Sunshine and Rain (City Limits Book 2)

  Sunshine and Rain | a City Limits Novel Copyright © 2016 M. Mabie / Fifty5cent Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/ publisher. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not indented by the author.

  LICENSE NOTICE. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER. This is a work of adult fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The author does not endorse or condone any behavior enclosed within. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity and explicit sexual situations.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2016 by Cassy Roop at Pink Ink Designs, pinkinkdesigns.com

  Editing by Lori Sabin

  Book formatting by Stacey Blake, Champagne Formats

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by m. mabie

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Fade In

  THE WAKE SERIES

  Bait

  Sail

  Anchor

  THE WAKE FAMILY

  Knot

  THE CITY LIMITS SERIES

  Roots and Wings

  Coming Soon

  The Very Second Time

  Tide

  For the timeless Gretchen Mabie, our matriarch.

  “Do you think you’ll see him again?” my mom asked over the phone.

  Her voice was a gentle nudge indicating she hoped I would. I’d been out on a third pseudo-date with a guy named Mike the week before. As far as dates went, they’d been okay, but I wasn’t feeling it.

  Again.

  “I don’t know, Mom. He’s nice, but there’s no spark. No chemistry.” I was a dating veteran and probably jaded in my ripe old age of twenty-eight.

  Was it too much to want that telltale gut feeling like you’d been startled by fate? Was it too much to expect a special something to come to life when you were around a guy?

  Lately, it seemed so.

  “Honey, I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re knocking on thirty. I love you, but you’re the pickiest girl I’ve ever known. When are you going to realize sometimes love takes a while? You never give anyone a chance.”

  Watching the timer tick down the seconds on the last song I had programmed before I’d be back on the air, I had a sinking feeling.

  Maybe she was right.

  I’d been out with dozens of guys in the past few years, and each time I found something wrong with them. It wasn’t that they weren’t great guys. Most of them—aside from the few bad apples—were good men. Regardless of whether it lasted one date or a few months, either the guy or I would break things off. I think it was about split down the middle, though.

  Half the time, I’d give him my I think you’re a really nice guy, but I’m just not looking for a serious relationship right now talk, which was always a lie, and we’d part as friends. I was looking for a serious relationship—actively—but, coupled with that, I was looking for someone who I’d actually enjoy growing old with. Someone who pushed my buttons and, frankly, really turned me on. None of those things were happening.

  On the flip side, sometimes they just kind of lost interest in me, which never hurt my feelings, and the calls would simply stop. Then, I’d move on.

  Nothing dramatic, but sadly, my relationship status was predictable and not looking like it was going to change anytime soon. Especially if I continued on the way I had been.

  I was single—or I wasn’t too far off from it, considering I still had Mike on the line. Technically. Seriously though, he wasn’t busting down doors to see me either. There was no urgency, which made it feel so boring.

  The facts were: I was getting older, and most of my friends were either already paired off, married, having babies, or at least settled down.

  I wanted that for myself, but life in a small town is already pretty predictable. I wanted to feel that rush of excitement when I met The One. The One who’d make me forget there were only 3,400 people in my life because I was the most important one—to him. I wanted my love life to be something extraordinary. It didn’t have to look that way to anyone else, just me.

  Maybe I was a hopeless romantic. Emphasis on the pathetically hopeless.

  As months tore off the calendar and I attended weddings and showers, everyone’s lives changed. Except mine. I was still single.

  Was my mother right? Had I set the love and romance in a small town bar too high? Maybe what I was looking for wasn’t really out there, aside from sappy love songs and chick flicks.

  “I don’t know. I might keep seeing him,” I relented knowing she was partially right, but she wasn’t seeing my point of view at all. She’d married my dad when she was twenty-one. What did she know about dating or being single for any real stretch of time?

  In the instance of time, there wasn’t enough for me to get into it with her that morning. She’d bring it up again, sooner than later, and I had work to do.

  I needed to focus on my programming for the rest of the weekend, and it was already almost noon on Saturday. If I wanted to get out of the radio station, I had to get my ass in gear. To ease out of the subject, and ultimately off the phone, I acquiesced. “If I don’t hear from him first, I’ll probably call in a few days and see if he wants to do something.”

  “That’s my girl. Give it a chance.” My mom’s voice had changed into encouragement mode, which was better than listen-to-your-mother mode. Besides, she didn’t have to bring up my age. I wasn’t knocking on thirty. I was only twenty-eight, dammit.

  God, that sounded a lot like knocking though.

  “Okay, I’ve gotta get back to work. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “All right, Sunny. Be careful if you go out tonight.”

