“I’m surprised at the talent,” Jenny said.
“It’s a juried show. Only ten exhibitors were allowed in.”
She paused. “Really?”
“Yep.” He guided her to the first booth on the other side of the entryway. “Although this one’s pretty weird.”
A nativity scene like she’d never seen before glowed under soft blue lighting. She circled the setup. “Different, certainly.”
Grayson pulled his hand from hers. “Cool!”
Darned if the three wise men weren’t made of what looked like old telephone poles, survival blankets, and a jumble of tarnished kitchen utensils. Their turbans were crafted from…were those tricycle wheels and beach balls? The camel’s body was a castoff wine keg. The license plates wired together to form the Virgin Mary’s cloak seemed a little wrong, but somehow it all worked.
She might have to talk with this artist. “Young professionals up north would go crazy for this kind of art,” she told Teague.
“Seriously?” He flicked Joseph’s beard, a plastic toy piece of pizza.
She shooed his hand away. “Don’t touch. You have no idea how much this could be worth.”
“In my world, it’s worth the buck-fifty it costs to get into the landfill.”
A woman in a huge Russian-style hat sauntered up to them and shoved a flyer into Jenny’s hand. “Here,” she said. “All exhibitors are supposed to sign up for a time to man their booths. I assume you’re exhibiting since you’re here the day before the show starts.”
Jenny couldn’t look away from the faux leopard skin that trimmed the woman’s hat. Was she expecting a blizzard? Jenny laughed to herself. In Boston, sure. Here in Georgia, doubtful. “But I’m not exhibiting.”
“Oh?” The woman’s eyebrows winged up. Then she turned to Teague, her tone changing, oozing with a sticky-sweet Southern accent. “Teague, only exhibitors are supposed to be in here today. Could you escort the lady out? Or were you trying to impress this little ready-made family?”
But Teague simply pointed to the flyer. “She’s an exhibitor. Angelina, this is Grayson, Jenny’s son. They’re here for—”
“Nice to meet you,” Jenny didn’t need Teague to step in and make things better. She’d been a big girl who took care of herself for a long time now. “Jenny Northcutt.”
Angelina’s hand went to her heart and her mouth dropped wide. “Oh. My. Gosh. You were teasing about not being an entrant. I was just looking at your display. Your work is simply amazing. You have got to take some pictures of my little Benjamin.”
“Oh, well, I’m not really—”
“Booger!” Angelina popped to her tiptoes and waved her arms over her head, motioning to someone. “Booger, come get your picture taken.”
Jenny slid a sideways look at Teague and mouthed Booger?
His only answer was a beseeching look toward the ceiling.
A boy about Grayson’s age loped up to Angelina. “Yes, ma’am?”
“This nice woman is going to take your picture.” Apparently, Angelina wasn’t fluent in the language of refusal.
“But, Mo-om,” he whined, shooting a pout toward Jenny. “Hey, wait a minute. You look like Miz Abby Ruth.”
Lord, was there anyone her mother couldn’t woo over? “That’s because I’m her daughter. And this is my son, Grayson.” They wouldn’t be in town long, but it wouldn’t hurt for Grayson to have a friend while he was here.
The boys gave each other the ’sup chin lift.
Jenny turned back to Angelina to find the woman studying her with narrowed eyes. “Abby Ruth’s daughter?”
“Oh, Lord,” Teague muttered under his breath and wrapped a hand around Jenny’s elbow.
But Jenny had seen this type of reaction from people a time or two in the past. They expected her to be just as stubborn, opinionated and outspoken as her mother. And she was. But she’d simply learned when to slap on a filter. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but I’m not a pro. I take casual pictures, not portraits.”
“Should’ve known,” Angelina said. “Your mother only thinks of herself too.”
“Angelina,” Teague said, “Jenny’s just here for the holidays, but she’ll be sure to let you know if her busy schedule will allow for any photo shoots.” Then he hustled her and Grayson down the hallway.
“Who is she?” Jenny asked.
