The Sometimes Sisters
The Strawberry Hearts Diner
The Lilac Bouquet
The Barefoot Summer
The Lullaby Sky
The Wedding Pearls
The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop
The Ladies’ Room
Hidden Secrets
Long, Hot Texas Summer
Daisies in the Canyon
Trouble in Paradise
CONTEMPORARY SERIES
THE BROKEN ROADS SERIES
To Trust
To Commit
To Believe
To Dream
To Hope
THREE MAGIC WORDS TRILOGY
A Forever Thing
In Shining Whatever
Life After Wife
HISTORICAL ROMANCE
THE BLACK SWAN TRILOGY
Pushin’ Up Daisies
From Thin Air
Come High Water
THE DRIFTERS & DREAMERS TRILOGY
Morning Glory
Sweet Tilly
Evening Star
THE LOVE’S VALLEY SERIES
Choices
Absolution
Chances
Redemption
Promises
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2021 by Carolyn Brown
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542032537
ISBN-10: 1542032539
Cover design by Amanda Kain
To my daughter, Ginny Rucker,
for bringing me an old newspaper dated 1915,
which gave me the idea for The Sunshine Club
Contents
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
Epilogue
Dear Reader, . . .
About the Author
Chapter One
A lady sips good whiskey. She never throws it back like it is medicine. She loves Jesus, and she never gets a case of giggles at a funeral. Those were Aunt Bee’s words, and Sissy had tried to abide by them, but sweet Jesus, this funeral was going to cause all kinds of talk in Newton, Texas. True enough, the town wasn’t far from the Louisiana border, but Sissy would bet dollars to gator teeth that no one alive in the small town had ever marched from the funeral home to the cemetery behind a horse-drawn hearse. She wished that she had a flask of whiskey in her coat pocket that cold, miserable day. If she had a couple of shots, she would sip it like she should, and it might warm her insides when she and the rest of the procession left the funeral home and made their slow walk from the warm parlor to the graveyard in freezing rain and sleet.
If I giggle, you’ll just have to forgive me, Sissy thought as she donned her long black coat and left to make the five-minute drive from Aunt Bee’s house to the funeral home. She parked right beside her aunt’s best friends, Ina Mae and Gussie, who had come together in Gussie’s car.
“How are you holdin’ up, chère?” Gussie gave her a quick hug.
“It’s still kind of surreal,” Sissy answered.
Ina Mae brushed a kiss across her cheek. “For us, too.”
“I can’t believe that she wanted a funeral like this,” Sissy said as they made their way across the lawn. Frozen grass crinkled like wadded-up wrapping paper under her feet. “Or that she won’t be here for Christmas. She loved the holiday season.”
A tall man with a mop of gray hair opened the door that led into the funeral home parlor and stood to one side. “How you ladies holdin’ up?” he asked.
“Not so well, Jimmy,” Gussie answered. “We’re all still in shock.”
“It’s tough when a loved one just drops like Blanche did, but at least she didn’t suffer,” Jimmy said in a soothing tone.
“Sissy, meet our former pastor, Jimmy Beauchamp. Jimmy, this is Blanche’s niece, Sissy Ducaine,” Ina Mae said.
Sissy shook hands with the guy. “Pleased to meet you.”
“My pleasure,” Jimmy said and dropped her hand. “I’m waiting on . . .”
The high-pitched sound of an ambulance filled the air, and Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Luke needs to be here, so I’ve been elected to go with her, and then take her home.”
“Who?” Sissy asked.
“Elvira!” Ina Mae and Gussie said at the same time.
“We’ve got her in the office right now,” Jimmy said. “It won’t take long for us to clear out.”
The ambulance came to a stop right outside the doors, and two guys wheeled in a gurney. One of them rolled his eyes at Jimmy.
“I hope she’s okay,” Sissy whispered.
“She’s fine,” Ina Mae said. “There’s nothing wrong with her that a good swift kick in the butt wouldn’t cure.”
In minutes, the two fellows brought the gurney back out with a weeping woman lying on it. “Oh, my sweet Blanche. What will I ever do without you?” She reached out and grabbed Sissy’s hand as they rolled her down the foyer. “You must be her niece. I’m so sorry to ruin the funeral, but she was such a dear friend. I was just overcome. Please call me if you need anything. She was kin to me at one time.”
“We’ve got to go, Miz Jones,” the EMT said.
“Maybe I’ll meet Blanche in the by-and-by before the day is done.” Elvira sighed.
Jimmy disappeared with them out into the freezing rain.
Gussie looped her arm into Sissy’s. “Don’t look so bewildered, chère. It’s no surprise that Elvira had one of her spells this morning. She’s the town hypochondriac and the biggest gossip in all of Newton.”
“But she was Aunt Bee’s friend, right? And how were they kin?” Sissy asked.
Ina Mae shook her head. “They were archenemies. We didn’t invite her to join our Sunshine Club sixty years ago, and she’s never forgiven us. And they are not kin. Blanche’s ex-husband was like her third or fourth cousin. Let’s go on into the chapel and pay our respects before they put Blanche into the hearse. You go in first, Sissy, and we’ll come in right behind you. We will sit together on the front row of seats.”
Sissy had never been to a jazz funeral, but that’s what Aunt Bee had wanted, and her two best friends, the other two members of the Sunshine Club, had offered to arrange the whole thing. Every seat in the chapel was taken. The walls were lined with the overflow of folks, and the whole front of the room was filled with flowers and plants.
Both of Sissy’s grandparents’ funerals had been in a big church sanctuary when she was in her teens. When her parents passed a couple of years before, she’d had them cremated and scattered their ashes in the parking lot of the bar in Georgia where they’d met and fallen in love. Aunt Bee had flown in to be with her, and when it was done, they had gone into the bar and had a shot of whiskey to celebrate her folks’ lives.