by Lori Wilde
“Found it wrecked, bought it cheap, rebuilt it myself,” Jesse said, never taking his gaze off Trainer. He’d grown up in the desert. He knew you didn’t turn your back on a rattlesnake.
Ponytail whistled, hunkered down to examine it more closely. “Helluva good job, man.”
“My work is my best advertisement,” Jesse said.
“Afternoon.” Beau slid his Stetson back on his forehead. His badge gleamed in the sunlight. Bastard probably polished it twice a day.
“What do you want?”
Beau rested his hands on his hips in that Wyatt Earp pose he affected. “Five lemonades for the knitters.”
“Man,” the ponytailed dude interrupted, “could you come over and take a look at my Ducati? She’s been sputtering like a kid with the croup. She got worse on the drive over here.”
“Could you hang on for just a minute?” Jesse asked Ponytail. “I have to find someone to take over the lemonade stand.”
“You go on and help your customer, Calloway,” Beau said. “I’ll man the lemonade stand.”
Something was up. He didn’t trust Trainer. Not for a second. “Now why would you offer to do that?”
“I’m community-minded.”
Jesse snorted.
“Besides, I know when I’m licked.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“Flynn. She wants you, not me.”
Jesse’s heart twisted, skidding like a bike in an ice storm. “She actually tell you that?”
“I got eyes in my head, Calloway.”
“So she didn’t tell you that.”
“She didn’t have to. I can see it on her face every time she looks at you.”
“Does that mean you’re steppin’ aside?” Jesse tilted his head, tensing for an ambush.
“It means I’m calling a truce.”
Jesse narrowed his eyes. He had no use for lawmen in general and this one in particular. “Why?”
“I only want Flynn to be happy,” Trainer said, and he sounded sincere. “If she wants you…” Trainer swallowed, and his Adam’s apple slid down his throat. “Who am I to stand in her way?”
“Man,” said Ponytail, “can you help me or not?”
Jesse looked at Trainer.
Trainer shrugged. “I’m offering. Take it or leave it.”
He felt like he was walking through a field of land mines, uncertain of where the explosives lay, but absolutely certain they were buried there.
“Let him run the lemonade stand,” Ponytail said. “If you can’t trust the sheriff, who can you trust?”
Jesse’s thoughts exactly.
“Seriously, man, I’m scared to get back on the road on her. I’ll pay whatever you think is fair.” Ponytail slipped his wallet, which was attached to a chain linked to his belt, from his back pocket and started peeling off twenties.
“Yeah, okay. I’m coming.” Jesse turned to Trainer, tossed him his apron. “Yellow lemonade is to sell, a dollar a glass. The pink lemonade is free for the knitters and festival volunteers. It’s all yours.”
When Flynn returned an hour later (she’d stopped by the house to check on Carrie and ended up heating her a bowl of cream of tomato soup with Cheez-Its floating in it, just like their mother used to make), she was surprised—but happy—to see the Sweethearts doing more gossiping and drinking lemonade than knitting.
A barbershop quartet had taken to the stage outside the ice cream parlor, and they were belting out a surprisingly decent rendition of “Sweet Adeline.” The crowd thickened. A beaming Moe pushed the tote board numbers up to two thousand dollars. It was going to take a lot more pledges and a lot more knitting to reach their target goal, but it was a great start.
“Hey,” Marva called out. “Here’s Flynnie, she’s back.”
“Come on,” Flynn said, parking her butt in the rocker she’d vacated. “Don’t call me Flynnie, I don’t like it.”
“You like it when Beau calls you Flynnie.”
“No, I don’t, but he does it anyway.”
“So now that Flynn’s back, who are we going to talk about?” Terri clacked her knitting needles together as swift as an iron chef sharpening cutlery.
“Oh, you know what I heard?” Belinda leaned in toward the group, her eyes bright.
“Don’t tease, matchmaker,” Raylene said. “If you know something juicy, spill it.”
“It’s about Emerson Parks,” Belinda murmured.
“Who’s Emerson Parks?” Flynn asked.
“You probably knew her as Trixie Lyn Sparks.”
