“Given all those choices, I think we need to go upstairs to some more comfortable chairs,” Fanny Lou answered. “Mitzi, lock the doors. Jody, get us some chips and dip. Paula, you can bring up three beers and a glass of sweet tea for you. The rest of us deserve something stronger with stories like these to tell.”

“I don’t have a new boyfriend.” Jody gathered two bags of chips from the cabinet and a jar of salsa from the refrigerator.

“Even if you don’t, it’d be good for Lyle to think you do. Sorry bastard,” Fanny Lou fumed on the way up the stairs. “I heard that two men had been knockin’ on the back door this afternoon. I came to be sure y’all hadn’t put in a brothel.”

Mitzi had been following her upstairs but stopped and gasped, “Granny, that’s not funny.”

Fanny Lou looked down at her from the landing. “I didn’t think so, either, especially when you didn’t ask me to be the madam. That’s why I came to see what was going on here. Let’s get settled in y’all’s livin’ room, and each of you can tell me all about it. And we’ll start with Jody, since I want to know why Quincy Roberts was sitting on the porch with you.”

Jody rolled her eyes. “Do you know him?”

“’Course I do. He’s just one of the richest oil men in North Texas. Ever heard of Wildcat Oil? You know the one on the billboards with a big mountain lion on the side of the trucks? He started the business from scratch and did very well for himself,” Fanny Lou said.

“He was just returning the lawn chairs he thought I’d left behind,” Jody explained.

Fanny Lou took a long drink of her beer and burped loudly. “Never did learn to do that like a lady. Now tell me the whole story.”

Mitzi listened to Jody’s and Paula’s stories with half an ear and tried to figure out a way to downplay the kiss, but it simply wasn’t possible. Every time she thought of it, heat filled her face in a blush.

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

We need a trailer with our logo on the side,” Mitzi groaned that Monday morning when she was listing all the things that had to go to the bridal fair the next Saturday.

“We’ll rent a U-Haul. It won’t have our logo, but we can get everything in it,” Paula said. “I’ll be in charge of that. We can pull it behind your van.”

“We’ll look like the poor country cousins,” Mitzi whined.

“But, honey, when we get in and get set up, The Perfect Dress will be the belle of the ball,” Jody informed her. “How many of these things do you figure we went to when we were dreaming about having our own shop?”