Coming Home to Paradise (Sisters in Paradise #3)

Chapter 9

Rae never doubted for a minute that Bo would find a way to get even, but in her wildest dreams she didn’t imagine that her sister would send her to Nocona with those rowdy girls after they’d had an afternoon at the Paradise.

“You are the devil’s sister,” she hissed at Bo when she finally found her and Maverick on the back porch—sitting on either end of the swing.

Bo shook a finger at her. “Be careful. You are my twin, so that would give you the same DNA. You shouldn’t be surprised. I told you I would get even.”

“But this is worse than what I did, so I get another shot at you,” Rae said.

“I bet y’all were just like Gunner’s twins when you were little girls,” Maverick said.

Both women turned to focus on him, and then giggled.

“Yep,” Bo said with a nod.

“And those two couldn’t ever compete with all seven of us when we joined forces.” Rae agreed, remembering when she and all six of her sisters had committee meetings to discuss how to get Joe Clay to marry their mother.

“Want to go into detail?” Maverick asked.

“That’s a story for another day,” Rae answered. “Mama sent me out here to get y’all to come in for supper, and then we’ll turn on the lights. It’s cloudy, so it’s getting dark earlier than we expected, which is good because Endora and Parker want to see everything all lit up before they have to leave for church.”

Maverick put a boot out to stop the swing and stood up. “I wasn’t expecting to have supper too. This has been a great day.”

“Mama loves having a big crowd for meals.” Bo started to stand up, but her toe caught on a crack in the wooden floor, and she plunged forward.

“Whoa!” Maverick caught her and pulled her tightly against his chest.

“Thank you,” she muttered, and when she took a step back, she set the swing in motion with the back of her leg, and it slung her forward into his arms again.

“I believe that swing wants us to dance,” he teased. “If you’ll come by Whiskey Bent, I promise not to step on your toes.”

“‘Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound,’” Rae said.

Maverick released his hold on Bo and took a step back. “That song is on the jukebox. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not where Dave got the name for the bar.”

“Can’t have one without the other,” Rae said and felt just a little sorry for her sister. She could almost feel the invisible heat between Bo and Maverick. Bo had spread her wings and followed her dream when she moved to Nashville. Even though she gave it all she had, it hadn’t worked out, and now she needed to put down roots. Aunt Bernie had been right when she said Maverick wasn’t the man for Bo. Chemistry or not, Bo would simply have to pour cold water on the sparks.

Rae followed Bo and Maverick into the kitchen, where supper was laid out on the bar—barbecue sandwiches made with the leftover roast beef, baked beans, potato salad, and warm brownies topped with ice cream for dessert. Endora had taken the twins under her wing while Rae was hunting down Bo and Maverick and had the rowdy girls corralled sitting at the kitchen table with plates of food in front of them.

The room went quiet when Joe Clay bowed his head. After he said a short grace, Daisy smiled at him. “Aunt Rosie always says the blessing unless Daddy is home. I like your prayer better. Aunt Rosie talks too long.”

Joe Clay chuckled. “I figured you girls might be hungry, so I kept it short.”

Heather nodded seriously. “God don’t care how long you pray. He just wants to hear your voice. That’s what Miz Endora told us in Sunday school.”

“Amen,” Parker agreed.

Rae remembered a conversation she and her sisters had had when a preacher more or less invited himself to Sunday dinner. All seven of them united together in a campaign to get rid of him so that he wouldn’t get in the way of Joe Clay being their new daddy—and it worked. The preacher couldn’t wait to get out of the house when he finished eating that day.

Thank God Parker isn’t like that man was, Rae thought as she took her plate to the table and sat down with Daisy and Heather.

“Have you girls had a good time this afternoon?” she asked. “You didn’t get bored, did you?”

“Oh, no!” Daisy declared.

“We could live here,” Heather said. “Can you take a picture of us out by that sleigh before we go home, and maybe send it to Daddy?”

“I sure can,” Rae agreed.

Even if they were ornery and always into some kind of mischief, she felt sorry for them. Her father had been absent for most of her life—always studying to be a doctor, and later at the hospital or clinic—and seemed to only pop in sporadically. Her mother had been the rock that held the family together. These poor little girls would never have a mother in their lives again and, quite possibly, didn’t even have a lot of memories of her.

“I wish he was here to see the lights when they come on,” Daisy sighed. “That might make him happy.”

“We can take pictures as we drive away so he can see how the whole place looks,” Rae offered.

