Picnic in Someday Valley

Book 2: Honey Creek Novel

by Jodi Thomas

Genres: Westerns; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas continues her charming and heartwarming series set in small-town Honey Creek, Texas, where ties run deep, and lives intersect in unexpected ways . . . Marcie Latimer longs to run away from Someday Valley—especially since her ex-boyfriend spun a web of lies that almost led to tragedy in neighboring Honey Creek. Little wonder so many locals have turned their backs on her. But not Brand Rodgers. The quiet cowboy comes to listen every time she sings at Bandit's Bar, offering a glimpse of safety and calm that Marcie's rarely known. After Texas Ranger Colby McBride saved Honey Creek's mayor, Piper Mackenzie, from a fire, she claimed him with a kiss. That was five months ago, and Colby still isn't sure where they're headed. Piper loves her town—but does she love Colby? And is he even ready for what comes next? Pecos Smith, Honey Creek's emergency dispatcher, is grateful to have a new bride he adores and a baby on the way—even if one vital piece of the puzzle is missing. But as trouble comes stalking through the valley, lives will cross surprising paths. And Marcie, who's always felt that a forever love was out of reach, might discover that Someday is the perfect place to find it . . . "Compelling and beautifully written." —Debbie Macomber on Ransom Canyon

Release date: April 27, 2021

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Marcie Latimer sat on a tall, wobbly stool in the corner of Bandit’s Bar. Her right leg, wrapped in a black leather boot, was anchored on the stage. Her left heel hooked on the first rung of the stool so her knee could brace her guitar. With her prairie skirt and low-cut lacy blouse, she was the picture of a country singer. Long midnight hair and sad hazel eyes completed the look.

She played to an almost empty room, but it didn’t matter. She sang every word as if it had to pass through her soul first. All her heartbreak drifted over the smoky room, whispering of a sorrow so deep it would never heal.

When she finished her last song, her fingers still strummed out the beat slowly, as if dying.

One couple, over by the pool table, clapped. The bartender, Wayne, brought Marcie a wineglass of ice water and said the same thing he did every night. “Great show, kid.”

She wasn’t a kid. She was almost thirty, feeling like she was running toward fifty. Six months ago her future was looking up. She had a rich boyfriend. A maybe future with Boone Buchanan, a lawyer, who promised to take her out of this dirt-road town. He’d said they’d travel the world and go to fancy parties at the capital.

Then, the boyfriend tried to burn down the city hall in a town thirty miles away and toast the mayor of Honey Creek, who he claimed was his ex-girlfriend. But that turned out to be a lie too. It seemed her smart, good-looking someday husband was playing Russian roulette and the gun went off, not only on his life but hers as well.

He’d written her twice from prison. She hadn’t answered.

She’d tossed the letters away without opening them. Because of him she couldn’t find any job but this one, and no man would get near enough to ask her out. She was poison, a small-town curiosity.

Marcie hadn’t known anything about Boone Buchanan’s plot to make the front page of every paper in the state, but most folks still looked at her as if she should have been locked away with him. She was living with the guy; she must have known what he was planning.

She shook off hopelessness like dust and walked across the empty dance floor. Her set was over, time to go home.

A cowboy sat near the door in the shadows. He wore his hat low. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew who he was. Long lean legs, wide shoulders, and hands rough and scarred from working hard. At six feet four, he was one of the few people in town she had to look up to.

“Evening, Brand.”

“Evening, Marcie,” he said, so low it seemed more a thought than a greeting.

She usually didn’t talk to him, but tonight she thought she’d be civil. “Did you come to see me play?”

“Nope. I’m here for the beer.”

She laughed. One beer wasn’t worth the twenty-mile drive to Someday Valley. He’d had to pass two other bars to get to this run-down place.

“You ever think of buying a six-pack and staying home for a month?”

“Nope.”