“I remember Trixie Lyn,” Marva said. “Impulsive little thing. All red hair and freckles and spirit. She played the lead in Annie her freshman year.”
“I really don’t remember her,” Flynn said.
“She was three or four grades ahead of you in school,” Marva said. “And she was only in Twilight a few years while her daddy was working at the nuke plant in Glen Rose. It was the same time your mama got diagnosed with ALS. You had so much on your plate, you wouldn’t have noticed if Santa Claus had moved in next door.”
Flynn tried to picture who they were talking about, but couldn’t.
“She was always telling everyone she was going to New York and make it big on Broadway. I’m guessing she changed her name to Emerson Parks.”
“She went to New York and she made it all right, but not in the way you’d expect.” Belinda nodded.
“Where you’d hear this?” Patsy said. “The National Enquirer?”
“What if I did?” Belinda was sensitive about her guilty pleasure. She loved reading the tabloids and took them at face value.
“Someone from Twilight is in the National Enquirer?” Raylene said. “Dish it up, woman.”
“It’s juicy gossip about hometown girl gone wrong in the big city.” Belinda paused for effect and finished off her lemonade. “This is really good. I’m going to have to get another one. Anybody else want one?”
“I do!” Dotty Mae called out. “I don’t know what Jesse puts in his lemonade, but it has some kick to it. What’s he put in it, Patsy?”
“I don’t know. That boy doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Get me one, too.” Marva licked her lips. “It is tasty lemonade.”
“Patsy?” Belinda asked.
“Oh, why not?” Patsy nodded. “Since it’s free for knitters. Oops, looky there, I dropped a stitch.”
“You can’t leave us hanging,” Flynn said to Belinda. “You haven’t told us about Emerson Parks.”
“Didn’t I?” Belinda giggled, her eyes shining bright. “Well, remind me and I’ll tell you when I get back.” She waved a hand and toddled off toward the lemonade stand.
“Ladies, ladies.” Moe strolled over. “Less talking, more knitting. We’ve almost sold out of all the items you’ve already made. We need more inventory.” He clapped his hands. “Chop, chop, hop to it.” Then he wandered off to roust another group of knitters with the same spiel.
“I can think of something I’d like to chop, chop,” Raylene muttered, and stabbed her knitting needle through a loop. She was knitting with chenille, making a baby blanket.
“I can just see him as a sweatshop owner,” Flynn said. “Cracking the whip over underage workers. Paying them in bananas instead of dollars.”
“Sounds just like Moe. I worked for him as a teller when I got out of high school,” Terri said. “He’s docks your pay if you’re one minute late coming back from break.”
“Darn it, I dropped another stitch,” Patsy said. “Anyone have this pattern?”
“You? Since when do you need a pattern for anything?” Raylene asked. “You’ve been knitting for fifty years.”
“Since I started dropping stitches all over the place. I can’t seem to remember what I’m doing. Where’s my focus?” Patsy groused.
“Watch out, you might be getting Alz—” Marva bit off her words, looked chagrined.
Everyone’s eyes widened at Marva’s gaffe. Not cool to joke about Alzheimer’s to a woma
n whose husband was afflicted with it. Patsy didn’t looked up from her knitting, didn’t react.
“My, my.” Dotty Mae jumped in to pull back the awkward curtain of silence. “Since when did little Tommy Ledbetter get such a nice ass?”
“Dotty Mae!” Patsy said, sounding scandalized, but looking relieved at the change in subject. “He’s barely twenty.”
“I’m old, not dead. I can still appreciate God’s work of art.” Dotty Mae cocked her head and stared at the blue-jean-clad young man bending at the waist and dragging flour sacks from the bed of his pickup parked parallel to the courthouse lawn. Tommy worked as a delivery boy for Pasta Pappa’s.
“Dotty’s got a point,” Raylene said, craning her neck for a better look. “Those biceps aren’t so bad either.”
Flynn took a gander at Tommy’s rump. Meh. Not bad, but it wasn’t in the same league with Jesse’s. At that thought, she let her gaze wander back across the street toward the motorcycle shop/Yarn Barn. She couldn’t see Jesse for the long line queuing up at the lemonade stand.
