His sister rolled her eyes. “Oh God. If Davis found out about that he would blow a gasket.”

“Yeah, especially if he heard her title. Taste Ambassador.”

“Oh, no.” Pokey giggled. “Taste Ambassador. That’s just…” The giggle turned into a guffaw, and even the stern-faced Norris Thomas managed a nervous chuckle, and then Annajane joined in, and soon the conference room echoed with the Bayless family’s grief-tinged hilarity.

“Oh, God, Daddy,” Pokey said, wiping her eyes with a tissue from the box in the center of the table. “Who knew you had such a delicious sense of irony?” She patted her brother’s hand. “Thanks, I needed a little comic relief to cut all this drama. Finish telling me about Kristy. What’s she like?”

“She’s not a gold digger, or your typical home wrecker,” Mason said. “I think she really thought she would be able to raise Sophie on her own. Her mom lived nearby and was going to help with the baby. But then her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was going through chemo, and Kristy was terrified and totally overwhelmed. That last time I was down in Jacksonville, I ran into her in the neonatal unit, and she just … came unhinged.”

“The doctors had been trying to explain to her about the special care Sophie would need after she was discharged from the hospital and to warn her about the possible developmental issues,” Mason said. “I walked into the nursery, where she’d been standing by the isolette, just looking down at the baby. Kristy was scared to touch her, to hold her, even though the nurses told her that’s what Sophie needed most. ‘You take her,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this.’ And she ran off.”

“Not permanently ran off, right?” Pokey asked.

“No. She called me later that night and asked if we could meet. We did, and that’s when she told me she couldn’t take Sophie home. She was living with her mom in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and it just wasn’t going to get any better. Even with the money Dad left her, Kristy was not equipped to care for a baby on her own, especially a baby as sick as Sophie had been.”

Mason shrugged. “What could I do? She had already started calling adoption agencies to try to get Sophie placed. I couldn’t let strangers take her, Pokey. She was ours. And I couldn’t tell Mama. She wouldn’t have stood for me bringing home Dad’s child by another woman. You saw her reaction today.”

Pokey leaned over and hugged Mason. “You big dope. You know I would have taken her and raised her as my own. Everybody knows how badly I’ve wanted a little girl.”

“No,” Mason said. “Anybody who saw Sophie would know she was a Bayless. There would have been questions. And we’d be right back at square one. This was the only way. I adopted Sophie and Kristy gave up all rights to her. That’s how she wanted it.”

“You could have told me the truth,” Pokey said. “I would have been shocked, yeah, but I could have handled it.”

“I wanted to tell you,” Mason said. “But if Mama ever found out you were in on it, she would have never forgiven you.”

“Well, hey-yull,” Pokey drawled. “It wouldn’t be the first time I got cross-wise with Mama.” She looked over at Annajane. “Did you know?”

“Not until Sunday night,” Annajane said. “He told me right after he proposed.”

“Lying to Annajane was the worst of it,” Mason said. “Letting her think I went out and got some chick knocked up even before our divorce was final. And her having to put up with all the gossip and crap going around town, everybody assuming we split up because of Sophie.”

“You did what was best for Sophie,” Annajane said. “That’s what matters.”

“Man, oh, man,” Pokey said. She gazed down at her belly, then pantomimed a telephone call. “You hear that, baby mine? We just found out your cousin is really your aunt. And that my niece is actually my sister. Or half sister. Crazy, huh?”

Norris Thomas looked pointedly at the clock on the conference room wall. “Well, I guess our family conference can probably be concluded, since half the family has decamped.”

“Sorry about the histrionics,” Mason said. “And I guess we can expect that the issue is not closed as far as my mother and brother are concerned. Should we be worried?”

Thomas was putting papers back in the file folder. “I don’t think so. Glenn was very thorough with these kinds of things. He had me research the issues, and we reviewed every sentence of the trust agreement backwards and forwards.”

“Davis won’t care,” Pokey predicted. “He just wants his money out of the company, and he’ll do anything to get it. You watch, he probably left here and went right across the courthouse square to hire himself another lawyer.” A new thought occurred to her. “Uncle Norris, could he get Dad’s trust thingy overturned, on some kind of incompetency thing? It’s ridiculous to even think about, but I wouldn’t put it past Davis.”

“Glenn Bayless, incompetent? Absurd,” Thomas said. He stood up and touched Pokey’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you how incompetent he was. When we drew up the agreement, and the documents setting up the financial arrangements for Sophie’s mother, he hired a videographer to record the meeting. At the time, I thought he was being overly cautious, but now, I suppose he was anticipating what your mother’s reaction would be when she learned of the child’s existence.”

“Daddy might have had a wandering eye, but his mind never wandered,” Pokey said. “Nobody was sharper. Lucky for Sophie. And us.”

49

“I’m hungry,” Pokey announced. “Let’s get lunch.”

“It’s not even eleven o’clock,” Mason protested.

“You can have coffee or something, but I am pregnant and starving, and I need to eat. Annajane?”

“Lunch sounds fine,” Annajane said. “Where shall we go?”

Pokey looked around the courthouse square, past the gazebo and the confederate memorial statue. “The Country Cupboard,” she decided.

They easily found a booth near the back of the room and placed their orders. After the waitress brought their drinks, Pokey put both elbows on the table and gazed across at her brother. “I’ve still got a lot of questions,” she said.

Mason sipped his coffee. “I swear, I did not know anything about how the trust was set up. Norris never said a word to me, and I certainly had no clue Dad would leave Sophie part of the company.”

She waved away his disclaimers. “I saw your face when Uncle Norris spilled the beans. You were as surprised as all of us.”

“Not as surprised as your mother,” Annajane said. “It’s too bad it had to come out the way it did. She looked so hurt.”

“Hurt?” Pokey said with a hoot. “Sallie wasn’t hurt. She was red-hot furious. I haven’t seen her that mad since the day I told her I was pregnant and dropping out of Carolina.”

“She’ll either get over it, or she won’t,” Mason said. “I can’t be worrying about her hurt feelings. I’ve got a daughter to raise and a company to run.” He nodded at Annajane. “And a wedding to plan.”

“Yay!” Pokey said, clapping her hands. “When’s it gonna be?”

“Soon.” Mason said.

“After Memorial Day,” Annajane said, at the same time.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“I can tell y’all have spent a lot of time discussing this,” Pokey said. “Do I get to be the maid of honor again?”

“Of course,” Annajane said. “But I don’t think we’re gonna have anything elaborate. Just family.”

“Half of our family isn’t currently happy with you two,” Pokey pointed out. “So that ought to make for a real intimate affair.” She looked at Annajane. “Have you told your mama?”

“Yes,” Annajane said. “She told me I’m crazy as a bedbug. She’s still furious that I broke it off with Shane. So I guess we can cross her off the guest list, too.”

“More cake for me,” Pokey said. “What did Sophie say?”

“Yippeee!” Mason said, in a girlish, high-pitched squeal. “She can’t understand why Annajane won’t move in right now. And I happen to agree with her.”