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  PRAISE FOR LIZ TALLEY

  “Talley packs her latest southern romantic drama with a satisfying plot and appealing characters . . . The prose is powerful in its understatedness, adding to the appeal of this alluring story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Relevant and moving . . . Talley does an excellent job of making her flawed characters vastly more gray than black and white . . . which creates a story of unrequited loves, redeemed.”

  —Library Journal

  “Talley masters making the reader feel hopeful in this second-chance romance . . . You have to read this slow-burning, heart-twisting story yourself.”

  —USA Today

  “This author blends the past and present effortlessly, while incorporating heartbreaking emotions guaranteed to make you ugly cry. Highly recommended.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  “There is no pleasure more fulfilling than not being able to turn off the light until you’ve read one more page, one more chapter, one more large hunk of an addictive novel. Liz Talley delivers. Her dialogue is crisp and smart, her characters are vivid and real, her stories are unputdownable. I discovered her with the book The Sweetest September when, in the very first pages, I was asking myself, How’s she going to get out of this one? And of course I was sleep deprived finding out. Her latest, Come Home to Me, which I was privileged to read in advance, is another triumph, a story of a woman’s hard-won victory over a past trauma, of love, of forgiveness, of becoming whole. Laughter and tears spring from the pages—this book should be in every beach bag this summer.”

  —Robyn Carr, New York Times bestselling author

  “Liz Talley’s characters stay with the reader long after the last page is turned. Complex, emotional stories written in a warm, intelligent voice, her books will warm readers’ hearts.”

  —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author

  “Every book by Liz Talley promises heart, heat, and hope, plus a gloriously happy ever after—and she delivers.”

  —Mariah Stewart, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

  “Count on Liz Talley’s smart, authentic storytelling to wrap you in southern comfort while she tugs at your heart.”

  —Jamie Beck

  OTHER TITLES BY LIZ TALLEY

  Come Home to Me

  A Down Home Christmas

  Morning Glory

  Charmingly Yours

  Perfectly Charming

  Prince Not Quite Charming (novella)

  All That Charm

  Third Time’s the Charm

  Home in Magnolia Bend

  The Sweetest September

  Sweet Talking Man

  Sweet Southern Nights

  New Orleans’ Ladies

  The Spirit of Christmas

  His Uptown Girl

  His Brown-Eyed Girl

  His Forever Girl

  Bayou Bridge

  Waters Run Deep

  Under the Autumn Sky

  The Road to Bayou Bridge

  Oak Stand

  Vegas Two-Step

  The Way to Texas

  A Little Texas

  A Taste of Texas

  A Touch of Scarlet

  Novellas and Anthologies

  The Nerd Who Loved Me

  “Hotter in Atlanta” (a short story)

  Cowboys for Christmas with Kim Law and Terri Osburn

  A Wrong Bed Christmas with Kimberly Van Meter

  Once Upon a Wedding with Jamie Beck, Tracy Brogan, et al.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Amy R. Talley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542008631

  ISBN-10: 1542008638

  Cover design by David Drummond

  To my mother, Jane Elizabeth, who prepared the child and not the path. Thank you for letting me read instead of nap, and thank you for letting me be creative, run a little wild, and learn independence. I’m thankful for your love and teachings every single day (especially when I hear myself say your words).

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Daphne Witt had always done everything by the book. She took dry-clean-only clothing to the dry cleaner. She always washed the dishes before she went to bed. Her limit on wine was two glasses. No more. She even rinsed out her peanut butter jar for recycling . . . and that was a huge pain in the rump.

  So the very idea that she was standing in her recently gutted bathroom lusting after the twenty-five-year-old man measuring the space for the soaker tub she’d bought on clearance was mind-boggling.

  But she couldn’t seem to stop imagining how his defined abs would feel beneath her fingertips or the way the sweat sheening his neck might taste on her tongue.

  It was raunchy, disturbing, and honestly, a bit of a relief.

  Because when her then-husband, Rex, had pulled out of their driveway two years ago, loaded down with his worldly possessions, that part of herself—the one that got all gooey when Rex wrapped his arms around her and kissed her nape while she scrubbed the lasagna pan—had withered up dry as bird droppings on hot pavement. And her desire, libido, or whatever drove a woman to wear a lace thong that disappeared into kingdom come hadn’t shown back up until, well, now.

  And danged if it hadn’t shown up like a Cat 5 hurricane.

  “I think the tub you bought will fit fine,” Clay said, the metal tape measure snapping into place, sounding louder than normal in the hollowed new addition that was open to the October heat. He turned toward her with a congratulatory smile. “Nice find on that tub, by the way.”

  Clay Caldwell was almost young enough to be her son. In fact, he’d taken her daughter, Ellery, out a few times in high school. So Daphne shouldn’t be admiring the way he filled out his Dickies work pants. Checking out a guy who was about fifteen years her junior was wrong.

