“He came into the store looking for a special set of candlesticks for his sister’s birthday. I feel like a fool,” Lucy sighed. “A married man! My mama is probably rolling over in her grave.”

“How did you find out?” Dotty asked.

“His wife came into the store this morning. If she has any idea that she’s married to a philanderin’ fool, she didn’t let on a bit. She asked about the same set of candlesticks that Everett had looked at, and we got to talking. She bought a set of antique mixing bowls and gave me the credit card with Everett’s name on it.”

“Holy smoke,” Flossie gasped. “What did you do?”

Lucy sighed again. “I asked her for identification since that evidently wasn’t her card. She apologized, took it back, and handed me one with her name on it. She said that she’d taken her husband’s away from him because he didn’t have a lick of financial sense.”

“What did you do then?” Dotty asked.

“I asked her how long they’d been married, and she said forty-five years. And believe me, she didn’t look like she’d ever had cancer,” Lucy fumed.

“You think she knows about you and her husband and was just letting you know gracefully?” Dotty asked.

“I have no idea, but I called him, and I’ll have to pray for a whole year for all the bad words I used,” Lucy said.

“What did he say?” Dotty asked.

“After I slung enough cusswords around to send me to hell, he just hung up on me.”

“I’ve got three shovels in the gardening shed,” Flossie said. “We can hide that body down by the bayou so good that it won’t never be found.”

Lucy shook her head slowly from side to side. “I apologized to God for my bad language and left it in His hands. But I did tell Him that I expected Everett to suffer the plagues of Egypt, and that if he ever stepped out on that woman again, that He had my permission to fling a bolt of lightning at him. Now what’s your bad news, Flossie?”

“Otis’s wife died, and he put the house on the market. What am I going to do about my garden?” Flossie groaned.

“You’re worried about your garden when your neighbor died?” Jolene asked. “That’s kind of mean.” Vegetables could be bought at any roadside stand in Texas. The man had lost his wife. Guilt stabbed her. There she was feeling sorry for Otis when Tucker had been in the same situation.

Dotty got up and went around the table to hug Flossie. “I’m so sorry. We all knew that she died, but we didn’t expect him to move, at least not so soon.”

“Well, he’s gone. Went to live near his son in Houston. There’s a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front lawn.”

“Put an ad in the newspaper for someone to help you out with it. I bet there’s lots of retired men who’d love to have a project that didn’t take all year,” Jolene suggested.

“I don’t get a hug? My bad news is worse than hers,” Lucy fussed.

“Of course you do, chère.” Dotty moved around the table to Lucy. “I’m sorry about Everett. I thought he might be the one you’d end up married to.”

“I’m giving up on marriage. This is worse than when my last two boyfriends died. I may sell my store and go into a convent,” Lucy whimpered.

“Now, darlin’,” Flossie said sweetly. “We need you too badly around here for you to go to a convent. With Sugar gone, that would just leave me, Dotty, and Jolene.”

“I’m not going to be a nun. I never did look good in black. But I’m expecting God to take care of Everett with a vengeance, not kid gloves,” Lucy huffed. “I miss Sugar so much. Why did she have to go away?”

“She’s following her dream, chère,” Dotty answered. “And we couldn’t stand in the way or all of us would have regretted it forever.”

Jolene loved these ladies, but she wished Aunt Sugar was back in Jefferson, too.

Tucker and Jolene finished putting the final touches on the third bedroom later that afternoon. In the past it had made him happy when a client stepped into a room he’d done and loved it. But his happiness surged when Jolene clapped her hands like a little girl and then got busy putting the final touches on the three rooms. With the border up, the beds made, and pretty white doilies scattered around, all the rooms looked warm and inviting.

“Here we have the ivory room.” She snapped several pictures with her phone from all angles.

While she moved to the next doorway, he followed her. “And now you have the green room.”

She shot two or three pictures. “Later we’ll give our website a personal touch with pictures of the owners. This is the sage room,” she corrected him. “It sounds so much more inviting than ‘green room.’”

Keeping up a running monologue, she moved to the next room. “And this is my favorite, the rose room. Hey, we might even get audio on the website. No, that’s too cheesy. We’ll just use the pictures. But honestly, Tucker, they’re too pretty to rent out. Maybe we should just make the inn into a museum.”

