Mercy was still at odds with herself when they returned to Oklahoma. She had no idea why Dr. Nelson had trusted her with his plans, but the idea of hunting another job, plus the unsettled feeling she had in West Texas, hung on to her like goat-head stickers from a cow pasture.
That evening, she slung the hangers from one end of the rod to the other in her closet. Of all the places she didn’t want to be tonight, it was sitting across the table from Brent and watching his hungry eyes look her over as if she were a medium-rare T-bone steak. She pulled out a sleeveless denim minidress and held it up to her. It showed at least half an inch of cleavage. Jenny would climb up on a soapbox and preach a hellfire and damnation sermon if Mercy decided to wear that particular dress. She was in the process of returning it to her closet when Jenny opened the door without knocking and stopped in her tracks.
Jenny’s forefinger came up so fast it was just a blur, and she gasped. “You. Are. Not. Wearing. That. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere with you if you ever wore that again. I can’t believe you even still have it in your closet. It looks like something a woman would walk the streets in, not wear to dinner with a respectable man.”
Mercy laid the dress on the bed and stared at it. She’d let Jenny dictate her life long enough, from telling her what to wear to talking her into going to that hot desert place a few weeks ago. “Yep, I am wearing it.” Mercy shook her blond hair out of the ponytail and let the thick mane fall past her shoulders in big curls. “It’s hot tonight, and you said we’d be eating out on a patio,” she said as she applied more makeup than she usually wore.
“Why do you want to look like a hussy?” Jenny asked with one of her special guilt-trip sighs. “Brent is such a good guy. Are you trying to run him off?”
“I’ve told you like a million times that I am not attracted to him. I’ll go to dinner with y’all, but this is not a date,” Mercy answered. “You’d do well to wear something cool since we’ll be seated outside.”
“What’s the matter with what I’m wearing?” Jenny asked.
“Not one thing if you are fifty years old on the way to a Sunday school social,” Mercy answered. “Take off the jacket. Be brave and let your shoulders show.”
“This is an important night, and I want to look nice for Kyle. Maybe I want to be modest like a missionary’s wife should be.” Jenny slapped a hand over her mouth. “You made me spoil our secret. We have decided to get married. We were going to tell you and Brent about it at the same time.”
“And what’s that got to do with me looking like a hussy?” Mercy asked.
“You just don’t get it,” Jenny told her bluntly. “Since we got back from our vacation, you’ve been edgy, hateful, and mean.”
Mercy should have felt like someone kicked her in the chest, but instead she felt a sense of relief. “Well, thanks so much for that honesty. I admit I’m in a mood, but I’m figuring out that living with you with all your righteousness isn’t easy. And that was not a vacation—it was torture.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Mercy Spenser, you aren’t easy to keep on the right track either. You used to be a good girl, and now you’ve turned rebellious. Kyle has noticed it too. He wasn’t even sure he wanted you and Brent to double-date with us tonight. I stood up for you and said that you would be good for Brent, and God only knows, he would sure enough be good for you.”
“Hey, don’t do me any favors. I don’t want to go out with Kyle’s creepy friend anyway.” Mercy slipped her feet into a pair of wedges that made her well over six feet tall.
“What happened to you?” Jenny looked up to her. “We were college roommates and have lived together ever since we graduated, and you’ve never acted like this.”
“What happened to me? Guess I’m getting tired of being run like a little toy train,” Mercy told her. “It’s been easier to just go along with whatever you wanted. Church three times a week, devotionals every morning before we left for work—”
“You hypocrite,” Jenny growled. “You never have been a true Christian.”
“I believe that would fall under the umbrella of judging, my friend,” Mercy said. “But I don’t want to fight with you on your special night. Let’s talk about a wedding, rather than the fact that you and I are growing apart. Mama would say that it’s for the best so that neither of us will grieve when the other one goes on their own special path, which means marriage for you and who knows what for me. We can still be friends even if we don’t agree on everything.”
“We haven’t agreed on anything lately,” Jenny said with another of her loud sighs. “Kyle and I have decided to get married in two weeks. Just a simple little ceremony in my folks’ backyard. We think a big hoopla goes against our principles as missionaries,” Jenny explained. “It’s time for you to look for another roommate or else you’ll have to pay all the rent on this house by yourself.”