Marcie couldn’t decide if she disliked Brandon Rodgers or just found him dead boring. If they spoke, they had pretty much the same conversation every week. He was a Clydesdale of a man, bigger than most, but easy moving. She had no doubt he talked to his horses far more than he ever did people.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know him. He was about three years older than her, owned a place north of here. Ran a few cattle and bred some kind of horses, she’d heard. Folks always commented that the Rodgers clan kept to themselves, but lately he was the only Rodgers around. His mother died and his sister married and moved off. He’d never dated anyone that she knew about. In his twenties he had gone off to the Marines for six years.

“You want to sit down?” He dipped his worn Stetson toward the chair to his left.

She almost jumped in surprise. He’d never asked her to join him. But Marcie didn’t want to make a scene. He never talked to anyone, and no one talked to her, so they could sit at the same table in silence together.

In a strange way they were made for each other, she thought. “Sure.”

“You want a drink?” His words were so low they seemed faded by the time they reached her.

“No.” Marcie folded her arms and stared at him. They’d run out of conversation, and with his hat on, she couldn’t see anything but the bottom half of his face. Strong jaw. A one-inch scar on the left of his chin was almost camouflaged by his week-old beard. He wasn’t handsome or homely.

She decided to wait him out. She guessed he wasn’t a man to enjoy chatter.

“I’m not trying to pick you up, Marcie,” he finally said with the same emotion he’d read a fortune cookie.

“I know. ‘You want to sit down?’ is the worst pickup line ever.” She raised her voice slightly as a half dozen good ol’ boys who smelled like they’d been fishing stumbled in. They all lived around Someday Valley, most with their folks, and even though they were near her age, not one had a full-time job.

Joey Hattly, the shortest of the pack, bumped into Marcie’s chair. Joey must have heard Marcie say ‘pickup line.’

“I got a line that never fails.” The stinky guy pushed his chest out as if performing to a crowd.

Marcie smelled cheap liquor on his breath and fish bait on his clothes. She moved an inch closer to Brand. She wasn’t afraid of Joey, but she didn’t want her sins listed again. Some of the bar regulars liked to remind her that she was a jailbird’s girlfriend.

Luckily, Joey was more interested in talking about himself tonight. “I can pick up any gal with just a few words. I walk up to a table of pretty gals and say, ‘Evening, ladies. This is your lucky night. I’m single and here to dance. I’ve got a college education and I know my ABD’s.’ ”

He held up a finger to silence everyone before adding, “Wanna C what I can do?”

The fishing buddies laughed. One slapped Joey on the back. “Don’t waste your lines on Marcie; she’s not interested. She’s sworn off all men since she slept with the bottom of the barrel.”

She didn’t count Brand as a friend, but right now, he was the safest bet in the room. A pack of drunks was never good, and they all appeared to have more than a few bottles of courage in them.

Another fisherman joined in. “Yeah, she was shacking up with a killer. They say a man who thinks about burning folks alive is sick in the head. If you ask me, she knew what he was planning. She don’t deserve to just walk away free when that fire Boone set almost killed four people. Least we should do is give her a spanking.”

The oldest of the group added as he scratched his bald head, “Maybe we should strip her and paint an A on her chest like they did in that old book Mrs. Warren made us read.”

“They stripped a woman in The Scarlet Letter?” Joey’s squeaky voice chimed in. “Maybe I should have read that.”

His buddy added, “There were no pictures, Joey.”

The sound of the bartender racking a shotgun silenced the room. “Closing time. One more drink and I’m turning off the lights.” Nothing in Wayne’s action suggested that he was kidding.

The gang turned their attention to the bar. Marcie had never seen the bartender fire the shotgun, but Wayne had slapped a few drunks senseless with the stock.

The bald guy gave her a wicked look before he joined his buddies.

Brand slid his half-empty beer across the table and stood. “Get your guitar. I’m taking you home.”

Marcie managed to force a smile proving she wasn’t afraid. “Brandon, that won’t be necessary. I live across the street in the trailer park. I can walk home.”

