“I’ll do it.” Jennie Sue headed for the kitchen. “When I get off from my other two jobs each evening, I’ll help you. I don’t have anything to do in the evenings anyway. You just have to pick me up.”

“Thank you. I can’t pay much, but I can at least give you minimum wages.”

“How about I make supper for you both each evening, and what I eat can be my payment? That way I don’t have to buy food, and I have someone to eat with and cook for,” Jennie Sue said. “And besides, it’s what civil friends do to help out someone who needs it.”

“We don’t take charity,” Cricket said.

“I’m workin’ for my supper, and it’s you givin’ out charity, not me. I’m probably the poorest person in Bloom right now. Are you goin’ to let your sister starve?”

“Okay, okay, if it’s all right with Rick, we’ll accept, but I hope you know how to cook plain food.”

“I was trained by Mabel. Now show me the kitchen and I’ll get busy.”

“You sure about this?” Rick asked.

“Just lead the way,” Jennie Sue answered, not sure at all about what she’d just done.

Chapter Nine

Well, there’s my new employee.” Amos opened the door and bowed with a flourish when Jennie Sue arrived at the bookstore the next morning.

“Thank you for the welcome. I’m ready to work. What do I do first?” she asked.

“Whatever you want. I’m just glad that I can keep the store open all day on Monday through Wednesday. Half days were killin’ me, but I’ve always helped with the library, and I didn’t want to give it up. This store was my sweet wife’s, and I just couldn’t completely close it up,” he said.

She noticed romance, nonfiction, and cookbooks all on the same, most visible shelf. “Looks like we need some organizing.”

“That would be great. The office is through that door.” He pointed. “Restroom is over there.” He swung his finger to the other side of the store. “We’re closed from twelve to one for lunch, and now I’m going to a Kiwanis breakfast. Make yourself at home. Paperbacks sell for a quarter of whatever the retail price is on them. Hardbacks sell for five dollars.”

“You really don’t care if I do some rearranging?” Jennie Sue asked.

“Honey, I’d appreciate anything that you want to do with the place.” Amos waved and left her alone in the bookstore.

She found two big boxes in the back of the store and brought them up front, where she filled them with books from the first set of shelving. She’d recently read that romance sales were a large percentage of the market, so she planned to fill the first row of shelves with that genre—alphabetically according to the author’s last name. It would take weeks to organize the whole store, but she’d get a little bit done each day, and before she left town, folks could easily find what they wanted.

Humming as she put the first twenty books on the top shelf, Jennie Sue drifted off into her own little world, remembering how fun it had been to get dirty and sweaty in the huge garden on the Lawson farm. Even if Cricket was cool toward her and at times downright hateful, she’d still enjoyed cooking for three and having someone to eat supper with.

“Besides, I’ve lived with Charlotte Baker all my life, so Cricket doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of intimidating me,” she muttered. “I kind of like her brutal honesty. Different from the kind of girls I grew up with—or in Percy’s world.”

Looking back, that first year hadn’t been so bad. He’d been busy building up the business he and his partner had bought. A jewelry launch party or something similar filled every weekend. Not to mention the charity events where Percy tried to get new—female—clients. She’d been swept into a world that her mother loved and tried very hard to fit into it, but it bored her.

They hadn’t been married a month when he’d found water spots on the bathroom faucets and decided that the housekeepers weren’t doing it to suit him. When she asked her mother about it, Charlotte had said it was just a test to see how much she loved him.

They never hired another housekeeper after that.

It went downhill from there. He gradually became more and more verbally abusive and demanded more from her. She thought things might change for the better when she told him she was pregnant, but she was wrong.

“You did this on purpose. A baby will ruin our life. I’ll make an appointment tomorrow for you to get rid of it,” he’d said in a tone so cold it had sent shivers down her spine.

“It was a pure accident. The pill is only ninety-something-percent effective, you know,” she argued. “And I’m not having an abortion.”

“Yes, you are,” he screamed, and threw the bowl of potato salad at the wall.

“I will not, and since you’re already angry, I might as well tell you that I’ve been taking online courses a few at a time to finish up my business degree. I’m hoping to have it completed the semester after the baby is born.” She remembered thinking that she’d just spring it all on him at once since he was already angry.

He’d glared at her for a full minute before he stormed into the hall and brought out a blanket and pillow. “I’ll sleep in the spare room. I’m finished with you until the abortion is done.”

“Then you might as well move on out, because that is not going to happen.” She’d gone to the kitchen for cleaning supplies to take care of the mess he’d made.

The squeal of tires right outside the store jerked her out of the past and into the present. She glanced up to see a van coming right at the glass storefront. She took off to the back of the store in a dead run. She’d passed the romance section and the mysteries before she came to a halt. Total silence filled the store. No broken windows or books flying through the air. She turned around when the cowbell above the door jingled. Adrenaline rushed through her body, and her heart was pumping so hard she could scarcely breathe.

“Sorry sumbitch brakes,” Nadine fumed as she made her way into the store. “Not a bit more dependable than a Missouri mule. Does Amos have any sweet tea made up? Or has he got some of that elderberry wine that he brews up in the fall hidin’ back there under the counter?”

“Nadine Clifford! You don’t even have a driver’s license. What are you doin’ behind the wheel?” Jennie Sue had to steady herself on the bookcase in front of her to keep her trembling legs from collapsing.

Nadine slung her bony body down on the recliner. “Don’t fuss at me. Just because I ain’t got a license don’t mean I can’t drive. Them damned brakes is just tough to mash down when you get to be ninety. And if I get caught, then you’ll come bail me out of jail. Get us some tea or some wine and let’s talk about what happened to Cricket. I swear, that girl is carryin’ too much weight on them little bitty feet and that’s the reason she’s got a bum leg right now. She needs to jerk about forty pounds off her body, and then she could catch a husband.”

“Are you drunk, Nadine?” Lettie rushed into the store and popped her hands on her round hips right in front of her sister. “What in the hell do you mean drivin’ when you ain’t even had a license in ten years? I told you that I’d drive over and get you. When I got there and you was gone, I thought the aliens had finally gotten through on my phone.”

Nadine’s chin jacked up three inches. “Hell, if they had, they would have let me go in an hour. I’m ninety years old. There ain’t nothin’ in this old body they’d want to study. And”—she shook her finger under Lettie’s nose—“you’re too damn slow. I was ready an hour ago, and it’s too hot to walk down here. I can drive if I want to. Now stop your bitchin’ at me and sit down here.” She patted the sofa. “Jennie Sue is going to bring us some tea and tell us about how Cricket hurt her foot. Bless Cricket’s heart, she’ll shrivel up and die if she can’t get out and visit with people.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Lettie plopped down. “Look at my shoes. They don’t even match, and it’s your fault. When Amos called and said that someone told him you were weaving all over the road, I picked up the first two I could find. If I’d had to go to the hospital like this because you had a wreck, everyone in the county would say I was losin’ my mind.”