Chapter Excerpt #2
“Right.”
“Come on. You know what this house is like. Organized chaos with a double dose of love and laughter.”
Her friend had a point. She’d only spent a few days at the ranch for Jackie and Garrett’s wedding, and there was never a moment when anyone was alone, and that seemed just fine with everyone. Heck, half the siblings were still living at the house and they were all newlyweds.
“Carson and Jess’ house is really taking shape. They put the sheetrock up this last week and it’s actually looking like a house and not so much like a kid’s construction toy.”
“I bet they can hardly wait.” She remembered the talk about starting building as soon as some of the family business was taken care of. Mason their son was the most excited about having his own house while torn about leaving his Nonnie alone in the Main house. It was kind of cute.
“Now if you want to be helpful, the guest annex is down to the cosmetic stages. Alice picked out the paint colors the other day. Mostly soft beiges and yellows.”
“Yellow?” She couldn’t picture Alice Sweet picking out yellows for that big old western style home.
“I think she calls it warm butter.” Jackie chuckled. “The funny thing, she looked at a something ivory for the bathroom and to me that thing looked like French mustard. No idea where these companies get their color names from.”
“You don’t want my opinion. Last time I helped you paint your living room wall looked like a bad Picasso.”
“That’s only because you grabbed the wrong paint can.”
“It said living room.”
“And here we go again. Trim. It said living room trim.” Jackie’s laughter now was a far cry from the horror on her face when she walked into the room and found her camel walls blotched with patches of not quite white over every filled nail hole.
“A very valid reason why I should never be given a paint brush.”
“Okay. No painting,” Jackie’s voice still held a healthy dose of humor. “But seriously, when’s the last time you had a vacation? And I don’t mean time off to clean out your closet or catch up on your laundry. A real get out of town vacation?”
“I get out of town.”
“I don’t mean for weddings.”
Well that poked a hole in her argument. “Touché.”
“Does that mean you’ll come out and visit?”
“What if congress stops the pissing match and we all have to go back to work?”
“Then you go home, but when have you ever known a shutdown to last only a week?”
Point to Jackie. “Let me think about it.”
“Don’t think. Pack.”
Had her friend always been this pushy? Her mind turned to when Jackie gave up everything to chase after the wrong man. Yep, she’d always been this pushy. “I’ll think about it.”
“Well,” Jackie sighed. “I guess I’ll have to settle for that. For now.”
Setting her phone on the side table, Katie looked around.
She really did love her little garage apartment.
Nestled in the Memorial neighborhood of downtown Houston, there were mature trees lining every street, lots of colorful blooms, well manicured lawns, and no cookie cutter homes—yet.
This apartment had lots of character, and she liked that.
Her gaze landed on her dwindling pile of books to read.
It was time to face facts; she was bored out of her mind, but West Texas?
Once more she took in her surroundings. Before she realized what she was doing, she found herself in her room, yanking her suitcase out of the closet. “West Texas here I come.”