“It’s not a suggestion, it’s a favor, and I told you, I’m not picking you up. That trailer park isn’t safe to walk through in daylight, much less after midnight.”

She looked up and for once she could see his coffee-brown eyes. He looked worried, almost as if he cared. “I’m not your problem.” Marcie laced her fingers without making any move to follow his orders. “I’m no one’s problem. I don’t think you even liked me, so why act like you care now?”

She’d slept with some truck driver a few months after Boone went to jail. The trucker had bragged that she told him all kinds of things about what Boone did in bed and then she claimed the trucker was better. The trucker must have known she wouldn’t say anything when he bragged. If she had, no one would believe her.

She looked up at Brand Rodgers, wondering if he was looking for a story to brag about. No, not quiet Brandon. He seemed to have turned into a six-feet-four tree wearing a Stetson. Silent. Waiting beside the table.

“Oh, all right,” she said as if they’d been arguing. “I’ll let you drive me home.”

A few minutes later as they walked past his pickup, Brand placed her guitar in his truck bed. The black case vanished in the shadows. “I never said I didn’t like you, Marcie. I’m older. You were just a kid.”

“I’m grown-up now.”

“I noticed.”

She thought of telling him they could easily walk to her trailer, but somehow after her day, riding home seemed a treat.

Brand was safe. She’d never heard a bad word about him. Marcie swore under her breath. Thinking Brand was better than most men she knew wasn’t saying much.

She gave him directions to her place back in the tree line near the end of the trailer park. She’d grown up here. Lived with her folks until her mom left when Marcie was seven. Then her dad ran the bar for a while until he got sick. She took over managing the place before she was out of high school. Ordered supplies. Cleaned the bar after closing time. Hired the help. Wayne had been a drunk who needed a job. She’d hired him to bartend with the understanding he wouldn’t drink on the job. He’d kept that rule until he finally bought the place. Now and then Marcie saw the signs he was drinking again, but she doubted the customers noticed.

Once she thought she had a chance of breaking free of Someday Valley. She’d left to make her way with her songs. Three years later she was back. Her dad was dying and her brother had disappeared. The only good news, she guessed, was that Wayne now let her work for him.

Wayne wasn’t a bad boss. He paid fair and she did most of the work while he drank away most of the profits, but he did pay her extra for singing. Twenty an hour and tips. Which tonight had been seven dollars and a quarter.

The lone yellow bulb blinked through the trees as Brand drove toward her ten-by-thirty home. The place didn’t seem so bad when she walked through the trees in the dark and slipped inside. But now, with the headlights blinking on the rusty sides and the broken window glass covered with cardboard, the small trailer looked like something abandoned to decay.

“This is far enough,” she whispered. “You might get stuck in the mud if you go much further.”

He stopped and got out.

She did the same. “I can make it from here.”

He started walking beside her. “I’ll walk you to your door, Marcie.”

Brand didn’t seem to notice the mud or the slow drizzle of rain. He was a man who worked outside. He was used to the weather.

She had a feeling she’d be wasting her breath if she argued about him coming to the door. She didn’t want to tell him that no man had ever walked her to her home. Boone used to call and wait at the park entrance until she came out. He’d said he didn’t want to get his car dirty on the bad roads, but Marcie always thought it was more that he didn’t want anyone to see him picking her up. She was small-town trash and he was Austin rich.

Marcie stepped on the first concrete block that served as a step. She turned back to Brand. “Thanks. I’m home safe now.”

He touched the brim of his hat and stepped away without a word. It was so dark in the trees that she wondered if he’d find his way back to his truck.

Marcie slipped inside and locked the door. Loneliness closed in around her like a heavy fog, making the air so thick she had to work to breathe. All her life she’d felt alone. Even when her mother was around she never had time for her. Or, when her father was ill and never left the trailer. And now, people only talked to her when they had to.

