Excerpt from The Beanbaggers of Cornhole County
Josie
“T ell me again why you wanted to move to a small town in the middle of Nowheresville, Texas?” my husband, Morgan, asks as he shuts off the Cub Cadet riding lawn mower. He purchased it shortly after we moved here, once he saw the expansive lawn. Our penthouse living and city-slicker lifestyle never warranted the need for such a machine, but after a lengthy tutorial from Meril at the feed store, it’s become my husband’s pride and joy.
“It’s not ‘Nowheresville,’ Honey. The town is called Baggersville, and it’s in the heart of Cornhole County. Who wouldn’t want to move here with a name like that? Besides, I thought the lack of an ‘L’ and an extra ‘R’ in our words sounded like an adventure,” I tease. “I love having soup in a bread bow and doing laundry with our new warshing machine.”
Removing the ball cap from his head and shaking out the excess sweat, he gives me one of his dazzling smiles that always makes my heart pitter-patter and skip a beat. “Don’t go forgettin’ the lack of a ‘G’ at the end of a verb. It’s like we’re speakin’ another language livin’ down here. Next thing ya’ know, we’ll be greetin’ people with the phrase, ‘Hi, Y’all!’”
I shrug. “‘Y’all’ has got to be one of the friendliest words on the planet, and I adore it almost as much as I adore you.”
Morgan saunters up the steps, his body coated in dewy moisture and grass clippings from mowing our ten acres of lawn. He prowls toward me like a lion on the hunt and slides his arms around my body, pulling me close—not to shower me with kisses, but to rub his grime all over me. “You love me a lot, so that’s saying something.”
I do love my husband more than life itself. Three years ago, out of nowhere, I collapsed in our apartment while my husband was at work. As a CEO, he spent more time at the office than at home, but it all changed after that fateful day. I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor that left me spending the next couple of years going through rigorous chemotherapy treatments that did nothing more than shrink the tumor. He never left my side for any of it.
After a lengthy and heartfelt discussion that left us both reeling and in tears, we decided as a team that I would live out the remaining few years of my life the best way possible. The chemotherapy treatments stopped, and we sold our penthouse apartment to move to Baggersville, where the air is as fresh as the cow patties, and the bovines outnumber the people fifty to one.
I try my best to push my husband away, but he tightens his grip and rubs his body against me. Laughing, he says, “I think it’s only fair that if I have to get dirty, then so do you, Josie.”
“You’re just looking forward to the cleanup,” I wink.
Morgan sweeps me off my feet and touches his lips to mine. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
A few hours later, thoroughly clean and content, Morgan and I sit around the dining room table. He’s managing our portfolio on his laptop while I peruse the local paper for a part-time job. His eyes peer at me over the top of his screen. “Josie, why are you looking for a job? I thought we moved out here so you can rest.”
I wad up the four-page, small-town newspaper that has the headline, Baggersville Bessie Boasts Another Blue Ribbon at Cornhole County Fair, and throw it at my husband’s head. “I’m bored, Morgan. You got to trade in your pressed suit and shiny shoes for butt-hugging jeans and cowboy boots. You get to ride around on the spiffy mower, work in your woodshop, and day trade. Not to mention, you get to look sexy doing it. I know I’m supposed to take it easy, but that doesn’t mean not doing anything at all. And before you say it, burning through two e-readers doesn’t count. Although I’ll admit that I’m proud of that accomplishment.”
Morgan chuckles. “You should be. Have you given any thought to my suggestion of writing? You always had a creative spark swirling around in that beautiful head of yours.”
I rub my short hair, which is finally starting to grow back. “My creativity is limited to latte art and drink concoctions, not creating story arcs and weaving plot lines,” I sigh. “I miss my coffee shop and interacting with the customers.”
He taps a few buttons on his keyboard and then closes his laptop to focus on me. Morgan reaches across the table and laces his fingers with mine, using the pad of his thumb to rub small circles on my hand. “Josie, Baby, what is it that you want to do? There aren’t a whole lot of job opportunities in town.”
My husband is right about that. The town has less than 2,000 people, and I can walk from end to end in under ten minutes. There’s a gas station, diner, small library, and church. There’s also a small grocery store for basic necessities, but otherwise, we have to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town that has a Walmart or Costco. The church is the hub of the town unless there is a high school football game going on, which is a huge draw here in Texas. But then again, everything in Texas is huge.
“I don’t know. That’s why I was looking,” I tell him. “I just need something that gets me out of the house, even if it’s only for a couple of hours a few days a week. I don’t need a nine-to-five or anything, but I do want to feel useful and be social.”
