39

Since it was only three blocks away, Shane and Kelli decided to walk from her duplex to the high school stadium. Each carried a portable chair looped across the shoulder. The track was lined with all sorts of booths selling snacks, drinks, glow sticks, and glow necklaces galore. It was still hot and humid at almost eight, but it didn’t seem to slow anyone down. “This is really nice,” Kelli said, and she meant it. The small-town carnival atmosphere made her wonder anew about the life she had been meant to live.

“Here comes Amy. Come on, I’ll secure your undying devotion with some fine jewelry, and then I’m counting on your protection.” He stopped and purchased a braided blue, yellow, and green glow necklace, then slipped it over Kelli’s head, grinning. “Fabulous.” He glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward and whispered, “Now earn your keep.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Kelli reached out and took Shane’s extended arm, thinking even as she did so that it was a mistake.

Amy bounded over. “Happy Fourth of July!” Her face was overly bright when she said it, especially when she turned to smile sweetly at Kelli. “Remind me of your name again. I’m simply terrible with names and faces.”

“Kelli.”

“Right, Kelli. You’re the new cash register girl at the store, isn’t that what I remember?”

“That’s me.” Kelli knew the question was meant to be demeaning, but she had no plans to take the bait. The sooner the conversation ended, the sooner Amy would move on to speak with someone else.

“That is hard work. I can remember back when I was in high school, I worked a cash register at Leitha’s dress shop—as well as doing some merchandising, of course. That is one of the things that motivated me to keep my grades up and get into a good college so I could get a decent job.” She paused then and put her hand over her mouth. “I mean . . . I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything by that.”

Of course she did, but once again Kelli didn’t want to say anything that would prolong this conversation. “I’m sure you didn’t. No offense taken.” She squeezed Shane’s arm. “Shane and I were just about to go set up our chairs on the field. It was nice to see you again.”

“Oh, you’ve simply got to come sit with us. We’ve got the very best seats in the house all staked out. Come on, you two, I’ll show you.” She pulled at the chair strap across Shane’s shoulder, as if to lead him with it.

He shook his head. “That’s okay. We were—”

“I insist. Come on now.” She tugged with enough force that Shane started walking with her. He tightened his arm against his side, ensuring that Kelli couldn’t let go. “Amy, we really were planning—”

“We want Kelsey to get the best possible view of her first Tennessee fireworks show, don’t we?”

“I think the end zone is just fine.” Shane planted his feet. “Thanks anyway.” He pulled his arm away from her grip and took a step backward.

“Shane-dog, I didn’t know you were back here.” A male voice boomed over the drone of the crowd.

Shane’s face broke into a huge grin. “Bear-man, so good to see you. What are you doing here?”

A tall, thin, rather scruffy-looking young man came to stand beside them, smiling every bit as big as Shane. “Visiting the folks for the weekend, and I thought I’d catch up with the old gang. Did Amy tell you we’ve got a big section out in the middle for the class of 2006?” He looked at Kelli. “Hello there, pretty lady. The name’s Barry, and I’m looking forward to hearing all about you.”

“Paws off, Bear-man.” Shane bumped his arm “You think I’d bring Kelli into the middle of you piranhas?”

“Of course you will. Here, I’ll take that.” He reached over and took the chair off Kelli’s shoulder. “Right this way, you two.”

Before either of them had a choice, they were seated right in the middle of Shane’s old high school crowd, which was a friendly but somewhat boisterous group. Barry plopped down right beside Kelli and remained there. Although he flirted with most everyone who came by, his nearness seemed to have the effect of keeping Shane a little extra close—or was it simply because Amy was also nearby? Kelli couldn’t be sure.

When it finally grew dark, the fireworks started, accompanied by patriotic music blaring from loudspeakers throughout the stadium. Kelli couldn’t help but believe it was the best fireworks show she’d ever been to—in spite of the fact that there were sometimes long pauses between explosions, and that none of it synced quite right to the music. The homey, small-town feel of it made everything so much more meaningful. Had her parents once sat in this very stadium, watching a similar show?

“Are you all right?” Shane leaned a little closer.

Only when he’d asked the question did she realize a tear was rolling down her cheek. She reached up and wiped it away. “Fine. I’m just really enjoying myself.”

He looked at her, deep into her eyes, for the space of several heartbeats. He leaned a little closer, paused, then slowly brought his lips to hers. The kiss was soft, and gentle, and wonderful. When he pulled away, he still kept his face very close to hers and reached out and rubbed her cheek where the tear had been.

“Okay, you two, break it up, break it up.” Barry leaned over and shoved Shane’s shoulder. “You’re getting way too mushy over here. Fireworks are in the sky, not in each other’s eyes.” He said the last few words in a high-pitched, joking voice.

Shane continued to look at Kelli for another couple of seconds before he turned to his friend. “You sure know how to kill a moment.”

“Why, thank you. Thank you very much.” The guys laughed, and that was the end of it.

Kelli realized later she truly owed Barry a round of thanks. The last thing she needed was to get into one more emotional entanglement that would have to be severed at the end of the summer.

On Sunday morning, Kelli combed out her just-washed hair, reliving scenes from the night before. The atmosphere, the fireworks, the kiss. What was she going to do? She couldn’t continue on the path she was on—there were danger signs flashing everywhere. Denice had been right. Utterly and completely.

Kenmore was back at work part time, so in just a week or so, she could stick to her original plan to invent an emergency back home and get out of here before things got any more complicated. But that would have her bugging out on Beth before the summer was over. She would have to spend the rest of her life knowing she had not fulfilled her one and only promise to the one and only sister she’d ever have.