She curled up on her couch and just sat in the dark. There were times she’d had dreams. This place seemed a pod where she could imagine a future, as a singer in Nashville or a rich man’s wife. She could mold herself into anyone. All she had to do was break free of this place, and bloom.

She was almost asleep when she heard movement in the brush outside. A stray dog. Maybe a coyote looking for a late-night snack.

Then she heard mumbling loud enough to pass through the cardboard that blocked her view. What good did it do to lock the door if anyone could come through the broken window? Cardboard wouldn’t stop a rat.

“You in there, Marcie?” A voice sounding very much like Joey Hattly yelled, then giggled. “Me and the boys thought we’d come by and talk to you. We brought beer.”

“Go away,” she said too low for them to hear.

Someone knocked on the door. Tried the knob.

Joey’s voice came again. “Now come on, Marcie. You don’t want us to have to break the lock. We thought we’d pay you a visit. Just to be friendly, you know. Let us in.”

Laughter came from the shadows.

“Go away,” she said a little louder. Tears slipped down her face. She was all alone. There was no one to help her. No one.

The knob rattled again, then someone pounded on the door as if she might not know they were there.

The man on the other side of the door cussed. His buddies snorted. Another yelled, “Hurry up, we ain’t got all night.”

The man at her door added, “You’re going to pay, tramp, for making us wait out here in the rain.”

Marcie moved to the window slit in the thin door and peeked out. Four, maybe five men, moving around in the moonlight. More creatures than humans, if only in her mind.

“Kick the door in,” the bald man in the yellow glow of the light growled, then threw his empty beer can against the trailer. “Let’s get this party started. She’ll play along after I rough her up a bit. Women like that. Lets them know who’s boss.”

Joey’s voice sounded a bit panicked. “Marcie. Come out. We ain’t going to hurt you. We just want to have a little fun.”

She heard the roar of an engine before she saw a black truck seem to fly from the trees. Branches broke and mud sprayed as tires hit the dirt.

Brand!

When he was ten feet away he hit the brakes, cut the engine, and jumped out with both boots hitting the ground with a thud.

He just stood there, his fists on his hips like he was a warlord bothered to have to drop to earth.

Among the drunks, Joey found his nerve first. “You better back down, Brand, unless you got a gun. There’s five of us. We’re just here to party with the lady. If she cooperates there ain’t going to be no trouble.”

Brand set his hat on the truck. “I don’t need a gun. Which one of you men wants to go first?”

The bald guy laughed. “How about we all go at once? We’ll beat you so far into the ground, folks will use you as a hitching post.”

“Yeah,” another yelled. “This ain’t none of your damn business.”

Brand didn’t move as they all started toward him.

Marcie watched from the tiny window. With the truck’s lights she saw the first two men rushing Brand. A heartbeat later their bodies were flying in two directions.

One drunk hit the trailer so hard he probably did damage. Another hollered something about his mother as he sailed through the night air. When he wrapped around a pine, he melted silently to the ground, breaking branches all the way down. Brand was out of the light’s beam, but every man that went after him came out crying in pain.

When Joey lowered his head and rushed into the fight like a bull, he boomeranged out faster than he went in. On his second try, he rolled out like a soccer ball and hit the concrete steps of her home.

The last man standing, the bald guy too old to still be running with the others, had enough sense to raise his hands and back away. He bumped into Joey and they both tumbled over her trash cans. The tall man picked up a lid and started beating Joey on the head for tripping him. Then both men fell over the concrete steps again.

Marcie couldn’t tell if they were helping each other up or fighting.

Brand finally stepped in front of his truck’s headlights and asked almost politely, “Anyone else want to continue this conversation?”

Joey’s voice was high when he yelled for everyone to stop. “I think my arm’s broke, damn it. It hurts like hell. One of you drunks has got to drive me over to Honey Creek to the clinic.”

“It’s closed until six in the morning.” The man in the dirt cussed between every word. He seemed in no hurry to get up. “To hell with your arm, I’m spitting teeth.”

