This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Melinda Wooten
Cover design by Daniela Medina
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First Edition: February 2021
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ISBN: 978-1-5387-3348-6 (mass market), 978-1-5387-3349-3 (ebook)
E3-20201116-DA-NF-ORI
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Discover More
About the Author
Also by Melinda Curtis
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Acknowledgments
Writing a book is a journey that begins with the seed of an idea. A writer’s goal is to have that idea grow and unfurl along different steps of a trellis with interesting twists and charming flowers. Yes, I’m a gardener. But recently, I moved to a different climate where much of my go-to gardening knowledge has been put to the test. Like my plants this season, this book began with a new-to-me seed. And let me tell you, I was dreaming a little dream, hoping my trellis was strong, my twists were interesting, and my humor would flower in charming, unexpected ways.
Several folks were instrumental in cultivating this story into what it is today. Thanks to my family for patiently listening when I needed a sounding board. I can’t count how many times Mr. Curtis muted the television so I could talk through a plot point. Hugs! Thanks to Cari Lynn Webb for reading those holey first drafts and helping to shape the bones of the story. Hugs! Humongous thanks to Alex Logan for helping to give Pearl hope, Darcy heart, and Jason heat. I’m not sure either one of us ever pruned and nurtured a story so much. Hugs!
Thanks to the team at Forever Romance for all their rays of sunshine and excellence, from cover concepts to copyediting to ideas for getting the word out. You make everything look so easy when I know it’s not. Thanks to my team members—Pam, Sheri, Nancy, Diane—for providing me with a safe space for gardening…er, writing. When I don’t know how to do something, it’s awesome that you guys do.
And finally, thanks to my readers—both those who’ve loyally picked up my different series and those who’ve just found me because of an awesome cover or intriguing review. I take my promise of providing a little laugh, a little cry, and a little sigh very seriously. Enjoy a walk through my writing garden!
Prologue
I hate poker.”
“Edith.” Bitsy Whitlock ground her teeth. She loved poker, and she’d come to Mims Turner’s house for precisely that purpose—to play poker with the Sunshine Valley Widows Club board and take her mind off the two-year twitch.
Not the married seven-year itch. This wasn’t about straying. This was the two-year marker of widowhood when grief was mostly conquered and the heart came alive again. Bitsy was considering trademarking the term, because the two-year twitch was a thing. A real, distracting, body-temperature-raising phenomenon. She should know. She’d been widowed three times. She could feel the impulse to love coming on like her joints heralding the changing seasons.
But right now, Bitsy felt a cuss word coming on. Not from her exasperation over the twitch but from her annoyance with Edith. “Shiitake mushrooms.”
In the chair next to Bitsy’s, Edith Archer jerked in her seat as if she’d been administered the paddles of life. “Bitsy, I hate poker,” she said again. “Why can’t we play Yahtzee? Or rock, paper, scissors?” She pounded her fist into her palm three times. “I’m good at those games.”
It was difficult to smile while grinding her back molars, but Bitsy tried because smiling and being pleasant was what she was known for. And in the small town of Sunshine, people expected you to live up to your label.
“We’re adults, Edith. We play poker.” Clarice sounded just as put out by Edith as Bitsy was, only louder because she’d forgotten her hearing aids again. “We’ve always played poker. And our winner always decides who in town needs Cupid.”
Cupid. Standing in for the cherub was the favorite pastime of the four elderly women making up the Widows Club board. But before Cupid’s arrow struck home, someone had to win a pot of pennies to decide who would pick the lucky couple.
“Has anyone else noticed that Jason Petrie hasn’t left for the rodeo?” Mims hadn’t been dealt a card yet, but she was tipping her hand as to whom she was playing for.
Bitsy ground her molars some more. Jason Petrie? He wasn’t even a widower. Although…perhaps Mims was playing for someone she thought Jason should be with…
Jason’s longtime girlfriend Darcy had dumped him last spring. Adding to his heartbreak, she’d rebounded into the arms of a much older man, her mentor Judge George Harper, who had also been on the rebound from a relationship with Bitsy’s mama. Now George was dead and buried, Darcy was a widow and the town pariah, and Mama was in mourning. Mims wanted to match Darcy to Jason? She’d have to unravel last year’s love quadrangle.
Good luck.
“Hold off on your matchmaking suggestions.” Clarice’s voice grew louder as she shuffled the cards. “Club rules. You can’t talk about your matchmaking choices before you win.”
