His car had barely gotten out of sight when Tawny popped into the store. “Was that Marcus leaving? He checked out early with a song and dance about not wanting his mother or cat to spend the holiday alone. Was he in here asking you to go to church with them?”

Dana shook her head slowly. “He’s stinging because we’ve both turned him down and slinging insults at Granny and me because of it.”

“That son of a bitch,” Tawny fumed. “Is he crazy? No one talks smack about Granny Annie and lives to see the light of day. I’ll get some concrete blocks, and we’ll sink his sorry ass in the middle of the lake.”

“This from the sister who thought his eyes were pretty?” Dana’s tone was edgy, but she needed a good solid fight to ease her anger. They’d only vowed to be nice when Zed was around, and he was in the café.

“They’ll be even prettier as they bug out when we throw his body over the edge of a boat. What’d he say about you?”

Dana shrugged. “That his mama figured I’d turn out wild like my mother. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

She’d never overcome the fact that she was a bastard child—not in that area of Texas where everyone knew everything about everyone and didn’t mind shouting it from the rooftops. Her two sisters might have a bitchy mother, but at least they’d had both parents.

Shame on you! Granny had told her when she’d whined about the same thing when she was fourteen. You’ve got beauty, brains, and a family. I won’t hear you feelin’ sorry for yourself.

“That settles it. We’ll drown his cat with him.” The anger in Tawny’s statement brought her back to reality.

It started as a weak giggle and developed into full-fledged laughter that Dana couldn’t control. “What’d the cat do?” she said between hiccups.

“It had the misfortune of belonging to him,” Tawny said. “Next time he wants to come to our cabins, I’m going to infest his sheets with bedbugs. I’ll figure out where I can buy them online.”

A cold chill chased down Dana’s spine. “He’s one of Brook’s teachers. You don’t think he’d be ugly to her in class because we both rejected him, do you?”

Tawny’s eyes went to slits. “That had better never happen, or else the next time the drug dogs come around, they’ll find a bag of pot in his desk.”

“You wouldn’t!” Dana gasped.

“He’d best leave my niece alone is all I got to say.” Tawny picked up a bag of chips. “Put this on my bill. I need something salty to combat all that wonderful chocolate and those cinnamon rolls. And I might want to scratch your eyes out most of the time, Dana, but believe me, when it comes to Brook, I will go the distance with you.”

“Thank you,” Dana said sincerely. “So you still wouldn’t go the distance for me?”

“Depends on what or who we are fighting,” Tawny said as she left.

Tawny had only been gone a couple of minutes when Payton came in with a cartload of minnows and bait for the refrigerator. “Happy Easter,” he called out as he backed inside the store. “Looks like it’s goin’ to be a lovely day to hide eggs for children. I miss doing that for my daughter. You got any little kids?”

“My daughter is fourteen,” Dana answered. “A little too old to hunt eggs, but she still likes to get an Easter basket.”

He dumped an order of minnows into the tank. “I got a lot of extra hugs this mornin’ when my daughter saw her basket in the car. I don’t know if she really loves me or if she loved those half a dozen gift certificates to her favorite restaurants.”

Dana craned her neck around to see if he wore a wedding band, but his hands were covered by the cart. Surely a guy that sexy and with those eyes had a wife. When he brought her a ticket, she heaved a visible sigh of relief to see that there wasn’t even an imprint of a ring on his left hand.

“Did the husband come with you to the lake?” he asked as he peeled the top copy of the ticket off for her to keep.

“Divorced for more than ten years,” she answered.

“Widowed for more than ten years,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” She looked up into his eyes. “So you raised your daughter alone?”

“Yep, my parents were gone and I’m an only child, so I didn’t have any support. But we managed to make it through her teenage years without too much damage to either of us,” he chuckled.

“Got any secrets you want to share?” she asked.

“Lots of them. Even got the ten rules of dating my daughter written down. I’ll be glad to share them if you’ll go to dinner with me some time,” he said. “Like maybe tomorrow night after you finish up here? I could pick you up at seven thirty.”

She meant to shake her head, but she nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

“Good. I’ll see you then. And I’ll bring a copy of those rules with me.”

When his delivery truck pulled away, she slid down the back of the counter and put her hands over her eyes. She hadn’t dated in so long that she might have to drag out a manual on how to act on a date after the age of thirty.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The evening was pleasant enough that Harper didn’t even need a jacket, so she poured a shot of her Easter whiskey and carried it to the porch. The café had been a madhouse since lunch. She and Zed had managed to squeeze out thirty minutes to eat and then folks who’d rented cabins began to filter through wanting burgers and fries.