by JoAnna Grace
“This is why I love you,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “Our life will never be dull.”
BO HAD EVERYTHING READY. He’d been planning this night with Duane and Nan for months now. Everything was in place. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck and his palms were clammy. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, but it only made him dizzy.
Bear’s was decked out with St. Patrick’s Day themed décor, except for one portion of the restaurant area decorated for Tina’s birthday.
Their friends and family were gathered to celebrate not only her, but the reopening of Foster’s Construction in the warehouse. It was truly a big night for all and especially for him.
He hid his nervousness through the toasts and through dinner. But Bear was about to bring out the cake and Bo was about to shake his skin loose. Nan found his gaze and winked at him, reminding him this was the right thing.
Duane, who must’ve sensed Bo’s nervousness, stood and quieted everyone down. “Tonight we celebrate the re-opening of the cannery and the birthday of my incredible daughter.” Everyone cheered and Tina blushed, her smile beaming from ear to ear. “In honor of both, a young man I have come to know and love like a son, has a special gift he would like to present. Bo?” Duane lifted his beer.
Taking one more deep breath, Bo stood and walked over to the corner of the room, where a sheet covered his first gift to Tina. “Foster Construction has been a place of refuge for me in the last year. Duane and Tina are good people to work for and good friends to have by your side.”
Jason held up his beer and yelled, “Hear, hear!”, inciting many others to do the same.
Bo chuckled and put his hand on the sheet. “I’d like to give you guys a token of my appreciation.” He pulled the white sheet off of the statue. It was almost like being naked in public.
Underneath was a four-foot-long sculpture he’d been working on for months. One hand, on the left, was palm up and open, giving a flowing stream of water to another hand on the right.
“The word ‘foster’ means to encourage growth and development or to bring up. This is what Duane and Tina do in their business and their personal lives. They openly give of themselves so that others may receive.”
Everyone cheered as Tina and Duane stood to examine his artwork. Tina’s mouth hung open, Duane shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Spectacular,” he said. “Just spectacular, son.” Duane shook his hand and pulled him in to clap him on the back.
Bo blew out a breath as Duane gave him a head nod. He knew what Bo was about to do, and moved out of the way.
“If everyone will indulge me one more moment,” Bo said over the oohs and aahs. Bo took Tina by the hand and looked her right in those big blue eyes that had captured his heart from the beginning. She raised a brow and glanced out at everyone who was anxiously awaiting what Bo had to say. “It’s been almost a year since I walked through the doors of Foster Construction, hoping and praying for a second chance at life. You and your father gave me that chance and so much more. Whether you knew it or not, you owned a piece of me from that moment on. As the weeks went on, I came to admire you as a leader, as a boss, and as a woman.”
“Bo.” Tina gasped, the light bulb pinging to life above her head. Moisture filled her eyes and she gripped his hands so hard he almost lost his train of thought. She bit down on her quivering bottom lip.
“You are the most inspirational woman I’ve ever met, Tina. I’ll happily follow you for the rest of my days, if it means we get to travel this life together.” Bo knelt in front of her on one knee and reached into his pocket to pull out a black velvet box. “More than that, I promise to lead you as your husband, your friend, and always strive to be your hero.”
Tina covered her mouth with her hands, her tears now overflowing.
“Tina Foster, will you do me the greatest honor and marry me?” Bo opened the box, his heart stuck in his chest, awaiting her answer. He couldn’t breathe. His hands shook as he held out the ring and offered his heart.
Tina’s chin quivered so much he almost didn’t hear her whisper, “Yes.”
Bo let out the breath he’d been holding and rose to slide the gold ring on her finger. Tina jumped into his arms and he twirled her around. Happiness and cheers vibrated the room, and the entire restaurant erupted into one big party. Bear cranked up the music as a waitress handed out shots.
Tina wiped off her face and met his gaze. “You really want to marry me?” She smiled through her tears.
“Sure do, with one stipulation.”
“What’s that, Mr. Galloway?” Tina tiptoed up and put her arms around his neck.
He rested his hands on her hips. “When we argue, you can’t be within reach of a nail gun.”
Tina threw her head back laughing and then jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. She planted a kiss on him, right there in front of half the town.
Bo had never been happier than that moment in Riverview, Texas, at Bear’s Grill and Bar, surrounded by his friends and family, and holding the woman he was going to marry. He was home in every way.
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If you love the Riverview world, enjoy this free chapter and check out another peek of the Riverview world by Caleb Pirtle, III!!
The Back Side of a Blue Moon by Caleb Pirtle, III
Blue Moon 1
DOC MILLER WAS AN illusion. Waskom Brown had him pegged a long time ago. But then, Waskom Brown was the only daddy Doc ever had, and Doc was twenty-five years old before he crossed paths with old Waskom in a Carreyville house of ill repute, and Doc would be dead as hell if Waskom hadn’t come along when he did.