  “I will. Love you.”

  “Love you,” she replied and hung up. I had seconds to go and I slipped my headphones back over my ears,
clicked on a few songs to add to the next block of music, and came in right on time.

  “Good morning, Wynne-ers. It’s Saturday, and I feel like getting my dancing shoes on. One of your local favorites is performing at Sally’s Tap tonight. Boots and Barflies will play from eight to midnight.

  “I wasn’t able to make it to the field last night—I noticed the rain stopped, which was a pleasant surprise—but I want to say a big congratulations to all of our Wynne High School graduates. While the skies were clear last night of rain—which has sadly returned with a vengeance today—I heard from a reliable source that Coach Fry’s yard got a Charmin Extra-Soft kind of visit in the wee hours. My source also said she saw which cars pulled away about three this morning. So y’all better head over to her neighbor’s and start cleaning up. God, it’s going to be a mess, but I’d do it quickly if I were you. That old bird has a big beak and likes to squawk to anyone who’ll listen—Hi, Mom.”

  I clicked my mouse to add a few more songs and rubbed my foot over the hairy dog lying at my feet, then continued. “And before I roll you into another sixty-minute block of your favorite country here on WDKR, I’d like to pass on a Baby Renfro update. I know a lot of us here in town are thinking about them. Hannah and Vaughn are doing just fine and baby Sawyer is getting bigger every day. They might get to come home Monday, and we all hope they do. The Renfros wanted me to pass along how much they’ve appreciated everyone’s love and prayers since Sawyer came a little earlier than expected, but asked me to remind everyone that she’s still really small and working on getting stronger. They’d like to keep visits to a minimum when they first get home—at least for a few weeks until they get settled. They can’t wait for everyone to meet her.” I finished with the next block, adding some old standards and local favorites. Then, as cued, the first song began to play as I sent out my familiar call.

  “Now how about a little music? As always, keep that dial right here on FM 98.5, like you have a choice.”

  They didn’t. WDKR was the only thing you could pick up between here and Browning.

  I swiveled on my seat, switching feet to rub my dog, Andy, and pulled up the new playlist I’d built the night before while I ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. Then I programmed some of my new favorites into the weekend mix that I’d already partially planned for later.

  It wouldn’t take me long to line out the next day or so, then I could head over to Hannah and Vaughn’s. Her dad and our friend, Dean, were putting the last of their furniture together for them, and I’d told the guys I’d stop by with my woman’s touch when I finished work for the weekend.

  The last thing my best friend and her husband needed to worry about was putting furniture together, considering they’d spent the better part of the last month at the hospital with a very tiny baby girl. All they needed to concentrate on was getting some sleep, in their own bed, with their first child under their roof for the first time—as one complete family.

  I finished and made sure everything was loaded on my computer, then shut down the overhead lights in the four-room radio station where my grandparents worked together for over forty years, and locked up.

  I didn’t usually lock up, but this year’s class of graduates were pranksters. I didn’t need to leave myself wide open for trouble, especially after I all but ousted them by name on the air that morning. They were good kids. I wasn’t sure if they’d retaliate or not, but I was prepared. Just in case.

  After letting Andy back into my house, which sat behind the station, I ran to my red Honda Civic. The sprinkles from earlier had turned into an all-out downpour. I was sick of the rain and pretty sure everyone else was, too.

  I drove the few miles into town and pulled up under the awning at the truck stop so I wouldn’t get drenched, then ran in.

  “Hey, Sunny,” called Donnie from the other side, mopping up the wet floor by the other door nearest the diesel pumps. “It’s raining buckets.”

  I headed for the cooler and answered, “I know and it’s only supposed to get worse. If up north gets as much as they’re predicting, we’ll probably flood.” It wasn’t a new thing for Wynne—every ten years or so we had a serious flood. The town wasn’t in danger too much, but many houses and farms sat in the flood plain. They would be in harm’s way if a levee failed. I, along with the entire town, prayed major flooding wouldn’t happen, but it looked like it might anyway.

  “That’s what Dub said at the coffee shop this morning. What a shame. Let’s just pray it doesn’t come to that. So, that baby’s finally coming home then?” He looked up and propped his hands on top of the mop.

  Sawyer Renfro had been born about eight weeks early. She was in much better shape than she had been, but still a preemie. Wynne was a small town and not afraid to pull together for one of its own—no matter how little or new the resident. Nearly everyone I ran into asked about her since I’d been her mother’s friend for a long, long time.

