The Empty Nesters Read online

  PRAISE FOR CAROLYN BROWN

  Small Town Rumors

  “Carolyn Brown is a master at writing warm, complex characters who find their way into your heart.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  “Carolyn Brown’s Small Town Rumors takes that hotbed and with it spins a delightful tale of starting over, coming into your own, and living your life, out loud and unafraid.”

  —Words We Love By

  “Small Town Rumors by Carolyn Brown is a contemporary romance perfect for a summer read in the shade of a big old tree with a glass of lemonade or sweet tea. It is a sweet romance with wonderful characters and a small-town setting.”

  —Avonna Loves Genres

  The Sometimes Sisters

  “Carolyn Brown continues her streak of winning, heartfelt novels with The Sometimes Sisters, a story of estranged sisters and frustrated romance.”

  —All About Romance

  “This is an amazing feel-good story that will make you wish you were a part of this amazing family.”

  —Harlequin Junkie (top pick)

  “The Sometimes Sisters is [a] delightful and touching story that explores the bonds of family. I loved the characters, the story lines, and the focus on the importance of familial bonds, whether they be blood relations or those you choose with your heart.”

  —Rainy Day Ramblings

  The Strawberry Hearts Diner

  “[A] sweet and satisfying romance from the queen of Texas romance.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A heartwarming cast of characters brings laughter and tears to the mix, and readers will find themselves rooting for more than one romance on the menu. From the first page to the last, Brown perfectly captures the mood, as well as the atmosphere, and creates a charming story that appeals to a wide range of readers.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A sweet romance surrounded by wonderful, caring characters.”

  —TBQ’s Book Palace

  “[A] deeply satisfying contemporary small-town western story . . .”

  —Delighted Reader

  The Barefoot Summer

  “Prolific romance author Brown shows she can also write women’s fiction in this charming story, which uses humor and vivid characters to show the value of building an unconventional chosen family.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This story takes you and carries you along for a wonderful ride full of laughter, tears, and three amazing HEAs. I feel like these characters are not just people in a book, but they are truly family, and I feel so invested in their journey. Another amazing HIT for Carolyn Brown.”

  —Harlequin Junkie (top pick)

  The Lullaby Sky

  “I really loved and enjoyed this story. Definitely a good comfort read when you’re in a reading funk or just don’t know what to read. The secondary characters bring much love and laughter into this book—your cheeks will definitely hurt from smiling so hard while reading. Carolyn is one of my most favorite authors. I know without a doubt that no matter what book of hers I read, I can just get lost in it and know it will be a good story. Better than the last. Can’t wait to read more from her.”

  —The Bookworm’s Obsession

  The Lilac Bouquet

  “Brown pulls readers along for an enjoyable ride. It’s impossible not to be touched by Brown’s protagonists, particularly Seth, and a cast of strong supporting characters underpins the charming tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If a reader is looking for a book more geared toward family and long-held secrets, this would be a good fit.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Carolyn Brown absolutely blew me away with this epically beautiful story. I cried, I giggled, I sobbed, and I guffawed; this book had it all. I’ve come to expect great things from this author, and she more than lived up to anything I could have hoped for. Emmy Jo Massey and her great-granny Tandy are absolute masterpieces, not because they are perfect but because they are perfectly painted. They are so alive, so full of flaws and spunk and determination. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”

  —Night Owl Reviews (5 stars and top pick)

  The Wedding Pearls

  “The Wedding Pearls by Carolyn Brown is an amazing story about family, life, love, and finding out who you are and where you came from. This book is a lot like The Golden Girls meet Thelma and Louise.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  “The Wedding Pearls is an absolute must-read. I cannot recommend this one enough. Grab a copy for yourself and one for a best friend or even your mother or both. This is a book that you need to read. It will make you laugh and cry. It is so sweet and wonderful and packed full of humor. I hope that when I grow up, I can be just like Ivy and Frankie.”

  —Rainy Day Ramblings

  The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop

  “The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop was hilarious and so much fun to read. But sweet romances, strong female friendships, and family bonds make this more than just a humorous read.”

  —The Reader’s Den

  “If you like books about small towns and how the people’s lives intertwine, you will love this book. I think it’s probably my favorite book this year. The relationships of the three main characters, girls who have grown up together, will make you feel like you just pulled up a chair in their beauty shop with a bunch of old friends. As you meet the other people in the town, you’ll wish you could move there. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments and then more that will just make you smile. These are real people, not the oh-so-thin-and-so-very-rich that are often the main characters in novels. This book will warm your heart, and you’ll remember it after you finish the last page. That’s the highest praise I can give a book.”

