and see how much you get for him. I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for a night with him.” She doubted the present company was aware she’d had a night with Taylor’s Grove’s most eligible bachelor fourteen years ago, shortly after she and her friend Maggie Wells had started the hair salon in Paducah, Kentucky—just outside of Taylor’s Grove.
Maggie, a Taylor’s Grove native, had introduced Emmy to her friend—handsome and oh-so-sexy Sol Beecher. Three dates in, they’d ended up in bed, and he’d never called again. She could still feel the sting if she thought about it...which she didn’t.
But Audrey’s and Bree’s husbands, Mark and Kale, were Sol’s best friends. And Kale and his dad had just purchased the local marina from Sol at a hefty price if word on the street was correct. Emmy could sense a lecture coming on from Bree about her teasing of Sol.
Bree squinted as if trying to remember something difficult to recall. “He’s different than he used to be in high school. He was Mr. Popular then. Outgoing...fun. Of course, he chased anything that wore a skirt.”
“Until it came off...um... I’ll bet.” Emmy covered her slip of the tongue.
“Something happened in Afghanistan.” Audrey stared into her drink as if the answer could be found there. “He came home with that limp—”
“Caused by the weight of that chip on his shoulder,” EmmyLou interjected.
Audrey leaned back and crossed her arms, tilting her head and turning a studious eye Emmy’s direction. “I’ve never heard you come down on anybody the way you do him. What’s he done to you?”
Emmy had said too much, so she pulled out her humor to cover, like always. “I’m just wondering how long I’d have to bang that shell with these hammers—” she put a hand on the outside of each breast and pushed, making her generous cleavage mound up even closer to her chin “—before it would finally crack.”
“You’re cracked.” Audrey’s giggle was a bit too loud, and Bree laughed around a yawn, both signals it was time to go home.
But Emmy couldn’t let the subject of Sol Beecher go without a last dig. “Now that Mr. Beecher’s come into a right good sum of money, it’ll be interesting to see how much he’ll pony up for good ol’ Taylor’s Grove Elementary.”
She raised her beer in the air, loudly da-dumming her way through a college football fight song she’d picked up somewhere.
* * *
“IT’S SMALL COMPARED to your grandparents’ old place, Sol. I mean...tiny. After living in that big, rambling house, wouldn’t you feel cooped up in a space like this?” Regina Dallas wrinkled her nose as she glanced around the modest two-bedroom she’d put at the end of the list of properties to show him today.
Sol leaned on the kitchen counter and gazed out the window into the backyard, pretending to ponder her question. What he really did was get the weight off his leg so he could answer without gritting his teeth. “It’s more like what I’m looking for, although I can’t convince you of that.”
He’d allowed the friend of the family, a real estate agent, to drag his ass in and out of houses for the past three days and was frustrated with her choices. Anybody else he would’ve fired for not listening to him after the first two showings.
Behind him, Regina gave a motherly sigh. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to downsize at your age. One of these days, you’ll get married...have kids...”
Sol ignored how her words made him feel like he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule.
“And then you’ll wish you’d taken the money from the marina and fixed up the old home place.”
The fact that she was thinking about him personally and not the money she would make in a business transaction softened his response. He didn’t growl back that a wife and kids weren’t in his future. Instead, he shrugged. “Maybe. But for now, downsizing to something more manageable seems the smartest move.” He still faced the window, but he was certain her eyes had dropped to his bad leg.
Everybody’s did.
Managing anything very long with this damn bad leg was a struggle, but keeping the secret all these years that it was a prosthesis was even harder.
The pity he saw in people’s eyes now made him want to spit. Being thought of as an amputee would have been more than he was able to bear.
He swiveled around to face her using the spin technique he’d perfected. “Washer and dryer hookups?”
“Basement.”
He nodded like that was no big deal rather than acknowledging it as a definite no. Stairs were a problem with both hands free—impossible with a laundry basket. He’d been forced to turn the formal dining room in his current house into a makeshift bedroom. Oh, he was definitely capable of getting up the steps to bed. But the thought of trying to get out in the event of a fire would have kept him awake.
“This leads to the garage.” Regina headed toward the door at the west end of the kitchen, and Sol followed. When they stepped through the opening, the sight of the small garage almost made him smile with relief. He’d found his reason to decline this house without admitting that the basement laundry was the real problem.
“I need at least a two-car garage for the car and boat. Preferably a three. I’d like to garage the truck, too.”
Regina rolled her eyes and made a noise he recognized as annoyance. “One bedroom, one bath, a three-car garage on several acres. You’re asking for something that doesn’t exist. At least not around Taylor’s Grove.”
“Just keep looking, okay?” He hit the button that raised the overhead door. “Give me a call when you find something.” He made his exit, leaving lockup duties to Regina.
Since selling the marina, he didn’t have a whole lot pressing on him these days. Finding a job would be a necessity come fall—mentally if not financially. Sitting around doing nothing wasn’t an idea he relished. But he was treating himself to this one summer off. He’d never had one, even as a kid. Summers were a time to work from sunup to sundown when you owned a marina.
The next four months were his. He would fish Kentucky Lake and swim in the warm water after dark when nobody could see him. He knew that was dangerous, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. Hell, he might live even more dangerously and give up these damn blue jeans for a pair of shorts every now and then. Sit in the backyard in the sunshine. Get a little bit of a tan on his pasty white leg...and the pasty white stump alongside it.
Maybe a tan would help him remember the bronzed kid with the great physique who had girls hanging all over him...help him remember a time when he wasn’t a pitiful freak.
“Get off the damn pity pot,” he admonished himself in his rearview mirror as he arrived in Taylor’s Grove. “Some never made it back at all.”
The circular park at the center of town was the local gathering spot. Today a small crowd had gathered in a knot around what looked to be a lemonade stand.
Sol would’ve preferred to drive by without having to interact, but his friend Mark Dublin’s wife, Audrey, and her daughter, Tess, were working the stand. They spotted him, flagging him down with friendly waves.