“The bane of your mother’s existence,” he said with a sigh, “and the coordinator of this event.”
“Wait a minute. I need to find her and pull my entry.” Jenny tried to pull away from Teague’s grip and turn back, but he didn’t budge.
“You should at least look at your booth before you do that.” He guided her to the last exhibitor space on that aisle.
Jenny stopped as if she’d hit a wall. She’d expected some slap-dash attempt on her mother’s part. Maybe a few pictures Mom had downloaded from Facebook, printed and hung with straight pins.
Nothing like this.
Her mom’s friend, Maggie Rawls, was perched at the top of a stepladder carefully positioning a photo. With her hair pulled back in her trademark ponytail and a hammer across her lap, the seventy-something gal looked right at home up there. She wore khaki pants and a Christmas-themed sweater appliquéd with sheep wearing Santa hats and goats hooked up to a sleigh. Santa was none other than a Jersey cow wearing a red suit.
“What do you think?” Maggie reeled in her metal tape measure and smiled.
The display was stunning. Ten of Jenny’s favorite photos, all simply but elegantly matted and framed in black. She couldn’t have done better herself. The black made her photos pop. They jumped out and grabbed her by the heart.
But that didn’t matter.
If it had been up to her, she would never have selected these specific pictures. They were too personal. Brought back too many memories. They were full portrait shots of the biggest moments of her life.
She grabbed the picture of a pair of tiny hands cupping a single bluebonnet. Then one with two pairs of feet balancing on an abandoned railroad track. Oh, the memory of Grayson at three years old. Stop remembering and start removing. She plucked two more pictures off the display and went on tiptoes to pull down the next one.
“What are you doing?” Maggie squawked and held out her hand, gesturing for Jenny to hand them over. “Do you know how long it took me to measure, place and level all these pictures?”
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Jenny said. “It’s lovely. I appreciate your efforts, but I didn’t agreed to this. Even if I had, I never would’ve entered these photos.”
Teague stood in the corner, studying one of them. “Slow down a second, Jenny.” He turned to her, his brows knitted tightly. “Do you remember this?”
She walked over and came face-to-face with a picture of Teague, wearing a proud grin on his face and down on bended knee, offering her a prom corsage of white roses.
“Yes,” she said quietly. That picture brought back so many memories. Inside those flowers, he’d hidden a camera-shaped pendant. Later, when she peered through the viewfinder, she’d discovered it held a tiny picture of Teague and her, cheek to cheek.
And at the dance that night, they’d shimmied to Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and swayed to Faith Hill’s “Breathe.” Those were memories better left where they were. Trying to force the unexpected yearning back out of her heart, she gazed through tear-hazy eyes at her photos.
“Mom, you could win this.” Grayson skipped from one picture to the next. “You’re the best one here.”
He stopped in front of the photo she’d no more than looked at from the corner of her eye since she walked into the booth. If the corsage picture hurt, that one had the power to kill her. It had been taken the last time she’d seen Teague before he’d called to tell her he was marrying another woman.
“Is that you?” Grayson asked Teague.
Teague never took his gaze from her, just stroked a finger down the side of her neck. And God knows she f
elt both touches right down to her soul.
“Yeah, Grayson. That’s me,” Teague said, his voice husky. “I knew your mom when she was your age. And when she turned into a woman.”
“Mom? Are you going to kiss him in this picture?”
Jenny clamped her mouth shut. Selfies hadn’t been so easy to take back in the days before iPhones. She’d had to set the timer and run to Teague’s side to get that shot. And the way he’d looked down at her, with love and pride bigger than the sky, had reassured her they’d always be together.
Jenny pulled away from Teague’s touch and nudged Grayson toward another photo.
“Hey. That’s me when I learned to ride a bike.” Grayson beamed. “Love you, Mom.”
“Would it be so bad if you left them up for the week?” Teague said near her ear, causing Jenny to jump. “It’s too late for the committee to find a replacement artist. Come on. Your photos are amazing, and Maggie has worked hard on the display. What are you afraid of?”
