Cricket shrugged. “I treated Jennie Sue like crap, and she gave me a second chance, so I should do the same for Anna Grace. Besides”—she leaned over and whispered—“if she was just playing a mean trick, I turned it around on her and took the power away from her.”
“If she’s not, you have to live with her for three months,” Bryce said.
“If she’s not serious, she won’t last a week in the garden or the kitchen, and she’ll leave for sure on Saturday afternoon when I tell her it’s her turn to scrub the bathroom.” Cricket picked up a stuffed mushroom and popped it in her mouth. “I love food, but then that’s evident from the way I look.”
“I think you are gorgeous,” Bryce said with all sincerity.
* * *
Cricket was glad she had food in her mouth and could use that for an excuse not to say a single word. She was even happier that she didn’t have a mouthful of sweet tea, or she would have spewed it all over a picture of Nadine when the elderly lady was probably about sixteen.
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about breaking me with a big hug,” she finally said, “and the way I like to cook and eat, I never will. But I’ve got to admit, I’m probably the clumsiest woman in the whole state.”
“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Bryce said.
Was he flirting with her? Sweet Lord! She had never learned how to bat her eyelashes and flirt like the Belles. While they’d been learning all about fashion and how to make a man fall all over himself to get to kiss their pretty sweet sixteen rings, she had been learning how to cook and plant a garden.
“If you do, I’ll probably just drag you down with me,” Cricket said.
“Sounds like fun if it’s in a muddy garden. We could take mud baths together, and then wash up with the garden hose,” Bryce teased, and stole a small tomato off her plate.
A shiver chased down her spine when his hand brushed against her bare arm. Cricket had started to think that she would grow up to be like Nadine in more ways than just age. She would probably be an old maid who knew all the gossip in town and who took care of her two precious nieces. But that little spark she felt gave her hope that Bryce was serious and that there just might be a better future ahead for her.
Nadine sat down beside her, and Lettie claimed a chair across the table. Cricket loved both of them, but tonight, she wished they had sat at the other table with Amos, Ilene, Tandy, and the other guests.
“Bryce, has someone introduced you to our preacher?” Nadine asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” Bryce nodded. “We met when we started around the food table. By the way, this is an awesome party.”
“I do my best, even though living with her is like sharing a house with an old bear one day and a teenager the next.” Lettie nodded at Nadine.
“Hey, if I got up in the same mood every single day, you’d get bored.” Nadine winked. “Don’t worry, sister, when you get to be ninety-five, I won’t smother you with a pillow even if you act like a teenager. Unless I catch you making out on the sofa with some old bald, toothless man.”
“I could still catch a young guy.” Lettie fluffed up her dyed black hair with the palm of her hand. “I betcha I could even get one who has hair and teeth and doesn’t use a walker.”
“I’ve got ten bucks that says you can’t,” Nadine said.
“You’re on, but you can’t fuss at me for getting protection down at the drugstore. I don’t want to be catchin’ one of the STFs at my age, and besides, if the aliens ever do choose me to go up in the sky with them, I wouldn’t want to spread it around to them.” Lettie grinned. “And it could take a while, so let’s say you have to pay up on my ninety-fifth birthday.”
“It’s not STFs,” Cricket whispered. “It’s STDs.”
“Close enough,” Lettie said out the side of her mouth.
Bryce nearly choked on a sip of tea, but Cricket wasn’t a bit shocked at what they were saying. She’d heard them place two-dollar bets on all kinds of things. “That’s why they sit with us rather than with the preacher,” Cricket told him.
“You got that right,” Lettie said, “but we do try to be nice on Sunday. Which reminds me, you two want to have Sunday dinner with us after church?”
“We’ve already got plans,” Bryce said. “I’m taking Cricket to church and then out to lunch.”
“Is it a real date, then?” Nadine asked. “If it is, that’s the best birthday present you could give this old woman.”
“Old, my stars!” Cricket felt the blush before it started burning her face. “You will never be old, no matter what the numbers say.”
“Thank you, darlin’, but I just love it that you are going out on a date.” Nadine grinned.
Thank God Bryce didn’t ask why that was such a great thing, Cricket thought. Then the preacher came over, with a huge square of cake on a Happy Birthday plate, and sat down beside Nadine.
“Lettie, you outdid yourself on this cake. It’s amazing,” Frank said.
She put on her sweet little angel expression and cocked her head to one side. “You let me know when your birthday rolls around, and I’ll make you one just like it, but one without ninety-five holes poked in it.”
“I’ll only need sixty-five, and my birthday is at the end of August,” Frank said. “I plan on retiring in September. The committee will be looking for a new preacher at the end of this month. You ladies going to be up for interviews?”
“You bet we are,” Lettie assured him.
Bryce leaned over and whispered, “I guess it’s all right then if we go get cake now?”
The sensation of his warm breath on her neck sent even more of those delicious little shivers down her spine. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “We’re going for cake. Can I get y’all anything while we’re in there?”
“No, we’re good for now,” Nadine answered for both sisters.
“I’m just fine,” Frank said.
Cricket could hear them talking about new preachers as she and Bryce started into the house. “They’ve been on the hiring committee for probably fifty years or more. What kind of scares me is that Lettie might fight to hire a widower who has hair, his teeth, and walks without a cane just so she can collect on that bet.”
Bryce chuckled, but the second they were in the house, he couldn’t hold the laughter in anymore, and he guffawed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They take their bets very serious, and a ten-dollar one is big. They usually only deal in a dollar or two at the most.” Cricket headed for the cake. She handed the knife to Bryce and said, “Don’t be shy. I sure don’t intend to be. I love Lettie’s chocolate cake.”
“Blackberry cobbler is my favorite dessert, and chocolate cake comes in right behind that.” He cut off a big square, then handed the knife to Cricket.
When she finished putting her piece on her plate, she turned around to find him grinning down at her. “What?” she asked.
His eyes glittered when he ran a finger through the chocolate on the top of his cake and then wiped it on her lips. Before she could blink, he leaned down and kissed her. “That’s the way to taste chocolate icing,” he said when the kiss ended.