Page 40 of The Moment They Can't Forget

“Tell your family, but don’t name this asshole, because I have a feeling they’d fly to Chicago and threaten everyone in the company until someone came clean.”

“They would,” Zoe said. “So you know now, and maybe if you ever leave the company, I’ll tell you, but right now you need to look to the left.”

“Why?”

“We’re passing a statue of a woman. Her name was Shelly Lyntacky, and she’s the reason we drop everything and dance when the grapevine twist music is played. She died suddenly, and her passion was that dance, so her nephew the mayor, who just ran past you in that tasseled shirt, keeps her memory alive that way.”

“Which is kinda cool, but if you told people that, they wouldn’t believe you,” Lil said.

“Right? But it’s not cool when you’re halfway through a meal and your food goes cold or talking with the boy you’ve been wanting to talk to for months.”

“I want to dance while I’m here. It sounds like fun,” Lil said.

“Sometimes it’s fun,” Zoe said. “My favorite memory was with Dan. He was in his late teens and had always wanted blond streaks in his hair. He’d saved up and was getting them done at the salon there and hadn’t told Mom.” Zoe pointed across the road to what was now Chasse Haberdashery. “The music started, and Mrs. Walden, who was the hairdresser, said they had to go outside. You can be arrested in this town if you don’t dance, so he came out with this cap on and hair pulled through it. Mom was dancing and saw him. The color solution stayed on too long, and the tips went yellow.”

“And your mom grounded him?” Lil asked.

“She said that his punishment was yellow hair.”

“I love your mom.”

“Me too.”

She and Lil moved to the right as two men approached.

“I thought I smelled a Duke,” one of them said.

“Oh, look, they let the assholes of Lyntacky out for the night. Go way, Kellers,” Zoe said.

She felt Lil’s eyes on her face, and then she looked at the two men. Big like her brothers, Beau and Noah were part of a family the Dukes had disliked since school.

“You have a smart mouth, Zoe Duke,” Beau said, glaring at her.

“Why thank you, Beau. It’s my finest quality.”

“Don’t tell me you have a friend,” he said, looking at Lil.

Zoe ignored him and walked on.

“What the hell was that?” Lil asked.

“Dukes and Kellers don’t get on.”

Lil whistled. “Like a feud, do you mean?”

“We don’t shoot each other, but yeah, I guess. It’s mainly Beau and Sawyer.”

“I love this town,” Lil sighed. “And don’t think I won’t keep asking for the asshole’s name who did that to you. He made you leave, so I don’t have my best friend at work with me anymore.”

“I know, and I miss you too.”

“Do you love being back in Lyntacky, Zoe?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I came home. Come on, let’s get a drink and have a game of pool at the Rollaway.”

“The names in this town.” Lil giggled. “More to love about it.”

They entered the bar, and she found two of her brothers seated on stools with JD. If she walked back out the door, they’d want to know why. JD was part of her life. She had to learn to live with that.

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