All the Luck You Need
A.R. Casella
Laughing Heart Press
Copyright © 2021 by A.R. Casella
Cover: Okay Creations
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Also by A.R. Casella and Denise Grover Swank
About the Author
Chapter One
Dottie Hendrickson had never once questioned what she saw in her tea leaves, until now. She was so baffled by the image she decided to bring the cup out onto her front porch, thinking the brighter light might show her something different. Perhaps it was an hourglass she was seeing in her leaves, warning her of imminent danger, not a heart surrounded by a ring. Maybe they were one and the same. Because Dottie was over sixty, and after almost marrying one bastard and all the way marrying another, she’d promised herself she was through with men.
Only, there had been other signs too. Just yesterday, at the bead store, a small box of pink quartz beads had fallen off a shelf and hit her in the head. And everyone knew pink quartz was the stone of eternal love. Then there were the doves that had perched in the tree outside her kitchen window as she made this cup of tea.
If the signs had shown themselves to anyone else, she would have urged that person to listen, but she carried the cup outside, sucking in a breath when the sun’s warm, honeyed rays only made the image crisper.
“Doris?” she called out, startling her neighbor, who stood on tiptoes on her own porch, trying to get a look over the makeshift fence separating her house from the one going up next door. “Can you come over here, dear?”
Doris approached the porch with pink cheeks, like she expected Dottie to chide her for peeking. Why wouldn’t she look? She was a pretty young thing, with big doe eyes and short black hair, and from the glances Dottie had noticed passing between Doris and the construction foreman—Leonard, the dear man had introduced himself when Dottie brought them cookies and lemonade a couple of days back—they were on the cusp of something beautiful. Maybe they needed a little push toward each other. If so, Dottie was more than willing to do the pushing. Although she might be weary of romance for herself, she considered it a worthy cause for others.
“Dear, I wouldn’t mind one bit if you set up a telescope and watched them all day. No one with eyes would blame you.”
Doris’s blush deepened. “It was just…I heard a noise. I wanted to see what was going on.”
Dottie raised her brows. The noise had been going on for at least an hour. She had a feeling it had more to do with the fact that Leonard’s truck had just driven up. But poor Doris looked so embarrassed, she decided not to press her. There was an art to these things, after all, and Dottie needed more time to feel things out. She had only arrived in Asheville two weeks ago. There hadn’t even been time to paint her gray house a brighter color. She kept vacillating between purple and turquoise.
But that wasn’t what had sent her outside this morning.
“What does this look like to you?” she asked, jutting the cup forward.
Doris scrunched up her nose. “A bunch of loose leaves. Have you ever thought about buying a tea ball?”
“What would be the fun in that?” Dottie asked. “Do you see a heart surrounded by a ring?”
“Oh, did you do the whole swirling the leaves and then turning the cup over thing? I heard my grandma talk about that.”
Dottie harrumphed. “Not this time, but there are no true rules guiding the sight.” She thrust the cup forward a bit more forcefully.
Doris shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it could be a heart. Or maybe a clover.” She narrowed her gaze at Dottie. “What do you think it means?”
Dottie sunk into one of the wicker chairs at the porch. “It means I’m going to meet a man.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Doris said, glancing over at the construction site. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it, dear girl.
“Would you like to sit? I just made some happy danishes, and there’s more tea in the kitchen.”
“What’s a happy danish? Did you put smiley faces on them or something?”
Honestly, some people were too literal.
“It’s one that’ll make you happy. Forgive me for being intrusive, but it seems to me you need a boost.”
“I should be working,” Doris hedged. She was one of those newfangled young people who worked from home, putting dashes and periods in technical manuals. Dottie didn’t feel too badly about waylaying her from such a thing.
“Oh, you can take a minute off. You need breaks to keep your mind fresh.”
“It’s ten o’clock, Dottie. I’ve only been working for an hour.”
But she was already lowering herself into the other wicker chair, and Dottie hurried inside for the tea and danishes so she wouldn’t have a chance to change her mind.
When she got back, Doris was still waiting in her chair, thank goodness, and she accepted the tea and dessert plate willingly enough, settling back in her chair to get more comfortable. She took a bite of the danish and moaned in a way that suggested it had been quite a while since she’d been satisfied in the bedroom.
“Dottie, you are the best neighbor anyone could possibly have.”
“I feel the same way about you. My neighbors at my old house were a little stuffy, the poor dears. They used to close their blinds whenever I worked outside. Of course, I was sculpting a lot of nudes back then, but as I told them, there’s nothing wrong with a child understanding anatomy. We all need to understand how our bodies are built.”
Doris bit her lip and sipped her tea. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, until Doris asked, “Why don’t you want to meet a man?”
“I’m recently divorced,” Dottie said. “And my man before that betrayed me. I’d hoped I was done with that part of my life. There’s something freeing about being on one’s own.”
