Contents
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE You'll Love Living In A Small Town
CHAPTER TWO Mr. Golden Eyes
CHAPTER THREE I Like The Sound Of That
CHAPTER FOUR The House Is Haunted
CHAPTER FIVE I'll Get Him Back One Day
CHAPTER SIX The Date
CHAPTER SEVEN A Do Over
CHAPTER EIGHT More Than Fine
CHAPTER NINE Battle of the Wills
CHAPTER TEN Peacekeeper
CHAPTER ELEVEN Time To Choose
CHAPTER TWELVE Life Goes On
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Places To Go And People To See
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Deja Vu
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Need New Socks
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Piece Of Cake
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Keep In Touch
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Copyright Information
To the friends who listen to me talk about the characters in my head and act like they can see them too: Thank you.
To the readers who chat with me via email and Facebook: I treasure our conversations.
To my husband: Thank you for being my best friend.
CHAPTER ONE
You'll Love Living In A Small Town
“You’ll love living in a small town,” Paul Sanders promised his younger sister Lacey.
He followed it with, “It’s like the programs we watched on television when we were kids.” After years of hints, suggestions, and outright challenges, Lacey had finally agreed to give Three Creeks a try.
And, she was happy to admit that he was right. Three Creeks, Montana was the enlarged version of the images people used on puzzles. It had a main street lined with small businesses; a city hall located in a large red brick building in the center of town; and a large park with a picturesque white gazebo that was surrounded by mature trees. The town was named after the three different creeks that met in various areas on the outskirts of the town.
Just as the scenery in and around Three Creeks was beautiful, the people were equally amazing. It took a while for Lacey to figure out that when people waved, they were greeting her. At first, when it happened, she checked to see if they directed the friendly gesture to someone behind her.
On this sunny Saturday afternoon, most of the town had converged in the high school gym to recognize the success of roughly thirty high school seniors. Balloons people stashed with congratulatory greetings decorated the edge of the high school gym swayed with just as much enthusiasm as the room full of well-wishers. The edges of the rows of chairs were decorated with black and red streamers. In the chairs, well-wishers attentively watched the final moments of the high school experience.
Other than the small class size, the graduation ceremony followed the typical routine. There was a guest speaker followed by the valedictorian. During the reading of the scholarships awarded the soon to be college students, Lacey clapped with pride. They announced that her niece, Noelle, had acquired a little more than fifty-two thousand dollars in scholarships.
There was just enough activity to make them forget that they had already sat in the same space for roughly forty-five minutes. Right when the small children were getting restless, and the older friends and relatives were beginning to notice their joints getting stiff, a montage of photos that captured their school experience signaled nearing the end of the program. People laughed, cried and commented on the memories.
Lacey who loved her life before moving to Three Creeks felt pangs of wistfulness. She wished she belonged to a community like this. With the population being so small, everyone mattered, and their endeavors were acknowledged accordingly. When the graduating class of 2017 gleefully flung their caps into the air, the people who supported them clapped, hooted, and hollered in celebration.
Before the graduates went off to face the world, they had one last celebration. Parents and teachers stood behind tables lined in a row and offered a variety of choices of cakes baked by the local baker. Lacey was talking to Noelle about the irony of their situation. Her niece by marriage was eager to leave her small-town roots, and Lacey was making Three Creeks her home.
She was so engrossed in the conversation that she didn’t see the person behind her reach for a fork at the same time as her. As her fingers touched the fork a strong hand came down on top of hers. The touch lasted for less than a second. However, it was long enough to send a spark that began at Lacey’s fingertip and shot straight to her heart. It was as though someone briefly turned on a light switch. She turned to apologize to the person behind her and saw the most amazing golden-brown eyes. It looked like a band of gold circled the light brown irises. At a loss for words, Lacey mumbled her apology and hurried to get away from the situation. She felt the eyes on her and turned to get one last look at them. The man offered her one quick smile and having got what he went there for, left the line. With each step further into the crowd, Lacey felt the light from the spark dim. She sighed in admiration and allowed herself to be pulled into the world as it was before she met him.
CHAPTER TWO
Mr. Golden Eyes
“You chose the perfect time to move here.” Gracie, Paul’s wife, handed Lacey a crock pot full of little smokies that had been cooking in a barbecue sauce all morning. “And, I’m not just saying that so I can put you to work.”
The bowl of potato salad in Gracie’s arms was large enough to feed a small army. Even if the entire army ate until they were full, they’d most likely have left overs. In addition to potato salad, they had a macaroni salad, baked beans, a jello salad, and fruit platters that had almost every color of the rainbow in them. After she had set the potato salad on the table, Gracie took the crock pot of smokies and placed it between a crock pot of miniature meatballs and another crockpot that had a spinach cheese dip. The two of them had spent the better part of two days preparing food for a gathering that would most likely number in the hundreds.
