Kate wrapped both her arms around the little girl. She would have made an amazing mother. Gracie was the child that her husband produced with another woman, and she was humming to her. That took some kind of special person.

The strumming of a guitar playing the first chords of “Girls Like Us” came from the end table.

Waylon chuckled.

“What?” Kate asked. “It’s either Jamie or Amanda.”

He handed her the phone. “Fitting song choice.”

Kate flashed a smile over the top of Gracie’s head and put the phone on speaker. “Hello, Amanda, what’s the news?”

“We are about five minutes from the cabin. I had false labor. Everything is still on schedule and fine. Sorry we’re only calling now—the storm messed with the cell service. Jamie is driving and we just passed the convenience store. See you soon.”

Kate hit the “End” button, and Gracie wiggled out of her embrace, yawned, and stretched. “So we don’t get a baby tonight?”

“That’s right, but your mama will be here real soon,” Waylon said.

“I’m glad.” Gracie yawned again.

“For which one? That the baby isn’t here or that your mama is almost home?” Kate stood up and folded the quilt, picked up the paper plates from the coffee table, and carried them to the trash.

“Both,” Gracie answered. “Amanda told Mama that if she had the baby now, she’d have to leave him in the hospital, and I want to bring my little brother home. And I really miss my mama.”

Waylon helped by taking the empty beer bottle and the Coke can to the trash. “Is that my cue to leave?”

“No rush,” she said.

“I’ve loved every minute of this evening.” His phone rang.

“Mama’s here!” Gracie shouted simultaneously.

The two women came through the door talking while he answered the call. He listened for a minute and then said, “I’m on my way.” He crossed the room in a couple of long strides. “Glad everything is fine, Amanda. Victor has gotten his car stuck in the mud down at Hattie’s. They saw my truck parked outside when they came home from getting ice cream and they need help.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Kate sucked in the fresh air when they were on the porch. “You never get this in the city.”

He wrapped his hand around hers. “What?”

“Stars this bright or this scent after a rain.”

“It’s the smell of wet dirt.” He stopped when they reached his truck and pulled her close to his chest. “I wish we’d met sooner, like when we were in our twenties, and that we’d had a whole yard full of little kids like Gracie. You would have been an awesome mother, Kate.”

“But we weren’t these people back then. We might not have even liked each other at that age. Look who I ended up picking later.”

“I would have liked you at any age.”

“Really?” Kate cocked her head to one side.

“Absolutely. Though you are right. Right out of college, neither of us would have enjoyed tonight the way we did. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.”

Watching her stand on the porch and wave until he was out of sight kicked his pulse into high gear.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It seems like we’ve been waiting for hours.”

Amanda checked the time on her phone. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet. We’ve only been here ten minutes, Jamie. They have to get settled and get the preliminary talkin’ done. Don’t be nervous. If not, then we’ll go back to what we were doing, right? You have a teaching job in Dallas. I’ve got the shop. It’s not like we are going to have to stand on the street corner and beg for quarters.”

“You are so right,” Jamie said, fidgeting with a speck of lint on her skirt. “But Gracie is so happy here. I wish they’d call one of us into the meeting and get it over with.”

“Don’t think about time. Think about us sitting outside in the hallway on metal folding chairs. To me, it feels like we’re in trouble,” Amanda said.

Jamie smiled. “I was so shy, I never had to sit in the hallway. My teachers are probably still in shock that I grew up to become a teacher myself.”

“Humph! Don’t try to put that bullshit on my plate. The way you bowed up to me at the funeral, and with your temper, I ain’t believin’ a word of that,” Amanda said.

“I was shy in high school. I learned to stand up for myself in college. How about you?”

“I was not a model student, so I did spend my fair share of time sitting on a chair just like this or in detention hall. I liked the latter much better.”

“Why?” Jamie asked.

“Most of the time they assigned a teacher who’d rather be doing anything else but watching a bunch of unruly kids, so they’d leave the room. We’d break out the cards and I won enough money playing poker to buy after-school Cokes.”

“Really?” Jamie gasped. “I figured you for a shy little thing like Kate and I were.”

“Not until later, after Aunt Ellie got me straightened out in the church.”

“Amanda?” Victor poked his head out the door. “We’re ready for you.”

“Wish me luck,” Amanda said.

“You don’t even need it.”

“Thank you.”

Amanda had dressed in her best maternity slacks and shirt, styled her curly red hair in a twist, and applied makeup. The job might not bring in the money that she’d made at the bank or even the clothing store, but it would be perfect for a single mother with a child. And Bootleg was a better place to raise a baby than in an apartment right in the city.

“Please have a seat,” a lady she recognized from the church said.

The wing-back chair that Amanda sank into was a whole lot more comfortable that the metal chair out in the hallway. She waited while they shuffled through her résumé and recommendation letters she’d gotten from the bank, Aunt Ellie, and Wanda.

“I am Andrea Drysdale, the president of the Board of Education,” the woman said. She introduced three of the other five members, finishing, “You already know Victor, who has highly recommended you for this position.”

Amanda nodded at each of them. “I’m pleased to meet you all. You all know how I came to be in Bootleg, right?”

“We do,” Mrs. Drysdale said and then lowered her voice. “And off the record, we’re glad to hear that the man who conned Iris is dead. We aren’t going to let anything that he caused or did influence our decision. Do you have any questions about this job?”

“Could I stretch the yearly salary into twelve payments so that I would have a summer paycheck? Do I work in the summer months, and if so, could I bring my baby with me?”

“Yes, most secretaries do like to have their checks in the summer. Though you will still work during that time. You can choose either the month after school is out or the month before school starts for your break. If you choose to work all three months, you will be paid extra. And you can bring your child during those months,” Andrea answered.

“If you stay organized through the year, there won’t be much to do but answer phone calls in the summer,” Victor said. “Anything else?”

Amanda nodded and asked, “You have taken into consideration that the earliest I could start to work would be mid-October? And that right now they still suspect me and Jamie and Kate of murder?”

“We have and have made arrangements with a retired teacher to take the job for the first six weeks,” Paula, the elementary school principal, answered. “And all that other business will take care of itself, we have no doubt. So?”

“Yes, I’m interested.” Amanda’s heart kicked in an extra beat as she fought the urge to do a wiggle dance in her chair.

“Amanda, we are offering you the job. We have the contract drawn up. The salary comes with health insurance. You will have to add dental and vision, but that will all be decided later when you put your baby on the policy,” Victor said.

“Oh! Then you are hiring me right now?”