“Where are you two going to live?” Two weeks? That wasn’t very long. Was this an omen for her to find another job and an apartment of her own—maybe in another location?
“In Acala,” Jenny almost sneered. “Where else? That’s where we feel we’ve been called to start our missionary work, and there’s an opening for us right where we were this summer. The pastor of that little church is retiring, and we’ve been offered the job of taking over there. A small parsonage comes with it. We are going to be so happy.”
Mercy stood up and bent to hug Jenny. “I’m happy for you, and hope that you and Kyle have a happy life over there in that part of the world. I’m ready, and I’m not wiping off my makeup or picking out another dress. This right here is what I’m wearing. Like I said, we’ll have to be friends in spite of our differences.”
Jenny raised her chin a notch. “I’ll pray for your attitude.”
“Thank you.” Mercy laughed. “It can use all the help it can get.”
The drive from Marietta to Ardmore where the restaurant was located took all of twenty minutes. Mercy drove, because they were meeting the guys at the restaurant, and Kyle would bring Jenny home after they had eaten. She turned on the radio and listened to her favorite country music station the whole way to Ardmore. When she stopped at the traffic light crossing the major highway, she looked over at the cowboy in the truck next to her and could have sworn she was staring right at Hunter from the cantina. Then he turned to face her, and she realized that he wasn’t nearly as handsome or sexy as Hunter had been.
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” Jenny said.
“I kind of did, but it’s gone now,” Mercy said. “It’s just now hitting me that you and Kyle are getting married so fast. Are you…”
Jenny blushed and held up a hand. “I am not pregnant! We haven’t even…” The blush deepened, and she turned to look out the window. “We are both saving ourselves until our wedding night.”
“Are you serious?” Mercy asked.
“Yes, I am,” Jenny answered.
“But you’ve been dating two years…” Mercy started.
“We agreed in the beginning that we would wait,” Jenny butted in before Mercy went any further. “Like you said, you and I”—she gave Mercy a scathing look—“are very different.”
“More than I ever imagined,” Mercy said as she pulled into the parking lot and snagged a space right in front of the door.
Kyle and Brent were waiting at a table for four on the patio when they arrived, and Mercy hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until it all came out in a whoosh.
“What’s that all about?” Jenny asked.
“I’m glad we’ve got a table and not a booth. I don’t want to have to sit snuggled up beside Brent in a booth,” Mercy answered.
“That’s mean,” Jenny said as she got out of the car and waved at Kyle.
Kyle’s eyebrows raised when he saw them coming toward the table, and Jenny shook her head. Neither gesture got past Mercy, but then neither did the look in Brent’s eyes when he saw Mercy. His expression told her he’d gladly ignore his religious convictions if she’d be willing to aid and abet in his sinning. His gaze started at the toes of her sandals and traveled up her long legs to the hem of the minidress, stopped a moment longer than necessary on the cleavage, and finally scanned her face. He could look all he wanted, but if he thought about planting even a chaste goodnight kiss anywhere on her face, he’d better think again.
Kyle stood up, and Brent followed his lead. When they’d seated the two women, Kyle leaned over and kissed Jenny on the cheek. “You look beautiful tonight, darlin’.”
“Thank you.” She smiled over at him. “Are we ready?”
“I believe we are.” Kyle took her hand in his and held it on the tabletop. “I’ve been offered a missionary job in Acala, Texas, in the very little town that we were at a few weeks ago, and we’ve decided to get married in two weeks.”
“How exciting.” Brent clapped his pudgy hands together like a toddler.
“Congratulations,” Mercy said. “I’m happy for you both, but I’ll be a little sad to lose my roommate and best friend.”
“Thank you both,” Kyle said. “I want you to be my best man, Brent. We aren’t having a big wedding. Just a small affair at Jenny’s folks’ place over in Madill. So, I’ll have just one attendant and so will Jenny.”
Mercy waited, knowing what was coming next, and dreading it. That would mean she and Brent would be thrown together at all kinds of pre-wedding events for the next two weeks.