  —Reader quote

  Long, Hot Texas Summer

  “This is one of those lighthearted, feel-good, make-me-happy kinds of stories. But, at the same time, the essence of this story is family and love with a big ole dose of laughter and country living thrown in the mix. This is the first installment in what promises to be another fascinating series from Brown. Find a comfortable chair, sit back, and relax, because once you start reading Long, Hot Texas Summer, you won’t be able to put it down. This is a super fun and sassy romance.”

  —Thoughts in Progress

  Daisies in the Canyon

  “I just loved the symbolism in Daisies in the Canyon. As I mentioned before, Carolyn Brown has a way with character development with few, if any, contemporaries. I am sure there are more stories to tell in this series. Brown just touched the surface first with Long, Hot Texas Summer and now continuing on with Daisies in the Canyon.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  ALSO BY CAROLYN BROWN

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

  The Perfect Dress

  The Magnolia Inn

  Small Town Rumors

  The Sometimes Sisters

  The Strawberry Hearts Diner

  The Lilac Bouquet

  The Barefoot Summer

  The Lullaby Sky

  The Wedding Pearls

  The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop

  The Ladies’ Room

  Hidden Secrets

  Long, Hot Texas Summer

  Daisies in the Canyon

  Trouble in Paradise

  CONTEMPORARY SERIES

  THE BROKEN ROAD SERIES

  To Trust

  To Commit

  To Believe

  To Dream

  To Hope

  THREE MAGIC WORDS TRILOGY

  A Forever Thing

  In Shining Whatever

  Life After Wife

  HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  THE BLACK SWAN TRILOGY

  Pushin’ Up Daisies

  From Thin Air
/>   Come High Water

  THE DRIFTERS & DREAMERS TRILOGY

  Morning Glory

  Sweet Tilly

  Evening Star

  THE LOVE’S VALLEY SERIES

  Choices

  Absolution

  Chances

  Redemption

  Promises

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Carolyn Brown

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542043007

  ISBN-10: 154204300X

  Cover design by Laura Klynstra

  This book is for Georgia Hennard and Carolyn Young, with appreciation for all your amazing support!

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  In their years in Sugar Run, Texas, Tootsie and Smokey Colbert had had so many neighbors that they’d lost count. One by one, families in the four other houses on their block had moved in and moved away. Now, all were sitting empty.

  At least they were until the first day of July, the hottest day on record in San Antonio and all the little surrounding towns. Tootsie kept a watch out the window as three big strong men—military, from the way they were dressed—unloaded the U-Haul trailers. They laughed and every so often stopped to sit on the curb and drink a beer. Smokey would like this bunch for sure since he was a retired veteran. But what interested Tootsie more than the hunky guys were those three young women and the three little girls running from one house to the other. It had been years since they’d had children on the block.

  “Smokey, hurry up with those cookies,” she yelled.

  “I can’t make the oven cook any faster.” He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “I like their music and that they’re wearing army fatigues. We’re going to get along with these folks just fine, darlin’.”

  Country music blared from the radio in the middle house on that hot July day in Sugar Run. One of the men—a tall, dark, and handsome type—grabbed a woman around the waist and two-stepped with her out there on the lawn. A little girl with dark hair tugged on his arm, and he scooped her up and made it a three-way dance.

  “I can’t wait to invite them to a cookout in the backyard tonight. I’m sure after moving all day, they’ll appreciate having a grilled burger or hot dog, and that way they’ll feel welcomed to our block,” she said.

  “There’s the timer. The cookies are ready. Why don’t you get those on over to them?” He moved away from her and hurried to the kitchen.

  She and Smokey had been married for more than fifty years. The good Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless them with children, but He had given them lasting love and friendship. She looked out at the new families, and her heart yearned for grandchildren. “In a minute,” she muttered. “I’m looking at them.”

  Even standing in the living room of her new home with boxes all around her, Carmen could hardly believe that she was actually living off base for the first time since she and Eli had married. And as an added bonus, it was a few miles farther away from her mother-in-law, who’d thrown a fit when Eli married her and hadn’t gotten over it even yet.

  Eli picked her up and twirled her around until they were both dizzy and laughing, and then he fell back on the sofa with her on top of him. “I love you, Carmen Walker. We’re going to be so happy here.”

  “Let’s fill up this house with memories and have our fiftieth anniversary right here.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she went in for a long, passionate kiss.

  Eli was panting when the kiss ended. “Now that, darlin’, sounds like a good plan.”

