This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, 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. All characters are 18 years or older when in sexual situations.
Chapter One
Poplar Bluff
The screen door hinges creaked as Grace stepped out onto her weather-beaten front porch. She made a mental note to give the hinges a shot of WD-40 and then placed her glass of ice-cold lemonade on the wicker table next to her matching chair. She had spent countless hours on the covered porch and she knew, without looking at the weather forecast, it was going to rain. The air had a musty odor to it that Grace sensed was announcing the arrival of a summer thunderstorm.
She sat down and put the cold beverage to her lips, puckering as the astringency of the freshly squeezed lemon washed across her tongue. She had been waiting for rain all summer, but this rainstorm would likely be too little and too late to help her drought-stricken crops. She watched the darkened horizon and listened for the distant boom of thunder. A swarm of mosquitos gathered under the large oak tree in her front yard.
She called to her aging black lab to come in before the rain arrived. Bo (actually his name was Bojangles, as named by her oldest daughter Brittany) came trotting up, his thick, pointy tail wagging furiously as he spotted his owner. He was carrying a large branch in his mouth that had apparently broken off one of the property's trees and dropped it as a trophy at Grace's feet.
Grace patted his head as a reward for his gift and then pointed to the house. Bo knew it was time for his mid-day meal, and required no coaxing to follow Grace into the farmhouse. She dutifully measured out Bo's "mature" dog food into his stainless steel bowl, watching him sit in anticipation of his feeding. She placed the food bowl down and then ran her hand across his silky black coat. He waited until she nodded her head, then he set about devouring his kibbles. The sounds of the hard discs scraping against the bowl echoed in the expansive kitchen. Grace sighed as she screwed the lid back onto the plastic dog food container and wiped her hands clean on her worn coveralls.
She turned to watch Bo eat, and thought to herself that it was just her and Bo in a house built for a large family. Her oldest daughter Britt had already moved to Cedar City, Utah, some 1,800 miles from Poplar Bluff, and had recently married the owner of a small auto repair business she met when her car broke down on the way to Los Angeles [ed. note, see "Falling from Grace"]. Britt had a delightful young daughter, appropriately named Grace, as well. Britt's younger sister Adele was a sophomore at the University of Missouri.
Grace was the impulsive type. She led with her heart and not her head. She married young, barely nineteen, to Aaron Moreland, the high school quarterback, and now a high plains drifter. He stuck around just long enough to get Grace pregnant (twice), then went to the outlands of Oklahoma to work as a wildcatter, never to be seen again. It had been almost twenty years since he left, and in that long twenty-year stretch Grace was on no more than a dozen dates. Because Aaron provided no child support, Grace had to hold down two jobs to keep her girls properly fed, clothed and housed. That left precious little time for love.
But Grace was also an optimist, and she knew that someday she would find "the one." Her youngest daughter Adele just left home over a year ago, making Grace an empty nester. She finally had the time to realize her dream to farm the family homestead's one hundred acres, which had largely remained fallow since Aaron left, but chose the most unfortunate time to start, during the middle of a prolonged drought. Now almost two years into the farming endeavor, Grace managed to burn through her savings and finally defaulted on the mortgage encumbering the farm. But Grace's worries about her love life and her finances took a back seat to the approaching storm.
Bo finished his meal and was pushing his bowl on the floor, attempting to glean the crumbs sticking to the edges. Grace picked up the bowl and gave Bo another pat on his head. She put the bowl in the kitchen sink, then looked out the window to see only blackness in the distance as raindrops started to trickle down each of its panes. She flipped on an aging cream-colored analog clock radio (the one that used to be in her bedroom, but was since replaced by a digital one), its cracked plastic surface a reminder of the night when Aaron told her he was going to seek a divorce. Grace remembered she unplugged it and threw it at him in a fit of instantaneous rage. She missed. The radio crackled with static caused by lightening as the newscaster warned of the severity of the oncoming storm. The tall brunette, her hair a tangled mess from being outside in the wind, started washing the dishes from last night's supper to clear her mind as the drone of the radio faded to background noise.
Grace's "therapy" session at the kitchen sink was interrupted when she heard a sharp rapping on the edge of the screen door at the front entrance. She had put out of her mind that a banker from the home office in St. Louis was stopping by to discuss the default on her farm's mortgage. She chided herself for forgetting about the appointment. She then looked down at her dirty coveralls. She had spent the entire morning working in her garden and her clothes were stained with grass and dirt. She went to the front door, checking in the hallway mirror and cursing softly when she saw the state of her hair. She used her hands to smooth it, then walked briskly to answer the door.
She could see through the small window in the front door that a man, probably in his mid-40's, was standing at the door holding a slightly wet leather briefcase. His hair was already dotted with raindrops, and beyond the porch the water was already sheeting over the leaf clogged gutters.
"Come in, come in," said Grace, trying to be hospitable even though she knew it would be an unpleasant conversation.
The man brushed the rain off the shoulders of his coat and stepped into the house. Grace saw that he had a pleasant face, friendly, and wondered how he drew the short straw for this assignment. She took his coat and motioned for him to take a seat in the upholstered chair in the living room. She took a seat across from him on the sofa.
"I'm ... ummm ... Jim Nathanson, an executive vice president with Farmer's Bank. Thank you for taking the time ... Ms. Larsen." Jim was unusually nervous for this client call, and his voice uncharacteristically wavered as he spoke.
"Call me Grace." Her ingrained sense of Midwestern hospitality made her want to put him at ease, even though he was there to discuss whether the bank would take away the home in which she raised her children. There was no reason this conversation shouldn't be civil, she thought to herself.
Trying to relax, the banker continued. "Grace. Thank you for seeing me. Forgive me for my appearance. I think there was a cloudburst the second I stepped out of my car."
Grace was still fretting that she looked like a wreck. Even though the bank executive was somewhat wet, he looked handsome and well-dressed in his custom blue pinstripe suit.
"I barely saw it in time myself." She brushed the hair off her face and continued. "I'm so sorry about my appearance. I completely forgot ..."
"Please no ... ummm ... Grace." His eyes softened as he looked at her. "You look lovely."
At age forty-two, and divorced and single for almost twenty years, it had been a long time since Grace had heard a compliment. She blushed.
Off balance, Grace decided to change the topic. "Can I offer you a chocolate chip cookie? I just baked them this morning."
The man's face lit up. "Sure. I can't turn that down."
Grace went into the kitchen and retrieved a plate of cookies and two glasses of milk.
"Here you are," she said as she placed the platter and the two glasses of milk on the coffee table between them.
