The Marriage Agenda. Allison Leigh

she’d brought in a pricey new line of products, which she used and promoted exclusively. The line was a big success, mostly because Camilla had the knack for exploiting and enhancing the natural beauty of each of her clients.

      “Okay, then.” Joleen started for the front door. “I’ll see you at eleven.”

      “Baby.” Her mother’s voice was flat.

      Joleen turned. “What is the matter, Mama?”

      “Have some coffee.”

      “I really want to get—”

      “I know you do. You always do. But whatever it is can wait. We need to talk.”

      “Mama, can’t we talk a little later? I’ve got to be at the shop in an hour and before that I want to—”

      “Don’t argue with me, now. Get yourself some coffee and sit down here with me.”

      “Mama, I have got to get goin’.”

      Her mother just looked at her.

      “Oh, all right.” Joleen got a mug from the cupboard, filled it and took the chair across from her mother. “Now, what is it that just cannot wait?”

      Camilla had stopped looking at Joleen. Now she stared into her coffee cup, her mouth drawn down at the corners, as if there might be something in there that shouldn’t be.

      Joleen, who needed to get to the cleaners and make a quick stop at WalMart before she headed over to one of the major beauty supply houses to pick up a few popular products they had run low on, couldn’t keep herself from making a small, impatient sound in her throat.

      Camilla heaved a deep sigh and shook her head at her coffee cup. “I find I don’t quite know how to say this.”

      That suits me just fine, Joleen thought. “It’s okay. We can talk later.” She started to stand. “Tonight, after—”

      “No, you don’t.” Camilla’s hand closed over her arm. “You are not escapin’ me.”

      Joleen stared at her mother’s hand, which was soft and slim, the smooth square-filed nails polished a shimmery bronze. It did not look like the hand of a fifty-year-old woman, not by a long shot. Joleen wished her own hands looked half that good. But Joleen still did hair. And she had no shampoo girl, so she spent a lot of her working life knuckle-deep in lather. Very hard on the hands.

      Camilla said. “I have been awake half the night worryin’ over you.”

      “Why?”

      “Sit back down.”

      Joleen dropped into the chair again. “All right, Mama. I’m sitting. Talk.”

      “I am just going to ask you directly.”

      “I sure wish you would.”

      Camilla let go of Joleen’s arm and threw up both hands. “What on God’s green earth has possessed you to think a marriage between you and Dekker is a good idea?”

      Joleen felt pure indignation. She decided to let it show. “Mama! I love Dekker. And he loves me.”

      Camilla smacked one slim, soft hand on the table and waved the other one in the air. “Yes, and I love your uncle Foley. But I never would marry him.”

      “Uncle Foley is your brother, Mama.”

      “Exactly. And that’s how I love him. Like a brother. The same way that you love Dekker Smith.”

      Oh, this was getting sticky already. As Joleen had known it would, as she’d tried to get Dekker to understand it would.

      Half-truths and evasions, she though glumly. Comin’ right up…

      “Well?” said her mother on a hard huff of breath.

      “I love him,” Joleen said again, and she stared her mother straight in the eye.

      Her mother stared right back. “You don’t love him the way a woman loves a man,” she accused. “And he doesn’t have that soul feelin’ for you, either.”

      “You do not know that,” Joleen said. “You do not know what we feel.”

      “Oh, yes I do. I know my baby. And I know Lorraine’s boy. I also know that you both deserve better than to marry a person who does not set your heart on fire. You both deserve it all. Passion and excitement. And magic. I want those things for you—and I want them for Dekker, too.”

      Joleen wrapped her hands around her cup. The warmth felt comforting against her palms. She said honestly, “Both Dekker and I had those things once, Mama. They didn’t last.”

      “Bobby Atwood and Stacey?” Her mother made a low, scoffing sound.

      Joleen’s indignation level rose again. “Yes. Bobby Atwood. And Stacey. You know how Dekker was about Stacey.”

      “There were terrible problems in that marriage, baby.”

      “I know that. I am not saying they didn’t have problems. I am only saying he loved her. In a passionate way. A soul way. And Bobby, well, it shames me to have to admit it now, but I was long gone in love with that man.”

      “Oh, that is so not true.”

      “Mama—”

      “You thought you were long gone in love with that man. You wanted to be. You were waiting for your knight in shinin’ armor to thunder in on a fine white horse and sweep you away. You waited a long time. When that young Atwood showed up, with his smooth talk and his fancy car and winnin’ smile, you were like a nice, ripe peach, just ready to drop off the tree. And you did drop. You dropped good and hard. But that was not—”

      “Mama—”

      “Pardon me. I believe that I was still speaking.”

      “Fine. Speak. Finish.”

      “What I’m saying is—and you are listening, aren’t you?”

      Joleen gritted her teeth. “I am, Mama. I am listening.”

      Camilla’s eyebrows had a skeptical lift—but she did continue. “What I’m saying is that what happened with Bobby Atwood was not it—was not love. And Dekker and Stacey, well, that was certainly something, but it wasn’t it, either. Not the real, true, deep lifelong passion I am talking about. Not what I had with your daddy. Not what DeDe has with Wayne.”

      “Mama. Some people never find that kind of love.”

      “We are not talking about some people. We are talking about you. And Dekker. My first baby. And my best friend’s little boy.”

      “Well, maybe you have to stop thinking of us that way—as your baby and Lorraine’s little boy. We are grown people now. We have a right to make our own decisions about life. And about who we will love.”

      “I never said that you didn’t. I just don’t like this.” Camilla looked into her cup again—and then sharply up to snare her daughter’s gaze. “Something else is goin’ on here. I know it. I can feel it.”

      Joleen kept her face composed—and told some more lies. “Nothing is going on, Mama. I don’t know what you mean.”

      “Oh, you do. You know. There is something.…” Camilla pushed her cup to the side and leaned across the table. “Is it…those Atwood people? You went off alone with them, didn’t you, before they left the wedding Saturday? I saw you go inside with them.”

      Joleen opened her mouth to let out more lies. And then shut it. Camilla would have to hear the truth about the Atwoods sooner or later.

      “Yes,” Joleen said. “They wanted to talk to me.”

      “About…?”

      Sam was too quiet. Joleen stood.

      “What is it now?”