her and Reese to their home for a barbecue. She couldn't refuse; Paul would easily see through any excuse. Trapped, Jacqueline had no choice but to grit her teeth and make the best of it.
"Are you ready?" Reese asked for the third time.
Grumbling under her breath, Jacqueline joined him. He was jingling his car keys and pacing back and forth in front of the kitchen door that led to the garage.
"Can't we get out of this?" she asked, knowing it was impossible.
Reese gave her one of his looks. He had several expressions that spoke as clearly as words, and over the years she'd come to identify them all. This one was the off-center humorless smile that conveyed his displeasure at something she'd said or done.
"What's wrong this time?" she asked, fuming. "Don't tell me you're actually looking forward to this barbecue?" Heaven only knew what Tammie Lee might prepare for their dinner. Grilled possum? Barbecued squirrel?
"Don't you see?" her husband said. "Paul wants us to get to know Tammie Lee and love her the way he does."
Jacqueline shook her head in a gesture of denial and frustration. "It's not going to happen, no matter how many barbecues he insists we attend."
"The least you can do is give Tammie Lee a chance."
Jacqueline was beginning to resent Reese's attitude. Her husband was well aware of the importance of marrying the right person. He hadn't chosen her because of her cute smile. Their parents were good friends, and she'd attended all the best schools and so had he. Yes, she'd loved Reese, but there was so much more to finding an appropriate marriage partner than love, which in her opinion was highly overrated, anyway.
She feared Paul was fast becoming like his father, with his brains situated somewhere below his waistline. Only Paul had married the girl. If he held genuine feelings for Tammie Lee, then her son should do as his father had and set her up someplace, visiting her once a week. Jacqueline didn't know the extent of her husband's monetary investment in his Tuesday-night woman, but she suspected it was substantial. She hadn't checked his financial records after the first year, preferring not to learn the truth. His absence each Tuesday night told her all she needed to know.
They rode in silence to Paul and Tammie Lee's house, a respectable two-story near Kirkland with a nice view of Lake Washington. Smoke spiraled from the backyard and Jacqueline suspected they'd already put on the meat. Good! The sooner this family gathering was over the better.
Reese rang the doorbell and together they stood on the steps and waited. Tammie Lee opened the door in bare feet, frayed jean shorts and a maternity top, looking like she'd stepped out of the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction.
"I'm so glad you're here," she drawled, reaching for Jacqueline's hands and practically dragging her into the house.
"Mom. Dad." Paul was directly behind his wife. He shook hands with his father and briefly hugged Jacqueline.
Jacqueline didn't mean to start the afternoon off on a negative note, but she didn't think it was a good idea for Tammie Lee to be traipsing around the house barefoot. God knows what she could step on or where she might slip.
"I hesitate to mention this, but shouldn't you be wearing shoes?" She'd asked out of genuine concern for the girl, but Jacqueline could see from the way Paul's mouth thinned that he was annoyed with her.
"I know you're right," Tammie Lee said, leading everyone through the house and into the freshly mowed backyard. "Bless his heart, Paul keeps telling me the same thing, but I just can't make myself wear shoes. I kick 'em off the minute I walk in the door. Then last week I made the mistake of walking around the yard in my bare feet and I stepped on a slug."
Jacqueline cringed.
"I started screaming like the Holy Spirit had come down upon me."
Paul chuckled. "I've never run so fast in my life. I thought she'd been attacked by a swarm of bees or something."
The patio table was already set and Tammie Lee held up two pitchers of iced tea. "Sweetened or unsweetened?" she asked.
In Jacqueline's view, iced tea should be served only one way and that was unsweetened. Anyone who wanted to add sugar could do so at the time it was served.
"Unsweetened," she said and took her place at the table.
"I'll have the same," Reese said.
Tammie Lee poured the tea and handed a glass to Jacqueline, who frowned at