Page 36 of Sweet Temptation

“And I’m Angela Simpson.” Angela pressed fully against the front-row seats. “Your husband proposed to me last week. I live in Honeysuckle.”

Diane’s face cycled through confusion, disbelief, and then—unexpectedly—resignation. She glanced around the parking lot.

“I’m sorry if we’ve hurt you.” Jackie latched onto the shock she felt when she’d found out Brad was already married. “But we felt you needed to know what’s happening; I just hadn’t meant to blurt it out in a public parking lot.”

Closing her eyes a moment, Diane nodded. “All right. You’ve done your good deed for the day. I’ll take it from here.”

“Actually,” Jackie straightened in her seat, “we were thinking more along the lines of helping you—and karma—along.”

Her gaze narrowing as she studied Jackie’s face, she seemed to weigh the truth of her words. Then, offering an almost imperceptible nod of her head, her stance eased and her hand fell from her handbag to her side. “I’m listening.”

Jackie turned left then right, taking in every passing shopper in the parking lot. “Perhaps we could do this somewhere else?”

“You look more nervous than a cat in a room full of rockers.” Jackie’s grandmother sat at the kitchen table, enjoying her lunch with his mom and brothers.

The fork in Garret’s mom’s hand stilled halfway to her mouth. “Did something go wrong with the irrigation system?”

“Nope,” Preston answered. “Small patch job set everything right again.”

His mom’s shoulders relaxed a moment before she stiffened again. “A problem with the fence lines?”

This time Carson looked up. “Everything’s fine, Mom. Why are you suddenly so spooked?”

His mother looked from Jackie’s grandmother to Garret and back. “Eleanor is right. Garret looks like he’s sitting in a room of rattlers waiting to strike.”

His mom’s analogy was closer to the truth than Eleanor’s. For all he knew, Brad’s wife Diane might very well strike like a rattler and that thought had him more than a bit unsettled. He’d hoped to hear from them by now. If not a call, a text, anything to let him know things were not going to hell in a hand basket. “I’m just thinking about some challenges at school. I’ll figure it out.”

“I see.” His mom studied him a moment before accepting her son’s reply and returning to her lunch.

As if everyone’s concern had summoned Jackie, his phone dinged with a text.All is good. We’re on our way back to town.

A moment later, Eleanor’s phone buzzed. The older woman continued to eat, ignoring her phone. While he admired her determination to avoid the distractions of cell phones when eating or visiting with folks, right about now he wanted to know if Jackie had more news for them.

Another minute or so and his phone dinged again. Another text from Jackie.Tell Grams to meet us at Heaven Scent. Jillian is expecting everyone.

Everyone? Who was everyone and why were they meeting at Jillian’s candle shop?

Another text came through.You too.

Well, at least maybe now he’d get some answers. What he wasn’t so sure of, was whether or not he would like any of what he was going to learn.

Chapter Fifteen

“I think you’ve all lost your minds.” Bright and early, before he’d had enough coffee to clear his head, Garret simply shook his head at his brothers, their wives, his sisters, and Jackie, all gathered in his Dad’s office. “It’s one thing to tell the principal parties involved of Brad’s unscrupulous behavior, but it’s something totally different to gang up on him.”

“Why?” Arms crossed, Rachel sat in the lone recliner.

“Because it could backfire on all of you.” From the determined look on the faces of the women in his life, Garret knew he was wasting his breath, but he had to try.

“Garret has a point.” Carson looked at his sister Jillian, whose body language mimicked her twin’s. “No one has any idea how Brad will react, or how much trouble he can cause if he chooses to get even.”

Scanning the room, it was clear, the women stood on the side of insanity and the men did not.

“We spent all of last night coming up with a detailed plan,” Jackie explained.

“And with today being the Annual Corn Hole School Fundraising Festival, it’s the perfect time to pull it off. It will be fun.” Jackie smiled at him.

“Fun?” the three men in the room echoed.

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