for his father’s heart attack five years ago, he would’ve bought a house in town when he first accepted the teaching job at the community college. A thirty mile, one-way commute every day, mostly traveling a two-lane blacktop, got old.
“Great biscuits, Granny.” He smeared butter between two halves.
Granny beamed. “Emmeline, if the boy buys the house, maybe that’s a signal that he’s ready to find the right woman and settle down. Maybe this time, he’ll do it—house, marriage, then baby.”
His mother brightened. “Grandchildren?”
The ringing telephone interrupted the banter. Silence smothered all conversation. The house rule—no one answered the phone during a family meal. His father always enforced it. Especially after Caroline had started calling whenever his truck was parked in the driveway at his parents’ house. At first, her calls had been pleading, she wanted him back, but when he ignored her, she turned to issuing threats never meant for his mother or grandmother’s ears. It wasn’t that he wanted to purposefully hurt her, he’d just been too hurt by her to care how she felt now. She was none of his business.
After five long rings, the phone turned silent. Papa launched into a joke, a corny one that only an old man could pull off, and everyone laughed.
Caroline. James pushed the pain of the past from his mind. After dinner, Granny and Papa would stay “at the big house” with his parents for a while and listen to his mother play the piano. They’d sing hymns to practice for Sunday services at the Baptist Church. Meanwhile, he’d take Beau for a run down the sandy limestone road to Papa’s and back. Beau needed a workout, and James needed the exercise to clear his head. It was bothersome that a woman he’d met only once had captured his fascination. And that irritated him. After all, a woman in pearls and jeans with high heels shouted pampered and spoiled. Branna had to be the “high-maintenance” type. She’d kept her eyes trained on his boots the whole time, as though he wasn’t good enough somehow. He couldn’t name the color of her eyes, but he expected they would be as hypnotic as she was seductive. Still, the pulsing sensation between them mystified him. He had to shake it off.
A run with Beau would do him good. Afterward, he’d join the family, listen to his mother play...and begin to plan his future.
One without Caroline or baby Katie.
Chapter 3
The phone rang in the kitchen.
Branna jiggled the key in the door lock, praying it would turn the first time. She shifted the grocery bags in her arms when the lock wouldn’t open.
“I’m coming!” Lowering the bags on her right arm to the ground, she jiggled the key harder. The ringing continued.
“I said, I’m coming!”
When the lock finally turned, the door opened, and she tripped across the threshold, barely staying upright. Her sunglasses slid down her nose. She grabbed for the phone.
“Yes?” she said, then set the three bags hanging from her wrist on the counter and shook out the pain in her hand.
“You must come. I won’t take no for an answer.”
Why did Momma always think that being chipper when issuing a command would make everyone snap-to and do her bidding?
“Momma, I’m sorry. We talked about this already. I can’t make it for Memorial weekend.” She picked up the bag she’d left at the threshold and nudged the door closed with her foot. She hoped that WD-40 in the lock would fix the ingress problem. She pulled the can from the bag and set it on the counter.
“The Mayor has agreed to speak. I hired that blues band you used for that wedding on New Year’s Eve. The Mayor and I decided that the cover charge for the event is a minimum of five-cans-of-food per-person to replenish the food bank. However, I need your help.”
“I know this is your first run at handling a charity Memorial Day picnic, and I’m here for moral support. You can bounce any new ideas off me. But this isn’t your first outing, and I’m sure you’ve got it under control.”
Every day, she’d been on the phone with Momma about one or another function scheduled at Fleur de Lis. Often more than once a day. Her mother had suddenly bumped the charity-hosting schedule from one big event a year—the Valentine Auction and Valentine’s Day Dance—to three, with under a month before the date of the first new one. Which meant flyers and invitations needed to be designed, printed, and then