"Must be thirty cars in the parking lot," she murmured. Obviously, this was the small town's hot spot on Monday night.

  The tires of the Lexus crunched on the gravel parking lot. Tess parked, switched off the ignition, and climbed out of the car. Heat hit her like a fist, the nighttime temperature continuing to hover in the nineties.

  She stood staring at the neon lights on the building. A strange sensation rolled through her stomach, and it took her a moment to recognize it. She was nervous. The fact that she was nervous annoyed her.

  It shouldn't be this way. Chloe was her sister, the only family Tess had left. They should share more than occasional telephone conversations. They should be friends, confidantes. They should spend holidays together. They should shop for shoes together. That's what sisters did.

  "That's what we'll do," she declared, punching the button on the keyless remote to lock the car. "Chloe and me and her baby."

  Her baby. Wow. Maybe it'd be a girl. A little Chloe. Imagine that. "I wonder if the world is ready."

  Tess slung her purse over her shoulder and started for the door. A couple exited the building as she reached it. They smiled at her and said hello, and the man stepped back to hold the door open for her. Welcome to the South.

  The smells hit her the moment she walked in the door. Not bad odors, just a strange combination. Popcorn and perfume and... perm solution?

  The sounds were more what she expected. Balls rolling down wooden alleys, the hard clatter of pin striking pin, the buzz of conversation spiced with laughter. It was a happy, relaxing sound. Her lips lifted in a little smile as she gazed around the room, looking for her sister.

  "Miss McKinney?"

  Tess turned toward the pleasant male voice. Her first impression placed him with the computer whizzes of Silicon Valley rather than the bowlers of Cedar Dell. Mid-twenties, she'd guess. Tall and lanky, he had a long, thin face, freckles, and auburn hair. He wore a Texas-friendly smile.

  "Yes, I'm Tess McKinney."

  "I thought you must be. You and Chloe share a strong family resemblance. I'm Stewart Mooney, and Chloe asked me to watch for you. I'm a friend of hers. We met at the library a few months ago. Chloe is a voracious reader, although you must know that. Has she always been a sci-fi fan? That's how we got to be friends, you see. We're both big into sci-fi."

  Tess couldn't help but smile at him. So filled with enthusiasm, so eager to please, if the man had a tail he'd be wagging it right now. "She liked fantasy novels when she was a child. I thought she read mostly self-help books now."

  "Self-help? Oh, no. Not that I've noticed."

  "Good." That had been another one of Chloe's phases. Every week she'd had a new condition to overcome.

  Tess glanced around the bowling alley, searching for her sister. "Chloe asked me to meet her here. Do you know—"

  "They're having the shower back in the community room. It's a female-only event. I know in other places it's become popular for men to attend gift showers, but in Cedar Dell we're still traditional about those types of things. In fact, I probably should warn you that some folks in town were against having the baby shower. Because she's a... well... nontraditional mother."

  As in unwed, Tess supposed. Welcome to small-town Texas.

  "The community room is this way." Stewart motioned right.

  As they walked, he explained to her about the hodgepodge that was Harmon Lanes. Established in the years following World War II, Harmon Lanes had evolved into something bigger than a simple bowling alley after a tornado leveled much of the town back in the 1960s. The storm's path took it just north of the square and destroyed many of Cedar Dell's churches and much of its commercial space. Jack Harmon, the owner of the bowling alley, responded by closing off half his bowling lanes and making the area available for meeting space.

  Stewart pointed toward what first appeared to be an office with a door and a large plate glass window. "That's Profile Beauty Salon. Jack remodeled a storeroom into a beauty shop for his wife's hairdresser. Over there is our little restaurant, with the soda fountain he salvaged from the drugstore after the tornado blew through it."

  Tess read the sign above another glass-fronted room: "Harmon Lanes Gift and Antique Shop."

  "The gift shop came later," Stewart explained, noting her interest. "It's now one of the most successful shops in town. In fact, you might want to make a stop in there. I can't help but notice you don't have a gift. Your sister is registered at Harmon Gifts, so you can get her something she needs. They stay open late on Monday because it's bowling league night."

  Well. She'd certainly received her marching orders. In the gift shop, Tess chose a cellophane-wrapped basket of diaper-changing supplies. She signed a card while the teenager running the register tied a blue-and-pink bow around the handle.

