Look Before You Jump Read Online Free PDF Page B

each
service. It acted kinda like a cattle holding pen with a trough of
refreshments. When you’re talking about a room that seats ten
thousand and three different services, you’ve gotta have some place
to safely direct the incoming and outgoing stampede.
    At first I suspected Janine’s quick
maneuverings were to avoid the coming very public verbal flogging
by one Mrs. De’Laruse because we were late. But when I saw the
shock of blond hovering above the cookie crowd, I knew the ulterior
motive wasn’t for her benefit.
    I wish I was as thoughtful as my bestie.
    The passage of eleven years had been oh so
very kind to Bobby – I mean, Pastor Bobby. Pastor Robert Vernet.
The tall scrawny star of the Christian Bible Fellowship High
School’s state championship basketball team had grown nicely into
his six-foot-six frame. Broad man-shoulders towered over most, his
genuine smile lighting up the room like the star on top of a
Christmas tree – and that’s considering a Texas-sized tree like my
mom always liked. Bobby definitely had Texas-sized down pat – in
every way imaginable.
    Believe me. Visions of F-150s danced in my
hell-bent head.
    “You wanna bib?” Janine asked, disrupting my
precious memories.
    “Huh?”
    “You know, to soak up all that drool.”
    Lord, I was going straight to Hell. Here I’d
come all this way to make amends for the past, and all I wanted to
do right then was repeat it. Bad girl. Bad, bad…
    “Vicki!”
    “What?”
    “You’re in church, remember?” Janine
reminded.
    “Right,” I muttered.
    In church, surrounded by the gossiping
gaggle, members of the pastoral staff, and my first summer fling –
who was now a pastor as well. Married. Had a child on the way. I
mentally slapped myself and followed the welcoming committee
forward toward the prize.
    I mean pastor. Followed them toward the
pastor.
    Janine snickered like she had a front row
seat to my mental musings and rolled her eyes. I gave her my best
evil eye and got my ribs poked in the process. I was almost
twenty-six, not fifteen.
    “My, my, my. Who do we have here?”
    It didn’t require turning around to recognize
that voice. It sent chalkboard chills down my spine and got my
hackles up before Janine could say bitch-alert . Kansas has
the Wicked Witch of the West. Texas has Lorraine Padget, all
five-foot ten-inches – counting her hair – of a former Miss Texas
runner-up who clawed her way under the crown when some scandalous
pictures and videos involving the original winner came to
light.
    In some parts, that would’ve thrust the real
winner to instant stardom. Here in the south though, we still want
our beauty queens to be prim, proper, and pure. Or in Lorraine’s
case to at least have the smarts not to get caught with
photographic evidence.
    Did I mention she was also the
on-again-off-again high school girlfriend of one Bobby Vernet? AKA
the senior pastor’s kid. AKA the new children’s pastor. AKA my
virginity stealer – though it’s a well-documented fact I gave it
willingly.
    After her half-year stint as the Miss Texas
title holder – albeit too late for the Miss America pageant, thank
God – Lorraine went on to become a journalist. With her newfound
notoriety, she slept her way into a local co-anchor position and
recently landed an older, but rich, fish. All techniques learned
from her mother, I imagine.
    She’s also the daughter of one of my dad’s
many conquests. Yup, Saturday night sleepovers with Lisa.
    “Lorraine Padget,” I said, turning around and
pasting on a matching too big grin.
    “As I live and breathe.” The plaster coating
of make-up on Lorraine’s face threatened to splinter and crack
around the Botox smile. “I always had faith you’d leave behind your
harlotry ways and return to the fold. Glory hallelujah!”
    Takes one to know one, but I wasn’t about to
give Lorraine the pleasure of acknowledging the harlotry
comment.
    “Just here to say hi to an old friend,” I
said before