Then, holding her head high, she walked right past him and down the hallway to her first class, her friends right there with her.
She was shaking by the time she reached her classroom, but Katie reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I am so proud of you. You looked him right in the eyes, Misty. That took real guts.”
“I was shaking,” Misty admitted.
“Doesn’t matter. In fact, I think that’s what courage is, being scared and doing what needs to be done, anyway.”
Misty gave her a hug, then smiled at the others who were still standing guard around her. “Thank you, all of you.”
“Hey, it could have been any one of us,” Susie said quietly. “In fact, at one time or another, it probably has been.”
To Misty’s surprise, Hailey, a friend of Annabelle’s who’d never even given her the time of day before, separated herself from the crowd. Looking nervous, she met Misty’s gaze.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. “For everything.”
Before Misty could absorb the wonder of that admission, Hailey was gone.
The warning bell rang then and they all scattered. Misty walked into her classroom and for the first time in months felt the knot in her stomach finally ease.
* * *
Laura was still a little flushed and giddy from an incredible, passion-filled night when she was called into Betty’s office the next morning.
After a precious few moments of pleasantries, Betty inquired, “Do I need to remind you that we have a very strict morals clause in our contract with our teachers?”
Laura stared at her. “Excuse me?” But even as the words left her mouth, she put two and two together. “Let me guess. Mariah Litchfield was on the phone to you first thing this morning because she spotted J.C.’s car at my house.”
“Correct,” Betty said.
“And after everything that’s gone on, you can’t see that for the attempt at retaliation it is?”
“Of course I can,” Betty said impatiently. “I told her I’d bring it to your attention and I have.”
Then to Laura’s surprise, she grinned. “Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The school board is very impressed with how well you and J.C. handled the whole thing with Annabelle and Misty. That much was evident at the emergency board meeting. You could probably get away with just about anything right now, and I’m in a pretty generous and forgiving mood myself these days.”
Laura thought of what they’d discovered on Friday. They were still awaiting confirmation from Chief Rollins’s sources before tackling the latest situation.
“Well, you might want to prepare them for the possibility that it’s not over just yet,” she said, then filled Betty in on their suspicions about Greg Bennett, not only stirring things up at the rally, but taking over where Annabelle had left off online.
“Oh, sweet heaven!” Betty murmured.
Laura held up her hand. “I think Misty wants to tackle this one on her own. She’s back in school today, and she fully intends to deal with Greg in her own way. Let’s give her that chance. She needs to feel in control of her life again.”
“You’ve got her back?” Betty asked.
“Absolutely.”
Betty nodded. “Then we’ll see how it goes, but expulsion is not out of the question, even if he is captain of the football team. I would have thought he’d understand that after seeing Annabelle get sent off to another school and being suspended himself from playing for the rest of the football season.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Laura said. “But it was good to see Misty walk in here this morning with her head held high and her friends around her.”
Betty gave her a surprising smile. “And it was nice to see you walk in here today with some color in your cheeks. I hope it works out for you and J.C. He’s a good guy.”
“Yes, he is,” Laura said. “But it’s still early going.”
After the past few days, though, it already felt as if they were a whole lot closer to forever.
Still, she knew his history and his conviction that Fullerton men were bad bets when it came to lasting commitments. She had no idea if he’d ever be able to take the kind of leap of faith required to claim the future she was starting to want. Then again, she’d managed to overcome her past. Surely a man as smart and sensitive as J.C. could do the same.
23
After the post-school board celebration at Carter and Raylene’s house, J.C. knew he’d finally been accepted by the Sweet Magnolias, for better or worse, he thought, given their penchant for meddling.
Still, he was pleasantly surprised when town manager Tom McDonald and his cousin Travis approached him and invited him to join the entire Sweet Magnolias crowd for Thanksgiving. Tom and Travis had befriended J.C. early on, even before the other men, because they hadn’t been around during the tense days of Maddie’s divorce from Bill Townsend.
“And bring Laura along, of course,” Tom told him. “I’m sure the women are planning to invite her, but just in case, I want you both to know we’d love to have you there. You two seem to have the Sweet Magnolias’ stamp of approval these days. Young, attractive vigilantes for social justice and all that. As town manager, I can’t tell you what it means to have people like the two of you in this community. I’d like to attract more young professionals just like you.”
“Bill’s just hired a nurse practitioner who’ll be joining us soon. I think she’ll fit right in with your view of what Serenity can become moving forward,” J.C. said. He gave Tom a wry look. “As for that stamp of approval you mentioned, is that really a good thing?”
It seemed to him it came with a lot of pressure. He’d seen that in the speculative glances directed at him and Laura the other night at Raylene’s, to say nothing of Cal’s pointed cross-examination, obviously at Maddie’s behest.
Travis laughed at his skepticism. “It’s definitely a good thing,” he insisted. “Have you not heard the way Maddie and Helen have been singing Laura’s praises for how she handled
