The Sweet By and By Read Free

worth of emotion that might tell her what to do.
    â€œAh, the elusive someone.” Lillabeth lowered herself into the rickety metal chair. “Hey, Jade, can I ask you something?”
    â€œSure. What?” Jade drummed her fingers over the invitation. If she sent it, the issues of her life she’d carefully dubbed “unusable vintage” would recycle through her heart and resurrect all kinds of ugliness. Liz Carlton’s great-great-granny’s moth-eaten sweaters had nothing on Jade’s tattered past.
    The teen inhaled long and slow, tapping the edge of one quarter against the face of the other. Jade watched her, slipping the invitation onto the desk.
    â€œMust be hard to talk about. Usually I can’t get you to shut up.” Jade smiled and kicked the air in front of Lillabeth.
    â€œYeah, well”—big exhale—“let’s say you did something you didn’t mean to do and the result—”
    â€œGood afternoon, ladies.” A svelte, tan June Benson, outfitted for golf, swooshed into the office with a wide smile and grand gestures. “Lillabeth, goodness, how are you? I didn’t see your mother on the tennis courts all summer. Here it is fall. Tell her we could use her on the golf course. We’re missing a fourth.”
    â€œShe’s into Pilates these days.” Lillabeth held up her quarters and motioned she was going back to work.
    â€œTake me with you . . . ,” Jade called after her, then laughed for June’s sake, but the woman was focused on the invitations.
    â€œAs I suspected. These lovely”—June patted the box of invitations—“unique . . . very red invitations are still here. We can say one thing: the envelopes will stand out in the mail. So what do you say we mail them, hm? Time is running out, Jade. Please let me take them. Except your mother’s. You can keep that one until you decide.”
    â€œI haven’t told her yet.” Jade wadded up the lime-green sticky note. Mail invitations.
    â€œThen call her. Land sakes, you’re a grown woman.” June collapsed in the metal chair Lillabeth had just vacated, catching herself when it listed to starboard. “What will people think if your mother is not at your wedding?”
    â€œThat I’m wise and gutsy.”
    June straightened the hem of her madras golf skort. “Or petty and childish.”
    Roscoe peeked out from under the desk, his eyebrows twitching as he scanned the space between Jade and June. Ladies, keep it down. Let sleeping dogs lie.
    â€œIf you’d let Max and me get married in a small ceremony up on Eventide Ridge at dusk like we wanted—”
    â€œAnd have my only child married without a proper ceremony?” June propped her hand on the edge of the desk and leaned toward Jade. “No ma’am. And you’d regret it, too, in time. Trust me.”
    Jade matched her future mother-in-law’s hard gaze. “Trust me. I wouldn’t.”
    â€œSend the invitation, Jade, because these ”—June rose, switching her handbag from one shoulder to the other and tucking the box of invitations under her arm—“are going out whether you’re ready or not. I’m sorry, but time is running out. I don’t mean to be so bossy . . . goodness, I can’t imagine what angst exists between you and your mama. Were you abused? Pardon my frankness.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMy granny, bless her soul, used to say, ‘Whatever ill you have against someone isn’t worth sending the Lord Jesus back to the cross.’”
    â€œI don’t even know what that means.” Jade faced her computer screen and clicked on an unread e-mail. “But I’m not sending Jesus anywhere.”
    â€œIt means Jesus’ love and forgiveness is sufficient for any wrong or violation done to us, Jade. Don’t you think it’s powerful enough for you and your mama? This I do