LITMIR.BIZ

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and pushed, making her generous cleavage mound up even closer to her chin “—before it would finally crack.”

      “You’re cracked.” Audrey’s giggle was a bit too loud, and Bree laughed around a yawn, both signals it was time to go home.

      But Emmy couldn’t let the subject of Sol Beecher go without a last dig. “Now that Mr. Beecher’s come into a right good sum of money, it’ll be interesting to see how much he’ll pony up for good ol’ Taylor’s Grove Elementary.”

      She raised her beer in the air, loudly da-dumming her way through a college football fight song she’d picked up somewhere.

      * * *

      “IT’S SMALL COMPARED to your grandparents’ old place, Sol. I mean...tiny. After living in that big, rambling house, wouldn’t you feel cooped up in a space like this?” Regina Dallas wrinkled her nose as she glanced around the modest two-bedroom she’d put at the end of the list of properties to show him today.

      Sol leaned on the kitchen counter and gazed out the window into the backyard, pretending to ponder her question. What he really did was get the weight off his leg so he could answer without gritting his teeth. “It’s more like what I’m looking for, although I can’t convince you of that.”

      He’d allowed the friend of the family, a real estate agent, to drag his ass in and out of houses for the past three days and was frustrated with her choices. Anybody else he would’ve fired for not listening to him after the first two showings.

      Behind him, Regina gave a motherly sigh. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to downsize at your age. One of these days, you’ll get married...have kids...”

      Sol ignored how her words made him feel like he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule.

      “And then you’ll wish you’d taken the money from the marina and fixed up the old home place.”

      The fact that she was thinking about him personally and not the money she would make in a business transaction softened his response. He didn’t growl back that a wife and kids weren’t in his future. Instead, he shrugged. “Maybe. But for now, downsizing to something more manageable seems the smartest move.” He still faced the window, but he was certain her eyes had dropped to his bad leg.

      Everybody’s did.

      Managing anything very long with this damn bad leg was a struggle, but keeping the secret all these years that it was a prosthesis was even harder.

      The pity he saw in people’s eyes now made him want to spit. Being thought of as an amputee would have been more than he was able to bear.

      He swiveled around to face her using the spin technique he’d perfected. “Washer and dryer hookups?”

      “Basement.”

      He nodded like that was no big deal rather than acknowledging it as a definite no. Stairs were a problem with both hands free—impossible with a laundry basket. He’d been forced to turn the formal dining room in his current house into a makeshift bedroom. Oh, he was definitely capable of getting up the steps to bed. But the thought of trying to get out in the event of a fire would have kept him awake.

      “This leads to the garage.” Regina headed toward the door at the west end of the kitchen, and Sol followed. When they stepped through the opening, the sight of the small garage almost made him smile with relief. He’d found his reason to decline this house without admitting that the basement laundry was the real problem.

      “I need at least a two-car garage for the car and boat. Preferably a three. I’d like to garage the truck, too.”

      Regina rolled her eyes and made a noise he recognized as annoyance. “One bedroom, one bath, a three-car garage on several acres. You’re asking for something that doesn’t exist. At least not around Taylor’s Grove.”

      “Just keep looking, okay?” He hit the button that raised the overhead door. “Give me a call when you find something.” He made his exit, leaving lockup duties to Regina.

      Since selling the marina, he didn’t have a whole lot pressing on him these days. Finding a job would be a necessity come fall—mentally if not financially. Sitting around doing nothing wasn’t an idea he relished. But he was treating himself to this one summer off. He’d never had one, even as a kid. Summers were a time to work from sunup to sundown when you owned a marina.

      The next four months were his. He would fish Kentucky Lake and swim in the warm water after dark when nobody could see him. He knew that was dangerous, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. Hell, he might live even more dangerously and give up these damn blue jeans for a pair of shorts every now and then. Sit in the backyard in the sunshine. Get a little bit of a tan on his pasty white leg...and the pasty white stump alongside it.

      Maybe a tan would help him remember the bronzed kid with the great physique who had girls hanging all over him...help him remember a time when he wasn’t a pitiful freak.

      “Get off the damn pity pot,” he admonished himself in his rearview mirror as he arrived in Taylor’s Grove. “Some never made it back at all.”

      The circular park at the center of town was the local gathering spot. Today a small crowd had gathered in a knot around what looked to be a lemonade stand.

      Sol would’ve preferred to drive by without having to interact, but his friend Mark Dublin’s wife, Audrey, and her daughter, Tess, were working the stand. They spotted him, flagging him down with friendly waves.

      Guilt got the best of him. He groaned an “Oh hell” under his breath as he parked.

      Nell Bradley met him at the curb as she headed to her car. She insisted on a hug, as always. And Johnny Bob Luther stopped him to share a joke that he’d heard maybe thirty times before from the old man. He laughed in appreciation of Johnny Bob’s skillful telling rather than the punch line. And then there was IvaDawn Carrol’s inquiry about how his parents were enjoying life in Florida. Even though they’d been there for five years now, IvaDawn always made it sound as if they’d just moved. Audrey’s mother, Helen, sat on the bench in the gazebo—silently nodding to the voices in her head that her early-onset Alzheimer’s provided.

      By the time he got to the lemonade stand, the crowd had moved away. And surprisingly, it turned out not to be a lemonade stand at all.

      “We’re selling raffle tickets,” Tess informed him. “Ten dollars apiece.”

      Sol gave a low whistle. “What happened to three for five dollars?” That had been the going price for as far back as he could remember.

      Audrey flashed him an apologetic smile. “We’ve got a grand prize this year that’s a real bargain for ten dollars.”

      “Better than Patti’s pie a week for a year?” The owner of the diner across the street was notorious for her decadently delicious pies.

      “A week at a beach house in Gulf Shores!” Tess fist-pumped the air with cheerleader enthusiasm and an infectious grin that showed off her new missing tooth.

      “Man!” Sol was indeed shocked at the extravagant prize. “That put somebody back a chunk.” A zing of guilt flashed through him. He’d just gotten that huge amount of money from Kale in the sale of the marina, and he hadn’t yet given a dime of it to the school.

      “The house belongs to EmmyLou Creighton’s family. Emmy’s donating her week to us.”

      EmmyLou Creighton. The sexy-as-hell-and-didn’t-she-know-it bombshell who’d hit the local scene, what...maybe fifteen years ago? He’d gone out with her a few times when they were younger. Back then he’d been too full of himself to stay with anyone for very long. And now? If he thought about it too hard, he might think that EmmyLou intimidated the hell out of him with her grab-the-world-by-the-tail attitude.

      The only thing he was up to grabbing most nights was the whiskey decanter.

      “How are sales?” he asked.

      Audrey

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