Nancy yelled.
Charlotte poked her head out of the door to the supply room. “No, ma’am. I have to work every day with Stella. If I cut your hair, she’ll think I’m on your side. I wish Stella could find someone to love her like Boone loves me, but it would be wise if you’d take her name off the list and let her do her own husband hunting.”
“This isn’t the only beauty shop in town,” Nancy said.
“No, it isn’t. You go on down to the other one and take your doughnuts with you,” Stella said. “I’m going to be mad for a long time, Mama. You should have thought about the consequences of what you were doing. We’ve got a business to run, and you know how people gossip in Cadillac.”
“Sunday dinner?” Nancy narrowed her eyes.
“Won’t be at your house,” Stella said bluntly.
Nancy picked up the box of doughnuts. “What will I tell your daddy?”
“Tell him he’s not going to be a grandfather on Mother’s Day. Tell him that he might never be a grandfather if someone doesn’t take that shit off the church billboard and my name off that list.”
Piper waited until Nancy was gone to light into Stella. “I’m your friend and this is embarrassing, humiliating, and horrible but Nancy is your mother, girl. You only get one mother in this lifetime. Think about it before you cut off your nose to spite your face. I don’t want you to get married. Hell, I don’t want any woman to get married after what I’ve been through, but don’t blame Nancy for all of it. Heather is in charge of the church sign.”
Stella’s eyes went to Charlotte, who said, “Don’t look at me. I’d probably burn my mama alive if she did something like that.”
Stella tucked her chin into her chest. “Charlotte, you are pure genius. We could get some kindlin’ and tie Heather to the sign before we set it on fire. Burn the witch at the stake. Maybe that would make everyone who is gossiping at least think about what they’re saying.”
“Witch!” Charlotte said. “You got that wrong. She’s not a witch. She’s a full-fledged, card-carryin’, bona fide bitch.”
C HAPTER T WO
S outhern women do not sweat. They get dewy, or in very hot weather they might perspire, but that was said in whispers. It was too damn hot for Nancy Baxter to be getting dewy or perspiring. It was too damn hot for an angry, chubby fifty-plus-year-old woman to be trotting across an asphalt church parking lot. She was downright sweating and that was all there was to it. But there wasn’t a single parking spot on either side of the street at Ruby’s Beauty Shop, so Nancy had to park a block away in the CNC church parking lot.
Her thighs stuck together but she wasn’t about to reach up under her skirt and swipe that away with a tissue. Gossip would have it that Nancy had lost her mind and was wiping her ass right there in the church parking lot because her daughter had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Who in the hell had authorized that damn sign, anyway, and why hadn’t they called her before they did it? She wanted to cry or kick the hell out of something or maybe both.
Heat and fighting with Stella had always jacked up her blood pressure. Stella knew that and she should know better than to argue with her when the day started off at ninety degrees with the possibility of triple digits before noon. It would be all Stella’s fault if Nancy crumpled in a heap of sweat and bones right there on Main Street in Cadillac, Texas, before she ever got a grandchild.
Her ears buzzed and her pulse raced. Hot salty tears stung her eyes. That damned Heather had sweet-talked the last preacher into letting her take care of the church sign when she first came to Cadillac. When he retired and Jed took over, it was like that sign about guns—until they pried it out of her cold, dead hands, no one was getting the box of letters to make words on the sign.
Figuring she’d just about taxed her body to the last degree, Nancy climbed the steps to Miss