“Just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean you always have to.” Edith’s fingers drummed on the table. “What are we? A bunch of stuck-in-a-rut old wi
dows?”
“Yes!” Clarice dropped the cards. “Who wants to change their ways at our age?”
“Me.” Edith jerked her shoulders back.
Me. Bitsy was surprised she agreed with Edith about anything. But there it was. Bitsy was restless in her widowhood, which was saying something since she was pushing sixty-five. She glanced around the table at the others, who were older and seemed content with their widow status, with hobbies and good works. At Mims, who no longer dyed her hair. At Edith, who’d embraced eye-popping hair colors, currently dark red. At Clarice, who’d let her gray hair grow, braids reaching all the way down to her waist.
Bitsy touched her bobbed blond hair, suddenly painfully aware that she was the only person in the room wearing makeup and heels. Did taking pride in her appearance fuel the twitch? Bitsy rubbed her temples. She should be happy. She was recently retired and had a cozy home. Her mother lived in the separate unit in back. The thermostat was always set on seventy. The television was always tuned to the Food Network. She’d redecorated when she’d given away Wendell’s outdated recliner. And yet she’d lain in bed last night unable to sleep, one arm outstretched into the empty expanse of bed. She should be worrying about her mother and instead…
I haven’t given up on love.
“I may be a widow, but I’m not dead.” Edith was still on her roll, her intense auburn hair as brash as her personality. “Come on, Mims. Support me on this.”
Mims, their fearless leader, hesitated.
And in that hesitation, Bitsy knew what she had to do. She adjusted her bright-pink sweater set on her shoulders with fumbling fingers. “You should match me.”
The three other widows gaped at her. And then everyone spoke at once.
“You have to win the poker pot to choose who we match,” said Clarice, the club secretary and keeper of the rules. She pounded the deck of cards on the table.
“We can’t match a board member,” said Mims in a tone that brooked no argument. She crossed her arms, signaling an end to the discussion.
“Holy fudge nuggets.” As usual, Edith had other ideas. She leaped out of her chair and hugged Bitsy. “Bravo, my friend. Bravo.”
And then the room settled into silence.
Bitsy’s cheeks felt warm. “I…uh…I should resign as treasurer. And…uh…leave. So you can match me with someone.” Despite her halting words, she rose smoothly from her chair and headed for the door with steady steps.
“Are we really going to match her?” Edith whispered, although loud enough for Bitsy to hear in the foyer.
“No,” Mims said firmly. “Bitsy is just in a funk. Besides, we always choose young widows. We’re going to match Darcy Harper.”
This was apparently too much for Clarice, who cried, “But we haven’t played one hand of poker!”
Chapter One
All her life, Darcy Jones Harper had had a love-hate relationship with Sunshine’s courthouse.
A year ago, she’d been in love with it while she worked inside as a law clerk. But that was before she quit to study for the bar exam. Before she married Judge George Harper. Before he died.
If she’d had her druthers, she’d have preferred never to set foot inside Sunshine’s courthouse again. But she’d been invited to attend a meeting to appoint a judge to replace George, and she felt as if she had to show up to honor him and their unorthodox relationship.
“If you marry me, I’ll die a happy man,” George had told her while seriously ill last spring.
It would have been hard to say no to anyone’s last wish, especially someone who had been as kind and generous with his time and influence as George had been to Darcy.
Ronald Galen, the burly court bailiff, bumped Darcy’s shoulder as he passed her in the hallway and didn’t apologize.
Her father would have used the collision to lift Ronald’s wallet, the one peeking from his back pocket. Darcy wasn’t that strategic. She tugged the lapels of her suit jacket and imagined the satisfaction she’d get from taking a swing at Ronald with her hobo bag. Not that Judge Harper’s widow would ever do such a thing.
Darcy hesitated outside the door to the judge’s chambers. Sunshine was a one-judge town. For the past two months, a justice from Denver had filled in once a week—first because George was dying and then four weeks ago because he’d died.
But the placard next to the door hadn’t changed. JUDGE HARPER.
“She’s got some nerve.”
Town opinion hadn’t changed either. A group of clerks walked past. It was impossible to tell who’d spoken.
It didn’t matter. All Darcy had to do was attend this last official meeting as George’s widow. Then she could leave Sunshine, find a place where she could live without being ostracized, and use her law degree for the good of a more accepting community.
Darcy held her head high as she entered the reception room for the judge’s chambers.