Her first impulse was to yell “You!” Instead, she avoided his dark-eyed gaze, pretending interest in the flyer Angelina had given her. Anything to keep her mind off the confusion he’d stirred up inside her. Scanning the paper in her hand, she noticed the four numbers after the dollar sign. “Wait a second. Am I reading this thing right?”
Teague shrugged. “Cash prize, and a one-year residency at the high school included.”
“No one told me it was $5000.” She could cover her half of the bill for Grayson’s braces with that kind of cash.
“A residency wouldn’t be so bad either.” Teague touched her shoulder and curled an escaped strand of her hair around his finger. “I’d love for you to be around. Your mom would too.”
Jenny’s chest tightened at his words. Pleasure and panic both wrapped around her heart. The money was one thing, but a residency that would require her to move to Summer Shoals for an entire year wasn’t something she could even consider because that would mean yanking Grayson away from Boston. Then again, if, by a long shot, she were to win this show, she could just say no, thank you to the residency. “Well,” she said briskly to chase away the feelings swirling inside her, “five grand changes things. I could really use this money.”
“Then how about I give these back to Maggie so she can hang them again?” Teague took the pictures from her hands and smiled down at her, hope obvious in his expression.
She simply nodded. She’d always been lousy at telling this man no.
Chapter 4
On the ride to Summer Haven, Jenny looked around Summer Shoals’ compact downtown area. With its ornately fenced town square, bright shops tucked behind sparkling plate-glass windows, and tidy main street, the whole place felt like something out of a Hallmark card.
A few months ago, if anyone had told Jenny her mom—a dyed-in-the-wool Texan—would be living in some kind of senior citizen commune on a shabbily genteel Georgia estate, she’d have called them flat out nuts. And Teague had left a big-city cop job a few years back and ended up sheriff of this semi-rural county. It boggled Jenny’s mind, yet they seemed happier than two monkeys in a banana tree.
“Why Georgia?” she asked Teague over the country music station on the radio.
“Huh?” Teague glanced her way, his eyes shielded by a pair of sexy sunglasses. Sexy, yes. But they also shielded his thoughts from her. Already she was in too deep if she was worried about what this man was thinking. If she wanted to know why he’d made the choices—both recent and past—he’d made.
“Why small-town Georgia, Teague?”
“Braves are close by.”
She popped him a good one in the biceps. Idiot man. He knew she didn’t hit like a girl. And she’d taken a little Krav Maga since the last time she’d popped him like that.
“Ouch.” He rubbed his arm.
“Seriously? That’s the best you can do? I know you live alone, but dealing with those three women at Summer Haven hasn’t taught you a guy answer won’t pass muster? The Braves my foot.”
“Maggie, Sera and your mom are too worried about me sticking my nose in their doings to give me a hard time.” With a macho nonchalance only Southern men could pull off, Teague propped his wrist on the steering wheel, drove that way for a few minutes. Finally, he sighed and said, “It’s a good town, don’t you think?”
“We were raised in Houston. City of two million compared to a town of eight thousand? Kind of a stretch move.”
“Remember my nana and papa lived up in a small place in East Texas.” His mouth quirked up—the expression a little sad, a little happy. “I loved going up there in the summers. Shoes were totally optional. We’d beg Papa to take us to the little store off the highway. Concrete floors cool under your bare feet. Candy for three rows. Little deli in the back. Place always smelled of pastrami and smoked brisket.” He shook his head as if shaking off the memory. “So Summer Shoals isn’t such a stretch.”
“Don’t you ever get bored?”
His grin went wide. “Do I have to remind you that your mother lives here?”
“Point taken,” she said. “But what do you do, you know, for entertainment?”
If Jenny’s eyesight was any good, Teague’s grin took on a naughty edge. And last time she’d gone to the eye doctor, he’d proclaimed her 20-20.
“Well, now,” he drawled. “I supposed that depends on the kind of entertainment you’re referring to.”