  Way wrong.

  Still, it wasn’t like she was doing anything more than admiring a handsome, very fit man. No harm in that, right? After all, Clay seemed to be asking for it, parading around without a shirt, rubbing his hand over those washboard abs, and cracking smiles like a frat boy popping beers.

  Wait? Was this sexism?

  He was asking for it.

  “Mrs. Witt?” Clay poked her arm.

  Riiiiight.

  Mrs. Witt. Old lady Witt. Washed-up Mrs. Witt. Br
inger of the juice boxes and name tags at Bible school Mrs. Witt.

  “Sorry. Why don’t you call me Daphne?” she said, pulling her attention from her ridiculous thoughts back to the very real present. Clay was her contractor. Period.

  He shrugged his sun-kissed shoulders. Shoulders that invited touching. Damn it. Focus. “Sure, but it feels weird calling you Daphne.”

  “I’m not collecting social security . . . yet,” Daphne joked, trying not to be offended. Of course he didn’t want to call her Daphne. He’d always known her as Mrs. Witt, and as a good ol’ southern boy, he’d call her Mrs. Witt until she turned up her toes, no doubt.

  “You’re funny, Daphne. Of course you don’t look like you’re even close to social security checks. You look my age. In fact, you should know you were all the guys’ favorite MILF when we were in high school.” His dark-blue eyes twinkled and then widened. “Oh crap. Ignore that. So inappropriate.”

  She knew what a MILF was, of course, but she’d never thought she’d ever been one. Okay, so she had always been the youngest in the mom crowd, but she’d never worn tight clothes or put out any “boom chicka wow wow” vibes when she volunteered in the PTA.

  What did a woman say to being told she was someone that younger guys wanted to . . . uh, do? “I don’t even know what to say to that, Clay. Uh, thank you?”

  Clay laughed. “Sorry. I mean, it’s true. You were always the prettiest mom, but, yeah, inappropriate to mention. I’m trying hard as hell to be professional here. My brother’s always riding my ass about that. But, hey, I don’t want you thinking you’re out to pasture or anything. You’re still pretty . . . um, pretty.”

  Was Clay flirting with her? No. He was just being sweet. Tossing her a bone. Besides, even if he were flirting, Daphne wouldn’t know. She’d gotten married at the end of her junior year of high school and never learned “single gal at the bar” skills. She wouldn’t recognize an innuendo if it slapped her in the face. Daphne had married the boy who sat next to her in kindergarten and ate paste. From day one Rex had been as obvious as mud on white pants.

  Nearly four years ago, Rex had started seeing a therapist for anxiety, an affliction that had cropped up shortly after Daphne landed an unexpected book deal with a children’s publishing house. After a few years of therapy, Rex declared Daphne emotionally and physically unavailable. Supposedly her emotional abandonment left him no choice but to load his gargantuan pickup truck and drive away from twenty years of marriage.

  Daphne would have been more upset if she hadn’t been so exhausted from a deadline, making Ellery’s costume for sorority rush, and the other multitude of tasks sitting heavy on her shoulders. To be honest, her first thought was at least now she didn’t have to iron his shirt for work the next day . . . and she could watch what she wanted on TV that night without argument.

  Daphne had always loved Rex, or thought she’d loved him. But perhaps she’d merely settled because that was all she’d been offered. When she’d gotten pregnant at Winter Formal (thanks to a five-year-old dry condom Rex had been toting around for the special occasion), both Rex’s father and hers insisted they marry in order to keep the baby.

  So they had.

  There had been good times and not-so-good times. That was marriage. Daphne had been content raising Ellery, baking cookies for fund-raisers, and being the perfect wife she’d pictured in her mind for so many years—self-sacrificing, ever smiling, always comforting. She’d worked at a preschool to make ends meet, balanced the books at Rex’s AC-repair company, and tried to make the little things count. She’d gone all in on the American dream.

  Until the day she made copies of a silly book she’d created for her pre-K classes and one of the moms sent it to her cousin, who happened to be an editorial director at Little Red Barn Books. Daphne’s world had busted wide open into a dream she’d only ever nurtured in the darkest recesses of her heart.

  Ever-obvious Rex could say whatever he wanted about emotional abandonment, but the truth was he didn’t know how to handle Daphne becoming a successful author. At first he’d patted her on the head, assuming she had a new hobby like the time she decided to try scrapbooking. Then she got an agent (she had an agent!), another book deal (six figures!), went on a book tour (hello, San Francisco!), and Rex didn’t have his dinner on the table every night at six o’clock.

  And one evening Rex delivered a well-rehearsed diatribe on what she’d done wrong and why that had led to him leaving her. Oddly enough, Daphne hadn’t collapsed on the ground, heartbroken.

  Nope. She’d merely shrugged and said she understood how he felt. And she had. Because until he’d uttered those words—I’m not happy, Daph—she’d thought she was happy. But she wasn’t. Her career had brought her a satisfaction she’d never thought she needed. She’d changed, and she hadn’t wanted to go back to the person she was.