In a house that you could paint either turquoise or purple. Where you could change the garage into an art studio rather than a repository for broken equipment and car parts. Where you could be the person you wanted to be and didn’t need to tone down your “eccentricities.”
She’d promised herself never to do that again.
Not that she’d tried very hard. If Beau Landrum’s limited imagination hadn’t been able to grasp all that was Dottie Hendrickson? Well, that was his problem.
“Did you see the signs when you married him? Your ex-husband, I mean.”
Dottie heaved a sigh. “Some mistakes can’t be avoided. They’re in the stars. But there’s a lot to be learned from mistakes.”
“Let’s hope,” Doris murmured.
And if that weren’t an opening, Dottie didn’t know what one was.
“You’re much too young for mistakes to be sticking.”
“My sister might tell you differently.”
Dottie raised her brows. “Did you sleep with her man?”
“What?” Doris asked, dropping her danish back onto her plate, her mouth full. “Gross. No.”
“It is gross behavior, but it does happen, unfortuna
tely. I know from personal experience.”
Just as she’d intended, Doris gasped. “You mean it happened to you?”
“It did, and then she went and married him. We never forgave each other, I’m sorry to say. For a while, I didn’t want to talk to her. My blood was up. But then, when she divorced the mean cuss for cheating on her, she didn’t want to talk to me. She died with that bad blood between us. I’m still trying to make things right by being good to her daughter, but the girl doesn’t make it easy on me.”
Doris had opened her mouth so wide a fly could land in it. Dottie saw she’d finished her tea and snapped up the cup. She did the full routine with the saucer plate this time, then smiled up at Doris.
“Looks like I’m not the only one with love in the leaves.”
Before Dottie left for the drum circle that afternoon—a lovely tradition that had recently sprung up downtown, where people drummed and danced and celebrated being alive—she stopped by the construction site. Leonard saw her and lifted a hand in greeting. When she didn’t move on, he approached the fence. Goodness, he was a handsome man. Tall and rugged, with a strong jaw and bright blue eyes.
“How’s it going, Dottie? Thanks for the cookies the other day—it really boosted the guys’ spirits. It’s been hot as—well, it’s been hot is all.”
“It has indeed.” And it was about to get hotter. Because Dottie had learned to trust her intuition, something she’d fought to her own doom in her younger years, and it told her that Leonard and Doris needed each other.
“I’m having a little gathering tomorrow evening. Something to introduce my new friends to each other. Would you like to come? I feel like you’re as much of a neighbor as Doris, who will be there too, of course.”
Doris thought she’d merely invited her over to dinner. She wasn’t the sort to enjoy a larger gathering. Or, as Dottie preferred to think, she didn’t realize she was the sort to enjoy such a thing. It was Dottie’s job to show her. And to find other people to invite.
At first Leonard had had an almost panicked look in his eyes, as if he’d accidentally eaten a chili pepper, but at her mention of Doris’s name, it was replaced with speculative interest.
Ah-ha. She had him.
“What time?”
“Seven o’clock. And if you bring flowers for her, she prefers tulips to roses.”
He snorted a little at that. “That obvious, am I?”
“Not to her, unfortunately. Let’s change that, shall we?”
He just smiled and shook his head—not a no, thankfully, just an expression of disbelief. She’d gotten accustomed to those. “See you tomorrow, Dottie.”
With a bouquet of tulips, she had no doubt.
She got in her car and drove downtown, parking near Pritchard Park. She’d worn a billowy green skirt—something her niece Kate had bought for her when things were better between them—and her favorite jasper necklace. She’d bought it after signing the divorce papers officially separating her from Beau. It had been a celebration of her new life: alone, free, and empowered.
The first person she saw in the park was an enormous man with receding white blond hair gathered in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. The set of bongo drums in his lap looked almost comically small. Luke. She’d met him at last week’s circle. A jack of all trades, or so he’d said. She didn’t know what that meant, exactly, and based on a few other things he’d said, she had to wonder if he knew either.
His girlfriend, Leda, wasn’t with him this time. Although she’d been quite standoffish at first, Dottie had gotten her to open up by asking about the clown tattoo on her shoulder. Leda was an artist too, it turned out, and her passion was painting portraits of people as clowns. Fascinating. Dottie had to admit she didn’t care for the idea of hanging a clown portrait in her home, but she fully supported Leda’s art. They’d ended the evening at Luke and Leda’s bungalow, with Dottie and Leda painting dueling portraits of famous people as clowns. They’d gotten tipsy on some of Luke’s home-brewed beer, which was surprisingly pleasant. All in all, it had been a lovely evening. Exactly the kind of thing she’d envisioned before coming to Asheville.
“Dottie!” he said, raising a hand in a wave. “I was hoping you’d come.”
He set the drum aside, which was possibly for the best considering he’d been out of beat with the other drummers.
