Small Town Charm

by Carolyn Brown

  Cricket shook her head. “Anna Grace and I have already made a blackberry cobbler and a chocolate cake for dessert, and the vegetables are prepped for supper, so we thought that us girls would go fishing with y’all.”

  “Well, halle-damn-lujah!” Darlene grinned. “I love to fish. Let’s have a contest. If the ladies catch more fish, the guys have to do cleanup after supper. If they bring in a bigger haul than we do, then we’ll do cleanup.”

  Bryce shook his head. “That’s not fair. We’ll be doing the grilling, and that’s half of making the meal.”

  Cricket raised both eyebrows. “And we’ve made dessert and will be making the sides.”

  Darlene took a step over to stand beside Anna Grace and Cricket. “I think they’re afraid we’ll show them up, girls.”

  Cricket liked this woman. She reminded her of Lettie and Nadine twenty years ago. “Losing a fishing contest would be humiliating,” Cricket added, taunting the men.

  “You’re on,” Bryce said. “And we won’t lose. Let’s gather up the equipment. Can we all go in the truck?”

  “Sure.” Cricket grinned. “You guys can have the back of the truck. Just hang on tight. I’m driving, and I could hit a few potholes.”

  “Want some pillows to sit on?” Anna Grace teased.

  “We’re tough.” Tommy gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “I’m just glad that dessert is already made. If you ladies lose the bet, you might burn it, and my sweet tooth would cry if a cobbler was ruined.”

  “I’ll get the keys then and meet y’all at the truck.” Cricket headed into the house. She went straight to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and took out a plastic container. She put it, several bottles of water, and some cookies into her tote bag; grabbed the keys for the truck from the end table; and went back outside.

  The guys were already sitting in the back of the truck, but none of them was brave enough to sit on the tailgate.

  Anna Grace pointed to her bag. “What’s that?”

  “A few cookies in case we get hungry, some water if we get thirsty, and what’s going to help us win this bet,” Cricket answered. “And we are willing to share with the guys. We don’t want them to say they lost the bet because they were so thirsty and hungry that they couldn’t concentrate on their fishing powers.”

  Anna Grace giggled. “I can’t believe I’ve missed out on all this fun for so many years.”

  “Why’s that?” Darlene asked as she got into the truck and slid over to the middle of the bench seat.

  “You’re the smart one,” Cricket said, smiling, as she settled in behind the steering wheel, “but there are no gates between here and the creek.”

  “What does that mean?” Anna Grace asked.

  “It means that the smart farmer always sits in the middle. Then she doesn’t have to get out and open and shut the gates,” Darlene explained. “Now, tell me why you missed out on fishing.”

  “A week ago, I was employed by my father in an oil company,” Anna Grace began and went on to give her a brief explanation of what had happened in the last week, “and Cricket was kind enough to forgive me and hire me, and she’s teaching me to be independent. Today is the first time I’ve ever been fishing. I hope I don’t hold y’all back any and cause you to lose the bet.”

  “You’ll be our ace in the hole. Beginner’s luck will be with you.” Darlene patted her on the knee. “And Cricket, please be careful with the potholes. I would like grandchildren in the near future.”

  Cricket laughed out loud. “Yes, ma’am.” She had always been skeptical of people until she really got to know them, but she really did like Darlene—just like she’d been drawn to Bryce from the first time she met him. She parked under a tree, and a vision flashed through her mind of those kisses she had shared with Bryce a couple of nights ago. A nice rosy glow filled her cheeks, and her pulse jacked up a few notches just thinking about the way his lips on hers had heated her from the inside out.

  “The race is on!” Bryce called out as he and the guys unloaded and carried the fishing rods and tackle boxes to the edge of the creek.

  “I have no idea how to bait a hook,” Anna Grace whispered.

  “I’ll teach you,” Darlene said. “There’s nothing to it. Just think of the worm as a piece of spaghetti. Come to think of it, we could use cooked spaghetti.”

