“Of course.”

He gazed across the lawn, wishing he weren’t the one who had to break the news. “Winnie… The lights are on in the carriage house.”

Several beats of silence stretched between them before she replied in a voice that was soft, almost toneless. “She’s back.”

“It seems that way.”

Winnie wasn’t an insecure teenager any longer, and an edge of steel undercut her soft Southern vowels. “Well, then. Let the games begin.”

Winnie returned to her kitchen in time to see Leeann Perkins flip her cell phone closed, her eyes dancing with excitement. “Y’all aren’t going to believe this.”

Winnie suspected she’d believe it.

The four other women in the kitchen stopped what they were doing. Leeann’s voice had a tendency to squeak when she was excited, making her sound like a Southern Minnie Mouse. “That was Renee. Remember how she’s related to Larry Carter, who’s been working at the Quik Mart since he got out of rehab? You’ll never guess who stepped up to the register a couple of hours ago.”

As Leeann paused for dramatic effect, Winnie picked up a knife and forced herself to concentrate on cutting Heidi Pettibone’s Coca-Cola cake. Her hand barely trembled.

Leeann shoved her cell in her purse without taking her eyes off them. “Sugar Beth’s back!”

The slotted spoon Merylinn Jasper had been rinsing off dropped in the sink. “I don’t believe it.”

“We knew she was coming back.” Heidi’s forehead puckered in indignation. “But, still, how could she have the nerve?”

“Sugar Beth always had plenty of nerve,” Leeann reminded them.

“This is going to cause all kinds of trouble.” Amy Graham fingered the gold cross at her neck. In high school, she’d been the biggest Christian in the senior class and president of the Bible Club. She still had a tendency to proselytize, but she was so decent the rest of them overlooked it. Now she set her hand on Winnie’s arm. “Are you all right?”