The Sunday morning service ended with another hymn and a final prayer by one of the young deacons. J.B. headed straight for Seth, a satisfied expression on his face. Cathy didn’t think she had ever despised her father-in-law more than she did at that very moment.
She leaned over and whispered to Jack, “I need to talk to Seth.”
“I’ll wait for you in the car.” He glanced around at the horde of parishioners as if they were alien beings. Unless Jack had changed over the years, he was not a religious man.
“Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
He grinned, then turned and walked away, doing his best to avoid speaking to anyone on his rush up the aisle toward the vestibule.
Cathy smiled, nodded, and even shook hands with several people as she made her way to Seth. By the time she approached her son, Mona and Elaine had joined J.B., and the threesome surrounded him, providing a buffer between her and Seth.
Mona glanced at her, a plea for peace in her eyes. “Good morning, Cathy.”
“Good morning. I’d like to speak to Seth privately, please.”
“Say whatever you have to say to him in front of us,” J.B. told her.
Seth stood tall and straight as he fixed his gaze on her. “Thanks for being here this morning, Mom.”
“Where else would I be?” She totally ignored J.B. as she wedged herself between Mona and her mother so that she could touch her son. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’d like for you to come to lunch with Jack and Lorie and me. We’re going to the Cedar Hill Grill. You love their homemade yeast rolls and their chocolate pecan pie.”
“Seth is going home with his grandmothers and me,” J.B. said, his tone brooking no argument.
Cathy looked J.B. square in the eye. “Seth is old enough to think for himself. You can’t force him to become a clone of Mark or, God forbid, a clone of you. He is his own person-”
“He thought for himself last night,” J.B. told her. “And you see what happened. I think you need to remember that you no longer have any rights where Seth is concerned.”
“I’m his mother!”
“You are an unfit mother.”
Damn him!
Mona gasped.
“Mom is not an unfit mother,” Seth said. “You shouldn’t say such things about her.”
J.B. snapped his head around and looked at Seth as if he’d never seen his grandson before that moment. “You know better than to be disrespectful to me. That smart-mouth attitude is her doing, and I’ll have none of it. Do you hear me, young man?”
Donnie Hovater hurried toward them, leaving his handshaking duties behind as he called to them, “Please, lower your voices. Remember you’re in the Lord’s house.”
J.B. stiffened. “I apologize, Brother Donnie. I’m afraid I let my concern for my grandson-”
“We should go home, J.B.” Mona curled her fingers around his forearm. “People are staring at us.”
He nodded, then reached out and clutched Seth’s wrist. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“I’m going with Mom,” Seth said. “I’ll be home later this afternoon.”
“No, you will not go with her,” J.B. said. “I forbid you to leave here with her.”
“Perhaps we can reach a compromise.” Donnie looked directly at J.B. “With your permission, Brother Cantrell, I’d like to invite Cathy and Seth to have lunch with Missy and me today, and then afterward I’ll bring Seth home.”
J.B. huffed loudly. Mona tightened her grip on his arm.
“That sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea, don’t you think?” Mona’s gaze begged her husband to agree.
“Very well,” J.B. acquiesced reluctantly. “I’m entrusting him into your care, Brother Donnie.” Without another word, J.B. marched off, leaving Mona and Elaine standing there. Both women forced halfhearted smiles.
“Thank you for acting as a mediator in this situation.” Mona sighed heavily as she looked at Donnie.
Elaine grasped Cathy’s upper arm, leaned over and hissed, “Keep this up and you’ll lose Seth forever. Is that what you want?”
Acting as if she hadn’t heard her mother’s warning, Cathy turned to Seth. “I’d thought we might have lunch with Jack and Lorie, but I’m sure they’ll understand why I’ll have to cancel on them. I need to find Jack and tell him-”
“Why’d he come to church with you today?” Seth asked.
“He came with me as a friend, for moral support.”
“Are we ready to go?” Donnie asked.
“Yes,” Cathy replied. “I just need a few minutes to speak to Jack. He’s waiting outside for me.
“Yes, by all means,” Donnie said. “We’ll meet you at my car. It’s the silver Chevy Tahoe.”
Cathy found Jack propped against the hood of his black 1999 Corvette, his arms crossed over his wide chest. When he saw her, he stood up straight and grinned.
“Ready for some of Cedar Hill’s homemade yeast rolls?” he asked.
“I’m afraid there’s been a change in plans,” Cathy said, then went on to explain the situation. “I’m really sorry, but-”
“You don’t need to explain,” Jack told her. “Your son comes first. Besides, it’s not like this is our only chance to have Sunday dinner together.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming to church with me today and for understanding about lunch.”
“Stick to your guns, honey. Don’t let anybody talk you out of fighting for your kid.”
“J.B. Cantrell is a real son of a bitch,” Lorie said.
Jack stared into his dessert plate, his thoughts a million miles away. Well, not quite a million miles, just a few miles away to wherever Cathy was. Whatever decisions she made about her life, especially those involving her son, were none of his business. He had no claims on her, despite their past.
What past? They had spent all of two weeks together, sneaking around day and night, using Mike as a front so that Cathy’s mother wouldn’t figure out she was dating the town’s former bad boy. So what if they’d thought they were in love? She’d been a starry-eyed seventeen-year-old and he’d been her first lover. And he’d been a horny, hungry-for-affection young man facing an uncertain future half a world away.
“Earth to Jackson Perdue.” Lorie reached across the table and tapped him in the center of his chest.
“Yeah, what?” He stared at her.
“I said that J.B. Cantrell is a real son of a bitch.”
Jack grunted. “Yeah, he is.”
She studied Jack closely, a frown marring her smooth forehead. “Want to tell me what’s going on with you? You show up in town for the first time in years. You move back, into a house you hated. You take a job that you’re probably both unqualified and overqualified for, and you insert yourself into Cathy’s life again at a time when the last thing she needs is another complication.”
“Is that what I am to Cathy, a complication?”
Lorie drew in a deep breath, not answering immediately, and then she replied by turning his own question back on him. “Exactly what is Cathy to you?”
“An old friend.”
Lorie snorted. “You and Cathy were never anything as simple as friends. You two were crazy about each other, couldn’t keep your hands off each other.”
“Yeah, sure, for two whole weeks.”
“You left her, remember?”
“I was in the army. I had no choice. I thought she’d wait for me.”
“She did.”
“Not for long.”
“You were reported missing in action, possibly a POW or worse-maybe dead.”
“Yeah, and how long after that did she marry Mark Cantrell-a couple of months?”
Lorie shook her head, her thick, reddish-brown hair bouncing on her shoulders. “If you’re pursuing her now in order to get some sort of revenge for-”
Jack laughed. “I haven’t spent all these years pining away for Cathy any more than she has for me. Yeah, when I got out of the prison camp and came back to the U.S. and found out she’d married somebody else, I felt pretty raw about it. But that was a long time ago. Cathy and I are practically strangers now.”