame my curly hair. I’m expecting miracles from someone as pretty as you,” he’d said smoothly.
Major flirting had taken place and she’d found out that he’d just moved to Cadillac to pastor the church where she and her family had gone their whole lives. He’d found out that she wasn’t married and asked her to dinner the next week. She’d accepted but the date wasn’t sitting across the booth from each other out at the Rib Joint or even at a steak house in Sherman. It was fried chicken on a quilt under a willow tree at the edge of the river.
Bringing her back to the present with a long, lingering kiss, he gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “What were you thinking about?”
“That first time you came into the shop,” she said. “I think I fell in love with you on the spot.”
“I know I fell in love with you the second that you whipped that cape around my shoulders. The touch of your fingertips on my bare skin about set me plumb on fire,” he said.
“We can announce that we got married in May right after my birthday. Mama will have learned her lesson by then and Heather will figure out her marriage ministry is a day late and a dollar short,” she said.
He kissed her on the forehead. “Heather has gone overboard with that marriage ministry idea, but if she’s got enough rope she will hang herself for sure. Then it will be finished for good. It sounds more like one of those Internet dating things that have a dot-com behind the name. I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t appreciate that kind of thinking.”
Stella curled up in his arms, not caring if mosquitoes were buzzing around her head. They didn’t sink their little beaks into sweaty people, anyway. At least that’s what she’d always heard, along with the story about cats and water. Maybe one of them was right.
It had been her idea to keep their marriage a secret until the deacons and the hiring committee offered Jed a full-time position, and he’d agreed. From the get-go, they’d planned to announce it as soon as Jed had signed his contract.
“Now what are you thinking about? Your eyes are sparkling in the moonlight,” he said.
“How much I love you.”
“I love you, too, darlin’. I promise I didn’t know about the sign or that you’d been put on the prayer list until this morning. I’ll have it taken down, I promise, and I won’t read your name on Sunday. It’ll all fade away,” he said. “Or we can just announce that we are married and they can pray for the folks in town who are really sick?”
She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. Agnes wanted some excitement and Stella wasn’t ready to tell the whole world she was married to Jed Tucker, the preacher. Their relationship was too perfect and it was only a couple of more weeks before the hiring committee would offer him a two-year contract. Until then he was temporary and could be let go at any given time. And to top it all off, Heather deserved to have to eat a big chunk of crow pie and so did Nancy Baxter.
“Don’t take the sign down. Don’t take me off the list. I’m going to beat that damn hussy at her own game. She thinks she’s going to run me out of town so she can play the piano in church. And darlin’, I can’t wait to meet your family.”
Jed traced her lip line with his finger. “What does the piano have to do with anything?”
“It’s a thorn in her flesh that I’m playing it. So we’re going to let the gossip go crazy. They’ll all feel like fools after you are hired permanently.” She brought his lips down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.
He chuckled. “Gossip is like cats. If you take a mean old tomcat off and dump him in someone’s yard, make sure that you take him across a body of water if you don’t want him to find his way home. Water stops cats and gossips, too.”
She traced his lips with the tip of her finger. “But what about prayers?”
He grabbed her hand and slowly kissed each fingertip. “It’s a moot point right now, isn’t it? You already have a husband. And darlin’, if they don’t want to give me a contract because I’m married to you, there are other churches.”
She cupped his face in her hands. “I don’t want to leave Cadillac, Jed. I have my business and my friends and my family, and by the end of your first contract, they’ll see that I’m the best preacher’s wife in the whole state.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “You do not have to prove one thing, Stella. I wouldn’t change a thing about you. I love you, darlin’.” A smile tickled the corners of his full, sexy mouth and his blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “I am married to the most beautiful woman in the world, who is already an amazing preacher’s wife.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Stella was not looking forward to the next day and hearing her name at the top of that damned prayer list. If she could, she would turn off her phones and put that CD with the rainstorm on repeat in the player beside her bed. That way she couldn’t hear Piper and Charlotte when they tried to call or came knocking on the door demanding that she go to church. But she was not giving Heather that kind of power over her. She’d crawl out, get dressed, and play the piano like always. Thank God Heather couldn’t carry a tune in a golden bucket and had to sit out in the congregation. At least she’d be far enough away that Stella couldn’t rip the belt off the dress she intended to wear and strangle the woman with it.
She parked in the driveway to the east of her little two-bedroom brick home. She’d rented it from the McKays when she moved back to Cadillac with the agreement that if they ever wanted to sell she had first option on the purchase. It had been built for wheelchair access, so there were no steps up to the deep front porch with a white railing around it. With only two bedrooms and one bathr
oom, it was plenty big enough for a single woman or a couple, but the backyard was small. Thank goodness she didn’t have a dog and hadn’t gotten around to bringing a cat home from her folks’ house.
She flipped the switch right inside the front door of her small house and there were Piper and Charlotte, both wearing pajamas and blinking against the bright overhead light. Charlotte was cuddled up under a quilt in the burgundy leather recliner and Piper was stretched out on the matching sofa with a soft throw over her long legs.
Stella grabbed her chest. “What the hell? You two scared the shit out of me.”
“Is it morning?” Piper yawned.
“Where the hell have you been?” Charlotte asked.
“I passed my twenty-first birthday a long time ago and it’s not morning by a long shot and I don’t have to tell either one of you where I’ve been,” Stella started.
Charlotte held up her palm. “We were there with you when you turned twenty-one, darlin’, and we were there when you’ve had all the rest. We are your best friends, remember? So tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.”
Piper sat up and patted the sofa. “We’ve shared everything since we were babies. Is that afterglow on your face?”
“If this is a damned intervention, you can forget it. I’m going to bed, and yes, I will go to church tomorrow morning so this is all unnecessary,” Stella said.
“I’m calling Nancy and telling her to take you off the prayer list because you’ve got a boyfriend and you are bringing him to Sunday dinner. You really should spend some time with Trixie. She’d give anything to have her mama in her right mind so she could talk to her every day,” Piper said.
Stella plopped down on the sofa. “What makes you think I’ve got a boyfriend? And I love you, Piper, but you are not sending me on that guilt trip.”
Piper sniffed the air. “Number one, I smell shaving lotion all over you. Stetson, I do believe it’s called.”
The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop Page 4