  “Mommy. Daddy. Where are y’all at?” their five-year-old daughter, Natalie, called out from the front door. “We got cookies!”

  Carmen stood and tidied up her dark-brown hair. She’d never heard of the army sending a welcoming committee to folks who moved off base, but then this was the first time she had a house that the military didn’t own.

  “Natalie said I could come in.” An older lady, even shorter than Carmen, carried a platter of cookies into the living room. “I’m Tootsie Colbert, and this is my husband, Smokey. We just want to welcome all y’all to our block.” She handed the platter to Carmen.

  “And invite you to a backyard barbecue tonight. I make a mean hamburger and some pretty fine grilled bologna. We thought we could get to know each other—y’all are going to be hungry after all this work,” Smokey said.

  Eli set the cookies on a box and extended a hand. “That sounds great. I’m Eli Walker. This is my wife, Carmen, and I see you’ve already met Natalie. Right pleased to meet y’all.”

  Smokey shook hands with him. “Same here, and we’re glad to have y’all moving in. Whole block has been too quiet this past three months.”

  “Well, that’s about to come to an abrupt end,” Carmen giggled. She was what her grandmother used to call slap silly that day. Part of it was because she was so tired, but Carmen never in her life dreamed that she’d own a home. Granted, the bank officially owned it for the next twenty years, but it was her house. She could decorate it however she wanted and paint the walls whatever color she wanted, and the military had no say-so.

  She’d come from the wrong side of the tracks down south of San Antonio and had been working as a bartender when she met Eli. It had been love at first sight for her, but she’d always felt like maybe he’d married down. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that his mother felt the same way.

  That evening, Tootsie had a table set up with beer and whiskey for the adults and a different one with chocolate milk, soda pop, and three kinds of juice for the children. They had country music playing from a CD player over in the corner, and the whole backyard smelled like charbroiled burgers. She liked the ladies she’d met that day—that they were army wives put an instant connection between all of them. She’d walked a mile, or maybe she should say thirty years, in their shoes.

  “Happy?” Smokey stopped what he was doing and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Very, very happy. I’m going to have good friends. I can feel it in my heart.” She rolled up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “And the little girls are precious. I hope that these families stay here for years and years.”

  “Maybe they will,” Smokey said and then went back to his grilling.

  Diana and her husband, Gerald, were the first to arrive that evening. Their daughter, Rebecca, the tallest of the three little girls, ran through the backyard gate ahead of them and went straight for the
bean-toss game Smokey had set up in the yard.

  Dark-haired Gerald was one of those men who made women turn around for a second look. Well over six feet tall, he had a confident swagger to his walk. Diana wasn’t short by any means. Tootsie guessed her to be five feet, eight or nine inches tall. She had red hair that flowed down her back and gorgeous mossy-green eyes, and from the way she carried herself, Tootsie wondered if she had modeling experience.

  Diana handed Tootsie a box of doughnuts. “I’d have baked something, but my kitchen still looks like a thrift store. So I found a cute little bakery a couple of blocks away and got these.”

  “You didn’t have to bring a thing, but thank you.” Tootsie put them on the dessert table with the chocolate sheet cake Smokey had made that afternoon. “First thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t cook. Well, maybe I should revise that statement. When Smokey was off to God knows where, doing what only God and the government knew about, I didn’t starve to death. I can survive, but Smokey loves to cook.”

  “You may be the luckiest woman among us all,” Diana whispered.

  “Hey, is this where the party is?” Carmen called out as she came through the gate with a box from the same pastry shop in her hands. She laughed when she saw one just like it on the table. “Maybe we should’ve had a committee meeting so we didn’t all bring the same thing.”

  “What don’t get eaten tonight will be good for breakfast,” Tootsie said as she took the box from Carmen.

  Eli went straight to the grill. He and Smokey were about the same height, which would put him just under six feet. He didn’t quite have the swagger or the good looks that Gerald had. His light-brown hair was cut military-style, and his green eyes set in a round face gave him a boyish, almost shy look. The way he looked over his shoulder at his daughter, Natalie, endeared him to Tootsie.

  Before Tootsie could carry the box to the table, the gate opened, and Brett, Joanie, and their daughter, Zoe, brought in a third box from the pastry shop.

  “I hope that those don’t have a lemon pie in them,” Joanie said as she handed the box off to Tootsie. “Looks like we’ve all been to the same place.”

  “Which is fine by me,” Tootsie said. “It’s my favorite shop, and within walking distance. Maybe we can all four go for coffee and a girls’ morning out once y’all get settled.”