“We’d never make any money that way,” he chuckled. “What are these other three going to be called?”

“The sunshine room, which will be pale yellow. I’ve decided on a pale blue like that highlight color in the leaves for one of the other ones, and then we have one left. What do you think?”

He stepped into the room so he could see the border better. “See that light tan in the top of the border? That would be nice for a groom’s room if we ever get to do a wedding here.”

“Perfect,” she said. “Now what do we name the blue room?”

It would be worth giving up drinking to see her this happy all the time.

“The summer room, because it looks like a summer sky,” he suggested.

“I love it. Now come up with something for the brown one, and we’ll have it all done.”

He chuckled again. “I hope when and if I ever have kids, it’s this easy to name them.” Had he really said that out loud? He and Melanie had wanted kids, but did he want them with another woman? Would he ever be ready for that?

“You want kids?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, someday, if I’m not too old when that day comes. Do you want children?” He backed out of the room and rolled the kinks out of his neck.

“Yes, I do want kids. I always wanted a sibling,” she answered. “And this is changing the subject, but I forgot to tell you, Lucy said that she’d picked up two little chest of drawer–type things that might work for vanities. We could go look at them today.”

“What do you have to do to get ready?” he asked.

“Just got to pick up my purse.” She hurried off down the stairs.

She’d be good for you. Melanie’s voice popped into his head so quick that it shocked him. He waited for a full minute, but she didn’t say anything else, so he went down to the foyer and got his jacket.

Jolene slipped her arms into an oversize cardigan. “It’s fairly nice out today. No rain in sight. Maybe we’ll have an early spring.”

Tucker held the door for her. “My grandpa always said not to think spring was here until after Easter, and that’s not until the end of April this year.”

“The Easter snap.” Jolene nodded. “That’s what Uncle Jasper called it.”

“Yep, my grandpa said the same thing.”

The trip to Jefferson took only a few minutes, but Tucker kept thinking about what Melanie had said. Would Jolene be good for him? Here lately, he really had felt a lot less guilty every time he thought about how cute she was with paint smeared on her face or how gorgeous she was when she got all cleaned up for Sunday dinner.

“The work is coming along faster than I thought possible,” Jolene said when they parked outside the antique shop. “And I love the way it looks. Do you think we’ll have the rest of the upstairs done by the end of February?”

“Yes, ma’am, and then we’ll have March to work on the downstairs renovations,” he answered. “There’s not as much actual work there, mainly just deciding how on earth to get a little office space and some basic cosmetic help.”

Her finger shot past his nose. “Look at that, Tucker.”

A whitetail doe and her fawn stood right inside a barbed-wire fence at the edge of the road. It was one of those Kodak moments, but neither of them had their phones ready, so they didn’t catch the picture.

“Ah, man, that was postcard pretty,” Jolene said.

“If we ever see any around the inn, we’ll have to take pictures to go on your website. You are going to keep it updated by seasons, right?”

She leaned forward, no doubt looking for another deer. “You bet I am. And if we ever have a wedding there, I’ll get permission from the bride to post pictures of that, too.”

Lucy met them at the door with her arms spread out to hug Jolene. “I’m so glad to see you today. You kids are like a breath of spring after a long winter. What brings you to town?”

“I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with someone to help with Flossie’s garden.”

Tucker held up a palm. “Don’t look at me. I’ve got black thumbs instead of green ones. Melanie used to say that if I breathed on a plant, it died.”

He’d mentioned her name, and no sadness swirled up around it. He glanced down at the wedding band on his left hand. Was he really starting to take steps forward?

“Me, either. Daddy taught me how to grow flowers, but I wouldn’t know anything about squash or tomatoes,” Jolene said.

“Maybe Sugar can think of someone who might be interested. Flossie loves that garden.” Lucy sighed.

“Don’t you worry. I bet there’s someone who’ll love to help Flossie,” Jolene answered.

Her tone was so honest and caring that Tucker wanted to take her in his arms and hug her. There’d been attraction before, but then, who wouldn’t be drawn to a woman like Jolene? She was strong and independent, and still sweet.