marriage,” she added, aiming a beaming smile in Joanna and Butch’s direction. “You can’t have one without the other. Therefore choose life. Let us bow our heads in prayer.”
With his shaven head glowing deep-red, Butch reached over and folded Joanna’s hand in his. “I told you we should have sat in the back row,” he muttered under his breath.
After the closing hymn, Butch and Joanna went hand in hand as they worked their way down the center aisle to where the Reverend Marianne Maculyea and her husband, Jeff Daniels, stood greeting attendees. Wanting to have a private word with her best friend, Joanna stalled long enough to be last in line.
Once Marianne’s early bouts of pregnancy-related nausea had finally subsided, she had gone on to have an uneventful and so-far uncomplicated pregnancy. Because Marianne would be officiating at the wedding, Butch and Joanna had set the ceremony for early April so as not to conflict with the baby’s due date. The wedding was now less than a week away. According to Dr. Thomas Lee, Marianne’s attending physician, the baby was expected in three.
Finished with shaking hands at the door, Marianne stood with one hand massaging her sore back and with the other resting on a belly so swollen that it left a telltale shelf protruding beneath her clerical vestments. With a squeal of joy, Jeff and Marianne’s adopted three-year-old daughter, Ruth, escaped the nursery attendant and slipped under her mother’s robe for a game of peekaboo with whoever happened to be nearby. As the last of the congregation headed for the fellowship hall and coffee hour, Jeff captured Ruth, scooped the squirming child into his arms, and carried her downstairs. Butch and Jenny followed, leaving Joanna and Marianne with a rare moment of relative peace and privacy.
Always attuned to what was going on with other people, Marianne gave Joanna a searching look. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You seemed pretty distracted during the service.”
“What makes you say that?” Joanna countered.
Marianne smiled. “Because you missed not one but two of the in-crowd jokes I put in the sermon especially for you. What’s going on?”
“Clayton Rhodes died and left me his place in his will,” Joanna blurted.
Surprise washed over Marianne’s face. “The whole thing?”
Joanna nodded.
“What about his daughter?” Marianne asked.
“I talked to Burton Kimball on the way to church this morning. According to him, she’s not a happy camper. She may go so far as to try to accuse me of murdering her father.”
Marianne’s gray eyes turned dark and stormy. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Dead serious.”
Marianne took a deep breath. “We need to get together and talk about this. We should also discuss any last- minute hitches or glitches in wedding plans. What are you and Butch and Jenny doing this afternoon?”
“Cleaning house,” Joanna replied. “My new mother-in-law shows up tomorrow, remember? We’re doing the oven, cabinets, closets-the whole bit.”
“I have an idea,” Marianne suggested. “I was supposed to have a steering-committee meeting this afternoon, but it’s been canceled. Before you and Butch go tear into your house, how about if we all meet at Daisy’s for lunch as soon as coffee hour is over? I’ll con Jenny into looking after Ruth, and that way maybe the four of us will have a moment or two to think straight.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Joanna replied with a laugh. “I’m sure Butch will agree to anything that will delay working on the oven that much longer.”
Joanna had barely set foot inside the fellowship hall when she was pounced upon by Marliss Shackleford, who had clearly been waiting just inside the door. It was an unfortunate piece of small-town life that both Sheriff Brady and her fourth-estate nemesis attended the same church-one which both of them refused to leave. Usually Joanna managed to avoid Marliss. This time she was trapped.
“It sounds as though you’ve had a busy few days of it,” Marliss began sweetly enough. “It’s too bad about what happened to Clayton. I know he’s been such a help to you all this time. How are you and Jenny managing without him?”
“We’re doing all right,” Joanna said stiffly.
“And then, of course, you do have Butch. I understand he’s something of a city slicker, but he seems bright enough.”
“He is trainable,” Joanna returned. “Just barely.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that he wasn’t.”
“Have you spoken to Reba Singleton yet?” Marliss asked. “Clayton’s daughter? She’s in town, you know.”
“We touched base,” Joanna said. “That’s about all.”
“
“I’m sure it’ll be very interesting,” she said, sidling away. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Marliss, I need to catch up with Jenny before she fills up on cookies and punch and makes herself sick.”
CHAPTER 10
When it came time to park at Daisy’s Cafe, Joanna was dismayed to see that the lot was full to overflowing. “Great,” she grumbled. “If it’s already this crowded, it’ll take forever to get a table.”
“Maybe not,” Butch said cheerfully. “There’s Jeff and Marianne’s VW. If they’re here ahead of us, maybe they’ve already snagged one. If nothing else, they’ll have put our names on the list.”
Jenny let herself out of the backseat and scampered into the restaurant. Meanwhile, Joanna studied some of the vehicles in the unpaved lot. A surprisingly large number of them looked familiar. In addition to Jeff Daniels’ sea- foam green Bug, Joanna recognized Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady’s Honda and Angie Kellogg’s aging Omega, along with Eleanor Lathrop’s brand-new Buick. She also caught sight of the fire-engine-red Geo Metro driven by her secretary, Kristin Marsten.
Joanna looked back at Butch. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Something’s fishy here. Bisbee may be a small town, but it’s a little too much of a coincidence for everyone I know to turn up at the same place at the same time. What’s going on?”
“Why don’t we go in and see,” he said.
As soon as Butch held open the door, Joanna caught a glimpse of a bank of balloons lined up down the middle of the dining room. Once she saw the balloons, she knew she’d been had. A burst of applause, accompanied by shouts of “Surprise!” erupted from half the room, which had been screened off to create a semi-private banquet room.
Joanna turned on Butch. “It’s a shower,” she said accusingly. “Butch Dixon, you tricked me.”
He tried his best to look contrite, but it didn’t work very well. “I told you I hate cleaning ovens,” he said. “I’ll do almost anything to avoid it.”
Accompanied by gales of laughter, Marianne Maculyea stepped forward, grabbed Joanna by the arm, and led her toward the far end of the room, where a mound of gifts had been stacked on one table. A grinning, self-satisfied Jenny stood next to the table.
“You were in on this, too, weren’t you!” Joanna said accusingly.
Jenny nodded. “But I didn’t tell.”
“No, you certainly didn’t.”
“So we pulled it off?” Marianne asked.
“Completely.”
“Good.”
