He gave a grin and a head-shake. Radish settled her head back down on his foot. “My freezer’s getting mighty full.”
“You eating okay? Or are your new friend’s biscuits that good?”
He paused the DVR and settled deeper into the couch. “Tell you a secret, Mamie?”
“Of course you can, sugarplum.”
“She bakes pies.”
Jackson almost felt the wind Mamie made when she sucked a breath in. “Better than your momma’s?” she said with the same discreet tone another woman might’ve used to ask about plumbing problems.
“Told you it was a secret.”
“Well, you bet your biscuitsIwon’t say anything.”
“Much obliged, Mamie.”
“So when do I get to meet this girl?”
He cleared his throat.
“Don’t you be starting that, sugarplum,” she said. “You’re old enough to know forever can work. Just because your daddy?—”
“She’s not interested in marrying a military man again,” he interrupted, because Mamie was the only person in the world who got to say a bad thing about his daddy, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it. His daddy was the best man Jackson ever knew. If he wasn’t man enough to keep Momma happy, Jackson didn’t reckon that left him with much of a chance of ever doing any better.
Mamie cackled one of those deep, evil chuckles she got when she threw the kitchen sink at her hero. “Oh, sugarplum. Sounds like you found your perfect woman.”
Yeah, and it left those biscuits feeling like IEDs in his belly.They’d go off sometime, and when they did, it wouldn’t be pretty.
Maybe he’d get lucky and they’d be duds. But seeing how much he was looking forward to seeing Anna Grace tomorrow night, lucky wasn’t in his future.
Well,thatkind of lucky was. Long-term lucky, probably not.
But her smile was worth the risk. They both knew the rules. “You taking notes, Mamie?”
“Notes? This here calls for firsthand research.”
The thought of Mamie and Anna Grace teaming up against him should’ve made his blood run cold.
Put something warm in his veins instead. “Mamie?—”
“Oh, don’t go getting your bootlaces all knotted. I’ve been around the turnip truck a time or two. Know you gotta time these things right.”
“And here I was fixing to ask how you were planning on fitting in a visit, what with your schedule. Don’t know that this warrants missing a bowling night.”
“Well then maybe you might could bring her on over so we can check out her form.”
Radish lifted her head and gave a disgusted snort. Jackson couldn’t blame her. He didn’t need a mirror to know the goofy grin he was wearing didn’t do any justice to his manhood. But he couldn’t help it, not when he got to thinking about what Anna Grace would make of the Misses. “She’s booked tighter than you, Mamie.”
“Don’t you worry about that, sugarplum. If I need to meet her, we got lots of time.”
But after he’d hung up with Mamie, something bothered him.
And he had a pretty good feeling it was knowing that if he was picturing Anna Grace bowling with the old gals, he had a good case of being smitten.
Thursday night,Anna stepped out of the James Robertchemistry building and into the night. The cooler air eased her swollen, exhausted brain back down to its normal size. She powered up her phone and headed for the parking lot. Wisps of mist danced through the streetlights. Disjointed conversations of her rapidly scattering classmates rolled over the asphalt. Her phone beeped with a text message notification.
The message put a giddy jog in her step.