“And”—Jenny smiled across the table at Mercy—“I’ve asked our preacher’s wife to be my matron of honor. I was going to ask you, Mercy, but you’re so tall, and we’re all so short, you’d look out of place. I would like you to sit at the guest book. When you’re sitting down, you don’t look so much like a giant.”
For just a split second, anger rose up from Mercy’s sandals to her blue eyes. Then she realized that she didn’t have to give bridal showers; she didn’t have to help dress the bride; she didn’t even have to be in the same room with Brent for the next two weeks.
“Thank you!” Mercy smiled at Jenny. “That’s a perfect job for a giant. I’ll be there an hour before the wedding, and I’ll even buy a new dress in whatever color you choose.”
“That’s sweet. I’m using baby pink for my bouquet, so a dress in that color would be good, and it needs to have sleeves and reach your ankles,” Jenny said.
“Yes, ma’am.” Mercy held her hands in her lap to keep from saluting, but just thinking about wearing a dress like that to an outside wedding in July made her hot.
“Two weeks isn’t very long to plan a wedding. I bet your mama is ready to string you up, Jenny,” Brent said.
“Not really.” Jenny flashed a brilliant smile across the table. “She’s actually relieved that I want something simple. She’s altering her wedding dress for me, and you guys are wearing black slacks and white shirts. We don’t want a big show.”
“We want a solid marriage, not a long engagement or a fancy wedding,” Kyle added.
“What better way to start off than a million miles away from both sets of parents,” Mercy said. “You’ll have to depend on each other for everything, and that will make for a strong marriage.”
Jenny shifted her focus from Brent to Mercy. “You are so right. I’m glad to see you with a more positive attitude.”
The waitress finally made her way to their table. “Are y’all the group who asked for a bottle of chilled nonalcoholic champagne?”
“Yes, we are,” Kyle said. “We’re celebrating our engagement and marriage in two weeks.”
“Oh! Now I understand why you want nonalcoholic.” The waitress winked at Jenny.
“It’s not for that reason.” Jenny blushed. “We don’t believe in drinking. We are missionaries.”
“I see,” the waitress said with a smile. “Good for you and congratulations. I’ll have that right out. Y’all ready to order or do you need a few minutes?”
“Give us a little while,” Kyle answered.
Thinking even of nonalcoholic champagne took Mercy’s thoughts back to the cantina when Hunter whatever-his-last-name-was offered her a cold beer. When she got engaged, she intended to have a big washtub full of ice and bottles of beer to celebrate, not nonalcoholic champagne.
Brent leaned over and whispered, “What are you thinking about? You had a faraway expression that tells me you’d like to catch the bouquet at the wedding and be next to get married.”
He smelled like he had taken a bath in cologne and chewed six sticks of wintergreen gum before coming to the restaurant. Both scents gagged Mercy, and she leaned over to one side and got a dirty look from Jenny.
“I was thinking about my wedding and how I plan to have a washtub full of iced-down beer at it.” Mercy picked up the menu and focused on it. “But that won’t be for years and years. I’m not ready to get into any kind of serious relationship.”
Brent not only leaned back into his own space but scooted his chair over a few inches. “Then I guess you won’t be fighting the other ladies for the bouquet?”
“Nope. I’m going to be the one in the back of the yard with my hands in my pockets,” Mercy answered. “That reminds me, Jenny. When we go shopping for my dress, it has to have pockets.”
“Why does it need pockets?” Jenny asked. “Oh, I get it. That’s so you can put your hands in them when I throw the bouquet, right? What happened to you in Texas anyway?”
“I guess the heat got to me,” Mercy answered with a shrug. “I’m sorry if I’m ruining your night. I’ll be nice the rest of the evening.”
“That would be good,” Jenny said, “or else you’ll be lucky to be invited to our wedding. Jesus says I have to love you, but here lately I don’t like you so much.”
Mercy opened her mouth to return the sentiment, but clamped it shut. “Again, I apologize. It must be what I told you about what Mama said. We have to go through this so the pain of separation won’t hurt so badly.”
“Brent and I haven’t had arguments,” Kyle said.
