“Hear, hear!” Zed clapped his wrinkled hands. “What an amazing end to the story. This may be my new favorite one. Now I’m going home and leavin’ you kids to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

“Good night, Uncle Zed. See you in the mornin’,” Harper said.

Zed slowly made his way into the darkness. “Good night to everyone.”

“And since I’m a good cook and we’ve decided to live by the lake, let’s bring out the makings for the s’mores,” Dana said.

It was after ten when Dana walked Payton to his vehicle. With an arm on each side of her, he pinned her against his car and kissed her eyelids and the tip of her nose and then found her lips in a series of kisses that came close to blistering the paint right off his fancy vehicle.

Her arms snaked up around his neck and her hand freed his ponytail from the rubber band so that she could tangle her fingers in his thick blond hair. It felt like strands of pure silk floating through her fingers. She’d had no idea until that moment that there were erogenous zones in her fingertips, but heat flowed from them to places in her body that begged for more.

Finally he stepped back and cupped her face in his hands. “You are such a beautiful woman, Dana. I had a wonderful time tonight. There’s no way on God’s great green earth that I can ever top this evening.”

It was on the tip of Dana’s tongue to say that she could think of a couple of ways he could make tonight pale in comparison, but that would be rushing things entirely too much. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. I sure felt like a queen tonight with all the attention you’ve given me.”

“Oh, honey, this was just the tip of the iceberg. When can I see you again?”

“Well, definitely on Thursday, since that’s the day you’ll be in the store,” she teased.

“I might need a cold soda pop tomorrow while I’m out deliverin’ bait.” He ran a forefinger down her jawline.

“I bet I could sell you one.” She closed her hand around his. “Good night, Payton.”

“’Night, Dana. Sleep tight and dream of me.”

“You do the same.” She started toward the house. From the porch she could see him still standing beside the car. He waved and blew her a kiss and then got inside and drove away.

Brook was sprawled out on the sofa as she entered. Dana wished for the first time that her daughter was already asleep in bed.

“I’ve decided that I like him,” Brook said bluntly.

Dana sank down in the rocking chair. “Why?”

Brook sat up and shrugged. “Because he didn’t try to impress me. He only had eyes for you. That’s the kind of man you deserve. Someday I will grow up and have a house and a family of my own.”

“Cabin, not house,” Dana told her. “You will just move from here into a cabin.”

“Okay, for today, it’s a cabin, but when I’m gone, I want you to have someone who looks at you like Payton does and who’ll treat you like the queen you are. Now, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow will be busy.”

“I love you, little girl,” Dana said.

“Just bein’ honest, Mama, like we’ve always been with each other.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tawny awoke on Sunday morning and turned on the radio to the same country music station that Zed listened to in the café. “The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert was midway through the song. Using the curling iron for a microphone, she sang right along. The lyrics of the song said that a person couldn’t go home again. But if she could go into the house, she could find herself and start healing. Only the house that Tawny sang about wasn’t the house that she’d lived in her whole life but the little two-bedroom one where Dana lived. That’s the real house that built her.

When the song ended, she continued to hum it as she slipped a pair of skinny jeans up over her hips and pulled a lightweight blue cotton sweater down over her head. “Stay” by Sugarland began to play, and she sat down on the bed. Even though her rich jackass of a boyfriend hadn’t been married, she’d begged him more than once to stay the night with her. Lookin’ back and knowing what happened after the court hearing, she understood why he’d never stayed with her. His real girlfriend, the one he’d never ask to go with him on a drug deal, was the woman that he sat beside in church on Sunday morning—she was the one who sat behind him and supported him that day in court when the judge let him off with a slap on the wrist.

“Bless her heart. She may have him now, but she ain’t got much,” Tawny said as she headed for the café for breakfast, humming the Miranda song as she crossed the gravel lane and the grassy lawn.

As usual, she was the last one to the café. Harper, Dana, Brook, and Zed clustered around a table with Flora. Tawny’s heart dropped to her knees, because their faces all said something was terribly wrong.

“Flora is retiring as of right now,” Zed said. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here, because she has something to say to all of us.”

Tawny sat down with a thud in a chair, her mind spinning as to how they’d take care of business without Flora. “Is this a joke? Please tell me it’s a joke.”

“No, it’s the truth. I was trying to hold out on retiring until Cassidy finished up this school year. Her mama has been settled out in Arizona for a few weeks and wanting us to join her, but Cassidy didn’t want to leave her friends. But things have gotten out of control. She’s been babysitting for a doctor and his wife down in Frankston on weekends. Last night they came home early, thank God. They found her and that Ryson kid tangled up on their bed. Another ten minutes and things could have been worse. They’d been drinkin’ the doctor’s liquor and smokin’ pot. With those little kids right in the next room,” Flora said.