“Did you ever . . .” Kate hesitated long enough to take a sip of coffee.

“Ever what?” Jamie asked.

“Think there was something too good about the whole dating process with Conrad?”

“You mean like it was too perfect?” Amanda asked.

“Exactly. Did you ever have an argument or a fight with him over anything, especially that first year?” Kate asked.

Jamie shook her head. “That is strange, isn’t it? He always got his way, but then he was only home a week out of a month, and I didn’t want to make that time unpleasant.”

That should have raised a warning flag. No arguments. Making things so perfect for him so he’d be happy. God, what had turned her into a submissive little wife like that?

“Me, either,” Amanda said.

“He was a master of manipulation,” Kate said.

Oh, yes, he was, and so damned good that I didn’t even see it until now.

“And not all that great in bed,” Amanda agreed with a nod. “It had to be all about him, since I only got to be with him a few days. I won’t fall for that crap again.”

The heat started on Jamie’s neck and moved around to her cheeks, darkening her light-brown skin to scarlet. “You, too, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kate and Amanda said at the same time.

Kate held up a palm. “But only for about six months for me and the same for Amanda. Mine was by choice and hers by death. You had to put up with him longer than either of us.”

“That just makes me the bigger fool.” Jamie sighed.

“You don’t get to carry that burden alone,” Amanda told her. “We’ll share that one three ways. At least you were thinking divorce. I was looking forward to a vacation with him right here in this cabin. God, I was so stupid.”

Jamie nudged Amanda with her shoulder. “And you don’t need to carry that burden alone, either.”

Gracie’s squeals vibrated through the house before anyone could say another word. “She’s here! Mama Rita is here!”

Jamie left her coffee and food and headed for the door in a semijog with Kate and Amanda right behind her. Gracie had bailed off the porch and thrown herself in Rita’s arms and was attempting to tell her everything she knew in the seconds before Jamie joined them in a three-way hug.

“Did you see the stagecoach? Me and Lisa get to ride in it at the ranch on Monday and we get to have a picnic and”—she lowered her voice—“I’m going to ride one of them horses or maybe a four-wheeler if the horses are tired from pulling the stagecoach.”

“I didn’t see a stagecoach, but I did see a Ferris wheel.” Mama Rita winked at Jamie.

“And funnel cakes? Did you smell them?” Gracie put her hand in Mama Rita’s and led her to the house. “Come and see my room. I got balloons yesterday. I know that Kate and Waylon sent them, because Kate was smiling real big when they came. Did you have breakfast? We’ve got extra pancakes and bacon on the stove.”

“I’m waiting for funnel cakes,” Mama Rita answered. “You can give me a tour of the house and the deck while everyone gets ready.”

Gracie skipped along beside her great-grandmother, chattering the whole time about the cabin.

“She does love it here,” Mama Rita said to Jamie from the side of her mouth. “You made the right decision.”

“Want to move with us?” Jamie asked, half in jest.

Rita chuckled. “Not this year, but I can see this as a lovely place to retire.”

Jamie laughed. “Mama Rita, you are seventy-five years old. You’ve been retired for years.”

For her to even say that she might move to Bootleg someday was huge. Jamie hugged herself, and all the doubts from that morning disappeared. Mama Rita agreed with her choice and that made everything right again.

“In my family, we don’t really quit until we are eighty, and then we keep at something until at least ninety,” she said as an aside to Kate before she gave Gracie her full attention. “Now what is this about a fishing dock, Gracie? Will we have time to go see it before we go to the festival? I’m going to be your cheerleader in the contest and we are going to win.”

“I’ve been practicing with Hattie and I think I might win.” Gracie pulled her great-grandmother into the house.

Kate smiled. “I reckon we’d better get dressed in a hurry, or we’ll all be in trouble and have to stay home while Gracie and Mama Rita go to the festival.”

Jamie laughed. “You are starting to sound like a country girl.”

“Well, thank you,” Kate said. “And I don’t mean that with a smidgen of sarcasm, either.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Old folks brought their lawn chairs and staked out a place to watch the parade that Saturday morning. The temperature was inching up toward three digits when the sirens from the Bootleg Volunteer Fire Department’s big red truck sounded off. A few umbrellas popped up, providing shade, and Kate glanced around to see if any vendors were selling them so she could purchase one for Gracie and Lisa to share. But there were none.

Could it be that was her sign? Jamie’s words continued to echo in her head. She should resign from the oil business and buy a vendor’s wagon to travel around the state with all kinds of umbrellas. Every town had a festival, and everyone wanted a little shade in the hot summer. She smiled at the silly thought.

The Bootleg High School band, all wearing street clothing and crazy fishing hats instead of their usual uniforms, marched behind the fire truck. Twice the band stopped and performed a fancy two-step routine that garnered catcalls and applause from the crowd.

She took a picture of the band with her phone and then took several up-close snapshots of Gracie. Maybe she’d scatter pictures of Gracie throughout her new home, wherever it turned out to be.

Maybe that was her sign. She could travel around to the festivals taking pictures like they did on cruise ships and selling them to the people. The possibilities were endless. Lovers, married folks, old people, little kids—she turned her camera up and shot another picture of Gracie and Lisa with their heads together as they watched the band. Then she took one of Paul and Jamie standing about a foot apart as they minded the children.

There was a float from the church with the preacher and his wife riding on the back and throwing candy out to the crowd. One from the elementary school with all the teachers on it. Next year Jamie would ride on that one, and Waylon was right—Kate would need to be there to watch Gracie.

No, you won’t. Her Mama Rita will always be here to do that job, her conscience said above the loud band music.

Kate didn’t even argue. She’d be there anyway to take pictures of Gracie through the years, recording her growth by the festival pictures.

People dressed in all kinds of fishing costumes dashed between the next several floats, making the onlookers laugh with their antics as they gave out rubber worms and inexpensive lures to the crowd on the sidelines.

The whole thing had a Mardi Gras feel to it. She’d been to New Orleans once on a business trip and watched a parade from her hotel balcony, but it hadn’t been as much fun as this one.

Finally, the stagecoach appeared at the end with Victor driving and Hattie waving a lace hankie from inside with several other folks. Gracie and Lisa hopped up and down and blew kisses at her. When she yelled their names, they hugged each other and beamed.

And then it was over. People picked up their chairs and headed toward the school, where two blocks had been roped off for vendors and the carnival had been set up in the parking lot. Kate tagged along behind the rest of her group for a few minutes, but then she saw a vendor selling cute hair bows and stopped to buy a couple with tiny pictures of Cinderella on the ribbons.

A booth offering an array of brightly colored scarves and shawls caught her eye, too. The one that stood out was a splash of bright colors swirled around on a background of blue. It reminded her of a sunset over the lake, but she had absolutely nothing that it would match.

Amanda has a cute little maternity dress that it would go with, though.

She was about to buy it when someone touched her hand.

“What do you think of our festival?” Victor asked at her elbow. “Seen Hattie around? I had to get the horses unhitched and I lost her.”