“Anyway, the newest gossip is that you’re pregnant, Lily, and that I’m getting married this summer to a guy I met on the internet,” Sally said.

“Well, damn!” Mack grinned from ear to ear. “I guess you’ll have to make an honest man of me. When does Ruth-Ann say we’re getting married?”

“She’s not sure, but she’s positive that it could ruin your career as a teacher, Mack, and she just wondered”—Sally put air quotes around that last word—“if you and I might be going to raise our tagalong kids together.”

Lily almost choked on a sip of her sweet tea. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

“Not one bit,” Sally giggled. “But now it’s time to ’fess up. How in the hell did you and Mack get a baby started so fast? Me and my imaginary boyfriend, according to Ruth-Ann, have been seeing each other since Thanksgiving, but good Lord, you and Mack have only been living together for weeks.”

“I heard that, too.” Teena sat down with them. “I’m jealous that y’all get to be pregnant together, and I didn’t get invited to join y’all.”

Mack chuckled. “Don’t you just love small-town gossip?”

“Hey, next week, it will all change,” Teena said. “Since we’re having dinner together, I’d bet that the newest will be that you’re the father of both their babies, and having an affair with me, too.”

“I’d better take vitamins to keep up with all that,” Mack told them.

Lily felt a slow heat moving from her neck to her face. Sure, they were joking, but after what she and Mack had been discussing in the truck, she couldn’t help but wonder what a child of Mack’s would look like.

Lily had lived in this same house her whole life, but today, the gray stone place looked warmer and more inviting when she walked up on the porch with Mack by her side. A rush of warm air met them when Mack opened the door for her. He helped her with her coat and followed her to the kitchen. He put on a pot of coffee, and she got down a couple of mugs.

Comparing two men was like comparing apples and oranges, or maybe pineapples and pecans, but she couldn’t help doing it. Wyatt had never helped her do one thing in the kitchen throughout their marriage. She worked as many hours as he had, but since she had done her job from home, that hadn’t mattered to him. He’d always been too busy building his career to have much interaction with the kids even before the divorce.

She wondered what would become of him if Victoria did find a younger man. He’d given up his job at the firm, where he’d worked so hard to climb the corporate ladder, and had gone to work for Victoria a few months after they were married. If he got kicked out of the love nest now, he’d basically have to start all over on the bottom rung. Good.