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“Tell me, dear, do you think there is a chance that Beau will be here to stay?” Little Grandma asked.

I frowned. “There’s no telling. It says something that for the last five weeks he hasn’t let Bernie rent out his house.”

Patti nodded. “That is a good sign. Why did you move out?”

“We wanted to give Chaos a bigger place to run around in and be closer to the forest.”

Little Grandma reached over and put her hand on top of mine. “And you wanted the house to be free for your brother to come home to,” she said gently. “Now I want to know what happened to your daddy.”

“You had to testify, didn’t you?”

I looked at the woman who asked the question, and my mind went blank. Was this Pearl or Ronnie?

“I’m Pearl, honey. Pearl Garner. I’m the second oldest. You’ll see my kin all around town.”

“Java Jolt. Ruby. Now I remember.”

“Yep, she’s my great-great-granddaughter. Now tell me about your daddy.”

“He got put away for seven years for aggravated assault. Willie’s trial is coming up.”

“Didn’t your daddy try to say that Beau hurt him?” Little Grandma asked.

“Yeah. He did. There wasn’t any witness to testify to that, and I actually saw him fall down the three stairs from the front of the trailer. Doc Evans testified that all of his injuries could definitely be attributed to a fall, so they didn’t believe Dad.”

“Well, isn’t that nice,” Little Grandma beamed.

“Hey, Honey, can I get you a plate of food?” Marlowe asked me as she put her hand on my shoulder.

“I’ve already had one plate… But yeah, I could go through the tables again. Let’s go together, shall we?”

Marlowe smiled down at me, and once again, I thought how lucky I was.

I couldn’t wait until Beau showed up. Everybody was waiting for him. I wasn’t sure how he was going to take to having the whole town officially welcoming him home, but he was just going to have to deal.

“Stuffed jalapeño poppers.” Kai smiled as he put two on my plate.

I waved to Sam who was over at a table with Pearl and some of the other people who worked at her restaurant. She’d closed down for a couple of hours to come to the potluck. Now that I’d been here for almost a year, I was in the know about things. Like everybody else, I wondered when Sam was going to ask Pearl out on a date. The consensus was that after Sam’s stroke, he should have had a little bit of sense knocked into him and would now pull his thumb out.

I waved to the Avery contingent. There was Trenda and Simon, with her sisters Evie, Zoe, Maddie and even Piper was here from San Diego. I needed to get over there before the evening was over and visit.

Kai moved us over to a table where Roberta was sitting with her husband and four boys. Forrest was the top student in my math class. He had shocked himself and his parents. When I had looked at his record in math it had been all D’s and C’s. My guess was nobody had ever challenged him in the past. The kid was a whiz.

“Hi, Ms. Jones. Do you want my seat?” Forrest asked as he stood up.

Kai gave me a hidden wink and I stifled a giggle.

“That’s okay, Forrest, there’s plenty of room,” Roberta said. I noticed that Kai sat between me and Forrest, which made me want to giggle even more.

“Any word on how the lawsuit is going?” Roberta asked.

I shook my head. That was Jasper Creek. Everybody knew everything, and nobody was afraid to ask.

“I won,” I smiled. “Principal Sykes was forced to offer me back my job.”

Roberta looked stunned.

“It’s okay, Ro. She’s not taking it. She’s taking a payout for wrongful termination instead. Ms. Jones is staying right here and continuing to teach at Jasper Creek High.”