A sweet romance
Grace has taken care of her widowed father her entire adult
life and the ornery old goat has finally died. She has no
job, no skills and very little money, and has heard her
father's prediction that no decent man would ever want her
so often she accepts it as fact. But she does have a big old house on Lawyers Row in
Peacock, Tennessee. She opens a rooming house and quickly
gathers a motley crew of tenants: Promise, Grace's best
friend since kindergarten, who's fighting cancer; Maxie, an
aging soap opera actress who hasn't lost her flair for the
dramatic; Jonah, a sweet, gullible old man with a crush on
Maxie. And Dillon, Grace's brother's best friend, who stood her up
on the night of her senior prom and has regretted it ever
since. Dillon rents Grace's guest house for the summer and
hopes to make up for lost time and past hurts—but first,
he'll have to convince Grace that she's worth loving...
Excerpt Her father used to say it was a good thing her name was
Grace, because that was sure as the world all she had going
for her. Her hair wasn't gold-streaked and curly like her
sister Faith's--it was just plain brown. And when it
rained--which it seemed to do at the most inappropriate
times--its thick waves frizzed themselves into an unholy
mess. Her eyes weren't green like Faith's either, or
sable-dark like her brother Steven's. They were just plain
brown like her hair. The only time you could even tell she
had eyelashes was when she remembered to use the eyelash
curler and then apply two coats of the kind of mascara that
came in a hot pink cylinder. Grace, being Grace, didn't
remember to do that real often. She wore overalls most
all the time, and they bagged in the butt because she was
built straight up and down like a boy who hadn't yet reached
puberty. Her legs were far and away her best feature, but
she hardly ever showed them because that meant remembering
to shave nearly every day. Grace generally only remembered
on Saturday nights when she locked herself in her bathroom
and filled up the claw foot tub and turned the radio on real
loud. It was the only time she ever took for herself and
even her father didn't have the heart to interrupt. When she
came out of the bathroom--wearing a chenille bathrobe that
most likely came over on the ark--her hair would be all damp
and fuzzy. She'd curl up on the end of the couch in the
parlor with a romance novel from the library and a bottle of
cheap white wine she bought at the drugstore and try to
ignore the fact that she had no life. That's what she
was trying to do, on this hot May evening of her father's
funeral, but people kept interrupting her. Didn't they
understand about Saturday nights? This was her time, not to
be interfered with or impinged upon. "Gracie." Faith's
voice was soft. It was always soft, and Grace wished just
once Faith would give in and bellow. Bellowing was good for
the soul. "Honey, you need to decide what you want to
do." "Decide?" With regret, Grace laid her book on the
back of the couch on top of a puddle of Louisa May's cat
hair and swung her chenille-covered legs so that her feet
rested on the floor. "When in my life have I ever decided
anything, Faith? It's always been decided for me, so why
don't you and your husband and Steven just decide for me?
Maybe you can find a reasonable apartment complex that
caters to single ladies with one-eared cats. I can get a
nice little job down at the textile factory so that no one
has to worry about me being destitute and you all can
continue your lives uninterrupted. "Gracie." It was
Steven's voice this time, low and lazy. Grace's friend
Promise used to say Steven's voice was calculated to make
women's knees go weak and their brains turn to curdled milk.
Of course, Promise was in love with him, which no doubt made
a difference. "You're being a pain in the ass." "Well,
yes," Grace admitted, "I probably am. But I'm overdue, don't
you think?" He reached for her wine bottle and
refilled his glass. "Yes, I do, and so does Faith, but
you're shooting the messengers. As I remember it, we tried
to get you out of here, tried to help you make a life for
yourself. You wouldn't leave Papa and you wouldn't leave
Peacock." "He was our father, Steven." "He was a
mean and cantankerous man," he said. "Steven," Faith
said reprovingly, "you shouldn't speak ill of the dead."
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