Bo nudged her on the shoulder and whispered, “They’re growing on you, aren’t they? Think Aunt Bernie would agree to a spring or summer wedding between you and Gunner?”

“Bite your tongue,” Rae snapped.

“Mama has her heart set on one, and since…” Bo rolled her eyes toward Parker and Endora, with their heads together at the dining room table.

“I’m passing that honor on to you,” Rae said with a wicked grin.

“In your dreams,” Bo said.

“Dreams?” Daisy said. “I am going to dream about this day.”

“Me, too,” Heather agreed.

When the sun finally dropped below the bare trees and the horizon, everyone gathered out in the middle of the yard. If the two little girls holding Rae’s hands had been hers, she wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in a posed picture of them as she would be in a candid shot of their eyes when they first saw all the decorations lit up. With that in mind and hoping that she was able to catch the expressions on their faces, she aimed her phone at them and waited.

“Okay, everyone.” Joe Clay raised his voice. “The tradition has always been that the youngest in the family gets to do the honor of turning on the lights. Endora has held that place in the past, but this year the honor is passed down to baby Carlton. Since he’s really too young to do the job on his own, Ursula is going to help him. Are we ready?”

The twins yelled, “Yes!”

Joe Clay cupped his hand over his ear. “I couldn’t hear that. Are…we…ready?”

Everyone screamed. “We are ready!”

Rae let go of the girls’ hands and got their faces in focus on her phone. She remembered the first time she and her sisters had to go home with their biological father after they moved to Spanish Fort. The weekend had bordered on miserable, but Joe Clay had delivered what he had promised Endora. He had stopped the reconstruction work and had the Paradise decorated when they returned on Sunday evening. Every year since then, he had built new cutouts, and Mary Jane had bought even more lights and pretty Christmas things to add to the collection.

Rae could still see the look of pure joy in Endora’s and Luna’s eyes when Martin, their father, had turned down the lane that first Christmas they all lived at the Paradise. She quickly flipped through the pictures she’d just taken, which captured the same look in Daisy and Heather’s eyes that evening. Yes, they were ornery, and yes, they got into lots of trouble, but the sweetness of that moment made up for everything—almost.

Endora broke into her thoughts when she asked, “Cute, huh?”

“Reminds me of a couple of other little girls,” Rae answered.

“Does it make you want a family of your own?” Endora pressed.

“Maybe, but you get to have a little one to turn on the lights next year,” Rae said with a smile and then pointed toward the sleigh. “Do you girls still want a picture by the sleigh?”

A bitter cold wind made the music from the wind chimes that were shaped like candy canes and hung between the porch posts. Heather shivered, nodded, and dragged her sister across the yard to stand beside the sleigh that Joe Clay had built several years before.

“Can we sit in it?” Daisy asked.

Endora raised her voice and said, “Of course, and Rae can sit with you. I’ll take the picture.” She slipped the phone from Rae’s hand and gave her a push. “Go on. This could be the start of your own family.”

Rae shook head. “Oh, no! Not in a million years.”

“Never say never,” Endora giggled.

“One Sunday dinner doth not a relationship make,” Rae quoted.

Endora’s giggle turned into laughter. “That sounds like the day when the preacher came to dinner, and we told him that we were Baptist nuns. Go get up in the sleigh with those girls, so I can take a picture. You are their Sunday school teacher, so that makes y’all at least a church family.”

“Temporarily,” Rae said and climbed into the sleigh. She positioned herself between the twins and wrapped an arm around each of them. “As soon as the holidays are over, you can have your job back.”

“We’ll see about that,” Endora said as she took several pictures.

“Miz Rae, will you make me some pictures you took today?” Daisy asked. “I want to fix an album so me and Heather can look at it every day.”

Heather hopped down from the sleigh and looked up at Rae with a sweet smile. “You can have all the money in my piggy bank to pay for them.”

“You can keep your money,” Rae told them. “I’ll get some pictures made for you, anyway.”

“Hey, wait up!” Mary Jane yelled as she jogged across the yard. “I didn’t get my goodbye hugs from you girls, and I have a plate of brownies for you to take home to Rosie.”

Daisy met Mary Jane halfway and barreled into her. Then Heather added her fierce hugs. Rae slipped her phone from the hip pocket of her jeans and took several shots of the three of them. If she and her sisters had gotten married young—like Mary Jane had the first time—they would possibly have children who were that age.

Do you have regrets? the pesky voice inside her head asked.

“No, I do not have any regrets,” she muttered. “There were six more sisters who could have taken care of that.”