And, oh Lord, it hit Jenny like a hammer to the head. Maybe she wasn’t the only woman he’d kissed lately. In fact, she’d be downright shocked if she was. Summer Shoals was small, but any eligible woman within ten counties would have an eye for this man. “In Boston, we have museums, sports arenas, great restaurants. That kind of thing.”
“Tell me something—” his light expression disappeared, “—do you really like it that much up there in the north?”
“You say north like it’s a cuss word.”
“It’s cold.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s bad. For instance, we have lobster.”
Teague grunted. “Catfish and trout are good enough for me. And I haven’t ever had a fried lobster.”
Jenny turned toward the passenger side window so he couldn’t see her eye roll. “I have a great job. It’s Grayson’s home. He loves his school.”
“You didn’t say you liked Boston or were happy there. Ever think you could be happy somewhere else?”
Somehow yanking Grayson away from everything he’d ever known didn’t seem fair. “Boston is…”
She wasn’t even sure what word to use. Comfortable? Her small condo was fine but nothing to shout about. Secure? Both her and Grayson’s lives had been flipped upside down after the divorce. Home? Had Boston ever truly been her home? She’d tried to make the city home after she and Teague split, once she knew she wouldn’t be heading back to Texas after graduation.
“Is what?” he asked.
“It’s where we’re planted.”
“Sometimes soil can get depleted. Nothing left for the plants to thrive on.”
“And you think Georgia is somehow more fertile?”
He was out of his mind. In a place like Summer Shoals she couldn’t make a fraction of the salary she did in a bigger city. Besides, who needed an artists’ agent here? That little idea she’d had for years about opening a small photography studio of her own tickled her brain, but she knocked it aside with an elbow punch.
Just because she’d decided she would stay in the contest didn’t mean she had any real confidence that she might win, so all this thinking about what might happen if she did was silly.
Teague turned into the long driveway leading to Lillian Summer Fairview’s estate. With its Georgian plantation-style house, pretty white gazebo and fifty acres of rolling land, Summer Haven was beautiful, if tattered around the edges. Jenny had only been there once before, but today it felt a little like coming home.
When Teague stopped the truck in the circle drive, Summer Haven’s front door immediately swung op
en to reveal Jenny’s mom and Sera, a fifty-something strawberry blonde twenty years Jenny’s senior. If Sera’s lean grace was anything to judge by, there was something to all that yoga and clean eating she was always preaching about.
Grayson gave Teague a hurried “thanks” and wave, then scurried out.
“Summer Shoals might look quiet from the outside,” Teague said. “But believe me, there’s plenty of good stuff happening around here. I bet if I take you on the candlelight home tour, you’ll see what’s so special about this place.”
“Teague Castro, are you asking me out on a date?”
He slid her a look that could’ve boiled a cooler full of ice cubes. “I suppose that depends on your answer.”
The last time she’d let this man charm her, he’d broken her heart. Why would she open herself up again? Long-distance relationships never worked even when two people didn’t have a history. Didn’t have secrets between them.
But wouldn’t it be fun to enjoy a man’s company again? To have him buy her dinner, compliment her hair, hold her hand? Grayson was so sweet about telling her how pretty she was, but it wasn’t the same as a grown man being attracted to her. “If I said yes?”
“Then I was definitely asking you out on a date.”
But Jenny’s first “date” with Teague wasn’t the holiday home tour. He’d offered to pick her and Grayson up for an undisclosed outing, but she’d borrowed her mom’s truck instead. It would make getting the heck away from Teague easier if she felt things were moving too fast.
Her mom’s behemoth truck was nearly impossible to maneuver down the street with cars parked on both curbs. Pecan Grove Way seemed like a nice little street, quiet with small, neat houses.
She pulled into Teague’s driveway, careful not to scrape his truck with her mom’s. With the truck in park, she sat there for a minute, taking in the white frame house with—she squinted to make sure she was seeing right—pinkish shutters.
When she and Grayson walked to the porch, she spotted a beautifully carved deacon’s bench that used to have a place of honor in front of Teague’s momma’s house.
Always On My Mind Page 3
