Jar Of Dreams Part 21

"What do you think?" Crockett asked, coming to stand beside him at one of the big palladium windows that displayed the Twilight River. "Think you could work here?"

"Yeah. I found out this summer that I can work most anywhere. If I'm here, I can keep the strips going and have artistic control of both of them. If I hire another artist plus an a.s.sistant, I can even keep reasonable hours, like a real person." He laughed. "'Eight Hours Work' can be a reality."

"That apartment's pretty nice. You going to live there?"

Boone hesitated. "No. I want a house. But I was thinking maybe Jack's family could live there. He and his mom could be caretakers for the building in lieu of rent, so she could cut back on her hours at the casino. I know it won't be the same for them as having their house, but they wouldn't have to worry about foreclosure, either. Kelly's almost positive once they're in a stable home again, the little boys will be able to come back to their mom."

"Sometimes, Boone, I think you are a really good guy." Crockett's hand rested on his shoulder for a moment.

"But then you rethink it, right?" Boone laughed, both embarra.s.sed and pleased.

"You'll miss Chicago."

"It'll still be there, just a short flight away."

Crockett held his gaze. "Your life there?"

"The old one doesn't exist anymore, and I don't care about the new one." Boone could see the houses on the River Walk from this vantage point. Micah and Landy's big Victorian had a few shingles missing from the tower. A couple of Frisbees in neon colors lay on the roof of Eli's house a few doors down. "Actually, the new life doesn't exist anymore, either. As soon as I got back to the apartment after leaving here, I called the doctor who lived there through the summer. He's got himself a new wife who really loves the place. She was walking through with us and she pointed at the corner of the dining room and said, 'Oh, my piano would fit right there.' I swear, I felt Maggie pushing me from behind, telling me she wanted her to have the place. So I sold it to them."

Crockett grinned. "That's great news. Have you told Lucy?"

"Not yet."

"Does she know you're here?"

"No one does but you and Sims. How about you? You left two weeks ago just like I did and here we are, back like proverbial bad pennies."

"Only you and Sims know."

Boone narrowed his eyes. Nervous energy had been an integral part of his friend all through their growing-up years. As an adult, Crockett became more laid back and infinitely quieter. Boone always attributed the change to his faith-no, to his calling to the priesthood. He wasn't so sure anymore. And the nervous energy was back. "You're coming back to Taft, aren't you?"

"I don't know." Crockett shrugged. "I want to be here when Gert has her bypa.s.s surgery next week and my mind and heart weren't where they needed to be anyway, so I requested a leave."

Boone waited, then said, "So where are they?"

"Where are what?"

"Your mind and your heart."

"I don't know that, either," Crockett admitted. "My faith's not a problem, though I seem to be losing my ability to 'let go and let G.o.d,' which is not only a catch phrase but a necessary part of being a priest. All I can say for sure is that the only time I feel at home or feel any kind of peace is when I am home. Here, with my family."

"I'd like it...we'd all like it if you came back." Oh, h.e.l.l, yes. Boone grinned slyly. "Thinking of giving up celibacy? That's one vow I know you really did take."

"And one I'd be happy to forsake," Crockett said ruefully. "But it's all a ways down the road. I haven't left the priesthood or Virginia yet."

Boone nodded. "But you will." He extended his hand. "Think Taft can stand up to having both of us back?"

"They'll have to change the sign."

"Ready to go home?" It was funny how quickly calling the Twilight Park Avenue house "home" had become comfortable again, even more so now that Crockett might be returning too. "We'll get there in time for leftovers from lunch. I haven't eaten since breakfast in Chicago and a little bitty package of some really hard things on the plane."

"Me, either. I wonder what kind of soup Lucy made today."

"Vegetable. I talked to her this morning. Aunt Gert made chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes, too."

"What are we waiting for?"

Gert and Lucy were in the kitchen when they got there. Lucy was loading the dishwasher and Gert was counting receipts. After a flurry of hugs and an in-depth kiss between Lucy and Boone behind the pantry door, the men sat down with the hoped-for leftovers. They'd just progressed to pumpkin pie-shared straight from the pan without benefit of plates-when a knock came at the back door.

Lucy went to open it, and when they heard her cry out, Boone led the rush through the sunroom.

Stan Morgan stood just inside the doorway. Lucy was beside him with a small black and white cat in her arms. "Look." Tears flowed unrestrainedly down her face. "See who's home."

"She showed up over the weekend." Mr. Morgan reached out to scratch Kinsey's head. "Made herself right to home on the back porch. I fed her and all, but, you know, she just seemed so sad lying there. Then Jack, that boy that works for you, came by this afternoon on his way home from school. He stopped to help me rake some leaves, and the cat came off the porch and climbed him like he was her favorite tree. He told me, then, where she belonged, and I brought her back right away."

"Well." Gert blew her nose and petted the cat with a trembling hand. "Appears like everyone's coming home today. Come in, Stan, before these boys eat everything in sight, and have a cup of coffee."

"Don't mind if I do. My own doesn't taste all that good."

Kelly and Sims came while he was there, then Jack appeared in the back yard, raking and bagging more leaves. Tom, still in uniform, was the next visitor. He stood talking with Jack for a long time, then they both came inside.

Tom nodded to everyone's questioning gaze. "It's going to be all right. Kelly's his advocate, but I reckon you'll all work together at keeping him in line and well-fed." He glared at Jack. "You need help with anything, you know where my office is, right?"

"Yes, sir." Jack spoke with his mouth full, spraying cookie crumbs. "Sorry. Thank you, sir."