“People pop in, chat for a bit, and go on to the next party,” Gracie explained while smoothing a hair on her temple. The waves seemed to have given into the excitement and tried escaping the well-groomed look her sister-in-law favored. Keeping in line with the conversation, she continued her explanation of the events to come. “We’ll have plenty of burgers and dogs. Depending on how many other parties they’ve been to before they get to ours, our guests might just want to graze on finger foods.”
For Gracie’s sake, Lacey hoped the wide array of food was necessary. As though her sister-in-law read her mind, she added, “Worst case scenario, we can have the football team for lunch next week.” There was so much food, even after the football team came through there was the possibility that Gracie and Paul had the chance to practice creative meal making with the excess hamburgers.
With the distraction of making sure the stacks of plates and cups were full, Lacey hadn’t noticed a lot of people had come through the food line. Noelle, Gracie, and Paul bounced from table to table greeting whoever stopped for a visit. From the safety of the food table, Lacey admired the warmth on their faces when they spoke to people. At one point in the day, Lacey caught herself thinking, “These people genuinely like each other."
She also found new admiration for Gracie’s ability to plan. The second batch of salads was on the table, and the cookies had thinned enough to be consolidated into one plate. The actual number of people who stopped by didn’t register until she’d gone through the third package of paper plates. They had easily fed close to one hundred and fifty people.
Lacey noticed they were running low on fruit. The behavior pattern Gracie predicted earlier proved to be true. Toward the end of the evening, people had eaten so much at the parties be
fore this one they were snacking on the finger foods. Rather than disturb Gracie who was in the middle of an animated conversation with Noelle and some of her friends, Lacey made her way to the house to grab another tray of fruit.
Nobody seemed to notice her leaving which was a slight relief to Lacey. She had been peopled to her limit. If someone were to point at a person and say what do you know about them, she could retell their life story. But, if they were to ask the person’s name, she was at a loss for words. When things got to this point, she made it a habit of going into the world inside her head and cataloging what she did remember. On the way back to the tables, she made a list and checked it off. Kent works at the hardware store. Zach is the police officer that works with Paul. Mary teaches high school in the town thirty minutes away. Lacey pat herself on the back for the list of names she was able to recall.
At the peak of self-satisfaction, she heard, “Watch out!” But it was too little too late. She didn’t know what to watch out for, nor the direction to move to avoid it. Not that it would have mattered because she was in the middle of a collision course with Barkley, the neighbor’s Saint Bernard. He nipped her left hip and continued chasing after another neighbor’s cat.
Why she was so determined to save a platter of fruit was beyond her ability to argue with the logic. But she was. Lacey grasped the platter and wobbled into the most unceremonious fall ever recorded in Sander’s family history. Even worse, through her mind’s eye, she saw the sequence of events occur in slow motion. First came the wobble. Then the overcorrection in the movement which was followed by a series of overcorrections. When her body finally surrendered to the law of gravity, everything returned to normal speed, and she fell with such force the fruit escaped from the confines of the plastic wrap. The fall was hard enough to send sliced watermelon, kiwi, pineapple and melons into the air. They eventually complied with the natural course of action and like tiny missiles landed on top of her.
By the time she lifted herself up with her elbows, Gracie and Noelle were at her side fussing over her.
“Are you okay?”
“Colton Hughes, you need to get control of your dog.”
Lacey didn’t know which was worse, the attention from her sister-in-law or her brother’s poorly veiled attempt to hide his laughter. Paul had his back to them with his face turned upward to stifle the laughter. It was the same thing she had seen when they were growing up and she got in trouble for something he did.
“It’s my brother’s dog. I’m dog sitting while he’s on his honeymoon.” Lacey’s eyes followed the sound of the voice until she found the person that went along with it. When she found it, she didn’t know whether to faint from joy or die from horror. The voice belonged to the one and only Mr. Golden Eyes.
CHAPTER THREE
I Like The Sound Of That
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” Mr. Golden Eyes extended his hand for her to shake it.
Lacey held out her hand, felt the stickiness from the fruit, and withdrew it. “Sorry, it’s better if we skipped the handshake.” Instead, she waved at him and tried to slowly back away from the conversation.
She could tell he was conflicted. He alternated glances from her to the direction where the dog had run. “I would love to chat, but I have a runaway dog to find. I’ll come back to talk to you later.” He didn’t wait for her to answer. The man Lacey presumed to be Colton Hughes whistled sharply and hurried away.
When he disappeared completely from her field of vision, Lacey sighed wistfully. She was still staring at the spot where she had last seen him when Gracie brought her back to reality. “You go on and get cleaned up. Noelle and I will take care of this.”
“Are you sure?”
Gracie fished a chunk of melon out of Lacey’s hair and held it out for her to see. “Really, it’s about time to shut down the party anyway.” She spoke louder for emphasis, “Paul and Grady are more than happy to help me get things back in the house.”
Her brother offered no argument or smart comeback. He simply said, “Sure, no problem.” Lacey couldn’t hear what he said to Grady, but the next thing she knew both men had grabbed a platter and an oversized bowl and headed for the house.
