"Romance blossoms in the midst of rebuilding a town."
Reviewed by Maria Munoz
Posted May 29, 2011
Romance Contemporary
BABY, DRIVE SOUTH is the first book in Stephanie Bonds'
Southern Roads Series featuring the Armstrong brothers.
Porter, Kendall, and Marcus are determined to rebuild their
home town ten years after it was destroyed by a tornado.
They have a federal grant and two years to build a
self-sustaining green community. They have money,
creativity, and men who aren't afraid of a hard work and
long days. What they don't have is women, and it's starting
to affect the men who are getting mighty lonely. So, they
place an ad in the newspaper of Broadway, Michigan, a town
hit hard by the economic downturn, hoping a few adventurous
women will join their effort. When Porter climbs the water
tower (again) hoping to spot a car that might mean someone
has finally answered the ad, what he sees is a caravan of
cars filled with women, 100 women to be exact. Porter is so
excited to share the news he falls off the water tower and
breaks a leg. Lucky for Porter, the caravan includes Dr. Nikki Salinger.
Nikki needed a fresh start after breaking up with her
cheating fiancée. She's doesn't feel like she fits in and
is determined to leave now that she has seen the isolated
town of Sweetness, Georgia. It's up to Porter to do
anything to convince her to stay. I struggled a little bit at first with the premise. The idea
that all these women would up and move across the country to
an isolated town sight unseen didn't quite sit well. Once I
got past that, I was able to enjoy what is a fairly
straightforward, slightly old-fashioned contemporary
romance. I liked the Armstrong brothers and their
determination to rebuild their hometown. I appreciated that
the women stepped in, took some control of their situation,
set some ground rules, and supported each other. The
romance between Nikki and Porter was sweet, fraught with
misunderstandings and obstacles. I look forward to reading
the rest of the books in the series to see how these
characters develop and watch the town come back to life.
SUMMARY
Rebuilding their tornado-ravaged hometown in the Georgia
mountains, the Armstrong brothers place an ad in a northern
newspaper seeking single women and when Dr. Nikki Salinger
arrives, Porter, the youngest Armstrong, wants to check out
her bedside manner.
ExcerptPrologue
Marcus Armstrong gaped at his two younger brothers
sitting on the other side of his desk, unable to believe
his ears. "Is this a joke? The last thing we need in this
town is women!"
Middle brother Kendall averted his gaze and wiped his
hand over his mouth. But their younger brother Porter,
always the hothead, leaped from his chair.
"This isn’t a joke, Marcus, and you’re being an idiot!"
Marcus planted his hands on his desk, then pushed to his
feet. "Watch your mouth, little brother. I can still pin
your ears back if I have a mind to."
Porter’s chin went up. "I’d like to see you try that."
Kendall stood and positioned himself between them, hands
up. "That’s enough, you two. Let’s sit down and discuss
this like businessmen—and brothers."
At Kendall’s calming tone, some of Marcus’s anger
diffused, replaced by a twinge of guilt. Kendall had been
playing referee all of their lives. Marcus conceded it was
the only way the three of them had gotten as far as they
had rebuilding their hometown of Sweetness, Georgia, which
had been leveled by an F-5 tornado ten years ago.
By the grace of God, no lives had been lost, but with
the infrastructure of the dying, remote mountain town
obliterated, residents had abandoned their property and
fled to safer and more prosperous ground. Of the three of
them, only Porter had been around when the tornado had
struck. After seeing their widowed mother settled in with
her sister in Atlanta, he’d followed in the steps of his
older brothers into the Armed Forces. Scattered to far
ends of the world, they each had fulfilled stints of active
duty in different branches, then, fortuitously, their tours
had ended within a few months of each other and they’d
returned to civilian life.
It had been Kendall’s idea to rebuild the town of
Sweetness on the burgeoning industries of alternative
energy and recycling. The recycling had made sense because
there were tons of debris to clear before they could lay
out roads and set the boundaries of the new town. Four
months into the enormous undertaking, they were making
progress and Marcus was pleased by the fact he and his
brothers were seeing eye to eye on the reconstruction
efforts…except, apparently, on one critical topic.
"Kendall," Marcus said, "surely you don’t support
Porter’s cockamamie idea of bringing women here."
Kendall looked pained, then lifted his shoulders in a
shrug. "The men are getting restless, Marcus—they’re young
and…"
"Horny," Porter supplied.
"Right," Kendall said with a sigh. "They want some
female companionship, or at least some feminine scenery."
"There’s Molly at the diner," Marcus pointed out.
"Molly is a fine woman," Kendall said, "but she’s old
enough to be a grandmother to most of these men."
"Except she was a colonel," Porter added dryly. "So
she’s not exactly the warm and fuzzy grandmotherly type.
The other day she clocked me with a wooden spoon because I
couldn’t finish that gruel she calls oatmeal."
"We’re lucky to have her here," Marcus said. "How else
would we feed the men?"
"Marcus, she runs that place like a mess hall, and the
food is terrible."
"It’s…edible," Marcus said in her defense. "And it’s
good that she keeps the men in line."