Her cell phone rang, and Kelli grabbed it. “Hello.”

“You wanna come over and hang out for a while? I can promise you lunch in the deal.”

“Beth?”

“Yes, of course it’s Beth, and Rand has gotten this burr in his saddle that he needs to stay home from church with me today, and he’s refusing to leave me home alone even though I told him I was fine for a couple of hours, and his men’s group is right in the middle of planning their retreat, and he’s supposed to be heading that all up and he’s being a complete ninny about the whole thing.”

“Beth, take a deep breath, you crazy woman. That was the longest sentence I’ve ever heard in my life. Are you always this feisty, even when you’re not pregnant?”

“Feisty all the time, fortunately for all you lucky folks around me.”

“Speaking of the lucky folks around you, how about letting me speak to Rand?”

“Rand? Why would you want to—” There was a scuffling sound, and then Beth’s voice, sounding faint and distant, demanded, “Give me back that phone.”

“Good morning, Kelli.” Rand’s voice was as pleasant and casual as if he’d just called to talk about the weather. “And how are you this fine morning?”

Kelli burst out laughing. “Better than you are, I’m guessing. What’s up?” The fact that he didn’t want to leave Beth home alone for even a couple of hours told Kelli that something was wrong.

“Beth has been sick to her stomach this morning, which isn’t all that uncommon for her with this pregnancy, but I’m not going to leave her home and helpless in bed while she’s green around the gills.”

Another scuffling, then Beth’s voice back on the phone. “I have no need for a 24/7 babysitter. I told him to just leave me a bucket beside the bed and I’d be fine, but he’s just being so . . . so . . .”

“Considerate of his sick and pregnant wife?”

“You might call it that, but I call it being a bully. That’s what everyone tells me when I’m trying to be strongly helpful. Anyway, I told him to get out of here, that I would be fine, and he won’t, and now I’m kind of mad at him because he’s being such a . . . Well . . . so anyway, I wondered if you would come over and sit with me while he goes to church. Maybe he’ll learn something about being nicer to his wife while he’s there, and you and I can talk girl talk. Rumor has it, you might have some information to share.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” How could she possibly have found out?

“You can try selling that somewhere that’s buying. You’re in Shoal Creek, Tennessee, now, so you might as well accept the fact that I know we have things to talk about, like the extra fireworks exploding at the stadium last night.”

Wow. Word really did travel fast around here. Kelli was going to have to be extra careful—about everything. “Tell Rand I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Great, I’ll see you then.”

Kelli hung up, glad she wouldn’t feel the pressure to sing at church today. Unfortunately, though, she was missing her one and only chance of the week to see Alison.

Beth was glad she’d had the idea to invite Kelli over to “watch her.” If Kelli saw it as an act of being helpful, she would feel useful and be happy to be here and never know that Beth had actually brought her over with something very different in mind. She reached out and took Kelli’s hand. “You are such a good friend to me. I feel like we’ve known each other forever—much longer than we have.”

“I feel that way, too.” Kelli squeezed her hand and smiled back.

Perfect. “Do you really mean that? Because I know you were originally planning on leaving at the end of the summer, but I hope maybe you’ll stay for a while. I really want you to be here when the baby is born. I was hoping you would maybe be Sprout’s godmother.”

“Do Protestants do that?”

“Not officially, but still.” Beth shrugged in her way that let everyone know she didn’t care what was considered the normal way of doing things.

Something warm and soft seemed to curl around Kelli and hug tight. Such an amazing feeling of inclusion and love. How she had missed that feeling. “You have no idea how much I wish I could stay, but there’s the grand opening of our restaurant in a couple of months, and to tell you the truth, I know absolutely nothing about babies. I don’t think I’d be much help.”

“The two of us could figure out things together. Somehow I just feel stronger when you’re around. That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

Rand had said the same thing to Kelli just last week, making some remark about how Kelli’s friendship had been good for Beth. How could either of them possibly see anything good in her? She knew the answer—it was because they didn’t know the truth. “Not silly, of course not. But I do think you’re giving me credit when it’s your own strength that you’re truly seeing. Maybe the hormones of pregnancy helped bring them out.”

“No, they just make me mad, and sad, and happy, and crazy. There’s nothing confidence-boosting in any of that mix, trust me.”

“Just feisty.”

“Yes, feisty. And that feisty part of me says the whole restaurant thing sounds more like an excuse. If it came down to it, I’m sure your friends could find another manager to help them open the place, and you could just stay here. I overheard Kenmore telling my mother earlier in the week that you have really made some great changes at the store, and he wished you were planning to stick around.”

“Really?”

“Yep. He told her that yesterday evening when he dropped by to bring some tomatoes from his garden.”

“I’m sure he was just being nice. He’ll be able to replace me, no problem.”

“No he won’t. He told her he thinks he’ll shut down the store come November. He said it has just gotten to be too much work to keep up, and once you leave he doesn’t think he can keep doing it anymore.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. See, we need you here. Now, quit telling people things that aren’t true to make it easier for you to leave, when none of us want you to leave anyway.”

Beth had no idea how close her words hit to the heart of the matter. But she couldn’t stay. Between this small town that seemed to know everything everybody was doing, the time Kelli was spending with Beth, and her growing attraction to Shane, there were too many ways she could trip up and ruin everything.

Besides, Denice and Jones really were counting on her to open Homestead, and they were the only thing like family she had left. At least she’d thought so until now.