“I wouldn’t miss it.” She touched the center crystal on her necklace, feeling the rhythm of the drums in the energy radiating from it. Feeling the peace and pull of this place. It felt almost absurdly right to be here, which made her wonder why she’d waited so long. Thirty years spent with the wrong man, although she couldn’t say she’d wasted them. She’d always been absurdly devoted to being herself. Or so others had told her. She didn’t think there was anything absurd at all about self-knowledge.
“You mentioned you were interested in finding a part-time job, right?”
She nodded. The necklaces she made would help support her, but she wasn’t as good as her niece, Kate, despite having trained her, and her alimony payments would only last so long.
“I think I have a hook-up for you. The owner of Buchanan Brewery’s looking for someone sociable to help with tastings.”
She could hear what Beau would have to say about that. You want to start slinging beer at sixty? You’ll look ridiculous.
She laughed to herself, mostly because she liked the idea of looking ridiculous to him. Also, because it sounded like a delightful lark.
“As I told you the last time we met, I know very little about beer. But I do enjoy talking with people. Should I stop by to speak with him?”
“How about we go together after things wind down here? He and I are old brewing buddies. He’d be a fool not to hire you. Leda doesn’t like hardly anyone, and she talks about you like you’re Joni Mitchell.”
Something tingled in the back of Dottie’s mind, her intuition reminding her of the leaves in her teacup, those pink crystals that had thunked her on the head, and the birds from this morning.
“What’s this gentleman’s name?”
“Beau Buchanan.”
Fate had a strange sense of humor sometimes. She hadn’t gotten rid of one Beau only to saddle herself with another.
Chapter Two
Dottie shared the picnic she’d brought with Luke and a few other new friends who hadn’t thought to bring food. Her mother had taught her never to show up to anything empty-handed, and it was a lesson that had stuck to this day. After a couple of hours, Luke gave her a ride to the brewery in his VW Beetle, which looked too small to accommodate him. Sure enough, his head practically bumped against the ceiling.
They talked about Leda and the life Dottie had left behind in Fayetteville. Luke was from Asheville, born and raised, and to hear him tell it, it was about to become a rare thing.
“We’re going to find our place on everyone’s maps again,” Luke said. “It’s already starting.”
“It’s the crystals,” Dottie said with conviction. “That’s why so many people are drawn here. They ground me.”
He pulled into a parking lot in front of a long, squat, colorless warehouse with a sign declaring it Buchanan Brewery, and Dottie felt a little twist in her stomach. A man named Beau, a building that looked like a factory that sold and packaged dust. This wasn’t the enjoyable atmosphere she’d envisioned when Luke had suggested the job to her. Could this really be her future?
If so, she wouldn’t go gently into it, but she was enough of a believer not to completely discount the signs. She was meant to be here, come what may.
Luke must have noticed her lack of enthusiasm, because he tilted his head and studied the building. “Could use a bit of paint. Maybe a mural. I’ve tried to convince Beau to hire Leda to do it for him, but he’s resistant to the clowns.”
She considered that, staring at the barren side of the building. “Won’t she paint anything else?”
“She says they’re her inspiration. Painting anything else would be a
betrayal.”
“Remarkable. Simply remarkable. You have a strong woman, Luke,” she said, patting his arm. “She knows her own mind.”
“Oh, there’s no doubting that,” he said in an undertone. Then, louder, he added, “You ready to go in?”
She sighed, thinking again about the signs, and got out of the car. There was only one other car in the lot, but then it was a Friday, past seven o’clock. The brewery didn’t serve beer on the premises, from her understanding, so it made sense that most everyone was home.
But not Beau Buchanan.
“There’s something you should know about Beau,” Luke said as they made their way toward the entrance. “He’s a bit…ill-tempered sometimes. Been like that ever since he lost his wife.”
Something loosened in Dottie’s chest. “Poor man. How long ago was that?”
“Twenty years.”
Good gracious. Imagine being in an ill temper for twenty years. To be fair, Dottie knew plenty of people who acted like they’d been in an ill temper their whole lives. Like her former husband. Perhaps it was a Beau thing.
Luke rang the buzzer by the door—which emitted an unappealing, high-pitched noise—and a few moments later, a tall, broad man with trimmed white hair and horn-rimmed glasses stepped into view. He had on a button-up shirt and corduroy pants. To her mind, he looked more like a professor than a man who made and sold beer. He had the kind of noble, handsome face that belonged on a statue, but she wouldn’t let his good looks move her. If she’d learned one thing in life, it was good looks weren’t worth the faults that hid behind them.
He opened the door, his gaze skipping past Luke and landing on her. They stuck in a way that had a bit of intensity, as if he sensed, like her, that they were meant to meet. He was a man who had a solid presence, and yet she sensed something out of alignment in him, as if his soul needed a good whacking to slide back into place.
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