  Tess was tired and stressed and anxious to see her sister. She walked with quick, determined steps toward the double doors marked "Community Room."

  Smiling, she thanked Stewart for his help, then pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  The room was empty. A half-eaten sheet cake, used punch cups, and cake plates were piled upon a tray. Unwrapped boxes sat stacked on a table. Baby monitors, boxes of diapers, an infant carrier, Tess noted. A crib, a cradle, and clothing. But no Chloe.

  The door opened behind Tess, and she swung around. An attractive blond in her mid-thirties smiled at Tess. "Are you looking for Chloe McKinney's shower?"

  "Yes."

  "You must be Tess." The blond woman set down the empty punch cups she carried, then extended her hand. "I'm Kate Cooper. So nice to meet you."

  Tess shook hands. "It appears I'm too late."

  "Oh, no. Not at all." She ladled yellow punch into a cup. "In fact, this is great timing. Chloe has worked herself into a tizzy, and I think she needs you."

  "What's wrong?"

  Kate Cooper winced. "Oh, one of Cedar Dell's old busybodies said something critical about her weight, and then Snake Duncan's mother showed up with a cheap gift and an eviction notice."

  "An eviction notice!"

  "Yeah. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Nicholas Sutherland is a stand-up guy. He's the lawyer Mrs. Duncan talked into drawing up the papers. He'll watch out for Chloe."

  Tess smiled grimly. Damned lawyers. "Where's my sister?"

  "She's crying in the bathroom."

  That, Tess knew from experience, was not a good sign. "Which way?"

  Kate led Tess out of the community room, then down a hallway. Taking a right into another corridor, Tess halted abruptly. The half-dozen women wearing worried expressions huddled around the ladies' room door looked up when Kate Cooper announced, "Her sister's here."

  She felt like Moses at the Red Sea as the crowd parted before her. As she placed her hand on the door to push it open, a woman wearing dangling grape earrings reached out and patted her shoulder. "Good luck, dear."

  Oh, lovely.

  The restroom smelled like vanilla potpourri, and to Tess's surprise contained a sitting area with a large lighted mirror and vanity, a small floral love seat, and two wingback chairs. No normal, slightly dingy ladies' room for a place like Harmon Lanes. Beyond the sitting room in the stall section, Tess heard the rattle of a toilet paper roll and the honk of a nose being blown. Tess set her purse and gift basket on the vanity and waited for Chloe to emerge.

  If she hadn't recognized the sound of her sobs, Tess might not have recognized the woman who shuffled into the sitting room. She'd gained weight, true. A lot of weight. But the rest—from her dowdy lace-trimmed maternity dress to her ragged, untended fingernails to her—oh, my—total lack of makeup, the Chloe McKinney Tess knew and loved had gone missing. More shocking, frightening even, was her sister's choice of footwear. Maybe pregnancy had swollen Chloe's feet, and she couldn't fit into her shoes anymore. But couldn't she find a pair of sandals'? This was her baby shower. She was the star of the evening. Why in the world was she wearing house slippers?

  Oh no, she's really let herself go.

  "Chloe?"

  Brown wounded-doe eyes shifted toward her. "Tess!"

  Tears bursting anew, Chloe collapsed in her arms.

  Tess grabbed hold tight, then guided her sister awkwardly toward the love seat. Chloe's tears swelled to sobs as she sank onto the seat. "Hush now," Tess said in soothing tone. "Calm down. It's all right. I'm here now."

  "Thank goodness," Chloe gasped between sobbing hiccups. "Everything's falling apart. Everything is so mixed up. I'm so mixed up. I don't know what to do anymore, Tess."

  She's never known what to do.

  Tired from traveling, weary from worry, Tess reached inside herself for patience. She came up empty. "What are you going to do?" she repeated, plopping down beside her sister. "I would think that's obvious. You're going to have a baby, Chloe. A baby isn't a hobby or a cause. Motherhood is not a phase you can abandon or outgrow. Motherhood is for life."

  "I know that!" Chloe clutched her belly protectively. She met Tess's gaze, her eyes gleaming and fearful. "I know! That's why... I can't... what if... if..."

  "What, Chloe?"

