The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (32 page)

“Because I heard that someone put Violet’s name in the single women’s bowl. I wouldn’t want to call it out with Rhett Monroe and start a bunch of rumors about her liking younger men and paying them to go to bed with her,” Charlotte whispered.

Heather covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, no! They wouldn’t say that about an old woman.”

“I heard that she’s been flirting with him and the way you are feeling faint, you might say her name before you think. I’ll make sure that if I pull her name out I hide it in my bra,” Charlotte said.

Heather picked up the money. “Go on. Just protect my sweet aunt.”

Charlotte made her way to the middle of the dance floor, where a small table had been set up with three fishbowls on it. She picked up the microphone and said, “Good evening, folks. Let’s give a big round of applause to everyone who has made this barn dance possible.”

“Barbecue ball,” Heather mouthed from across the room, but no one heard her above the noise.

“And we need to thank all the ladies who’ve brought the barbecue and the side dishes, which we will turn y’all loose on here as soon as we draw up the names of the couples and they enjoy their first dance. So let’s have another round for the cooks,” Charlotte said.

Agnes gave her the thumbs-up sign.

“I saw some of the ladies all dolled up and I know you menfolks are champin’ at the bit to get this show on the road. I’ll be drawing the married and engaged folks’ names first. Sugar and Jamie Magee, come on down!” she yelled like a game show host.

Heather had her hands over her ears.

It took ten minutes to get through the slips of paper in that bowl and then she started on the next two bowls. “Rhett Monroe and . . . let’s see . . . will you be dancing with Violet Prescott or maybe Agnes Flynn?”

Everyone laughed and then it got quiet. “Looks like I was wrong. Your date for the evening is Piper Stephens. And the next bachelor is Gene Stephens. How’s that for luck folks, two Stephenses in a row? And your date for the evening is Macy Bardeen. Come on down here on the dance floor. Don’t be shy, Macy darlin’.”

Stella sat down beside her father, close enough that she could whisper in his ear much like she’d done in the limo with her mother. “Daddy, I need to tell you something before Jed makes an announcement here.”

“He’s your husband.” Everett chuckled.

“Yes, he is,” Stella said.

Everett slapped his knee and then gathered Stella to his chest in a bear hug. “I knew it! I just damn sure knew it! The way his eyes go all soft when he looks at you. It’s the way I look at your mama. I couldn’t be happier for you, sugar. I like the man and he’ll be a good son. Does your mama know yet?”

“I told her in the limo.”

Everett let go of his daughter and grinned so big that it lit up the barn more than the candles on the table could ever do. “I knew she was hummin’ with excitement and now I know why. I hope to hell they choose y’all’s names so you can dance together. If they don’t, I’ll have to say something that might make a lot of folks real mad. Y’all looked so happy when you danced in the backyard.”

“You’re really okay with this?” Stella asked.

“Are you happy, sugar?”

“Very.”

“Then I’m okay with it. Now they’d damn sure better draw out y’all’s names so you can be together for this first dance. You’ll be right out there on the floor with me and your mama just like it was your wedding day.”

Charlotte went through a dozen more names before she finally drew out Jed Tucker’s name. “And who will be dancing with the preacher tonight? Aha, it is the lovely Stella Baxter, in whose honor I do believe this barn dance is given. And the last name belongs to me, and since I’m engaged, I’d like to call upon my fiancé to join me in the first dance of the night. Boone Monroe, honey, where are you?”

Heather was rolling her eyes toward the rafters. Violet was shaking her finger at her niece and Agnes was smiling like she’d just been given the keys to heaven.

“Music,” Heather mouthed toward Charlotte.

“The lady who put all this together for us tonight says it’s time for the music to begin. So if our DJ will plug in the flash drive I do believe we . . .”

Jed led Stella to the middle of the floor and reached for the microphone. Heather shook her head emphatically at Charlotte.

“Hold off on that music, Mr. DJ. I guess before we dance, Jed
would like to say a few words. So take it away, Preacher Jed,” Char
lotte said.

“Stella and I have an announcement to make,” he said in his deep Texas drawl.

“Oh, my Lord,” Charlotte gasped.

Stella smiled at her and winked.

“As you all know, this barn dance came about because of the sign on the church lawn, which will be changed to something else tomorrow. For those of you who might not have seen it, it says, ‘Pray for My Daughter. She Needs a Husband.’ ”

Laugher echoed through the whole barn.

“I know it’s funny,” Jed said. “But when Heather asked the prayer group at our church if they had someone that they wanted on the list, Nancy Baxter did not think it would be broadcast for the world to see when she asked the Prayer Angels to ask God to bring her daughter a husband.” He stopped and slung an arm around Stella’s shoulders. “Stella has been a real trouper about the whole thing, folks. I wanted to take the sign down the next morning but she thought it was a hoot, especially in the light of the fact that she already had a husband at that time, so the ladies were praying for something that had already come about.” He raised his voice and brought the microphone all the way to his lips. “And I am that husband, folks. Stella and I were married at the Grayson County Courthouse a month before that prayer meeting, which means we have been married two months and one week tonight.”

Applause rocked the barn.

“So this can be our wedding party. We’d like nothing better than for y’all to enjoy the barbecue. I would advise you to go easy on Stella’s pulled chicken. I like it spicy, but it might be too hot for some folks. And I’d like to invite all y’all to church tomorrow morning. There will be a potluck in the fellowship hall afterward, so if you’ve got any leftover barbecue, bring it along. My whole family will be there to celebrate my job at the Cadillac church and my marriage to the most wonderful woman in the state of Texas.”

Stella reached for the microphone.

