Free The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop by Carolyn Brown Page B

they do on Thursdays. Looks to me like one night a week would be enough. Just pray and leave it in the good Lord’s hands, but oh, no, we got to talk about prayin’ before we do it,” Everett said.
    Jed touched the tip of his baseball cap. “Miz Agnes. Miz Stella. I believe summer has arrived.”
    “It damn sure has. How long are you going to leave that sign up down at the church?” Agnes asked.
    Stella fought the blush turning her cheeks bright crimson, but she lost.
    “Heather takes care of that sign, so you’ll have to ask her.” Jed smiled.

    “Brother Jed! Brother Jed!” Piper’s boys jumped out of her car and went running before she could make them help her carry food and paper plates to the pavilion where Boone and Charlotte were frying fish and hush puppies.
    Piper saw both Charlotte and Stella wore jean shorts and tank tops. Why hadn’t she called them before she went to all the trouble to iron the red-and-white-checkered dress that made her feel like she was wearing a picnic tablecloth now that she was at the park? Charlotte had pulled her brown hair up in a short ponytail and Stella had a baseball cap on.
    Piper had curled her hair and now it was sticking to her neck. She’d put on makeup and was sweating it all off. All she needed was a bow and a quiver of arrows on her back and she could be one of those Amazon women from the jungle who’d overdressed for a damn picnic in the park.
    “They’re too excited to see Jed to help me carry things and y’all should have told me to wear shorts,” she whispered when they arrived to help carry the food to the picnic table.
    “You look great,” Charlotte said. “The way that Luke and Tanner are all excited about the preacher, maybe you should use the fact that you’re the prettiest one here tonight to flirt with him.”
    “I should’ve worn shorts,” she whispered.
    Stella picked up a huge bowl of potato salad. “We feel like ugly ducklings up beside you. Maybe we should go home and change.”
    Using two oven mitts, Charlotte picked up the oversize Crock-Pot of baked beans. “These smell scrumptious. Wait until the preacher realizes that you cook as well as you look.”
    “Stop it right now. I’m tellin’ you I’m not through being mad at Gene and it’s not time to start a new relationship even if my boys think Jed has wings and a halo,” Piper told them.
    All that talk about getting Stella married off must have put the ringing of wedding bells in her two best friends’ heads. She could understand Charlotte trying to play matchmaker, but not Stella. That redhead was on a mission to prove her mama wrong, so she shouldn’t be pushing her toward the preacher.
    Whoa! Wait just a damn minute. Hold the horses and don’t fire the cannons. Stella was flushed and her eyes were twinkling like they did when she was hiding something. New boyfriend was in their midst; Piper could feel the vibes and the sparks. Now it was just a matter of figuring out which one of those single men was the one. She scanned the group as she started back toward the picnic table and bit back the gasp.
    Sweet Jesus! Stella had to be sleeping with Boone’s older brother, Rhett, who was over there helping fry fish. He had done the rodeo rounds and he’d driven a truck back when he was in college and she’d said that her secret boyfriend had done those things. That’s exactly who it was and she didn’t want to tell anyone because Rhett had always been Cadillac’s resident bad boy. Nancy was going to go up in flames if that praying business netted her Rhett Monroe for a son-in-law.
    Well, dammit! Charlotte and Stella would be sisters-in-law—would that leave her out in the cold? No, but it could change the dynamics among the whole bunch of them.
    “How did Agnes get here?” Piper asked to take her mind off the idea of being a third wheel in the family.
    “She waylaid me with sweet tea when I was about to have a heatstroke and offered to drive me the rest of the way,”