Page 27

Do an internet search. It’s what you should have done eight years ago, remember?

I call up my search engine and type in Brantley Harris Nashville and the first thing that pops up is a huge picture of him, filling my screen. I scroll down just a bit and gasp.

It’s an obituary.

Brantley died three weeks ago. It doesn’t seem possible. He might have been old, but he was always bigger than life.

I read further. He’d died in bed of a massive heart attack. He is survived by his loving wife Carla Harris and his three sons, Brantley Harris, Jr., Richard Harris, and Kevin Harris.

He has sons?

So, it has to be Carla sending me those emails. But why? She has to know I will never step foot in Nashville ever again, but how did she know about Bella?

I shut down my computer. I can’t think, and I need to get my shit together before I see my baby. Chloe has tried to teach me yoga, but my body doesn’t bend as well as hers, so squats, crunches, and lunges for me. Maybe the exercises will stop my mind from whirling around. I put down the mat in the living room and do rep after rep of each exercise and after my limbs are trembling, my mind is still going a million miles a second. I look at the clock. I still have an hour and a half before I need to pick up Bella. I decide to go take a shower.

When I get out of the shower I’m a little calmer, but my mind keeps twirling around, like it’s in a blender. Somehow, I have to turn my mind off, and the only thing I can think of that will do the trick is to read. I grab my reading device and pull up one of my favorite books, then sit on the side of my bed. I pick up my phone and set my alarm, then I slip under the covers and snuggle down under my duvet. I go to the seventy-five percent mark, so I can read where everything is close to being resolved and the hero and heroine are going to fall into one another’s arms. I need this. Even though I know this will never happen for me, a girl can still dream.

When the page comes up I find I’m right, he is holding her in his arms. They’re going to kiss. I let myself be transported. Time has no meaning, I’m in the story.

Chapter Seven

After talking to Bernie, I realize it’s time to get off my ass. I’ve been doing some searches on Jeeps, Range Rovers, and trucks. I hate to pay for a brand-new vehicle since it loses its value as soon as I drive it off the lot. Dalton Sullivan has the perfect truck, that old, dilapidated thing that the man had tricked out to the nines on the inside. Nobody ever expects it.

Problem is, the only good connections I have to find me a truck that runs worth a damn are from the Navy, and I really don’t want to tap one of them. Maybe in another few months.

Maybe.

I think about calling Trenda again. I think about it real hard; after all, I need to start making friends in this town if I’m going to stay.

Sell it to someone else, Clark.

I rub the back of my neck as I take my thermal mug of hot coffee and get into my cold Pontiac GTO and start her. The reason I can’t call her is that if I spend much more time talking to her, I’m going to want to see her, and then I’m going to want to really see her. See all of her. And Trenda Avery strikes me as the forever kind of woman, and that is not what I’m looking for.

As I start getting closer to town, I drive by the gas station and it’s jam-packed, not conductive to having a conversation to find out if they could recommend where I might find a used truck or something like it. I slowly drive into the center of town. I like it here. I’d driven through the town square when I’d first come to Jasper Creek, and it was like I was stepping back in time. It has the county courthouse with a big clock overlooking the square. In the middle of the square is a park with a bronze statue of somebody, probably a man named Jasper. On the other three sides of the square are small businesses and I will bet my bottom dollar that one of them will be a good restaurant or diner.

I am not wrong. I see a little sandwich board out front with the words biscuits and gravy special written in chalk on the front. I am sold. I park my car in front of a storefront on the left and head that way. When I push open the door a cowbell rings and everybody in the whole place looks up to see who has come in to join them. When they realize it’s a stranger, they stare longer, sizing me up.

“Seat yourself, and I’ll be with you in just a minute,” a middle-aged woman shouts from the cash register. She has a great smile and I can see why people flock to her restaurant, even if the food is only average.

I look around and see that there are no tables available. A big guy pushes back from his seat and picks up his plate, utensils, and everything else from the table, and takes it over to the woman who looks like she’s doing everything by herself.

“George, you don’t have to bus your own table. I would have done it,” the woman protests.

“It’s fine, Lettie. Here’s a twenty. Keep the change.” As the man walks past me toward the door, he does a chin tilt toward the table. “Now you have someplace to sit.”

Lettie rushes over to the table with a washcloth and has it washed clean before I can even get to the table. She hands me a menu. “Everything’s good on the menu, but Ma’s outdone herself with the cheesy grits and bacon casserole this morning.” Lettie leans closer to my ear. “She serves it with avocado slices,” she said softly.

“Well then I’m sold,” I say handing the menu back to her.

“That’s just the side dish. Can I get you biscuits and sausage gravy? Or, Mama makes some mean brown sugar oatmeal pancakes, with a rasher of bacon, of course. Course a man your size might want both.”

“If I was twenty years younger I might have gone for it, but I can’t work off that much food as easily.”

“Yeah, and them there doctors are constantly harping on cholesterol and all them other diseases. I tell you what, my Mama and her Ma, we call her Little Grandma, they are both fitter than fiddles, and they sure as sugar haven’t changed their diets none.”

“How old is Little Grandma?”

“She’s having a birthday this month, so she’ll be one hundred and three then. My daughter will be bringing her in during the lunch crowd. We put her up on a stool near the door and she hands out menus. She and my great granddad started this place, so there’s no keeping Little Grandma away. Most of the food we cook here is based on Little Grandma’s recipes.”