  "What if Snake doesn't come back for me?" she wailed.

  Tess sensed that her sister seldom voiced that particular fear, and both her heart and frustration crumbled. "It'll be okay, honey. I promise. We'll figure something out."

  "I have a job. I work here, at Harmon Lanes. At the beauty shop, actually. I do nails." When Tess glanced down at her sister's neglected nails, Chloe added, "I'm on maternity leave."

  Tess was happy to hear the defensive note in Chloe's voice rather than the hopelessness she'd heard moments ago.

  Chloe grabbed another tissue from the box on the end table and blew her nose. "I have a place to live. Sort of. It's Snake's home. He grew up in Cedar Dell."

  "I met a few people on my way to the bathroom," Tess said. "Someone said something about an eviction notice?"

  "It's his mother. She's giving me a terrible time. She's an awful, wicked woman." Chloe told a long, involved tale involving her boyfriend's mother and green Jell-O and mean spirits. She made Widow Duncan sound like a small-town version of Cruella DeVille.

  When Chloe had completed her tale, she sniffed hard, then squared her shoulders. "Snake told me I could stay there, and I refuse to let anyone make me leave."

  "That's the spirit." Tess reached out and tucked an errant strand of Chloe's dark-honey hair behind her ear. "We'll fight the old bat and her lawyer, and we'll win. Don't worry."

  "I knew you'd help me. But that eviction notice... I don't know, Tess. They say Nick Sutherland is an awfully good lawyer."

  "Psst." Tess dismissed him with a twist of her wrist. "I'm an awfully good manager, and I know just how to handle lawyers. Believe me. No small-town Texas shyster is going to get the best of me. Now." She rose gracefully to her feet and brushed a piece of lint from her black silk slacks. "How about we rejoin the others, I grab a piece of cake, then we wrap this party up and head to your place. You can show me all the gifts you received."

  Chloe nodded, her smile revealing the natural beauty Tess was accustomed to seeing. "Did you bring me a present?"

  "Ah, now you're feeling more like your old self, aren't you?" Tess handed her the gift basket, and they ooh'd and aah'd over the contents for a moment, then rejoined the baby shower. Chloe apologized prettily for her outburst, and the ladies of Cedar Dell graciously blamed it all on hormones.

  Twenty minutes later, the party wound down. Since all the gifts wouldn't fit in Tess's rental car, Kate Cooper offered to drive Chloe home, as previously planned. For a moment, Tess doubted her sister could hoist herself up into Kate's SUV, but Stewart Mooney arrived just in time to provide a helping hand.

  Tess actually felt hopeful and more than a little excited as she followed the truck down a narrow farm road. They were having a baby. She was going to be an aunt.

  "Auntie Tess," she said aloud. Good. That's good. She wondered what names Chloe had chosen. Please not something from her hippie phase, like Amber Dawn or Twinkle Starlight, she thought.

  Maybe it'd snow in Cedar Dell tomorrow, too.

  The drive took longer than Tess had anticipated. Twenty minutes after leaving the community center, they passed a moonlit vineyard and a pretty Spanish-style house. Could this be Chloe's home? Tess could see why she wouldn't want to leave. When the truck in front of her passed the driveway, she murmured, "Obviously not."

  Her thoughts turned to Snake's mother and her eviction notice, which in turn made Tess think about the attorney. Nicholas Sutherland. Chloe had called him Nick. Kate Cooper said he was a stand-up guy. Yeah, right. What sort of stand-up guy would help evict a pregnant woman from her home?

  Kate's SUV slowed down, and her right turn signal began to blink. Tess didn't see an electric light in sight, and concern niggled at her mind. This was the middle of nowhere.

  Her car bounced on the rutted dirt road, and her concern deepened to worry. When an animal dashed across the road in front of her car and she recognized the gleaming golden eyes of a coyote, her worry turned to fear. Then they arrived at Chloe's trailer.

  In the privacy of her car, Tess let out a scream.

  For links to purchase this title, click here

  Excerpt from

  My Big Old Texas Heartache

  by

  Geralyn Dawson

  Chapter 1

  Kate Harmon often thought that living the good life was like putting on a pair of panty hose. Just when she finally wiggled her way to a comfortable fit, she'd invariably get a runner.

