spring. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you to the church on time. Or the funeral home, as the case might be. You know, being late to a funeral is not the worst thing in the world.”
Simon stifled his laugh. It didn’t seem right to find Molly amusing on the day of his father’s wake.
She helped him transfer his luggage from the Hyundai’s trunk to the back of her truck. Then he stood back and watched while Coach Canaday’s only daughter hooked the Sonata up to a heavy chain and then winched it up onto the truck’s flat bed. The woman sure had a way with machinery.
Which didn’t surprise him, actually.
The last time Simon had seen Molly Canaday, she’d been a little kid in overalls, standing on the sidelines with Coach. She never missed a game. She could talk intelligently about football even as a five-year-old.
Simon never attempted a field goal without first patting Molly’s head. Her hair had been short and curly, and he could almost remember how soft it felt under his hands. Her hair was longer now, but it was still almost inky black, and barely contained by the ball cap on her head. He had the sudden desire to paint a portrait of her, with all that glorious hair undone and falling like a curly black waterfall to her shoulders.
“It’s going to be tomorrow before we can figure out what’s going on with the car. So I’ll drop you by the funeral home. I’m sure Rob or Ryan Polk or one of their kids can give you a lift home from there.” Molly’s words pulled him back from his artistic flight of fancy.
He climbed into the passenger seat and checked his watch.
“So, I guess you’re just counting the hours until you can leave again? Paradise is calling, huh?”
He kept his gaze fastened to the cotton fields that whizzed past as she pulled the truck onto the road and headed into town. He saw no point in responding to her question. She had summed up the truth. He needed to get back home and back to work, especially since the work had not been going very well lately.
The fields eventually gave way to houses with big yards. Then the Last Chance water tower, painted to resemble a tiger-striped watermelon, came into view on the horizon.
It was a familiar view, frozen in his memory. And yet, nothing was quite the same as he remembered it. A large commercial building with a big parking lot occupied what had once been cotton fields just north of town. A big sign at the gates of the facility said deBracy Ltd. Not too far away, another parcel of land was being developed into new single-family homes.
Last Chance didn’t look gray and used up, as he’d remembered it. There were bright awnings over some of the shops. Pedestrians hurried about their business on the sidewalks. The Kismet, the old movie theater, was covered in a scaffold where workers were repainting it. The place looked alive.
He wasn’t prepared for the emotion that gripped him. It wasn’t nostalgia. He’d buried a piece of himself here when he’d run away from home and the promise he’d made to his mother. He’d never planned on coming back and unearthing it. But here it was, stuck in his throat.
For all the pain he’d suffered here, Last Chance would always be home.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Hope Ramsay
Dear Reader,
I have three brothers and no sisters. So when I was young, I read a lot of “boy” books—mostly having to do with space travel. When I reached the ripe age of thirteen, my aunt decided I needed to have my horizons broadened. She put three “girly” books in my hand: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Little Women. Need I say more?
I was hooked the moment I read the immortal line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Holy moly, I had no idea what I was missing!
So it’s not surprising that I turned to these favorite books when I decided to write a series featuring members of the Last Chance Book Club.
In the first book in this series, LAST CHANCE BOOK CLUB, the ladies of the club decide to read Pride and Prejudice. And before long some of them are finding some interesting similarities between the book and their lives.
In the beginning of my story, the hero and heroine dislike