“But you don’t live in the same house with him,” Mercy said with half a smile. “Jenny and I are more than friends. We’re roommates, and we’ve shared everything…”
“From tears to prayers.” Jenny finished the sentence. “I’m sorry I’ve been so catty.”
“Me too,” Mercy told her.
The waitress set a galvanized milk bucket filled with ice and a bottle of fake champagne in the middle of the table along with four plastic cups. “Want me to pour for you?”
“I can do that right after we order,” Jenny answered and told the lady what she wanted.
When everyone had put in their order, Jenny removed the bottle and twisted the lid off. Mercy would have chosen a bottle with a cork to make it a bigger ceremony, but this wasn’t her party. Jenny filled four cups and passed them around.
Mercy held hers up first and said, “To my friend Jenny and the love of her life, Kyle. May all the roads you take lead to happiness.”
The cups didn’t make a tinkling sound when they touched them, and even though the drink was cold, it didn’t have much taste. Mercy hoped that wasn’t an omen for the upcoming marriage.
“That was so sweet of you, Mercy,” Jenny said after she’d taken a few sips.
“I meant every word.” Mercy downed what was in her cup.
Sitting through the next hour was a chore, but Mercy managed without even getting another dirty look from Jenny, which was a big accomplishment. She capped it off by picking up the bill for dinner. She thought Brent might at least offer to add the tip, but when he didn’t speak up, she took care of that too.
“I hate to leave good company, but I should be getting home. I’ll see you later, Jenny. Don’t keep her out past midnight, Kyle,” she teased, “or she might turn from Cinderella into a cleaning lady.”
“She would still be beautiful if she did,” Kyle said.
“I’m so jealous,” Brent said.
“See all y’all later,” Mercy said as she pushed back her chair and headed across the room. She stepped off the patio into the hot summer night and walked right into what felt like a brick wall. One second she was going forward, and the next she was slammed into something solid that didn’t budge.
“Excuse me!” Someone gripped her arm to keep her from falling.
“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She looked up into Hunter’s green eyes.
“Sister Mercy, we meet again.” Hunter grinned but didn’t let go of his grip on her arm.
“I told you, I’m not a nun.” She couldn’t believe her eyes, but the sparks dancing around the porch were just as hot as they had been at the cantina a few weeks before.
“That’s right, you did,” he said. “What are you doing in Ardmore?”
“Eating a steak,” she answered. “What are you doing here? I thought you lived out in West Texas.”
“Nope, I just vacation there occasionally. I live between Gainesville and Denton, Texas. And you?” he asked.
She pulled her arm away. “I live south of here,” she answered.
“Well, nice seeing you again, Mercy.” He tipped his cowboy hat and stepped around her to go inside the restaurant, then noticed that she had dropped her scarf on the ground.
Hunter grabbed it and turned around to yell at her, but she was already in her car and pulling out of the parking lot. He raced back to his truck and caught sight of her little blue vehicle when it took the ramp to catch Interstate 35 south.
While he was still managing the cantina for Mickey, he’d done his best to find out where she was from. He’d asked the men in the cantina, and finally one of the men asked a teenager, who knew her name and that the church people that she’d come out there with were based in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
He found Mercy Spenser on social media, but no amount of digging could turn up a phone number, and she hadn’t listed her hometown on her Facebook page. He’d driven up from Denton two weekends in a row and walked through the mall in Ardmore, but that proved useless. Figuring he’d never see her again, other than haunting his dreams almost every night, he finally gave up on ever finding her.
Then there she plowed right into him in front of the restaurant where he’d planned to eat that night, and dropped her scarf almost at his feet. That was pure karma—and a big favor from the universe—to his way of thinking.
She turned off the highway at a sign pointing toward Marietta. Then she made a few turns and drove down Main Street, crossed the railroad tracks, and made a right turn into a residential section. She pulled into a driveway in front of a small white frame house with red roses twining up the porch posts.
He parked half a block away and watched her get out of her car, slam the door, and march up to the porch. She went inside and then the porch light came on. That meant she was expecting someone—a boyfriend, a husband, a roommate?
Light filtered through the window and out on the porch. He sure didn’t want for her to think he was a stalker, so he got out of his vehicle, walked over to her car, and draped the scarf over the door handle.