  Cricket opened the truck door. “That’s part of my secret recipe for bait. I brought some along, and we won’t be sharing that with the guys.”

  “Do you share your recipe?” Darlene asked as she and Anna Grace got out on the other side.

  “Not with many people, but I might with you,” Cricket whispered. “Men think that bait has to stink to high heaven. I’m of the opinion that any smell will bring a catfish to see what it is. Let’s see how you like it before you write it down.”

  “Fair enough.” Darlene nodded.

  The guys went upstream twenty yards and sat down on the bank. Cricket took Darlene and Anna Grace downstream about ten yards. “This is a better spot. It’s a little deeper and a little colder, and there’s shade. Catfish like murky waters. If you go follow the creek that way”—she pointed to the west—“the water clears up, and it’s a perfect place to lay out and let the clear water cool you off on a hot day.”

  “Or go skinny-dippin’,” Anna Grace giggled.

  “I remember being young and doing that,” Darlene said.

  Cricket got a visual of Bryce with the clear creek water flowing over his body, and immediately felt her cheeks burning. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, ladies,” she said to get the picture out of her head, “grab a fake worm and put it on your hook.”

  “Are those fettuccine noodles?” Anna Grace asked. “But what’s the smell?”

  “A little cinnamon, some nutmeg, and ginger whipped up in a flour mixture and made into balls, then the noodles are wrapped around them so that when they get into the water, the pasta kind of comes undone and wiggles like live worms,” Cricket answered.

  “Beats the devil out of stink bait.” Darlene grabbed one of the balls, slipped it onto her hook, and tossed her line out into the creek.

  “Okay, here goes,” Anna Grace said when she’d baited her hook. “I watched how y’all did it, so I’m going to give it a try. I hold this button down, and throw, and oh my gosh, I did it! I can’t believe I did it!”

  “Beginner’s luck. It’s going to be with us today,” Darlene assured her.

  Minutes after Anna Grace sat down on the bank, her red and white bobber went under and her line got tight. “What do I do now, Cricket? Help me!”

  Cricket laid her fishing rod down and hurried over to Anna Grace. “You reel it in just a little at a time. Looks like a nice-sized one, but the bigger they are, the harder they fight. Easy now, just a turn or two, and let him think he’s won.”

  “I can’t believe I’m catching a fish,” Anna Grace squealed.

  “It’s not caught until it’s on the bank and on ice,” Darlene reminded her.

  “All right, now a little more,” Cricket said.

  “Tommy, I’m catching a fish!” she yelled.

  “That’s great,” he hollered back. “Need some help?”

  “No, we’ve got it,” Anna Grace answered.

  In another five minutes, they brought the catfish to the bank, and Anna Grace stared at it as if it were made of pure gold. “I can’t believe I caught the first fish.”

  “Now you pick it up like this.” Cricket held it up. “And put it in the cooler on the back of the truck.”

  Anna Grace flinched only once when she took the four-pound catfish by the gills and carried it to the cooler. Cricket was as proud of her as she figured she would be when her first child started kindergarten.

  “She’s doing pretty dang good for a woman who’s never done anything for herself,” Darlene whispered.

  “Love kind of does that for you.” Cricket grinned.

  “Yes, it does.” Darlene nodded.

&nbs
p; Cricket noticed that the woman was staring at Bryce when she said it and wondered what was on her mind. “We should have bet on the greatest number of pounds rather than how many fish.”

  “We’ll win either way,” Darlene said with so much conviction that Cricket believed her.

  By the end of the time they had to fish, both teams were tied with two fish each. Bryce had caught two, and Darlene caught the second one on the girl’s team.

  “Looks like we’ll be sharing the cleanup,” Bryce said as they all piled back into the truck to return to the house. “But we do have enough to grill along with the pork chops you’ve got marinating. Let’s make a deal. We’ll clean the fish and fillet them if y’all will do cleanup.”

