I glance away and then back at her. “She went back to Georgia. We kind of had a fight.”
CeCe steps away, and I can see her blank her expression. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” I ask.
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?”
She throws up her hands. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re obviously crazy about each other and—”
“Are we?” It’s a question I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help myself.
“Yes! You are!”
“Don’t you want to know what we fought about?”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“You,” he says. “We fought about you.”
She blinks once. Hard. And then, “Why would you be fighting about me?”
“Because she knows.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
“Knows it’s different. Since I got here. Since…since I met you.”
“Holden. Don’t do this. Don’t hang this on me. I don’t want to be responsible for you breaking Sarah’s heart.”
“I’m not hanging anything on you. I’m just telling you the truth.”
“You love her.”
“I did. Yes, I did. Now, I don’t know anymore.”
“She loves you,” CeCe says.
“She says she does. I’m not sure what that means based on the way we’ve been to each other since she got here. And I wonder now if we’ve just been trying to make each other fit what it is we both say we want. People change, don’t they? And when the change comes, how long do you deny it?”
“Holden—”
Her protest is weaker than before, and as if the words are pulled from me, I say, “I can’t stand seeing you with him.”
“We’re friends, Holden.”
“He doesn’t want to be friends with you, CeCe.”
“I’ve told him that right now that’s all we can be.”
“Why?”
She drops her gaze. “Because I’m not ready.”
“Because,” I interrupt. “You think about me the way I think about you. With every breath. Every thought.”
“No, I don’t. I—”
I reach out and loop my arm around her waist, splay my hand across the dip of her lower back. I reel her to me, slowly, steadily, as if the catch is inevitable. She bumps to a stop against my chest, tips her head back and looks up at me.
“Holden, don’t. This is not where we should go.”
“There’s nowhere else I want to go,” I say. “In fact, if we don’t go there, if we don’t go there now—” I swoop in then, finding her mouth with mine. The kiss is deep and so full of longing and want that I instantly feel inebriated by it. My head is buzzing, like I just took a shot of some fine tequila. But this buzz is better. So much better.
I lift her to me, my hands at her waist. She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me back, fully, giving in, no longer protesting or coming up with reasons why I shouldn’t be here.
We just kiss. And I feel like we could kiss like this all night long, and I wouldn’t be able to get enough of her.
I pick her up, lifting and carrying her all at the same time to the bed. I both drop her and follow her down at the same time. The feel of her beneath me is like being found when I never knew I was lost.
Hank Junior makes a sound that might be disapproval and heads to a corner of the room.
CeCe and I roll to the middle, still kissing. It’s pretty clear that neither of us has any desire to stop.
I feel something crumple under me and pull a piece of paper out from under my shoulder.
I’m ready to toss it when CeCe grabs my hand and says, “Hank Junior! What have you gotten into now?”
The edges of the paper have been chewed, the top right hand corner completely missing. CeCe glances at it, then pulls it in for a closer look.
Her face goes completely still. She slides up on her knees, her face growing whiter as she reads.
“What is it?” I raise up on my elbow. “What’s wrong?”
She drops the paper, and it flutters back onto the blanket beneath us.
The look on her face has me spooked, and I cautiously pick up the torn page and start to read.
Patient Sarah Saxon
Age: 22
Female
Recommended course of treatment:
Radiation, chemotherapy. Initial course to be followed by reevaluation for surgical candidacy.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, elbows on my knees, feeling suddenly and completely sick.
I hold the paper under the lamplight and read it again, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.
“Holden,” CeCe says, putting a hand on my back.
“That’s why she came,” I say. “To tell me. She came here to tell me. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t know. You didn’t know.”
“I all but pushed her out the door. Oh, my God.” I really think I am going to be sick. I lean over and cross my arms over my stomach. I can feel the blood pounding in my temples.
CeCe gets up, stands in front of me and drops to her knees, forcing me to look at her. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” she says. “You haven’t.”
I look up at her, and it feels like I’m on one of those crazy amusement park rides that zooms you to a peak and then lets you plummet. This is the plummet part. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” she says, her voice breaking in the middle of the statement. “She needs you.”
I let myself look directly at her then, at the tears suddenly coursing down her face. I realize they are for Sarah. For us. For it all.