When he was back in his truck, he drove back down Main Street until he reached a gas station. He filled up the tank and went inside to get a cold root beer.
“That’ll be forty dollars for the gas and three eighty-nine for the soda pop,” the old guy with “Ernest” embroidered on the pocket of his shirt said.
Hunter pulled out a bill and handed it to him. “Would you know a girl named Mercy Spenser?”
“Sure,” Ernest answered. “Knew her granddaddy and her daddy, and I even went to her folks’ wedding, so yep, I know her. Why are you askin’ about Mercy?”
“I met her down at the mission when she traveled down there with her church. I ran into her in Ardmore this evening. I just wondered if you might know her,” Hunter answered.
Ernest eyed him for a few seconds. “She’s lived here all her life. Her folks moved somewhere down around Austin, some little town named Flowers.” He rubbed his chin. “No, that’s not right but it sounds like that. Anyway, they moved south a few years ago to be closer to their other two daughters, but she stayed here. She’s got a roommate, named…doggone it, I can’t ever remember that name. Self-righteous as hell. I attend the same church with her and…and…Jenny.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Jenny Mathison! That woman acts like she invented the Pearly Gates and God only lets anyone get into heaven that she approves of. I knew I’d think of it if I kept talking.”
“Where does Mercy work? I thought she might be married to a preacher.”
“Lord no!” Ernest chuckled. “She ain’t preacher’s wife material. Jenny might be someday. She’s been cozying up to Kyle, who wants to be a missionary. But I don’t see Mercy ever marrying a preacher.”
“Why would you say that?” Hunter asked.
“She’s a big girl. Kind of intimidatin’ to most men,” Ernest whispered.
“Big?” Hunter asked.
“I guess the word should be tall, or maybe beautiful. That combination kind of makes a man be afraid of rejection,” Ernest said. “So, you met her when she went with the church to do missionary work?”
“Yes, I did. She came in the cantina where I worked to yell at me about having the jukebox turned up too high.”
Ernest chuckled again. “That sounds just like her. She speaks her mind for sure.” He leaned over the counter and whispered. “I think there’s a landline in her house under Jenny Mathison’s name. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you that.”
“Thank you, and I promise I’m not a stalker,” Hunter said.
“You better not be.” Ernest straightened up. “Or Mercy will shoot you, and I’ll help her drag your body to the river.”
The landline seldom rang, and Mercy had argued with Jenny about paying half the bill every month on something they didn’t use very often. Jenny’s argument was that she was so lackadaisical about keeping her cell phone charged that she needed the landline at times. Mercy figured it was because she just liked the look of a pink Princess phone sitting on the kitchen counter.
When it rang that evening, Mercy sent up a silent prayer asking that Jenny wasn’t bringing Kyle and Brent to the house for a movie that evening. She finally picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Mercy Spenser?”
“Yes. Who is this?” she asked.
“Hunter Wilson. You wanted me to shut down the cantina, and you tried to knock me down less than an hour ago,” he answered.
“How did you get my phone number?” she snapped.
“A kind gentleman named Ernest at the service station in town told me that you had a landline under the name Jenny Mathison,” he answered. “Don’t be mad at him, though. I told him that I wasn’t a stalker. I would like to take you to dinner tomorrow night,” he said. “We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, but when you bumped into me tonight, I thought maybe it was a sign I should get to know you better.”
She was stunned and more than a little flattered that he would go to that much trouble to call her.
“Mercy?” he finally asked.
“Tell you what, Mr. Hunter Wilson. There’s a church social tomorrow night. A fundraiser for our missionaries. It’s a box supper. Ever been to one?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said. “But I know what they are. The men bid on the supper brought in by the women, and the top bidder gets to eat with the woman whose fried chicken he purchases. Right?”
“Right,” she said and gave him the address of the small church she and Jenny attended. “It’s not hard to find, and I’ll be there. If you want to have supper with me, buy the wicker basket with a pink bow.”
“I’ll be there,” he said. “Good night, Miss Mercy, and sweet dreams.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered as she headed down the hallway to draw a bath. “As if I’ll dream about anything but your deep drawl, Hunter Wilson.”