A man peddling doodlebugs to farmers – who prayed for oil now that the water had dried up – needed a partner if only to drive the getaway car, and getaway cars were not always plentiful when the doodlebug exploded and sprayed sand instead of oil across the stunted cotton stalks. If that old black doodlebug box, filled with wires, dials, lights, buzzers and whistles, could have found oil, then Doc would have been a rich man instead of a wanted man, and those who wanted him usually wanted to kill him. They had buried a lot of his doodlebugs along the way and were always within an eyelash of burying him.
Instead Doc was on the run, traveling from one con to the next scam, and the back roads could run out pretty fast for a man during the patchwork years of 1936.
A man could find only two things at the bottom of a hole in those days, oil or worms. Doc would have quit looking for the stuff he called black gold, but, by then, he had convinced himself he could find it, if his doodlebug would quit lying to him, and Waskom wasn’t about to tell him any different.
Waskom Brown told folks for years that Doc Miller was not the reflection you saw in a mirror but the man behind the glass staring back at you with eyes that glistened black like the color of his hair. He knew the mysteries of life. He hadn’t solved any of them, but he had created a few. Doc believed what he told you, and even when you didn’t, you hoped his was telling the truth, which meant it hurt nearly as badly when he rode out of town with your wallet, your good name, your reputation, and often your best friend, provided she was under thirty, wore her hair long or short, and had a figure that made the moonbeams blush.
If Doc Miller had been a man of his word, he would have been married twice, once to a cute little blonde barmaid in Amarillo and again to the saucy little redheaded wife of a San Angelo rancher, owned a second-hand dry goods store in downtown Lubbock, or maybe the Pitman’s Corner Airfield on the high plains near Borger, served as mayor of Brownwood, and sung in the chancel choir of the Second
Street Presbyterian Church where the Holy Rollers came on Tuesday nights, when the Presbyterians were playing bingo, to preach against the damnation of sin, shame, degradation, and integration in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Instead, Doc Miller had been jailed twice, convicted once, served two months of hard labor with a jarhead Irishman chained to his leg, been shot at once by a mad little blonde barmaid in New Buffalo, then again by the ranching husband of a saucy little redhead in San Angelo, been charged with abandonment, accused of embezzling an oilman who drilled dry holes on the high plains, and passed himself off as a genuine, old-fashioned, hellfire and brimstone preacher who brought his own salvation traveling show to the front pews of the Second Street Presbyterian Church in Ardmore, but took the next road out of town the night he introduced the Right Reverend Waskom Brown, whose color was the same as his name. Seems as if God, in his infinite wisdom, did not pour out any Oklahoma salvation over the head and shoulders of an infidel of African persuasion.
There had been no lynch mob.
No rope.
No judge.
No justice.
But Doc did see the thirteenth chapter of Revelation stuffed in the double barrels of a shotgun that Brother Shiloh Evans pulled out of the floorboard of his Ford truck. He that killed by the sword would be killed by the sword. Waskom knew Doc had never killed anybody, but he didn’t think Brother Shiloh was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was dark as the inside of sinner’s heart outside the church, but the lights were blazing inside, and the flickering candles beside the altar kept time with the thirty-second verse of Just As I Am. A gentle wind blew from out of the oaks and drifted across the front steps of the clapboard sanctuary.
Some sang.
Some prayed.
The Widow Agnes Abernathy lifted her eyes to Heaven and whispered, “May the Good Lord have Mercy.”
“On Doc?”
“On us, too.”
“Doc’s the one dying.”
“His sin is on us all.”
She cut her eyes toward Waskom.
Waskom stepped into the shadows.
Brother Shiloh did not ask Doc to repent. He didn’t mention a damn thing about salvation. He just stood there with faded overalls hanging off his sagging shoulders, as lean as a cane pole, with drops of sweat glistening atop his bald head and spittle running down from his chin. He was holding the shotgun softly but not tenderly, staring at Doc as if he didn’t amount to anything more than a stray raccoon hanging off the dying limb of a white oak tree.
“What do you plan on doing with that shotgun?” Doc said. He was quite a sight, dressed in a white suit and black cowboy boots, leaning against the side of a Cadillac V-16 roadster, running a hand through the black curls that fell across his forehead. He was a good head taller than Brother Shiloh, but he didn’t look that tall with a shotgun shifting slowly from his heart to his genitals and somewhere in between. Doc stood his ground and folded his arms in defiance.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” That’s what Brother Shiloh told him.
“You, sir, are not the Lord.”
“I’ve been deputized.”
“God don’t hire hit men.”
“He damn sure does in Ardmore.”
Brother Shiloh was crazy.
Doc knew it.
So did Waskom.
The shotgun was ignorant.
There was no time to pray.
Doc ran.
He didn’t mind facing death.
He had done that before.
Doc had no interest in dying.
