Page 28 of Nashville Lights

“It’s true,” Aunt Lou seconds. “Roxie, eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Obeying, I sit in my chair and pick up my knife and fork. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Scrambled eggs, two oven-warm biscuits with gravy,cheesy grits, fresh fruit, bacon, sausage, and skillet-baked cornbread dripping with homemade butter.

“Okay, this is next level, guys. You’ll have to roll me down Sugar Mountain.”

“Men like women with some meat on their bones,” Lou informs me. “How’s your love life, darlin’? Have those meddling brothers of yours let you spread your wings a little?”

Aunt Lou knows my brothers well. “Not exactly. Tumbleweeds are currently rolling through my love life.”

“Maybe we could help, Betty-Ann.” Aunt Lou perks up. “Plenty of handsome red-blooded country boys around Sugar Falls we could introduce you to.”

Dakota laughs. “Like who?”

“A bunch of ‘em are living right here on this farm,” Lou replies.

“Lou, you’re losing your marbles worse than me,” Uncle Earl scolds her. “The Boone boys are practically Roxie’scousins.”

“More like brothers,” Dakota adds.

Nothing like family to spear straight to the heart of the very topic that gave me such sweet dreams last night—and has always felt a hundred percent forbidden for the exact reasons they’re happily bantering about.

“You all know they’re not actually her brothers,” Betty-Ann points out. “And neither are they her cousins. Any one of my boys would be lucky as sin to win a woman as beautiful and successful and sweet as Roxie Tucker. But my guessis she’s looking for someone more mature than my twins. God knows I love ‘em to pieces, but they still act like a pair of naughty schoolboys half the time. Plus they’re still busy sowing their wild oats, God love ‘em. I just hope they’re being careful. Boys will be boys, after all.”

“Amen to that,” Earl chimes in, digging in to his own breakfast.

Betty-Ann tops up my coffee. “Then there’s Nate of course but he’s so surly these days and hardly ever home.”

“Plus all the responsibility of a child to raise on his own, which hasn’t been easy,” Lou chimes in.

“Lord knows that’s the truth,” Betty-Ann continues. “Then again if he had a gorgeous wife to come home to, he’d think twice about his workaholic tendencies. Maybe it’s exactly what he needs.”

My stomach does another one of those swoops.

“Didn’t he go out on a date with one of those girls down at the coffee shop a while ago?” Lou asks. “Every time I go in there, they’re always asking about him. Then again, they ask me about him at the bakery too. And the library.”

“Oh, you know Nate. Nothing ever lasts with him. I worry about that boy. I can’t think of a single time he’s dated a girl more than once.”

I don’t dare look up from my plate in case I somehow give myself away. And I’m not sure how to feel about or what to make of the information they’re discussing.

“Anyhow, since tomorrow night’s the hoedown, we can introduce Roxie to some of the local boys,” Lou says excitedly. “Just think about it, darlin’, if you married a local we could see you all the time!”

“Hoedown?”

“It’s just a little last-minute thing we’re putting together,” Dakota explains. “A few bands will be playing and we’re serving up a casual buffet dinner, that’s all. At the lodge.”

“Oh. That sounds like fun.”

Betty-Ann and Lou aren’t cagey about any information whatsoever, like Dakota and Tobias were earlier. “Luke and Leo are going to play a few songs,” Lou says. “And maybe even Nate.”

“Nate?” They all sang with the family band when we were kids—and they were all good, even then—but that’s as far as it ever went, or so I thought.

“Nate’s the one with all the talent, if you ask me,” declares Lou. “Of course the twins are also talented,” she quickly adds. “And they could charm the pants off a nun, just saying.”

“Louise Mary Jensen Tucker,” Betty-Ann chides her. “Those are my angelic sons you’re talking about.”

“Well, it’s true and you know it.”

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