  At least tonight's runner was literal rather than figurative. Scowling, she kicked off a heel and eyed the spot where her little toe poked through nylon. "It's Monday night. I shouldn't have to wear hose on Monday night. That should be a law. A Constitutional right. Number seven in the Women's Bill of Rights."

  "What's number six?" her seventeen-year-old son asked.

  "It involves underwire bras."

  "I don't think a Women's Bill of Rights exists," called Adele Watkins from the kitchen. Ryan's former nanny and Kate's dearest friend in the entire world, Adele completed the family of three who lived in a new house in a North Dallas suburb.

  "We don't have a Women's Bill of Rights? See, that's the problem. Ryan, maybe you should study law rather than engineering. Think how proud I would be if my son freed the women of America from Monday night panty hose."

  "Quit babbling, Kate, and get ready for your date. You have no reason to be nervous."

  Kate made a face toward the kitchen and Adele.

  Ryan shot her a cocky grin from the sofa, where he lounged on his spine. "I'll free you now, Mom. Don't wear 'em. Nobody wears hose anymore. They’re totally out of style. Show a little bare leg with that snazzy black dress and make him drool."

  "Ryan Scott Harmon. What a thing to say to your mother."

  He shrugged. "Face it, Mom. You're hot. All my buddies think so."

  She hesitated, pleased, then preened just a bit. "Really?"

  "Yeah. For an old lady."

  She threw a sofa pillow at him. "Brat. Don't you have homework to do? If not, I can find you some chores."

  "Can't do it." He flashed her that devilish grin that invariably reminded her of his father, then sauntered toward the stairs. "I've got a ball game in half an hour."

  "You do? Oh no. I'm going to miss it. I thought your weekday baseball games were all on Thursday this season."

  "They are. This is basketball. Girls nine-to-eleven church league. I'm subbing as a referee because Mark Johnson has a big chemistry test tomorrow."

  "Oh, Ryan. I'm sorry I can't be there. You know how much I hate to miss—"

  "Mo-om," he interrupted, pivoting around. He placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm a ref; not a player. Parents don't come to games where their kid is only refereeing. You don't need to feel guilty about this one. In fact, I'd be embarrassed if you went."

  "I don't care if you're embarrassed," Kate grumbled. "I love attending your ball games. I'm a proud member of the Bleacher Butt Brigade."

  She'd labored long and hard to get to this point. Single mothers who worked full-time and attended college missed out on most Little League and Pee-Wee events. Only during the last couple of years had she been able to watch his games with any regularity.

  "You're almost a senior in high school, so my opportunities to play proud-mother-in-the-stands are coming to an end all too soon. When you're in college back East, I won't be able to make many intramural games in Cambridge or New Haven."

  "C'mon, Mom." He looked away and shrugged. "Go lose the hose so you're perfect for your date."

  "It's not a date," she insisted. It couldn't be. "It's a business dinner."

  "Uh-huh. With Dallas Magazine's 'Hunk Lawyer of the Year' at one of the hottest restaurants in the Metroplex."

  Kate shot him a chastising look.

  He grinned back at her. "I heard you talking to Adele."

  "You shouldn't eavesdrop, and of course I have to wear panty hose. It’s a business event."

  "I could make a comment here about garter belts that would probably get me in trouble." He kissed her forehead and moved away. "Enjoy yourself. You don't go out nearly enough. You can come to my ball game on Thursday, and Saturday we have a doubleheader."

  A doubleheader. She loved doubleheaders. As Ryan bounded up the stairs to don his official's black-and-whites, Kate's gaze once again snagged on the run in her stockings. She sighed and glanced at the clock. Nicholas Sutherland was due to arrive in half an hour, and despite what she’d said to her son, she still hadn't decided if she had a client meeting or a hot date. Her stomach staggered at the thought.

  She'd taken the call from the offices of Sutherland, Mason, and Post expecting a question about one of her accounting clients. Hearing Nicholas Sutherland's resonant voice requesting the pleasure of her company for dinner to discuss a matter of mutual importance had her all but oozing from her chair. She'd met the man briefly twice before, once at a Dallas charity 10K run, and once at a United Way leadership meeting. He'd never paid particular attention to her. Not that kind of particular.