and Hettie couldn’t cook her way out of a carryout bag. Jenny isn’t Bill’s soulmate,” Miriam said.
Everything stopped. All the women—Ruby, Lillian, and Jane—turned to stare at Miriam. “You know something about the preacher’s soulmate?” Jane asked.
“Well of course. Bill needs to be looking for a woman who is active and useful. Someone with a sense of humor and the ability to make his limited paycheck go a good, long way.”
Everyone turned and looked expectantly at Savannah. A little uncomfortable giggle percolated from her middle right out of her mouth. “What?” she said on the laugh. “Just because I know how to put a good meal on the table without breaking the household budget doesn’t mean I have any special qualities.”
Lillian’s mouth curved up before she said, “Oh, praise the Lord. At last. Thank you so much, Miriam.”
Savannah must have let her confusion show. “Huh?”
“Honey, don’t you know that your aunt has a gift?” Ruby said as she patted Savannah’s shoulder. “What she joins together never comes apart. You take me and my Elbert. We weren’t exactly a match anyone would have expected. But we’ve been so happy together. And you could say the same for dozens of folks here in town.”
“Including me,” Jane said, “and all of Ruby’s children. Heck, she matched Stone up twice.”
Savannah shifted her gaze from lady to lady and wondered if everyone in Last Chance was nuttier than Granny’s fruitcake. But before she could say another word, Ruby asked, “So what did your aunt tell you to be looking for?”
“Uh—”
“A man with an appetite, among other things,” Miriam supplied.
“Well, that settles it,” Lillian said. “Bill fits that description to a T. Congratulations, honey. I’m sure you two will be happy together.”
Thelma Polk delivered the gossip to Hettie before the noon hour was finished. Hettie sat at her late husband’s desk at the Country Pride Chicken corporate office and tried, without much success, to regain her composure.
She told herself that she didn’t personally care that Miriam Randall had finally made a forecast for Bill. She wasn’t interested in Bill. She and Bill were just friends. They had been friends for a long time—since, well, before Jimmy was killed.
She wasn’t jealous in the least. She had sworn off romance of all kinds.
She stared down at the well-thumbed copy of Pride and Prejudice. Well, maybe not all romance. The make-believe romances were fine. Real romances were simply disasters waiting to happen. In that one way, she and Nita Wills agreed. The real world didn’t have many happy endings.
Not that she was all that experienced in love. She’d had exactly one romance in her life—with Dash Randall—when she’d been sixteen. The affair had not turned out well. It had cost her virginity, not that losing it had been terribly traumatic. But she hadn’t counted on falling out of love with Dash so quickly. She hadn’t counted on Dash falling in love with her. Her dalliance with Dash was supposed to be an adventure. But it had turned into a millstone around her neck.
No, she wasn’t at all concerned that Bill would soon be married to someone.
She just didn’t want that person to be Savannah White. If Savannah married Bill, she would probably give up her quest to revive the theater. She was just the sort of wholesome, pretty, churchgoing woman who would give up everything for a man. Heck, Hettie had been exactly like that when she was twenty. And Mother had encouraged her right into that role.
She thought about that pretty pink dress Savannah had worn to church. She even looked like a minister’s wife. It made Hettie downright queasy to learn that Savannah was also one heck of a good cook. And really, Bill lived for good food. Savannah would love cooking for him. He would want to keep her in the kitchen—probably barefoot and pregnant.
A frisson of emotion coursed through her. She wasn’t even sure what she was feeling. She propped her hand on her chin. She needed to do something about this situation. Last Chance needed that theater more than Bill needed a pregnant wife. Hettie needed to head off this marriage, and get Dash off his backside.
This was an emergency.
It was time for the Queen Bee to actually do something. So she picked up the phone and called Lady Woolham.
“Rocky, we’ve got a big problem.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do. Savannah can’t marry Bill.”
“Why not? They’re perfect together.”
“Because if Savannah marries Bill, she’ll give up on the theater.”