Do You Hear What I Hear?. Holly Jacobs

turned and looked into the graying stylist’s warm eyes. “I’m sorry?”

      “No, you won’t be if you stick around. Libby’s a woman no man would be sorry to have. And I said, she doesn’t have a husband, leastwise, not anymore, so you don’t have to look so puppy-dog sad.”

      “Miss—” Joshua left the word hanging, realizing he didn’t know the woman’s name.

      “Missed a man, that’s the only Miss I’ve got. And the name’s Pearly. Pearly Gates. You see, the day I was born my mother—God rest her soul—took one look at me and said she was looking on a piece of heaven. She named me Pearly, Pearly Gates, to remind herself—and me, too—what I was.”

      Josh couldn’t help but smile. Before he could make his escape, Pearly added, “And Mama used to say it was a good thing she named me Pearly ’cause she needed all the remindin’ she could get. Seems I might have come from heaven, but the devil put his two cents in my makeup. I was always gettin’ in one piece of trouble after another. Mama said the gray hairs on her head were all mine. I figure this—” she ran her fingers through her short gray hair “—is her way of getting even with me.”