Coming Home to Paradise (Sisters in Paradise #3)

Chapter 8

Pepper pulled against his leash when he saw a squirrel run up one of the pecan trees that lined both sides of the lane. The trees had to be over a hundred years old. Bo wondered if maybe Miz Raven, the madam of the Paradise back when it was a brothel, had planted them. Or had they already been there and she had simply cleared out to make a path wide enough for a wagon or a horse to travel through for customers to get to her place of business?

“Silly boy,” Heather said. “That squirrel is almost as big as you.”

As if he understood what she had said, Pepper stopped in his tracks and growled at the girl.

Daisy stooped down and scratched the dog’s ears. “You don’t like her as good as me, do you? I don’t think you are silly. You were protecting us from that mean old squirrel, weren’t you?”

Pepper wagged his tail and took a few more steps.

“He does not like you better!” Heather argued. “He wasn’t growling at me anyway. He was talking to us and saying that he wouldn’t let anything hurt us. Dogs can’t use words.”

This must be what Mama had to deal with when she had to raise two sets of twins only a little more than a year apart in age. Bo thought about the times when she and Rae had argued over things that seemed important at the time—like who got to name the old mama cat and the kittens that Joe Clay brought into the house.

The girls argued about everything all the way to the end of the lane, but Bo tuned them out and thought about the excitement there had been in the Paradise when the kittens finally opened their eyes and she and her sisters got to touch them.

“Hey, Miz Bo!” Heather tugged at the tail of Bo’s jacket and pointed toward the three guys walking toward them. “Tell Daddy that we have to help take Pepper back. We don’t want to go home, yet, and he has to work tonight, and can we please stay longer?”

“We want to see the lights that your daddy talked about,” Daisy said.

Heather crossed her arms over her chest. “We want to tell everyone at school tomorrow that we saw lights before they did.”

“Why?” Bo asked.

“Everyone talks about going to see the lights, and…” Daisy stopped when Gunner, Maverick and Remy were close.

“And”—Heather frowned—“Aunt Rosie don’t feel like driving us around.”

Maverick bent down and rubbed Pepper’s ears. “So, this is Pepper?”

“I told you he was a dog and not in a shaker thing,” Heather declared.

“Yes, you did.” Maverick grinned and straightened up.

“Daddy,” both girls said at once, and began talking at the same time.

All the words that filled the air, Pepper’s barking at a rabbit that ran across the lane, and even her phone buzzing in her hip pocket disappeared when Maverick locked gazes with her. They were in a bubble with only room for two people.

“What do you think, Bo?” Remy asked.

His deep voice jerked her back to reality, and for a split second, she was angry with him. “About what?” she asked.

“These girls are begging Gunner to let them stay for the lighting ceremony this evening, and Gunner has to go to work at five,” Remy said.

Bo nodded in agreement. “Of course, they can stay.”

I’ll get even with you, Rae, for volunteering me to take Pepper for a walk, Bo thought.

“I’ll use my break to drive up here and get them right after the lighting,” Gunner said. “I appreciate this, Bo.”

“No problem, but Rae will be glad to take them home,” Bo said. “I would volunteer, but I have to go to the church. I need to work on the Christmas cookbooks a little this evening.

“Thank you again,” Gunner said with a nod. “I can stay until four, so they’ll only be here a couple of hours.”

“Yay!” The girls said at the same time and did a fist bump with each other.

“We’ll be the first ones to see any lights this year,” Heather said.

“Our friends are going to be so jealous! I wish Daddy would let us have a cell phone so we could take pictures and show them,” Daisy said with a dramatic sigh.

“No cell phones,” Gunner said in a serious tone.

“Enjoy being little girls,” Maverick told them. “When you grow up, you don’t get to go back and be a little kid again.”

Gunner patted Maverick on the shoulder. “Amen and thank you!”

Bo almost nodded in agreement. Growing up in an old brothel located in a near-ghost town with six sisters had been tough, but she wouldn’t want a do-over for even one day of her childhood. If her absentee father hadn’t divorced her mother, then they would have never gotten Joe Clay for a stepfather. He was the best thing—other than having Mary Jane for a mother—that had ever happened to the whole family.

Heather rolled her eyes. “Come on, Daisy. I bet I can beat you back to the house. Whoever gets there first can tell Miz Rae the good news.”

They bent forward and Heather counted. “One. Two. Three. Go!”

Gunner shook his head and sighed. “How did your mama ever raise two sets of twins?”

Bo tugged on Pepper’s leash and turned around. The girls were just a blur of red and green plaid as they ran, neck and neck, down the lane. “And we were only a little more than a year apart.”

Gunner took a step forward. “No wonder she’s got the patience of a saint.”

Remy fell into step beside him. “If that’s what it takes, I think I’ll just be satisfied with a little impatience.”

“Y’all go on ahead. Pepper’s little legs can’t keep up with you,” Bo told them.

“I’ll hang back with you, then,” Maverick said. “This has been a wonderful afternoon, Bo. I can never repay y’all for today, but next Sunday, please let me take you to dinner after church.”

“Okay, and thank you.” Bo accepted his invitation, and then wished she hadn’t agreed so readily, but she had experienced a feeling when they shared that moment a few minutes earlier—one that she had never known before.