April followed right behind her. “Never have kids would be the sensible thing, wouldn’t it?”
“Do you want to have a family?” Nessa asked.
April nodded. “I love babies and little children, but I wouldn’t want . . .”
“May I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked.
Nessa handed her a sales slip. “We’re here to pick up these three air conditioners.”
“Bring your vehicle around to the loading area, and I’ll have someone bring them out to you,” the woman said, and then she turned to the next customer.
“Well, that was easy enough,” April said as they headed to the exit door.
“We were talking about children and having a family.” Nessa popped the umbrella back up and sighed. “I’d like to have kids, but before I can even think about that, I’ve got to get my life straightened out. Like you, I’ve trusted the wrong men. You had guys that took advantage of you. I seemed to get involved with cheaters.” Just saying that much brought back a measure of the pain she’d felt the last time she was in a relationship.
“What’s that mean?” April asked. “You’re a teacher. You have a job and a steady income.”
“That’s who I am on the outside.” Nessa waited until April was in the passenger seat and then rounded the back of the SUV and got into the driver’s side. She closed the umbrella, shook as much water from it as she could, and then put it on the back floorboard. “I’m as big of a mess on the inside as you are. I just hide it better.”
“Want to talk about it?” April asked.
“Not today. We’ve had enough cousin therapy for one day. Let’s go by the pizza place and get a couple to take home for supper, and maybe find a convenience store with a drive-by window to get a six-pack of beer to go with it,” Nessa said.
“Nanny Lucy will for sure claw her way up out of the grave if we take beer into her house.” April’s tone was dead serious. “But that sure sounds good.”
“Shhh . . .” Nessa put a finger over her lips. “I won’t tell if you don’t, and if Flynn does, we’ll make him sleep in the cellar tonight.”
April’s frown turned into a smile, and a tiny weight lifted from her heart.
Chapter Seven
Flynn woke up on Friday morning with the covers pulled all the way up to his chin, and it felt so good to be breathing cold air after nights of sweltering heat. Waylon was lying on the pillow next to him, evidently trying to stare him awake with those big, green, unblinking eyes.
“Good mornin’.” Flynn yawned. “Kind of nice to wake up in a cold room, isn’t it? Is that where you slept when Nanny Lucy had this room?”
Waylon’s meow sounded like he was saying yes.
“Don’t you lie to me,” Flynn chuckled. “I remember Waylon number two very well, and Nanny Lucy made him go to the garage when it was bedtime. You are a con artist.”
Waylon meowed pitifully, got to his feet, and then jumped down off the bed and stood by the closed door.
“Guess that means you’re hungry or that you need to get to the litter pan, right?” Flynn tossed back the covers and shivered as he made his way over to the air conditioner and turned it down to a low setting. He opened the door, and the smell of coffee and bacon wafted down the hallway.
The cat took off in a black-and-white blur.
“Guess he’s in a hurry for his breakfast.” Flynn chuckled as he got dressed in faded denim shorts and a stained T-shirt. Today he had plans to start painting the house when they finished their time in the quilting shed. He looked at the calendar on his phone and smiled. “I’m one week sober today.”
You’ve never been an alcoholic. His father’s voice was so clear that he glanced over his shoulder to be sure the man hadn’t sneaked into the house during the night.
“A woman addiction is worse than alcohol,” Flynn whispered. “But I’ve made it a week without a one-night stand, so I’m on my way.”
You won’t get a one-year token for that. The voice continued to argue.
“No, but hopefully, I won’t be on wife number six, or is it seven, when I’m sixty-one.” Flynn slipped his feet into a pair of old shoes, tied them, and left his father’s antagonizing voice in the bedroom.
“Good mornin’,” he called out as he headed toward the smell of bacon mixed with the aroma of coffee.
“Yes, it is,” Matthew said from the end of the kitchen table.
“Dad?” Flynn blinked several times. What in the hell was his dad doing in Blossom, and why would he bring a woman with him?
Good grief! Flynn thought. He’s about to get married again, and he wants me to be his best man for the fourth, or is it fifth, time?
“Hello, Son. I’d like you to meet Delores, my fiancée.” Matthew reached over and held up the woman’s hand to show off an engagement ring. “We’re on our way to Kansas so I can meet her children. I figured I’d stop on the way. As soon as I charm her kin, we will announce our plans that we will be getting married at the end of the month. Want to be my best man?”
Poor Delores had no idea that he could turn on the charm like a faucet and turn it off when he got bored.
“Pleased to meet you, Delores.” Flynn hoped his smile didn’t look too fake.
The woman had platinum-blonde hair straight out of a bottle. She would probably be dying it some shade of red within six weeks of the wedding. Wife number three had been a brunette at first, but she’d soon dyed it to please Matthew. Wife number four, or was it five—Flynn had trouble keeping them all straight—had started out with light-brown hair, and when they divorced, she was a redhead. He wondered if his father’s addiction to red-haired women was because Nanny Lucy had had red hair, and he had a hang-up about wanting her to love him as much as she had Isaac.
Delores’s bright-red V-neck shirt showed three inches of cleavage and clung to her curvy body, just like her skinny jeans with the lines of her bikini underwear showing through.
“Likewise.” Delores’s husky tone and the slightly yellow marks on her fingertips left no doubt that she was a heavy smoker. “Matty, darlin’, you didn’t tell me that your son looked like that movie star that plays on NCIS. Nick is my favorite character—next to Gibbs, of course. How did a tall blond like you ever produce such a dark-haired, sexy son like this?”
“His mother was Latina,” Matthew explained.
“I have to introduce him to my daughter Lisette.” She scanned Flynn from his black hair to his toes. “Her father was Italian. They would make us some gorgeous grandbabies.”
“Maybe they’ll meet at the wedding,” Matthew said.
“Sorry, Dad,” Flynn said. “You’re on your own with this one. I won’t be done with the quilt by then, so I’ll have to stick around here. Wish y’all all the best, though. Nessa, do you need some help?”
“We’ve got it covered,” April said from the galley kitchen area. “You just get a cup of coffee and go on out on the porch so you can visit with Uncle Matthew in private.”
Flynn shot a dirty look her way when he poured himself coffee and topped off his father’s mug. Delores held her hand over her cup and said, “I can’t have any more. Matty is the big coffee drinker in our house, not me. One cup in the morning is my limit. Course, Lisette goes with a cup in her hand all the time, especially after this last divorce. I’ve got a picture of her and her sister, Julie, that you should see since y’all are going to be shirttail kin.” She pulled her phone out of her purse and flipped through several screens before she landed on the right one. “Right here. Lisette is twenty-one, and Julie is twenty-five.”