AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emma held the cheese grater higher, a smile beaming across her sweet face. Kaylee took a breath and forced her mouth to open. Her voice was soft on the first line, but Emma leaned her head in to sing into the pseudo-microphone with her, and Kaylee’s voice rose as she belted out the spirited lyrics.
On the other side of the counter, Dean used the wooden spoon in his hands as a mock-guitar, and he and Luke put their heads together and warbled the last few lines.
The song ended with all of them cracking up. Kaylee held her side, bending forward with laughter. She couldn’t believe she’d sang with them.
“Okay, okay,” Luke said, waving his hands above his head. “Dusty Acres Karaoke night is officially over. We need to get down to business or we’ll never get over to the church on time.”
“Yes, sir,” Emma said, tucking in her chin in mock obedience as she climbed back on to the stool and grabbed the block of cheese.
Kaylee followed Emma’s example and got to work chopping the lettuce, but first she snuck a grin at the girl and the two of them dissolved into laughter again.
As they spent the next thirty minutes chopping and grating, Emma filled her in on the latest gossip in town and kept her laughing with silly stories and impressions. She did a pretty accurate one of Luke. By the time they’d finished preparing and packing up the food, Kaylee’s cheeks hurt from smiling.
But all the laughter sure felt good.
She rode into town with Luke, a dog on either side of her and a crockpot of taco meat cradled in her lap. On the short ride to the church, he explained how the evening would work. They would have just enough time to get tables and chairs set out and then the four of them plus a few other volunteers would serve the meal.
“Rita and Carol, the two gals you met yesterday, already made cakes and pies for dessert,” he told her as she followed him into the church and down the stairs into the large basement. She was surprised when he told her that both dogs would be welcome, but no one seemed to bat an eye as the corgi and the golden trotted into the building after them.
He pointed toward a partitioned counter at the back of the room then nodded his head to the left and then the right. “Kitchen’s at the back. Sunday School classes on that side and choir rooms on the other.”
“Have you gone here all your life?”
“Yep. Faye and our brother too. Pearl Milligan was our Sunday school teacher for most of elementary.”
Kaylee marveled at the lifelong relationships Luke and Faye had with so many of the townspeople. She and her family had moved so many times growing up, there was no one she knew as an adult, other than her relatives, who had known her as a child.
She followed Luke into the kitchen where two women were wiping down counters and setting up plates.
“It’s about time you got here,” one of the women said.
Kaylee recognized her as Marnie, the checker from the grocery store, but tonight she had her long hair down and it curled in perfect waves around her shoulders. She wore Ropers in a type similar to Kaylee’s, but hers were faded from wear, and the frayed cuffs of her bootcut jeans indicated this was her usual style. Her T-shirt and jeans showed off her cute figure, and her lips curved into a gorgeous smile as she came around the counter toward Luke.
Kaylee clutched the box of food she was holding, her skin heating as she felt like an outsider—the dumpy writer who was masquerading as a cowgirl, in her too-shiny boots and a pink plaid shirt unlike anything in her closet at home.
Her stomach churned as she felt the venomous green tendrils of envy snake through her, threatening to choke her as she fought to swallow.
“Hey darlin’,” Luke said as Marnie threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on the side of his cheek.