  “I think so. Hannah said since she was gaining weight like they’d hoped, they’re thinking they might get to come home on Monday.”

  “Well, good. If that Sawyer is anything like her momma, she’s tough as nails. She’ll probably be ornery as all hell, too.”

  I laughed. He was probably right. “You can count on that, Donnie,” I said.

  Pulling a case of beer from the cooler, I packed it to the counter. The bell rang over the door, and I looked over my shoulder to see who it was.

  Tall.

  Jeans.

  Ball cap pulled low.

  Wet t-shirt, tight across a muscular chest.

  Whoa. I swallowed.

  He nodded, but I couldn’t see his face. I wasn’t much for dating Wynne guys—I’d exhausted the available age appropriate population years ago—but I knew everything there was to know about the crop of men in the area, and this stud wasn’t registering.

  Donnie rounded the counter and stood at the register as I looked in the big, round security mirror hanging in the corner, trying to be sneaky, and watching for a quick glimpse of the man who was taking his time at the cooler in back.

  The ass in those jeans was squeezable. Hell, biteable.

  He was probably just passing through. Dammit.

  I’d never get lucky like my best friend, Hannah. New, hot men in Wynne were like Halley’s Comet: they only came around once in a lifetime. At least one of us caught the last one.

  Donnie rang up the beer and said, “Nineteen thirty.”

  I opened my wallet to fish out money as he looked over my shoulder to talk to the man who was then standing behind me.

  “Rhett, are you old enough to be buying that?”

  My stomach dropped. Rhett? Like little Rhett Caraway?

  Little. Rhett. Caraway.

  I spun on my heel; the notion was just too crazy to believe.

  I looked up his long torso, then side to side over his broad shoulders. My jaw hung open. There was no fucking way in small town hell that was Rhett Caraway, the young boy who used to follow me around like a little lost puppy.

  “Sunshine.” His voice was low and completely different from when we were younger, yet something about it was still the same. He didn’t make eye contact with me, and tucked his head. Sunshine.

  I quickly turned around when Donnie coughed, and I took the change he was holding out for me. The old pot-bellied gas station attendant’s smart-ass grin teetered from mocking to teasing.

  Son of a bitch.

  I’d lost my fucking mind. There was no damn way. It wasn’t possible.

  I grabbed the case of bottles off the counter and damn near toppled over the rack of maps and postcards.

  The guy’s—Rhett Caraway’s—large arm came up to steady me but stopped just short of actually touching my side, and I successfully dodged him like the round plastic balls we’d averted in gym class.

  Yuck. I felt like such a pervert.

  That couldn’t be him. He was just a kid.

  I raced to my car, throwing the beer in the back seat. Then I got
in and drove off, heading down the hill to town.

  What the hell?

  I was twenty-eight.

  Twenty-fucking-eight. Knocking on thirty, as my sweet mother had reminded me earlier.

  My mind was running like a striped-ass ape.

  Get your shit together, Sunny. You just perved out on a damn seventh grader.

  But, he didn’t look like a seventh grader anymore. That was for damn sure.

  My heart was pounding like I’d just missed hitting a deer by a thread. Guiltily, I looked into the rearview mirror as if he could see me or hear my thoughts.

  If seventh graders looked like that, then what the hell did I look like? Ew.

  I tried to force myself to do the quick math, but my head hurt and I couldn’t focus on anything except his body. Then, I almost gagged thinking about how gross I was. I could be on To Catch a Predator with that Chris Hansen guy.

  When I got to the stop sign across from the town square, I tried to calm down. Placing both of my hands on my forehead, I took a deep breath.

  “Get your shit together, Sunny. He was buying beer, too. That couldn’t have been the same Rhett. It’s impossible. You’re ridiculous.” But, I knew it was him.

  I didn’t even care about the rain when I pulled up behind Darrell’s truck, which was parked in his daughter’s driveway. I got out and walked, totally zoned out. When I reached the porch, I sat down on the stoop and opened the case. Pulling out a cold bottle, I took a long drink and downed about half the beer.

  Little kids are old now? I wanted to cry.

  Up until recently, I’d still felt like I was twenty-one. Fuck. Most of the time, I still acted like I was twenty-one. Proven more by the fact—it wasn’t even three o’clock and I was already drinking my first Saturday beer.

  Sunny, grow up.

  I was on my best friend’s porch, a girl who I never saw getting married and starting a family. Well—as bitchy as it sounded—at least not before me.

  God. What in the actual fuck was going on? It was all hitting me at once, like when I finally figured out the twist in Fight Club. I’d been tricked, sucker punched by time.