  “You got a deal,” Anna Grace said. “I’m not quite ready for the fish-cleaning lesson just yet.”

  “Honey, I’ll always take care of getting the fillets ready, and I’ll be the master of the grill at our house if you’ll always have a dessert ready.” Tommy stopped and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

  “That sounds good to me,” Anna Grace agreed as she climbed into the truck behind Darlene. “That was so much fun. Can we go again soon?”

  “You and Tommy should go together. Take a blanket with you and some beer. If you don’t catch a single fish, you’ll still have fun.” Darlene winked at Cricket.

  Sweet Lord! Had Bryce told her that he and Cricket had gone fishing and wound up making out on a blanket?

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, Bryce knocked on the door of his folks’ RV. “Y’all awake in here?” he asked.

  “Come on in,” his mother said and stood back to let him enter. “We had breakfast burritos. There’s one left. You want it?”

  “You bet I do. I just grabbed a doughnut and a glass of milk.” He felt cramped in the tiny trailer, even when he sat down at the small, booth-type table with his father.

  “We’re going to drive the RV to the church parking lot so we can leave right after services,” his father told him. “I want to know how you really feel about Cricket.”

  “That was blunt,” Bryce said.

  “We like her a lot,” Darlene said. “She speaks her mind, and she’s so much fun to be around. We don’t want to influence you, but she fits right in with our family so much better than your other girlfriends.”

  “I really like her a lot,” Bryce confessed. “I feel like I’ve known her forever, like we grew up next door to each other. I was disappointed when that other opportunity for a small drugstore fell through, but I’m so glad it did because I’ve got Cricket in my life now.”

  “Good enough.” Tim grinned. “Finish up that burrito and let’s go to church.”

  When he’d finished eating, Bryce helped his dad get things unhooked and ready to travel, got into his SUV, and rolled down the window. “Wait for us in the parking lot, and we’ll all go in together,” he said.

  Tim waved in agreement, and Bryce hummed Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” all the way to the farm. When he knocked on the door, Anna Grace answered and motioned for him to come on into the house. “Cricket will be out in a minute. Would you mind if Tommy and I rode with y’all this morning?”

  “Not a bit. Afterwards, let’s all four go down to the café and have Sunday dinner,” Bryce suggested. “I hear that Laura Kay has a chicken and dressin’ special on Sundays.”

  “I’d love that,” Tommy answered for them. “I’ve never eaten at that café, but now that the cat is out of the bag about me and Anna Grace, we can go in there together.”

  “I’m ready,” Cricket said, coming in right at the end of what Tommy was saying. “I broke the strap on my sandal and had to find another pair of shoes. I almost decided to put a toe ring on and go barefoot.”

  Bryce tucked her hand into his and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Anytime you want to do that, let me know, and I’ll do the same.” He led her outside.

  Anna Grace and Tommy headed on out to his SUV and got into the back seat.

  Bryce stopped and said, “Hold up just a minute.”

  “Is something wrong?” Cricket asked.

  “How do you think her old friends are going to react to her decision? This will be the first time she sees them since she moved in with you.” Bryce had something else on his mind, and he knew he was stalling, but he wasn’t quite sure he was ready for her answer.

  “She’s pretty tough,” Cricket said in a low voice. “I think she’ll be fine with whatever comes her way today. I heard you offer to take them to dinner with us. That was so sweet.”

  “I’m a sweet guy,” he said with a smile, “who would be even sweeter if he could tell everyone that Cricket Lawson is his girlfriend.”

  Cricket looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. “Really?”

  “Never been more serious in my whole life,” he said. “I want us to be dating exclusively. I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”

  “Yes!” she squealed. “Yes, I will be your girlfriend, and honey, after spending so much time with you this week, I don’t even want to date anyone else.”

  He picked her up and swung her around until they were both dizzy. “I’m so happy that…” He stopped and kissed her. “There are no words, except that I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Me too,” she said and wrapped her arms around his neck and tiptoed for another kiss. “And I love this feeling.”

