hot, scalding. “Craig Overby is a jerk, and you’re welcome to him!” she’d said with less-than-believable vehemence.
“He is not a jerk! You’re just jealous!” Clarice had cried.
“Go to your room, Clarice,” their father had ordered.
“But, Daddy—”
“Now.”
Clarice’s exit had left Annie alone to face her father’s disappointed head-shaking. “Annie, I don’t like seeing you girls fight over a boy. You’re awfully young for that.”
“He was my friend, Daddy, until Clarice came along.”
Her father sighed and sat down on the couch beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You’ll probably find this hard to believe now, honey, but my brother Ed was always the looker in the family. From the time he was in nursery school, girls flocked after him like he was the Pied Piper. Anytime Ed was around, I felt like a shadow, just kind of in the background. And of course one year when we were in high school, I developed a crush on this girl I actually thought I had a chance with. Until she saw Ed.”
He tilted his head at her, the meaning behind the words clear. “I was so mad at my brother I could hardly see straight for days. But then I finally realized it wasn’t Ed’s fault. He didn’t try to take her away from me. She just preferred him, and there was nothing I could do about that. I decided then and there, though, I was never going to compete with my brother over a girl. No girl was worth the two of us fighting over. Luckily, your mother thought I was the better pick of the litter, and Ed never had a chance with her.”
A wink accompanied this, and Annie tried to smile.
“You’re a special girl, honey. Selfless and loyal. And one day a man is going to come along who appreciates those qualities.”
At fourteen, Annie had understood what her father was trying to say as painlessly as he could. There were some things in life a person just had to accept. The fact that Clarice had been born movie-star beautiful was one of them. The fact that Annie had not, another.
For Annie, like her father, the lesson that day had been never to compete with her sister again. It just wasn’t all that smart to start battles she had no chance of winning.
Besides, she told herself, shaking off the past, Clarice was the one who really wanted a man in her life now. Who’d been waiting for the right one to come along. Macon’s Point wasn’t exactly overflowing with eligible men. Clarice spent so much of her free time with Annie and Tommy, anyway. Far too much for a single woman looking to get married.
So what if she’d wanted to be kissed last night? Nothing abnormal about that. Just her heart’s way of telling her maybe it was time to start going out again. She was a young, healthy woman.
She could thank Jack for proving that much, anyway.
And if Clarice wanted him, then Annie would be her biggest champion for the cause. She pulled her favorite cookbook from the shelf on the kitchen island and began looking for something he might like.
CHAPTER NINE
SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE at Macon’s Point First Baptist began at eleven. It was the only church Annie had ever been to where there was actually standing room only at quarter till. The church, with its wonderful old stained-glass windows, was some hundred and fifty years old and sat smack in the center of town. It had been one of the first buildings erected by the area’s early citizens, and the town, as it was to become, grew outward from here.
“Mama, where’s Aunt Clarice?” Tommy looked up from the bulletin he’d been folding into a fan.
“She must be running a little late this morning.”
No sooner had Annie said the words than Clarice appeared beside them, breathless but smiling. “Hey,” she said, voice lowered. “Can I climb over?”
“Sure,” Annie said, letting her sister squeeze by to sit on the other side of Tommy.
Clarice gave him a smooch on the forehead. “What’s up, scooter?”
Tommy smiled and said, “Nothing, Aunt Clarice.”
“Nothing? Goodness, that’s boring.”
Annie smiled at their teasing.
Clarice’s eyes suddenly went wide.
“What?” Annie said.
“He’s here!”
Annie turned to follow her sister’s surprised gaze. On the other side of the aisle was Jack Corbin sitting next to Essie Poindexter. No sooner had Annie spotted him than he looked up, catching the two of them staring. Heat torched Annie’s face. She gave a quick wave and as impersonal a smile as she could muster.
“Oh, my