He turned the corner of the tabernacle and knocked down a blond-headed, barefoot little boy. Doc grabbed him on the run, lifted him off the ground, dusted off his pants, and jammed his own broad-brimmed hat on the tyke’s head. “Rain’s a coming,” he said. “Crawl under that hat, and you won’t ever get wet.” He sat the boy on the ground while in full stride and never looked back.
He had the Cadillac V-16 Roadster skidding into the gravel street by the time Waskom crawled into the front seat and Brother Shiloh pulled the trigger the second time. Lord, it sounded like thunder, and double ought buckshot fell like a hailstorm on the trunk. It left a ragged scar in the rear window – Brother Shiloh was running down the street, pulling shotgun shells out of his pocket, yelling things about the Good Lord that King James hadn’t covered in Genesis – and Doc had made two left turns, then a sharp right, before he found a highway headed south.
He had that crazy grin on his face.
Waskom had seen it before.
It meant everything was all right.
Everything was fine.
Brother Shiloh may have woke up most of Ardmore, but he had not disturbed the back door of God ‘s funeral parlor nor sent another sinner home.
Doc wiped the wrinkles out of his white jacket. He winked at Waskom.
“What you so happy about?” Waskom asked. It was a growl
“You dead?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Then you ought to be grinning, too.”
“You gonna be the death of me, Doc.”
“Someday, maybe.” Doc laughed out loud. “But not tonight, Waskom.”
The night was black like Henry Ford’s last Ford.
The moon was a ghostly splinter in the sky, hanging onto the tail of a western thunderhead that promised rain but had thus far delivered only fractured streaks of dry lightning.
The corduroy road was narrow but ran gun-barrel straight across the barren, wasted farmlands. Doc waited until he was a good two miles inside the Texas state line before he turned on the headlights.
Only one of them worked.
“They gonna catch us for sure,” Waskom said. His aging voice cracked. “That was a damn fool thing you did, Doc.”
“What’s that?”
“Steal the preacher’s car.”
“A man has his own set of rules.” Doc said. “I’ve got mine.”
“Which rule was this one?”
“Number six.”
“What’s it say?”
“If the Lord can’t help you, help yourself.” Doc shrugged. “And that brings us to rule number fourteen.”
“What would that one be?”
“If you’re in a hurry, and I believe you can agree we were in a hurry, steal the fastest car in the parking lot.”
“They’re gonna put you in jail and hang me.”
“Someday, maybe.” Doc rolled down the car window and let the chill of an April night blow hard against his face. “But not tonight.”
Waskom sat in silence. His face was thick and carved from marble. He said he had been born old and never got any older. A World War I military campaign hat sat on the back of his head, and he was wearing brown jodhpurs, held up by navy blue suspenders. His white shirt was threadbare, and a bandanna hung loose around his neck.
The glow from the headlight, hanging loosely on the right side of the Cadillac, bounced off the road like a splatter of fireflies.
A full moon tumbled out of a cloud, orange and turning white.
The states had changed.
The landscape hadn’t.
Fences were down.
Rolls of barbed wire were as tangled as tumbleweeds.
Houses were abandoned.
Cattle ran loose in the fields.
“Where we headed?” Waskom asked at last.
“I’ll let you know when we run out of gas,” Doc said.
“How much gas we got?”
“Don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Gauge is broke.”
“Maybe it’s empty.”
Doc laughed again. “I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment,” he said.
Waskom laid his head back against the seat and watched the sky through the broken windshield. If a star fell, he thought, it would be a good omen. He was still watching an empty sky when the first promise of daylight appeared atop the distant trees.
The stars gradually disappeared.
> None of them fell.
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JoAnna Grace lives in a world of alpha males and strong females where true love conquers all—at least in her writing! A proud indie, she has published The Divine Chronicles, the Blake Pride Series, and more. Joanna loves paranormal and urban fantasy romance novels. She’s a romantic at heart.
From the time she started holding a crayon she began to create magical worlds. Living in the real world was never an option. JoAnna’s tales are spun at her home in East Texas where she lives with her Prince Charming, three kids, and a couple dogs. When not hiding behind the computer screen chugging coffee, you can find her shopping. singing with the radio, or speaking on behalf of Y&R, a public relations and publishing company.
BOOKS BY JOANNA GRACE
Divine Chronicle Series:
Divine Awakening
Divine Destiny
Divine Judgment
The Divine Chronicles Box Set #1
Divine Encounter
Divine Pursuit (Coming Soon)
The Roles We Play
Blake Pride Series:
Pride Before The Fall
Break Her Fall
The Harder They Fall
Divided We Fall (Coming Soon)
The Riverview Series:
Why The River Runs
Omega Office Romance Series: (Coming Soon)
Crossing The Lines
Blurring The Lines
Erasing The Lines
FIND JOANNA ONLINE
Find JoAnna’s Books online: authorjoannagrace.com or yandrpublishing.com