“Thank you all for the applause. It means a lot to us. It was my idea to keep the marriage a secret because of my past. I didn’t believe Jed would be hired as the preacher for the next two years if anyone knew he was married to me. But just a few days ago the committee voted to give my new husband a contract, so we’ll be in the parsonage for the next year at least, maybe longer if our prayers are answered and we can make Cadillac our home.” There, she’d said it right out in public for the whole town to hear.

Jed moved closer to the microphone and said, “I do believe there is an old adage about not throwing stones at glass houses, so if any of y’all got a rock in your pockets, either throw it or toss it on the ground right now.”

Violet and Heather inhaled and then let their breath out noisily, but not another sound was heard in the whole barn.

Everett made his way to where Jed and Stella stood and took the microphone. “Y’all all raise your plastic cups. This is a toast to my new son, not son-in-law, but son, because when he joined our family, he became a part of it as surely as if he was blood, not in-law. To my precious daughter, Stella, and to my new son, Jed Tucker. May their marriage be happy and as my old Irish grandmother said when I married Nancy”—he raised his red plastic cup higher—“may God be with you and bless you. May you see your children’s children. May you be poor in misfortunes and rich in blessings. May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.”

“Hear, hear! To Stella and Jed,” Rosalee yelled, and everyone tossed back a few gulps of whatever was in their cups.

Nancy had already started to the front of the building, accepting hugs on the way. When she reached the center, she hugged Stella and then Jed before she reached for the microphone. “I know you’re ready to get this show on the road, but I have to join Everett in saying that I’m so happy tonight. And the fact that that damn sign—and yes, I did cuss, because it has been a damn thorn in my side for weeks—will be down come morning makes this a double blessing.”

“Hear, hear! To the damn sign coming down. Now let’s start the dancing,” Agnes hollered, and the catcalls, foot stomping, and applause came close to raising the roof right off the Prescotts’ old weathered sheet-metal barn.

Trisha Yearwood’s voice came through the speakers as she sang a slow country two-stepping song, “How Do I Live.” Jed wrapped his arms around Stella. Her arms went around his neck and the wide gold wedding band flashed in the light of fifty flickering candles.

In the middle of the song, Stella felt a bump on her shoulder and her father leaned over and whispered, “I’m right proud to have that damn preacher in our family. Don’t know of a man that I’d rather keep company with.”

“I love you, Daddy,” Stella mouthed.

The barn was full of gorgeous women clad in lovely dresses, but none could hold a candle to Piper in her dark-green chiffon-over-satin dress with the shorter underskirt. It had been beautiful in the dressing room, but tonight Piper was absolutely stunning. It had more to do with the way Rhett held her possessively close and the way he kept whispering in her ear than the dress, but still, when he swirled her around and the chiffon moved so gracefully . . . well, the happiness Stella saw on her friend’s face made her go misty-eyed. She had to blink several times when she saw him singing along with the words saying that without her there would be no sun in his sky.

Stella glanced to her left and there were Boone and Charlotte, who wore the lovely pale-green halter dress with a rhinestone clasp that did indeed show off enough cleavage to draw the old stink eye
from Heather. Boone, bless his heart, would never know that Char
lotte had had second thoughts, and that was good because he was truly in love with her.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jed said and then sang along with the lyrics asking how would he live without her, how would he breathe without her, how would he ever survive without her.

“Only if I can use the penny to buy some hot sex tonight,” she said as she brushed away one tear that found its way down her cheek.

“I think that could be arranged, Mrs. Tucker,” he said.

“I was thinking about how beautiful and happy my friends are right now,” she answered.

“They’re not as pretty as you, darlin’. I swear when I saw you in that gorgeous lace dress with all those buttons, all I could think about was undoing them one at a time and kissing you after each button. You are stunning, my bride.”

“I’ll look forward to it, but darlin’, I’m your pregnant wife now.” She smiled up at him.

He bent forward, kissed her on the earlobe, and whispered, “Stella Baxter Tucker, you will be my bride until the day you die. And if you go first, walk real slow, because like this song says, I can’t live without you and I’ll be joinin’ you on those steps up to the pearly gates within twenty-four hours. Did you tell your mama and daddy about the baby?”

Every word of the song, his hands on her back, his soft sweet words set loose a roller coaster of emotions so deep that she wanted to hold them close to her heart forever. “Not yet. I want us to have a little while, just a day or so when it’s ours alone.”

“Let’s tell them together after the party tonight. I don’t think I can wait a day or two,” he said.

“And to think I was afraid you’d be disappointed.”

“Never. I want lots of kids, and this is the icing on the cake.”

Piper tapped her on the shoulder. “I understand why you couldn’t tell us and I forgive you.”

“Me, too.” Charlotte poked her on the arm.

Jed took a step back and let the three of them have a group hug just as the song ended. Three gorgeous women, one in ivory lace, two in shades of green, with three tall, handsome men surrounding them as the song ended with the lyrics asking, “How do I live?” Friendship, family, a wife. He couldn’t live without them, but most especially Stella. His heart would stop beating without her.

The whole barn rocked with another round of applause and then “Good Hearted Woman” started playing and Everett grabbed Nancy for a second dance as the people started a reception line to greet both the bride and groom. Heather and Violet sat at the back of the barn and seethed, but Rosalee and Agnes were first in the line.

Heather was mortified that the Sunday morning newspaper called her glorious ball a barn dance and didn’t mention her marriage ministry at all, and the article, barely two inches long, was buried under the obituaries. The fifteen-second news clip on television right before the weather the night before showed Rhett Monroe carrying Agnes Flynn to the door of the barn with a short sentence about
Duck Dynasty
not having a thing on Cadillac, Texas, with its fancy barn dance and camouflage Hummer limos. There wasn’t a single picture of Heather or a mention of her marriage ministry. It all gave her a raging headache and she didn’t make it to church.