Tina Marie gave her a cool perusal from behind her large oak desk. She was a lifelong public servant. She proudly wore an American flag on the neckline of her beige sweater, and her disdain for Darcy on her penciled-in, lowered brows. Next to her, the desk Darcy used to occupy when she’d clerked for George, and been higher in Tina Marie’s opinion, sat empty.
Tina Marie leaned over the ancient green intercom, pressed a button, and said, “She’s here.”
Shoulders back, she marched into George’s office.
Darcy’s reception from the three men inside was mixed. Her two stepsons, Rupert and Oliver, were in their late fifties. They spared her brief, dismissive looks. A gray-haired gentleman sat behind George’s massive walnut desk. He gave her a once-over and what seemed like an approving nod.
“Mrs. Harper, I’m Henrik Hamza from the Judicial Performance Commission here in Colorado.” The gray-haired gentleman indicated she should take a seat and waited for her to be settled. “I’m here today to announce who will temporarily replace Judge George Harper.”
Darcy silently rehearsed her brief words of congratulations for whichever of George’s sons received the appointment.
“You’re here because you’re the only private-practice attorneys in Sunshine. Obviously, there’s a desperate need to temporarily fill the position left vacant by George’s passing.” Henrik paused and gave them a compassionate glance. “In a situation like this, our commission is tasked with appointing an interim judge until the next election, which is in November. We took George’s recommendation into account when we made this weighty decision.”
Darcy held her breath. In a moment, one of George’s sons would ascend to the judicial throne while the other would know exactly what his father had thought of him. Rupert and Oliver preened, each trying to outrival the other. Both wore expensive wool suits, designer ties, and pointed Italian loafers. Oliver wasn’t as polished or as handsome as Rupert, but each sported the slick smile of a confident con artist, as if they came from a branch of the Jones family tree.
“I may as well cut to the chase.” Henrik smiled at Darcy. “George recommended that his successor be his wife, Darcy Harper.”
Darcy was knocked back in her seat, shocked. George, what have you done?
“No!” Oliver shouted, red-faced. He gripped his silk tie as if he were holding himself back. “It was bad enough that Dad couldn’t distinguish between the book and his imagination when it came to sentencing but this…”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Rupert was more refined in his reaction, staring down his regal nose at Darcy. “Her? On what grounds?”
Henrik came around the desk and shook Darcy’s cold hand. “On the grounds that his sons were more interested in profit than the good of the community.”
Darcy almost nodded. George had frequently said, “My boys only practice law because the hourly rate is better than hooking. And I don’t mean fish.”
“But…but…Darcy’s a gold digger!” Oliver yanked his tie like it was a bellpull. “She married our father for his money.”
Not true, although Geor
ge had left everything to Darcy. A fact that still made her uncomfortable.
Oliver wasn’t done protesting or tugging that tie. “Dad would still be here if she’d agreed to put him in a home.”
Really not true. George hadn’t wanted to decline in a hospital when it wouldn’t change the final outcome. A fact that had made Rupert and Oliver uncomfortable.
Rupert sneered at her. “She had Dad under her control.”
Completely untrue. But no one would believe that if she accepted the appointment. A fact that was going to make the entire town uncomfortable.
“I’m not just going to stand idly by and let her take my seat,” Rupert continued to vent.
“I’m sure she won’t pass the background check.” Oliver eased the grip on his tie.
“She won’t.” Rupert leaned closer to Darcy, speaking half under his breath. “She’s a Jones.”
Darcy stiffened, suddenly grateful her juvenile record was sealed.
“I can assure you that Darcy passed her background check with flying colors.” Henrik opened the door. “Gentlemen, if you’re interested in the position, you may run for the office next fall. Thank you for your time. You’re dismissed.”
The two Harper men glared at Darcy as they got to their feet.
“This isn’t over,” Oliver promised.
“Not by a long shot,” Rupert agreed just as darkly.
Henrik closed the heavy door after them.
Darcy wanted to follow them out and never look back.
Instead, she leaned forward and told Henrik, “There’s been a mistake.”
* * *
Spring, the herald of the rodeo season. The official beginning of sweat and blood and broken bones.
Former three-time world champion bull rider Jason Petrie had yet to leave Sunshine to join up with the tour. He was spending his first May in his hometown after fourteen years on the rodeo circuit.
“What are you doing here, Jason?” Noah Shaw, owner of Shaw’s Bar & Grill, frowned at one of his best customers lately. “It isn’t even happy hour.”
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