  Epilogue

  Several weeks later.

  Good morning,” Anna Grace called out as she came in the back door of the bookstore. “Looks like it’s going to be another hot one.”

  Cricket looked up from her desk. “How was the honeymoon?”

  “It was amazing.” Anna Grace smiled. “Mama called this morning and offered to give me my old job back, and Daddy wants to buy us a house right here in Bloom as a wedding gift.”

  “And?” Cricket’s heart fell to her shoes. She didn’t want Anna Grace to leave the store. If Bryce hadn’t moved in with her the previous week, she would have been super lonely at the farm. Jennie Sue and Rick didn’t pop in as often now that gardening season was over.

  “I told both of them no,” Anna Grace said. “I like it here, and we’ve found an old farmhouse on an acre of ground about halfway between Sweetwater and Bloom that we will be signing a contact on this week. It’s a lease-to-own thing, so that all the rent money goes toward buying it in three years. It will be a great place to raise the six kids we want to have.”

  Instant relief washed over Cricket. “Have you seen the Bloom Weekly News? I picked one up off the newsstand on the way in today.” She flipped the newspaper to the society page and pointed. “Who would have thought we’d get our pictures in the paper in the same week?”

  “Well, would you look at that.” Anna Grace smiled and read the first few lines of the article out loud: “Anna Grace Cramer of Bloom married Thomas Arrington Bluestone of Sweetwater in a private ceremony on the beach at Padre Island. Bluestone’s brother, Harry, served as best man. Cricket Lawson served as her friend’s bridesmaid…

  “I told Mama if she didn’t put it in the paper exactly as I wrote it that she would never see her six grandkids.” Anna Grace laughed. “Besides, by now Lettie and Nadine have already spread the news. Folks just read the paper to be sure those two haven’t lost their touch.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Cricket smiled and flipped the paper around so she could read: “Cricket Lawson and Bryce Walton have announced their engagement. They plan a December wedding right here in Bloom. Bryce is the owner of the Bloom Drug Store, and Cricket is the proprietor of the Sweet Seconds Book Store in Bloom…”

  “One marriage, one engagement. Hopefully, by Christmas next year, there will be two baby announcements,” Anna Grace said.

  “One marriage, one engagement, and one very good friendship that started most of it.” Cricket held up her coffee.

  Anna Grace took a bottle of sweet tea from her purse and clinked it against Cricket’s cup. “May the friendship
last forever!”

  “Amen.” Cricket nodded.

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  Small Town Rumors

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  Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch,

  the first book in the Ryan family series.

  Chapter One

  Honey Grove billed itself as “The Sweetest Town in Texas.” Jesse Ryan certainly hadn’t agreed with that when growing up there, but as he drove back into town, he hoped things had changed in the past twenty years. The morning he had left—a lifetime ago—the sun had been low in the eastern sky. He’d hoped his best friend, Addy, would have at least shown up to wave goodbye, but she hadn’t. Jesse remembered all too well the lump in his throat that morning and the same feeling returned as he drove past the familiar sights in the small town.

  He remembered how his mother, Pearl, had managed to hold back her tears until she had hugged him in front of the Air Force recruiter’s office in Paris, Texas. She had clung to him and wept on his shoulder.

  “Mama, this is no different than if I was going to college,” he had said.

  “It seems different to me.” She’d stepped back and looked at him like it was the last time she’d ever see him. “I love you, son.”

  His father, Sonny, had kept a stiff upper lip, but had shaken his hand firmly. “This has always been your dream. Go make us proud.”

  “Call and write when you can,” Pearl had whispered.

  “I promise I will,” he had managed to get past the baseball-sized lump still in his throat. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “We’ll look forward to that.” Sonny had grabbed him in a fierce hug.

  Jesse had kept his promise and come home when he could, sometimes twice a year, but most of the time just around Thanksgiving so his team members with wives and kids could be with them at Christmas.