Joey cussed the world for a while, then seemed to give up. “Just take me there. I’ll sit on the porch and cry until it opens. I got to see a doc before my arm falls off.”

Marcie watched as Brand moved to her door and the men slowly crawled away. No one tried to help Joey. The gang had become every man for himself. They all complained. One limped. One held his gut, another his head. The one who hit the side of the trailer had to be kicked awake.

As soon as they were gone, she ran out to Brand, then stopped a foot away from him. This cowboy had just proved he could be violent. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get closer.

“Thank you,” was all she could manage. “I . . . I . . .”

“You’re welcome,” he said as calmly as if he’d just pulled out her chair.

“Why did you come back?” She stared hard at his sad brown eyes, but she saw no anger in the man.

“I forgot to get your guitar out of the back of my truck.” He patted her awkwardly on her bare shoulder. “You all right?”

She was shaking at the thought of what could have happened but she couldn’t speak. Slowly Marcie looked up at him and shook her head. She wasn’t all right. She hadn’t been for a very long time.

Brand pulled her gently against him. “It’s all right now, honey. No one is going to hurt you.”

She couldn’t stop crying. She didn’t want to think. Five drunk men and a throwaway woman no one cared for. If Brand hadn’t come back, she knew what would have happened.

She also knew Brand was lying. There was no “all right” in her world. Everyone hurt her.

He didn’t say another word. He just held her. She heard his heart pounding and felt his rough hands on her bare shoulders. The warmth of him finally calmed her as she melted against him.

Brand gently pushed far enough away from her that she could see his face. “Come home with me tonight, Marcie. You’ll be safe, I promise. I’m just offering you a place to sleep. I’m not trying to pick you up.”

“You keep saying that.” She wiped a tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand. “I’m starting to believe you.”

Without another word, Brand walked her to his truck, opened her door, and helped her up as if he’d been doing this simple act all his life.

Honey Creek

Mayor Piper Jane Mackenzie paced her tiny office on the fourth floor of city hall as if it were a jail cell. The trees were in full fall colors outside, and for once she hardly noticed. All she saw were stripes from raindrops on her windows. To her, the rain had been tapping on her windows for a month, like a hundred tiny clocks ticking away.

It had been five months since part of the building had burned, and the repairs were almost finished. The arsonist, Boone Buchanan, had been tried as soon as he was released from the hospital. He’d be an old man before his family would be able to get him out of prison. Only Piper, the town’s mayor, still awoke at night feeling the heat of the fire, the sounds of chaos crackling around her, and smoke filling her lungs.

Her fear of dying in a fire haunted every night, making her wake most mornings with the smell of smoke in her lungs.

Life was calm now, but the recall of that night remained a scar on her memory. In a strange way the fire in Honey Creek had brought the town together. The people seemed to realize what they had, nestled in a valley in the heart of Texas. Before, they’d loved Honey Creek. Now they also protected it with additions to the fire department and the sheriff’s office.

She pressed against the window, letting the glass cool her warm cheek. The repairs were almost done. People had stopped talking about that horrible night. So, why wasn’t she happy? Why couldn’t she relax?

Simple! She hadn’t seen Colby McBride in three months and her pride wouldn’t let her tell him how much she needed him. She knew Colby had been a state trooper right in the middle of one of the biggest cases in the state. He’d been sent to protect her, and he had. In doing so, he’d almost lost his own life.

The passion they’d shared might still be mixed up with all the drama of the fire and the trial. Maybe all the excitement had fueled their love affair and now he could walk away. But she couldn’t. Colby was too deep in her heart.

Boone not only tried to burn the city hall down, he did it because he wanted to kill her. Boone thought her death would bring him notoriety. He’d made up a story that he was engaged to the mayor, and he planned to play the part of a heartbroken almost widower. He’d thought no one would catch him, but Colby and Sam Cassidy had.

Piper was used to the press, but Colby wasn’t. The months during Boone’s trial must have been hard on Colby.. . .