Jason said, “but we’ve finished our drinks and should probably head back to your place.”
The coach looked crestfallen. “You haven’t danced with anybody yet.”
“Hank, I appreciate the thought, but there’s already a female in my life whom I love with my whole heart.” In the past year and a half, Emily had been abandoned by her mother and moved to a new town, where she’d lost yet another maternal figure when Gran died in her sleep. His daughter needed time for her life to stabilize—his starting to date probably wasn’t the best way to achieve that.
“A female?” Hank was a good man, but subtlety was lost on him. He squinted at Jason in confusion. “You don’t mean your ex? ‘Cause I thought that was done.”
“It is. Completely.” Jason had worked his way through the initial denial and shock of Isobel’s departure to subsequent fury and eventual, faintly pitying, acceptance. He had no desire to pick at that particular emotional scab. “But just because I’m over her doesn’t mean I’m eager to start the search for the future Mrs. McDeere.”
“Okay, okay.” The other man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Had to try, though. I promised the wife. No hard feelings?”
“No, of c—” Jason stared past the coach’s shoulder, meeting a pair of wide jade eyes. Logically, he knew he couldn’t make out the woman’s eye color from several yards away, but he’d seen her around town plenty of times. His memory automatically filled in the visual details that were fuzzy from this distance, as well as her name: Veronica Carter. Perhaps she’d merely been looking around, just as he had, and their gazes colliding was coincidence. But there seemed to be something in her expression—
A laughing couple wandered into his line of sight, blocking Veronica, and he blinked, feeling foolish.
“McDeere?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I just remembered something I needed to take care of Monday.”
“Really? ’Cause it was more like you were staring at someone.” Hank glanced over his shoulder, trying to confirm his suspicion.
“So, are we ready to leave?” Jason asked.
“I guess.” But Hank wasn’t completely diverted. “You sure you weren’t looking at someone?”
Jason had never been good at lying outright. “Like who?”
His friend shrugged. “Dunno…but if there is someone who’s caught your interest, I’ll hear about it soon enough. One thing you’ll learn about Joyous if you haven’t already, it’s damn near impossible to keep a secret here.”
Chapter Two
“Mornin’, darlin’.”
Ronnie glanced up from the Monday paper she was scanning at the table and smiled as Wayne Carter came down the stairs into the kitchen. “Hey, Daddy.”
“What’s on the breakfast menu this morning?”
“Cereal.” She pointed to the bowl and spoon she’d pulled out for him. “It’s the one thing I’m guaranteed not to burn.”
He paused behind her, ruffling her hair. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’ve blossomed into a fair cook.”
Well, she hadn’t sent anyone to Doc Caldwell with food poisoning, so she guessed that was something.
She could hold her own with prepackaged meals and brownies made from a mix, but she couldn’t duplicate the efforts of Sue Carter, who used to can her own jellies, made noodles from scratch for her soup and never once served a store-bought dessert until after her cancer diagnosis. One day, a few weeks after her mother’s funeral, Ronnie had stood inside the walk-in pantry sobbing at the realization that they were about to open the last of mama’s blackberry preserves and that there would never be any more.
The sounds of her dad’s chair scraping on the tile and subsequent rustling of cereal into a ceramic bowl dragged Ronnie back to the present. She blinked against the phantom sting of long-ago tears.
Wayne nodded toward the paper. “You done with the sports page?”
“You can have the whole thing.”
The Journal-Report was folded in half, open to the classified section. Her dad glanced down, then back at her.
“I was, ah, looking for good deals on furniture I could restore.”
“For the new place.” To give him credit, he tried to sound happy for her. But there was no mistaking the shadow that passed over his expression. “It’ll sure be lonely with you gone.”
She rose, carrying her empty bowl to the sink. “You’ll still have Dev.”
Before Ronnie was born, Wayne and Sue had bought the converted farmhouse in which she’d lived her entire life. Though the surrounding acreage that comprised the original farm had been sold off in parcels to local families, the old bunkhouse sat at the back of Wayne’s property. Devin had fixed it up and moved in, paying a nominal rent each month. Half the time, he joined them for dinner.
Or breakfast, if he hadn’t entertained an overnight guest. At least he has the freedom to have overnight guests. Ronnie glared through the blue-checkered curtains in the direction of her brother’s unseen home.
She rinsed the dishes, wiped her damp palms on the front of her jeans and smiled at her father. “Besides, you’ll see me practically every day, boss.”
He laughed. “True. You probably think I’m being an old fool, don’t you? It’s just…you’re the last little bird to leave the nest.”
Not that Devin had flown far, but she knew what her dad meant. Her brother Will had settled in North Carolina, where he’d gone to college and met his wife. Danny had Kaitlyn and Ashley now. Besides, restless Dev with his odd jobs and fleeting girlfriends sometimes seemed as likely to take off for a distant ranching job in Texas as show up for Sunday dinner. Her brothers, in their individual ways, were all living their lives.
Then there’s me, caught in a time warp.
She worked for her father, lived at home and was so tongue-tied at the thought of asking a cute guy to dance that she might as well still be the awkward, freckled fifteen-year-old who wore her brothers’ hand-me-down T-shirts more often than dresses. Even now, Lola Ann kidded that Ronnie only knew two hairstyles—a ponytail beneath her denim Carter & Sons cap and a ponytail without the hat. Glancing down, she took in the faded George Strait concert shirt she’d tucked into her jeans.
“I think I’ll run and change before heading to the garage,” she said, hearing the rueful note in her own voice.
Her dad paused with a spoonful of shredded wheat halfway to his mouth. “What the heck’s wrong with what you’re wearing?”
For the mechanic who’d be sliding on protective coveralls, anyway? Nothing. For the woman she’d started wondering if she would ever truly become? More than she could possibly articulate.
BY THE TIME JASON APPROACHED the front of the high school, his paper bag from the Sandwich Shoppe in hand, there wasn’t much