Hammer and a Song
Got my dad to thank for a lot of things
How he believed the first time he heard me sing
When he saw I had music in me
Said your gift won’t steer you wrong
But if you ever find yourself in need
Of something to fall back on
That’s when he said
Learn how to use a hammer
Go on and write your songs
You can build your dreams with both
Nail by nail, note by note
Put your faith in one
Your heart in the other
You’ll get where you belong
With a hammer and a song
Got no way to know how life’s gonna go
Knew I loved her the moment I saw her though
Aimed to lay the whole world at her feet
Didn’t want to let her down
Keeping after what I might never reach
But the woman I’m lucky I found
She said
Make good use of that hammer
Go on and write your songs
You can build our dreams with both
Nail by nail, note by note
Put your faith in one
Your heart in the other
You’ll get where you belong
With a hammer and a song
Been lucky enough to know what it feels like
To build a house up
Been lucky enough to know what it feels like
To bring the house down
Yeah, I made good use of that hammer
Went on and wrote my songs
I built my dreams with both
Nail by nail, note by note
Put my faith in one
My heart in the other
And I know where I belong
With a hammer and a song
Yeah I know where I belong
With a hammer and a song
Listen here: Hammer and a Song
Fifty Acres and a Tractor
First time I saw her
She was drivin’ down highway twenty-nine
Tires flingin’ red dirt
She was workin’ that John Deere ‘n lookin’ fine
Had to pull my truck over
Sat there on the shoulder
While she rolled on by
/>
Wavin’ that cute hi
Yeah I was taken
Oh I was shaken
So I asked around
Our little bitty town
(Found out she’s got)
Fifty acres and a tractor
That don’t really matter
She’s got the sway of a Carolina cornfield on a windy day
The lure of an Alabama morning in the month of June
A sweet little honey
Mama didn’t raise no dummy
Naw, what I’m after ain’t the
Fifty acres and a tractor
One truth I’ll sure own
It’s what every man wants down deep inside
A place callin’ him home
On the kind of land that’s real hard to find
Plenty peaks and deep valleys
Views that give a heart ease
From a front porch swing
With a hinge that sings
Grows a nice garden
Crows who guard it
An old mule or two
Make it ring out true
(got all that in her)
Fifty acres and a tractor
That don’t really matter
She’s got the sway of a Carolina cornfield on a windy day
The lure of an Alabama morning in the month of June
A sweet little honey
Mama didn’t raise no dummy
Naw, what I’m after ain’t the
Fifty acres and a tractor
yeah
wh-oa-oh
Might say wow to the plow
Oh, I mean to tell you now
That PTO’s got a whole lotta go
Be hard to say no
(to her)
Fifty acres and a tractor
But they don’t really matter
She’s got the sway of a Carolina cornfield on a windy day
The lure of an Alabama morning in the month of June
A sweet little honey
Mama didn’t raise no dummy
Yeah, the main attractor ain’t the
Fifty acres and a tractor
Fifty acres and a tractor
Listen here: Fifty Acres and a Tractor
Read Holden’s blog:
holdenashford.wordpress.com
Next:
Nashville - Part Three:
What We Feel
Credits
Hammer and a Song
Written by Inglath Cooper and Gabe Stalnaker
Performed by Ron Wallace
Produced by Jason Garner Productions, Inc. –Nashville, TN
All rights reserved
Fifty Acres and a Tractor
Written by Inglath Cooper and Gabe Stalnaker
Performed by Ron Wallace
Produced by Jason Garner Productions, Inc. –Nashville, TN
All rights reserved
Dear Reader,
I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my story. There are so many wonderful books to choose from these days, and I am hugely appreciative that you chose mine. Wishing you many, many happy afternoons of reading pleasure.
All best,
Inglath
ABOUT INGLATH COOPER
RITA® Award-winning author Inglath Cooper was born in Virginia. She is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a degree in English. She fell in love with books as soon as she learned how to read. “My mom read to us before bed, and I think that’s how I started to love stories. It was like a little mini-vacation we looked forward to every night before going to sleep. I think I eventually read most of the books in my elementary school library.”
That love for books translated into a natural love for writing and a desire to create stories that other readers could get lost in, just as she had gotten lost in her favorite books. Her stories focus on the dynamics of relationships, those between a man and a woman, mother and daughter, sisters, friends. They most often take place in small Virginia towns very much like the one where she grew up and are peopled with characters who reflect those values and traditions.
“There’s something about small-town life that’s just part of who I am. I’ve had the desire to live in other places, wondered what it would be like to be a true Manhattanite, but the thing I know I would miss is the familiarity of faces everywhere I go. There’s a lot to be said for going in the grocery store and seeing ten people you know!”
Inglath Cooper is an avid supporter of companion animal rescue and is a volunteer and donor for the Franklin County Humane Society. She and her family have fostered many dogs and cats who have gone on to be adopted by other families. “The rewards are endless. It’s an eye-opening moment to realize that what one person throws away can fill another person’s life with love and joy.”
