The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake by Linda Evans Shepherd Read Free Book Online Page B

but let it go. It didn’t match his new look.
    He slowed his Jeep enough to watch the blonde troublemaker scurry to her car parked on the other side of the road. She slid in with a look of... what was that... triumph ? Nothing good, he thought, could come from her being over at Mrs. Dippel’s. Nothing good at all.
    “No-good woman,” he said under his breath, then headed on toward his home. He needed to get writing on the article, get himself to bed, get plenty of sleep, so he would be well rested to do what he needed to do in the morning.

Donna

8
    Poached Paparazzi
    On Sunday morning, I woke before my alarm sounded, even before the sun began to glide above the curtain of mountains that rose from my very yard. I sat up in bed and stretched, feeling somehow different, lighter. As a matter of fact, in the past few days it was as if I’d begun to awaken from a deep dream.
    I rubbed my eyes at the thought. That was it. I hadn’t had the dream about my failed rescue attempt since my baby’s memorial service.
    I swung my legs over the side of the bed then leaned forward and stared down at the floor.
    What had Wade and I been, all of seventeen, eighteen? Too young to start a family, though I know Wade would have married me if I’d only said yes to his proposal. But after my pregnancy had... had ended, we’d drifted apart.
    I turned to a career in law enforcement, and Wade turned to the bottle.
    How many nights had I sat in my Bronco, waiting for Wade to stumble out of the Gold Rush Tavern so I could drop him off at his trailer?
    Our routine never varied. “Sorry, Deputy Donna, I didn’t mean to get drunk again,” he’d slur as he’d stumble out of my truck and up the steps to his front door.
    I’d roll down my window. “Want me to leave you a note to remind you where you left your truck?”
    “Nah. I’ll remember.” He’d laugh. “It’ll be where I always park it when you’re on duty.”
    And so it went.
    Lately, though, his truck hasn’t been parked outside the tavern.
    I figured he’d gotten behind on his bar bill again and taken to drinking alone, that is, till I discovered he’d been having dinner with Kevin Moore.
    What an unlikely pairing, Wade and Pastor Kevin from Grace Church.
    From what I’d gathered, they’d started sharing an evening meal down at the Higher Grounds Café after Moore’s wife, Jan, had succumbed to cancer.
    In fact, according to Wade, it had been the pastor’s idea to hold the funeral for our long-lost baby. But as Vonnie later confessed, the funeral had been more of an “intervention” for me.
    “Donna dear, you were so distraught, and with all your talk about dying, Fred and I were concerned. We had to take this course of action. We were trying to save your life.”
    Their action had been to invite me to dinner then surprise me with a drive to the graveyard.
    I’d call it a kidnapping, really, though I wouldn’t say so officially.
    All I know is that when Wade, my dad, the Westbrooks, and the pastor had gathered around baby Jamie Lee’s grave marker, I’d fallen to my knees, pounding my fists against the frozen ground as I wept.
    Perhaps that was the reason I felt lighter: I’d finally acknowledged my secret grief and I’d wept until I’d felt God’s presence.
    I stood up and peeked out the blinds covering my bedroom window. It was still dark.
    I laughed at myself. Me, feeling God’s presence? I didn’t even believe in the existence of God. (A little secret I kept from my Potluck Club friends.)
    The thought of them made me stifle a laugh. What would they say if they knew?
    I could hear Evie now. “I always knew that girl was a heathen.” And Vonnie would counter, “Now, Evie, this just means we need to pray for her.”
    I snorted. Prayer. What good did it do to pray to a God who was such a cruel master? As far as I was concerned, if he existed at all, he existed as the author of all heartache. Who needed to serve a God like that?
    My own heartache had