"Molly is a blessing," Kendall conceded. "But surely
you understand the men are more interested in having
eligible, young women around."
Marcus scoffed. "These are mostly military guys—they’re
used to being without female company."
"Sure, when they were in Iraq and Afghanistan!" Porter
blurted. "But now that they’re back on American soil, they
want to see some American beauties."
"We’re only a few hours from Atlanta," Marcus remarked.
"Four hours," Porter reminded him.
"The men don’t seem to mind the drive when they caravan
into the city on the weekends."
Kendall made a thoughtful noise in his throat. "But
invariably, some of them don’t come back Monday morning
because they’re either in jail or in love."
Marcus pulled on his chin. Ten crews of twenty-five men
each was the minimum number of bodies they needed to keep
things moving forward. Admittedly, it was getting harder
to recruit new workers to replace the men who went AWOL
every week.
A commotion outside the office trailer caught their
attention. Kendall looked out the window, then bolted for
the door. "It’s another fight."
Marcus cursed and followed his brothers outside where a
few hundred yards away, two men rolled in the red mud,
fists flying, while other men stood around egging them on.
Kendall and Porter rushed forward to pull the men apart,
but wound up getting dragged down in the mud with them.
Marcus rolled his eyes, then reached for a water hose
coiled nearby and turned a stream full force on the
fighting men. "Break it up!"
The men separated enough for Kendall and Porter to drag
them to their feet and shove them in opposite directions.
"He started it!" one man yelled.
"That’s bullshit!" the other man yelled.
"Enough!" Marcus roared. "One more word and your pay
will be docked!" He turned to address all the
workers. "The next man who wants to fight will be fired on
the spot, got it? Now get back to work!"
The men grumbled, but everyone made their way back to
the mountainous pile of tires that were being sent through
an industrial shredder, cleaned, and bagged as mulch. It
was their first viable commercial product. Kendall, a
natural salesman, had convinced several state parks and
botanical gardens to switch from natural wood mulch to
their reclaimed product that would last for decades.
Everything was moving forward as planned…except for the
constant interruptions of fighting among the men.
Kendall and Porter walked toward him, slinging mud from
their arms. "It’s only going to get worse," Porter
said. "These guys are together all the time, with no way
to blow off steam."
"I have to agree, big brother," Kendall offered, picking
up the hose to wash off the worst of the sticky red mud.
"C’mon, Marcus—having women here will help to grow the
town faster," Porter urged. "We’re going to need retail
stores and teachers and nurses—"
"And lawyers and doctors," Kendall broke in, giving
Porter a chastising squirt with the hose.
"I don’t care what they do for a living," Porter said
with a grin, "as long as they bring skirts and high heels
and perfume. I don’t blame the men—I’m tired of being
around a bunch of sweaty, ugly guys, too. And that
includes you two."
Marcus pursed his mouth. "So this is really about you,
Porter. You want us to import women for your own
entertainment."
"No." Then Porter shrugged sheepishly. "But I don’t
plan to sit on the sidelines. Unlike you, Marcus, I don’t
hate women."
Marcus gritted his teeth. "I don’t hate women. I just
know that bringing a bunch of female-types into this town
prematurely will be a fustercluck of gigantic
proportions." He gestured to the barren red-clay expanse
of ground extending to a distant tree line. "Where are
they supposed to live? In the men’s barracks?" The
utilitarian rectangular building sat at the end of the work
site, adding little to the landscape.
"We could build a boarding house across from the diner,"
Kendall offered, handing off the water hose to Porter. "It
could be the start of our downtown."
"What about our dire water situation?" Marcus asked,
jerking the hose out of Porter’s hand and turning it off
before he could rinse himself.
"We’d need to repair the water tower sooner rather than
later," Kendall admitted.
"But the sooner we make this place civilized," Porter
piped up, "the sooner we can bring Mother back home to
Sweetness."
A pang struck Marcus in his chest—Porter knew his soft
spot. Their mother’s pining for her hometown had fueled
their decision to rebuild Sweetness. With the whiff of
defeat in the air, Marcus pulled his hand down his
face. "And how do you propose we go about attracting women
to a place where drinking water is at a premium, and the
nearest mall is a helicopter ride away?"
Porter’s teeth were white in his mud-covered face. "I
volunteer to go to Atlanta and start recruiting right away."
Marcus frowned. "At strip clubs and bars? No thanks."
"You have a better idea?" Porter asked.
"I think it’s a bad idea all the way around!" Marcus
shouted, then glanced at Kendall, who was, as usual,
standing poised to jump between them if necessary.
"But…I’ll go along with it," Marcus announced, then
silenced Porter’s shout of victory with a raised hand. "If
you’ll handle the logistics, Kendall."
Kendall’s eyes widened. "Me?"
"Yes, you. Porter can get the men started on building a
rooming house and repairing the water tower while you
figure out how to import the kind of women we’ll need to
grow Sweetness."
Marcus turned and strode back toward the office, his
muscles tense from a palpable sense of impending doom.
"Where are you going?" Kendall called behind him.
"To take cover," Marcus yelled over his
shoulder. "Because you boys are about to unleash another
natural disaster on this town."
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