“Tommy joined the gym,” Terri explained. “He’s got a crush on Mr. Ivey’s youngest daughter and he’s buffing up to impress her. I’ve been training him.”
“Well, it’s working,” Marva said. “You’re a good trainer.”
“You’re a lucky duck.” Dotty Mae sighed longingly.
“Who’s lucky?” Belinda asked, coming back over with a corrugated cardboard tray filled with cups of lemonade.
“Terri. She gets to train that.” Raylene jerked a thumb in Tommy’s direction.
“Ooh, seriously? You are lucky, Ter.” Belinda handed out the drinks, and then returned to her rocker.
Dotty Mae sucked down half her lemonade in one long swallow. “Whew, this heat is really getting to me. My head’s spinning.”
“Flynn, you should try some of this lemonade. It’s fabulous.” Belinda extended her glass to her and then hiccupped loudly. “Excuse me.”
Flynn waved the glass away. “I don’t like lemons.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.” Belinda giggled and hiccupped again. “That’s good, leaves more for me.”
“Hey,” Raylene said, “how come I’m the only one knitting, except for Patsy, who’s dropping stitches like a relief aid plane tossing care packages into a quarantine zone. Shake a leg, ladies.”
“What’s the deal, Ray? You applying for a job as Moe’s manager?” Flynn asked. She hadn’t even dug her half scarf out of her knitting bag since she’d returned from her errands.
“No, I’d like to see us raise enough funds to rebuild the Twilight Bridge, but at this rate, we won’t make enough money to build a fence stile.”
“What is wrong with this picture?” Flynn teased.
“That Ray is the one actually doing some work for once?” Terri hooted, her cheeks flushing a high pink.
Marva giggled.
Belinda hiccupped.
Dotty Mae snored.
Patsy dropped another stitch.
Raylene narrowed her eyes. “What is wrong with everyone? Excluding Flynn, you’re all acting…” She trailed off, snapped her gaze from Patsy to Marva to Terri to Belinda and then over to Dotty Mae, who was sound asleep with her chin resting on her chest. “You’re all stinking drunk!”
“Whoop, another first,” Terri said. “Raylene’s the sober one and the rest of us are tipsy. Hey, how come we’re all tipsy?”
“I’m not tissy,” Patsy slurred. “You tissy, Marva?”
“Not me.” Marva shook her head.
“Me neither.” Belinda hiccupped.
Dotty Mae sawed a few more logs.
Flynn stared. Raylene was right. They were all drunk.
Raylene grabbed Belinda’s glass of lemonade and took a swallow. “Hey, you guys were holding out on me.” She huffed. “Who’s got the flask of vodka? Belinda?”
Belinda held up her hands. “I’m innocent.”
“Don’t look at me,” Terri said.
“Me neither.” Marva took another drink of lemonade.
“I didn’t spike the drinks and I can’t believe one of you did.” Patsy sniffed.
Everyone turned to look at Dotty Mae, who was still snoozing.
Raylene elbowed Flynn. “Go through her purse.”
“I will not.” Flynn glowered.
“Then hand her purse to me and I’ll do it.”
“Dotty Mae couldn’t have spiked anyone’s drinks,” Terri pointed out. “She hasn’t left her chair all afternoon.”
“If none of us spiked the drinks,” Marva asked, “who did?”
Raucous laughter from the next knitting group over drew Flynn’s attention. The group of ten women looked to be having as much fun as the Sweethearts. Uh-oh. Alarm spread through her.
She stood up, dropped her knitting into the seat of her rocking chair, and wandered around the knitting circles. Sure enough, everyone was giggling and joking and no one was knitting. They all had empty paper cups of lemonade littered around their rockers.
Moe apparently came to the same conclusion at the same time Flynn did. He came running up to her, a look of panic on his face. “They’re drunk, they’re drunk, they’re all drunk. How can we have a knit-a-thon with inebriated knitters? This is a disaster. A nightmare. A travesty.”
Flynn looked around. Across the entire courthouse lawn no one was knitting and everyone was slamming back pink lemonade.
“Someone must have spiked the lemonade with alcohol,” Moe stated the obvious.
“Shit, Moe, we’re selling that stuff to tourists!”