  So maybe she had emotionally abandoned Rex when she’d claimed herself.

  “You’re not mad, are you?” Clay asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “At what?”

  “Me saying that stuff. I mean, it was a compliment, you know.” He looked worried.

  “I know it was. It’s fine,” she said, trying to brush the whole thing off with a wave of her hand. “Makes this ol’ gal feel good to think at one point she had it going on.”

  “Hey, now, Ellery’s mom has got it going on.” He sang it. Then he winked at her.

  Heat flashed through her. That had been a popular song back when Ellery was a child. Daphne used to sing it into Ellery’s hairbrush when she got her dressed for school. To feel such pleasure at Clay’s words was pathetic—so very pathetic and embarrassing—but she couldn’t help herself. It was nice to feel like she wasn’t a dusty old bag waiting for the chariot of death. This was way different from being declared the hottest little number since Marlene Dietrich by her dad’s cronies at the assisted-living complex. Some of those guys didn’t see too well.

  This was a young, half-naked, hot man in a tool belt. A guy not even Daphne’s accomplished, gorgeous daughter had been able to catch. Not that Ellery would ever admit it.

  Clay clipped the tape measure onto his low-hanging jeans and looked out the opening of the new addition where a few other men hammered on things. A saw in the background whined, and dust kicked up. Little pieces of sawdust clung to Clay’s bare shoulders. She wanted to brush them away, but that would be way too personal. Or mom-like.

  “You’re not having issues with dust in the house, are you? Or too much heat leaking in? I think I got a good seal,” Clay said, looking at the heavy plastic he’d used to blockade the work area from the main living quarters. Sweat ran in rivulets down his chest. She tried not to look. He noted her trying not to look. Pulling the cooling towel from around his neck, he swiped at his torso.

  “It’s too hot to be doing this. Maybe we should have waited until next month,” Daphne said, averting her eyes.

  “Nah, it’s always hot in Louisiana. If we stopped working every time we started sweating, we’d only work two months out of the year,” Clay said, walking toward the opening and then pulling on the chambray shirt he’d draped on a sawhorse. “Let me show you our progress. We’ve been lucky. This dry weather has us on schedule.”

  Daphne followed him outside, where several other workers did construction things. What, she had no clue. Clay worked with his older brother, Lawrence, in a newly formed construction company, Caldwell Contracting Services. They specialized in remodels and additions, and though they were young, Daphne knew they were more than competent. Lawrence had graduated with a degree in construction engineering technology while Clay had skipped the traditional four-year college and taken drafting and electrician courses. Both boys had worked their way through school working for a large-scale construction company before forming their own last year. Daphne was happy to support guys she’d watched grow up.

  Which made her feel extra perverted for practically salivating all over Clay.

  It was that stupid book�
�s fault. Tippy Lou had given her a book regarding female arousal and orgasms and then bugged her for months about reading it. Finally, Daphne had pulled it from beneath her stack of decorating magazines and started.

  This was what she got for doing what Tippy Lou suggested—horny.

  “All this looks great. I can’t believe you were able to match the siding,” she said, marveling at how seamlessly the new addition blended with the old farmhouse. She and Rex had been gifted the house by her grandparents the day after they’d married. Strange to think her grandparents had just given their old house to two teenage kids, but her grandparents had been even younger when they’d married fifty-one years before.

  The small farmhouse had three bedrooms, a small living area, and an even smaller kitchen. Having only one bathroom had turned into a nightmare when Ellery got older, so Rex had turned a storage closet into a half bath for Ellery when she was in middle school. But the blueprint had remained the same until two months ago, when she’d hired Caldwell Contracting Services.

  When Daphne had called to list the house, bouncy Shelly the Realtor had suggested a remodel. Shelly hadn’t actually turned up her cute nose at the hand-painted apples on the kitchen backsplash, but she’d certainly made a face. She’d prescribed a weeklong viewing of HGTV for Daphne, who’d never realized how important open living spaces, en suite bathrooms, and big walk-in closets were to potential buyers. Oh, and heaven forbid someone have carpet. Berber and white appliances were the kiss of death.

  “We’re going to leave this open until we get the tub and vanity inside, then we’ll close her up and work from the inside. But, yeah, it’s looking good.”

  “When will you be totally done?” Daphne asked, thinking about Ellery’s upcoming birthday at the end of October. Her daughter would be turning twenty-three. How was that even possible? When Daphne closed her eyes and thought about her daughter, she saw a little girl in pigtails, stamping her foot over not getting the fluffy puppy behind the pet store glass. Her daughter had grown into a beautiful, complicated, creative young woman . . . who still wanted her mother to bake her a chocolate cake and throw her a fun party. But with more weeks of construction left, Daphne would have to figure out something else for Ellery’s birthday.