“I can build you a coffee shop, and then you can do your thing,” Morgan says. With billions of dollars in our account, it wouldn’t be a hardship.
I give his idea careful consideration before shaking my head and tapping my temple. “Maybe if my little friend miraculously disappears forever, then it might be worth pursuing. Besides, people around here expect their coffee to come from a plastic tub, and anything other than that is considered hoity toity or highfalutin.”
I drop my voice to mimic Meril when we first moved here and asked him where we could grab a bite to eat, “This town ain’t the kind of place where people come for fancy dinin’ or anythin’ snazzy. We got Lucy’s Diner, where you can get the best steaks in Texas and a slice of fresh peach pie. Lucy can doodad it up for you with a scoop of homemade vanilla bean ice cream, though.”
Morgan laughs. “I see your point. How about we go into town and split one of those steaks at Lucy’s and see what kind of gossip is going on at the local watering hole? If anyone knows of a job that isn’t listed in the Pennysaver, it would be the folks at the diner.”
We often split the steak at Lucy’s because it’s ginormous and takes up half the table. “Sounds like a plan to me. I didn’t have anything defrosted for dinner. Let me grab my purse and hairpiece. Then I’ll be ready to go.”
“Josie, you’re beautiful just the way you are.”
I kiss his cheek. “Thank you, but I don’t wear the wig because I’m embarrassed. I simply don’t want the questions or the pity. I just want a nice night out with my husband. When the people in this town start calling us by our names and not ‘The New Yorkers,’ I’ll consider letting them in. Deal? You love making deals.”
He nods and reaches for my sweater hanging on the coat hook by the front door. “Deal.”
I head toward our bedroom and put the realistic-looking wig made of chestnut brown human hair on my head, taking a little extra time to tame a few of the loose strands going wild. I grab my purse and skip toward the front of the house, where Morgan holds up my sweater.
“It’s hard to believe it’s the first day of December, and it’s still 60 degrees outside—at night, no less,” I say as I slip my arms into the sleeves. “The chances of having a white Christmas seem to be slipping further and further away.”
“That ship sailed the moment the dart hit the town of Baggersville on the map, Babe. Although Texas has been known to get snow on occasion, so you might get lucky.
I scoff. “I did not throw a dart at a map to choose this location! It was a well-thought-out decision where the pros and cons were weighed.”
“Josie, you may not have thrown a dart, but picking a name out of a hat does not equate to being well-thought-out.”
Morgan walks me to the Lexus LS 500 parked in the driveway, his hand never leaving the small of my back. He loves to tease me, but he knows that I spent weeks hunting for the perfect home. I narrowed it down to five in Texas, where my sister lives. My older sister, Jocelyn, put down roots three hours away in Dallas, which is close enough for her to visit but far enough that she can’t go all ‘mother hen’ on me.
I slide into the plush leather seats, running my fingers over the supple material. When Morgan gets behind the wheel, I turn to him and wipe a fake tear from my eye. “It’s going to be a sad day when you have to trade this beauty in for a truck.”
His eyebrows reach his hairline. “Why on earth do I have to get rid of my car?”
I hold in my laugh because I would never ask Morgan to get rid of his car, but I continue to mess with him just for fun. I gesture to the pastures surrounding our home. “It doesn’t really go with the motif. A suped-up pickup truck would be more appropriate to the area. What if you need to haul fertilizer for my garden or a load of lumber for your workshop? What if you get stuck in the mud and there’s no one around to help you?” Now that I think about it, a truck would be a great addition to our driveway.
“A few bags of fertilizer don’t require a truck, Josie. As of this moment, my projects in the shop are limited to small hope chests and salad bowls, not armoires or dining room tables that can seat a dozen people. I think we’re good, but the lumber shop delivers should I decide to up my game. As far as getting stuck, then I probably shouldn’t have been driving on non-paved roads to begin with,” he says, taking me far more seriously than I intended.
“But you would look so sexy in a truck!” I tease, sort of. Morgan would look sexy in anything he drives. The way his corded muscles flex when he grips the wheel always gets my heart revving.
He narrows his gaze. “I look sexy now, Josie. That’s one of the many reasons you married me.”
I bob my head. “It’s one reason, but far from being the most important one.”
He places his large palm on my thigh and gives me a smoldering look. “And what reason tops the list?”
I run my fingers through the hair that’s getting a little long and now curling at the edges. “Because you make me smile.”