“Shh, lower you voice.” He flapped his hands. “It’s not that bad. There were two separate containers. The yellow lemonade is to sell to tourists. The pink lemonade was the free stuff for the knitters and the people working the festival.”
Along the streets, tourists ambled past, many of them carrying glasses of yellow lemonade, but none carrying pink that she could see. Flynn blew out her breath.
“Someone is trying to sabotage the knit-a-thon,” Moe said.
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Flynn tried to calm him in spite of her own rapid pulse rate. “It’s probably just some teenage pranksters.”
“Or perhaps it could be the same person who blew up the bridge.” Moe stroked his chin with a thumb and index finger. “Someone who doesn’t want that bridge rebuilt.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Moe looked over at the lemonade stand parked in front of the motorcycle shop. “I’m suggesting Jesse Calloway’s behind it all.”
Flynn didn’t want to believe it, just as she hadn’t wanted to believe it when Clinton Trainer had arrested Jesse for possession of cocaine and illegal firearms. “Don’t go pointing fingers without proof, Moe,” she said.
But inside, she had the same worry. Had Jesse decided to help her out of her knitting dilemma by spiking the lemonade? He had said he would cause a distraction for her if she needed it. Was that what he’d done?
“Flynn, my darling, why you looking so sad?” Her father’s steps were sprightly and loose as he came toward her. His smile was bright, the light in his eyes even brighter. “Come here, give your old daddy a big hug and I’ll make it all better.”
Flynn’s stomach roiled. “Dad, did you drink pink lemonade?”
“I did, darlin’. I did and it was luscious.” Her father slung his arm around her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
No, Dad, no!
“Your old man’s lit.” Moe wrinkled his nose.
As if she didn’t recognize the signs. Her father had been trying so hard to give up the drink. Twelve months sober and now this. Through no fault of his own, he was back to square one.
Despair wrenched her into knots. “Daddy.” She gently took his arm. “Someone put vodka in the pink lemonade.”
“Nooo.” He shook his head slowly.
“I’m afraid so.”
“No.” A strange look—a comingling of pleasure, shame, and defeat—crossed his face.
�
��Yes.”
“No?” His tone turned pleading.
“I’m so, so sorry, Dad. Come on, we need to find your sponsor, get you to a meeting,” she said gently.
“Can I have one more glass of lemonade first?”
“No,” she said as kindly as she could, trying her best to control the fury trembling her knees. How could Jesse have done this? To Moe, she said. “Could you find Hondo and send him over here, please?”
“Handling it.” Moe unclipped his cell phone from his waistband. “Hondo’s manning the first aid station.”
“How many glasses of lemonade did you have?” Flynn asked her father.
“Three…wait…maybe four or it even coulda been five.”
She blew out her breath and guided her father through the yarn ball/knitting needle archway to sit on the courthouse steps.
He interlaced his fingers, stared at his hands. “I’m going to have to start all over again, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I swear, I didn’t know the lemonade was spiked,” her father said. “At least not that first glass. I swear, baby, if I’d known I would never have drunk it.”
“I know.” She sat beside him, rubbed his back. In the past, she’d never cut him any slack where his drinking was concerned, but this was different. “You’ve been doing so well. This minor setback is nothing. You’ll just begin again. It’s okay.”
Her father lifted his head, looked her in the eyes. “What did I do to deserve a daughter as good as you?”
“I’m not that good, Dad. I have faults and weaknesses just like everyone else.”
“Not in my eyes, you don’t.”
“Flynn.”
She glanced over to see Hondo coming up the steps. “Moe told you?”
Hondo nodded.
“Could you help Dad?” she asked. “I’ve got something I must take care of.”
“Sure, sure.” Hondo leaned down to take her father’s arm. “Come on, Floyd. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”
The minute Hondo and her father disappeared into the crowd, Flynn gathered her anger and her shaking knees and stalked across the courthouse lawn, blood pounding boom, boom, boom in her ears with each purposeful step. In her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of Moe—with a few recruits, Tommy Ledbetter of the fabulous young ass among them—prying cups of pink lemonade from the hands of inebriated knitters. But she was focused on only one thing.
