gone or, better yet, to have never shown up in the first place.
“He came into the store looking for a special set of candlesticks for his sister’s birthday. I feel like a fool,” Lucy sighed. “A married man! My mama is probably rolling over in her grave.”
“How did you find out?” Dotty asked.
“His wife came into the store this morning. If she has any idea that she’s married to a philanderin’ fool, she didn’t let on a bit. She asked about the same set of candlesticks that Everett had looked at, and we got to talking. She bought a set of antique mixing bowls and gave me the credit card with Everett’s name on it.”
“Holy smoke,” Flossie gasped. “What did you do?”
Lucy sighed again. “I asked her for identification since that evidently wasn’t her card. She apologized, took it back, and handed me one with her name on it. She said that she’d taken her husband’s away from him because he didn’t have a lick of financial sense.”
“What did you do then?” Dotty asked.
“I asked her how long they’d been married, and she said forty-five years. And believe me, she didn’t look like she’d ever had cancer,” Lucy fumed.
“You think she knows about you and her husband and was just letting you know gracefully?” Dotty asked.
“I have no idea, but I called him, and I’ll have to pray for a whole year for all the bad words I used,” Lucy said.
“What did he say?” Dotty asked.
“After I slung enough cusswords around to send me to hell, he just hung up on me.”
“I’ve got three shovels in the gardening shed,” Flossie said. “We can hide that body down by the bayou so good that it won’t never be found.”
Lucy shook her head slowly from side to side. “I apologized to God for my bad language and left it in His hands. But I did tell Him that I expected Everett to suffer the plagues of Egypt, and that if he ever stepped out on that woman again, that He had my permission to fling a bolt of lightning at him. Now what’s your bad news, Flossie?”
“Otis’s wife died, and he put the house on the market. What am I going to do about my garden?” Flossie groaned.
“You’re worried about your garden when your neighbor died?” Jolene asked. “That’s kind of mean.” Vegetables could be bought at any roadside stand in Texas. The man had lost his wife. Guilt stabbed her. There she was feeling sorry for Otis when Tucker had been in the same situation.
Dotty got up and went around the table to hug Flossie. “I’m so sorry. We all knew that she died, but we didn’t expect him to move, at least not so soon.”
“Well, he’s gone. Went to live near his son in Houston. There’s a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front lawn.”
“Put an ad in the newspaper for someone to help you out with it. I bet there’s lots of retired men who’d love to have a project that didn’t take all year,” Jolene suggested.
“I don’t get a hug? My bad news is worse than hers,” Lucy fussed.
“Of course you do, chère.” Dotty moved around the table to Lucy. “I’m sorry about Everett. I thought he might be the one you’d end up married to.”
“I’m giving up on marriage. This is worse than when my last two boyfriends died. I may sell my store and go into a convent,” Lucy whimpered.
“Now, darlin’,” Flossie said sweetly. “We need you too badly around here for you to go to a convent. With Sugar gone, that would just leave me, Dotty, and Jolene.”
“I’m not going to be a nun. I never did look good in black. But I’m expecting God to take care of Everett with a vengeance, not kid gloves,” Lucy huffed. “I miss Sugar so much. Why did she have to go away?”
“She’s following her dream, chère,” Dotty answered. “And we couldn’t stand in the way or all of us would have regretted it forever.”
Jolene loved these ladies, but she wished Aunt Sugar was back in Jefferson, too.
Tucker and Jolene finished putting the final touches on the third bedroom later that afternoon. In the past it had made him happy when a client stepped into a room he’d done and loved it. But his happiness surged when Jolene clapped her hands like a little girl and then got busy putting the final touches on the three rooms. With the border up, the beds made, and pretty white doilies scattered