Follow Inglath on Facebook
Join her mailing list for news of new releases and giveaways at www.inglathcooper.com
AN EXCERPT FROM
GOOD GUYS LOVE DOGS
BY
INGLATH COOPER
Prologue
Ian McKinley had finally made it. Reached the pinnacle. The top rung of the ladder. Tonight represented the crown jewel in the career he’d spent seventeen years of his life building. Thirty-nine, and by most definitions, he had everything. Money. Success. A teenage son. A beautiful fiancée.
Not to mention, having just brought on board the biggest client ever for CCI Investments of Manhattan, he was a hero to his partners. This party at the Waldorf-Astoria had been thrown for him, the invitation list a who’s who of New York City high rollers.
Standing here now among trays of champagne and tables loaded with exotic-looking foods, he should have been nothing but exhilarated. Somehow, he merely felt tired. Bone weary with the routine of his life, the predictability of it.
Every morning he bought his breakfast at the same bagel shop on Sixtieth Street, ate it at his desk with exactly two cups of coffee, no cream, no sugar. Every day he ran six miles at noon. He couldn’t remember when he’d done anything remotely spontaneous.
But this was the life he had wanted. This was what he’d worked so hard for—to prove a poor boy from the wrong side of Manhattan could make it to Park and Sixty-first. He only regretted that neither Sherry nor his mother had lived to see his success. He’d promised them both he would make something of himself one day. He wondered if they would have been proud of him. But then, if Sherry had lived, maybe he wouldn’t have been quite so driven. Wouldn’t have buried himself in his work. Life would have been more about family. More normal for him and for Luke.
Did he even know what normal was anymore?
For the past three weeks, he’d gotten no more than five hours of sleep a night. That might explain his fatigue, except that part of him felt as if he’d been tired for years. He needed a vacation. Away from the city. When was the last time he’d taken one? The last time he’d spent more than an hour alone with his son? Guilt gnawed at him. He would plan something for them to do together. Soon. And he would make sure he kept his word.
“Why is it you look like a man headed for the gas chamber instead of the man of the hour?”
Ian swung around to find Rachel looking up at him with inquisitive eyes and a smile on her lips. “Hey,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a soft squeeze. “A pillow and a bed sound pretty good about now.”
“I could go for that. Especially since I’ve been getting just a little jealous of the stares half the women in the room have been sending you all night.” She leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth, her right breast pressing into his chest. He waited for the surge of attraction that should have followed her deliberate provocation and decided, when it did not come, that he was more tired than he’d realized.
“Hey, we can’t have any of that.” Curtis Morgan clapped a hand on Ian’s shoulder. A short man with a receding hairline and an expanding waistline, Curtis was one of Ian’s partners at CCI. “Not until after the wedding, at least. Ms. Montgomery, you’ll have our guest of
honor ducking out before I’ve had a chance to make my toast to him.”
“I suggest you hurry up and do it,” Rachel said with a raised brow. “I’m afraid he’s nearly dead on his feet.”
“No wonder. You really gave this one everything, Ian,” Curtis said. “Our firm will see the benefit of it. We’re all very appreciative.”
“Yes. I’m so proud of him,” Rachel said. “Now, if I could just get him to agree on a wedding date.”
She looked up at Ian with wide eyes that attempted to convey innocence, but Ian suspected Rachel knew exactly what she was doing.
As methodical about her personal life as she was about attaining senior partnership status at the law firm of Brown, Brown and Fitzgerald, Rachel made no secret of the fact that she thought a marriage between them would be mutually beneficial. She’d continued pressing her case for the past couple of years until she’d finally convinced him she was right.
Two weeks ago, when Ian asked her to marry him, it had been with the understanding that there was no rush. Both their lives were full, and a piece of paper wouldn’t change things drastically. Or so he had told himself.
When Sherry died right after Luke was born, he said he would never marry again. Unexpectedly losing his wife at the age of twenty-three was the most painful, life-altering thing he’d ever known. Something inside him simply shut down. For the first five years after her death, he didn’t date at all. When he did start seeing someone, he made sure it never lasted for any length of time, never long enough to let things get serious.
With Luke almost grown now, he didn’t relish the idea of spending the rest of his life alone. His relationship with Rachel was a comfortable one. It made no demands or even hinted at happily-ever-after and white picket fences. At one point, he’d believed in destiny and people who were meant for each other. A young man’s dreams. He no longer believed in any of that. If what he had with Rachel met the definition of compatibility more than love, he still appreciated her. Smart and beautiful, he personally knew of a dozen men who envied him.
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