Being married to Gracie had changed him. Growing up, Paul didn’t like to help at all. In the short amount of time he’d been with her, he’d transformed into the kind of man that Lacey wished she could find. Paul got into enough trouble to keep things interesting and was quick to apologize if things got out of hand. Whenever Gracie asked for any kind of help, he was quick to respond. It took a while, but her brother Paul grew up to be a man like her father.
Which is how she ended up in Three Creeks. After he had married Gracie who was a single mother with a high school student, Paul moved into her house. Rather than sell his house, he suggested that Lacey move in and remodel it. Instead of paying rent, she’d help him upgrade the house. In one of their conversations over coffee, Gracie told her that he hoped that after Lacey made improvements, she’d like the house too much to want to leave it.
“Let me help clean up the fruit, and then I’ll gladly go home and get showered.” She bent down and picked up pieces of fruit and dropped them into the platter. She crawled around on her hands and knees and returned to the platter when her hands were full.
Jeans and boots that had to have belonged to a man greeted her. Lacey’s eyes traversed the legs, to the waist and went straight to the face that belonged to them. It was none other than Mr. Golden Eyes. He bent down to pick up the platter of fruit.
She couldn’t be certain because the sound of the air leaving her lungs stifled what he was saying. Interpreting the message from the apologetic look on his face, Lacey guessed he said something to the effect of, “I should be the one cleaning this mess.”
Wiping her hands on the front of her shirt, she said, “No harm no foul. It’s all cleaned up now. By the way, do you know anybody that has a guinea pig?”
“A guinea pig?” he echoed her question.
“Yes, they like to eat fruits and vegetables. We could freeze it and make it into pet frozen pops or something else useful.”
As if his eyes weren’t enough to captivate a woman, Lacey thought she died, went to heaven and was talking to some sort of an angel when Mr. Golden Eyes smiled. He answered her question with a slow shake of his head. “I don’t know anyone with a guinea pig.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“But I do need to repay my debt. What if I took you out for dinner? Would that make it easier for you to forgive me for not being as diligent with the dog?”
Red flares went off in her head. “First, I’m not angry with you, so there’s no debt to repay. Second, I don’t know your name. I don’t go anywhere with strangers.”
“Well, let me introduce myself properly. My name is Colton Hughes. I live in the house next door. Nice to meet you.” He shook her hand. “Now that we have the formalities out of the way you can say yes to that dinner invitation.”
“Just because I know your name doesn’t mean I know you.”
“Do you have a boyfriend, husband, significant other? I suppose I should have asked those questions first.”
“No, I am not attached to anyone at the present time.”
“Paul! Can you tell your sister that it’s okay to go out to dinner with me? She seems to think we’re strangers.”
Her brother and Grady joined the conversation. “When are you planning on going?” Paul asked.
“How’s next Friday sound?” Colton answered.
Paul called out to Gracie, “Do we have anything we’re supposed to be doing next Friday?”
She peeked her head out from the kitchen window. “Not that I can recall.”
“Good, we’re going to dinner with Paul and Lacey.”
“Aww, that’ll be nice. Can we go to the Prairie House? We haven’t been there in a while,” Gracie asked and then added, “Or is it too pricey for a first date?”
“We’re marri
ed,” Paul flirted with his wife.
“I meant for Colton and Lacey,” Gracie sassed playfully.
It was time for Lacey to speak up. Her brother was supposed to help her out of the date. Instead, he was one step short of telling her what she was going to eat. “I never said I was going to dinner.”
“What else are you going to do?”
His question caught her off guard. She had been in town for a little more than two weeks. She didn’t know what she was doing from one day to the next, let alone what she was doing next weekend. “I don’t know?”
Paul spoke to Lacey first, “There you have it.” He addressed Colton, “How’s seven sound?”
“It works for me.” Colton flashed Lacey a grin and said, “I’ll see you then.” He strolled in the direction of his house leaving Lacey to stand there stunned.
“Why did you do that?”
Her brother responded with the oblivious “What?”
“You were supposed to say I couldn’t go out on a date.”
“That’s not going to happen. I need you to get a boyfriend, so you’ll decide to stick around for a while.”
“Are you serious?”
“I sure am.” The smug smile on Paul’s face was more than Lacey wanted to handle.
She harrumphed and growled, “I’m going home.”
Instead of saying something like “Aww don’t be mad,” Paul called out behind her. “I like the sound of that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The House Is Haunted
After ten minutes of being under the warm water, Lacey started feeling like a normal person. A shower was exactly what she needed to right her world that had been tipped by none other than Mr. Golden Eyes. She was used to finding men attractive and liking them from afar. Usually, the routine went something in the manner of her finding him attractive; him thinking she was a sweet person, and then growing bored with her. That was the story of her life. The whole idea of one of them asking her on a date was more than her mind allowed her to process. It didn’t help that her mind was obsessed with one topic: the attractive man whose touch set off a world of emotions. The entire package, the eyes, the smile, the smooth voice, brought an irrepressible smile to her face.
Piece of Cake: Small Town Stories Novella #1 Page 1