"And stop calling me sir."

"Yes, sir. I mean, yes, sheriff."

Tom sighed, taking the cup of coffee Lucy offered. "It's Tom. Just call me Tom, all right?"

"Yes, sir."

It had probably been, Lucy decided, rolling out piecrust at midnight, the happiest afternoon she'd ever known. Everyone she loved had been crowded into the kitchen, plus a few who'd gained, like the t.i.tle of a favorite old movie, places in her heart.

She wondered once again what had happened to the jar containing her tips and dreams. There hadn't been that much money in it-she'd taken to putting it in the bank every month or so-but she'd been gathering the dreams, detailed on slips of paper, receipts, napkins and business cards, since she was sixteen. Some had been achieved, some abandoned when they were outgrown, and some...some still resided in her mental hope chest.

Make that emotional hope chest, she amended, dusting her hands on her ap.r.o.n and bending to pick up the cat who came to wind herself around Lucy's ankles. "I missed you so much," she murmured, and Kinsey b.u.mped her chin with her head.

"How about me?" Boone's voice came from the bottom of the back stairs. Kinsey jumped out of her arms and ran to give Boone's bony feet a caress before leaping into the rocking chair by the window and settling into the seat.

Lucy loved how Boone looked, with his hair appearing decidedly slept-in and his dark brown eyes both drowsy and somehow brightly aware. He wore a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants and a gray T-shirt that had seen better days. He was smiling at her, his teeth white and straight inside the crooked quirk of his lips.

She loved him. For better or worse and forever. She knew that with all certainty, and if he didn't love her back, that was something she'd just have to learn to live with. Friends. They could be friends.

He was holding her jar.

"Oh," she said, smiling back at him. "I was just wondering where that was."

"Kelly took it home. She washed the jar and the money and cleaned up the dreams as much as she could. With true lawyer-like obsessiveness, she even alphabetized them and put them in neat little paper-clipped stacks. I'm pretty sure there's a new database on her computer ent.i.tled 'Lucy's Pickle Jar' too."

Lucy spotted the new sign on the side of the jar and laughed. It was a sketch of Gladys Doyle rolling piecrust, and the words Lucy's Dreams were printed in a large speech bubble above Gladys's curly head. "Thank you." She took the jar and set it in its old place on the counter.

"What about me?" Boone repeated his question from behind her. "Did you miss me, too?"

"Yes."

"If I came back here. To live. To work." He spoke in fits and starts. "Would I get in the way of whatever's in there?" He pointed at the jar.

Lucy didn't think she could breathe. "No." Her voice didn't sound like her own, so she said it again. "No."

"I'm buying that building from Sims. You know, the old lodge building down by the river."

"Oh." She couldn't meet his eyes, so she just kept staring blindly at the pickle jar. "Will you live upstairs there? It's nice and big, isn't it?"

He cleared his throat. "Well."

When he didn't go on, she faced him, but kept her gaze on his chin. He needed a shave. "Well?"

"I thought I'd live here." He drew the jar closer. "Hey, there's a new piece of paper on top Kelly forgot to alphabetize."

She took out the new note, recognizing the paper he drew on. There was another sketch of Gladys, sitting on a park bench in her ap.r.o.n. Beside her sat the stick figure Boone drew as part of his signature in his comic strips. In the bubble over their heads were the words, "Marry me. We can make each other's dreams come true."

Lucy swallowed hard. "That's pretty romantic for a guy with a c.o.o.nskin cap tattoo who's the worst driver in three states."

"See there? I need you to keep people on the road safe. You can do the driving in the family. As a tradeoff, I'll feed that useless cat and wash everything she sheds on. I'll talk to her about birth control and tell her not to hang with tomcats because they'll take advantage of her, then leave like thieves in the night."

"Speaking of birth control, what about kids?" she asked. "I'd like-"

"-several," he finished. "Great idea. You can teach them to cook and to drive and I can teach them...something. We'll have to work on that." His arms came around her, settling her against him.

She smiled at him. "I love you. I'll love you forever."

"I love you, too." His gaze met hers in a delicious tangle of laughter and joy. "So, what do you say, Lucy John Dolan? Wanna make an honest cartoonist out of me?"

"I say yes." Her arms came around his neck. "Oh, yes."

He kissed her, long and lingering, then swept her into a two-step. They danced around the kitchen in the night, hearing their own music and moving in glorious, shining time.

Looking for more heartwarming romance in a small town?

One More Summer.

Available now!

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 Peac.o.c.k, Tennessee. She opens a rooming house and quickly gathers a motley crew of tenants. 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, rents Grace's guest house for the summer in hopes of making up for lost time and past hurts-but first, he'll have to convince Grace that she's worth loving...

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About the Author.

Liz retired from the post office and, for the first time ever, has all the time for writing she wants. It's every bit as cool as she thought it would be. There are stories hidden in her computer keyboard, and she's having so much fun dragging them out word by word.

When the words are being stubborn, Liz enjoys quilting; she's six down on her quest to make a quilt for each of her grandchildren.

She and her husband, Duane, share a farmhouse back a dusty lane where they've lived for more than thirty-five years, taking time out for trips several times a year. Her favorite was to Ireland.

Jar of Dreams is Liz's sixth book, her second with Carina Press. The Debutante's Second Chance, a Silhouette Special Edition, was nominated for an RT Reviewers' Choice Award. Because of Joe was a LASR Best Book choice from Long and Short Reviews.

Liz can be reached at She'd love to hear from you.

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