The Banty House Read online

  PRAISE FOR CAROLYN BROWN

  The Perfect Dress

  “Fans of Brown will swoon for this sweet contemporary, which skillfully pairs a shy small-town bridal shop owner and a softhearted car dealership owner . . . The expected but welcomed happily ever after for all involved will make readers of all ages sigh with satisfaction.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Carolyn Brown writes the best comfort-for-the-soul, heartwarming stories and she never disappoints . . . You won’t go wrong with The Perfect Dress!”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  The Magnolia Inn

  “The author does a first-rate job of depicting the devastating stages of grief, provides a simple but appealing plot with a sympathetic hero and heroine and a cast of lovable supporting characters, and wraps it all up with a happily ever after to cheer for.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The Magnolia Inn by Carolyn Brown is a feel-good story about friendship, fighting your demons, and finding love, and maybe, just a little bit of magic.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  “Chock-full of Carolyn Brown’s signature country charm, The Magnolia Inn is a sweet and heartwarming story of two people trying to make the most of their lives, even when they have no idea what exactly is at stake.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  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 that 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 Readers 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 for The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop

  Long, Hot Texas Summer

  “This is one of those lighthearted, feel-good, make-me-happy kind 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 develo
pment, 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 Family Journal

  The Empty Nesters

  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 © 2020 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, Seattle

  www.apub.com

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

  ISBN-13: 9781542018814

  ISBN-10: 1542018811

  Cover design by Laura Klynstra

  In memory of my grandmother

  Edna Rhoades Gray

  March 5, 1910–September 25, 1974

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Change is a good thing.

  Kate Carson wished she had the person who had first said that by the throat. She’d choke them until their face turned blue and then slap them for being that color. She didn’t like change. First her little town had lost its post office, and then the saloon was blown away by a tornado and the cotton mill went out of business. All that had happened in the past fifty years, and just two weeks ago, her hairdresser had up and dropped graveyard-dead.

  They hadn’t had a bit of forewarning, and now the Carson sisters had to drive almost three miles to the Hondo Cut and Curl just to get their hair fixed on Thursday mornings. Used to be they only had to walk one block down Main Street, turn left, and their beauty shop was right there in the garage beside the second house on the right. They’d figured Estelle, their old hairdresser, would outlive them all, being as how she was only sixty-five and the youngest of the Carson sisters was more than a decade older than that.

  Next thing would be that God Himself wasn’t interested in sticking around Rooster, Texas, either, and He’d send a tornado to wipe out the only church left in town. Kate muttered about that idea as she put on her best sweater that cool April morning and crossed the dogtrot from the house to the garage to get the car backed out so they could go drive to Hondo. Lord only knew that she couldn’t let Betsy or Connie drive their mama’s car. Connie would get to daydreaming and drive them through a barbwire fence. Betsy drove like a bat set loose from the bowels of hell. She wouldn’t only drive them through the fence; she’d kill a cow or two in the process.

  Kate remembered the first time she had gotten behind the wheel of the turquoise 1958 Lincoln. Her mama had brought it home from the dealership down in Hondo, and she’d let each of the girls have a turn at driving it around the block. She told them that she had picked out that color because it reminded her of Easter, which was the very next Sunday.

  “And here we are sixty-two years later,” Kate said as she started the engine. “Easter is this coming Sunday, and this old girl”—she patted the steering wheel—“still runs like a jewel.” She looked up toward the pale-blue sky with no clouds in sight. “You done good, Mama, when you bought this car.”

  Betsy came out of the big two-story house first and crawled into the back seat. “I hate seat belts, and I still say that having the damn things installed has ruined the value of Mama’s car.”

  “We didn’t have much choice after the third time the cops pulled you over for speeding and we had no seat belts so he doubled the fine,” Betsy replied.

  Connie opened the passenger door and slid into the wide bench seat next to Kate. “Cops are everywhere these days. Don’t know why they can’t stay on the highways where they belong, and leave the farm roads alone. Next thing you know they’ll be camping out at the edge of Rooster.”

  “I doubt that.” Kate put the car in gear and made a right-hand turn onto Main Street. “We’re pretty much all that’s left of Rooster, and they know we’ve got seat belts now. Besides, no one needs to be scared, because you don’t drive anymore, Connie.”

  “I would if you hadn’t let my license expire,” Connie fumed.

  “Don’t fuss at me. You can always get it back if you take the test,” Kate reminded her for the hundredth time.

  “If this damn seat belt wasn’t holdin’ me down, I’d reach over this seat and slap you silly,” Connie told her.

  Kate turned on the radio and found the classic country music station they all liked. Every time Connie said something else, she jacked up the volume a little more. Pretty soon they were all wiggling their shoulders to Johnny Cash’s deep voice singing “Folsom Prison Blues.”

  By the time Patsy Cline had finished “Walkin’ After Midnight,” Kate had parked the car in front of the new hairdresser they’d chosen. Of course, it had taken two hours of discussion before they’d decided to give her a try. Connie had had to get out her gemstones and toss them around on the table, and Betsy had had to call the woman and talk to her for thirty minutes. It was a wonder that Lucy hadn’t hung up the phone when Betsy asked her age, weight, and marital status.

  Her younger sisters wasted no time getting out of the car, across the gravel parking lot, and into the beauty shop. Everything had always been a contest for the two of them, except in what each of them called their area of expertise. Betsy made the best jellies and jams in Medina County, and Connie never met a speck of dust she couldn’t conquer, so she took care of the house. Betsy hated to clean, and Connie, bless her heart, couldn’t boil water without setting off one of those newfangled smoke alarms. Kate made sure
that she had locked the car and then followed her sisters into the beauty shop.

  “There you are.” Lucy, a short, round woman with a lot of salt in her dark-brown hair, smiled when Kate came into the shop. “Since Connie got here first, I’ll get her shampooed and under the dryer.”

  Connie stuck her tongue out at Betsy and sat down in the chair. “You’re gettin’ slow.”

  “I let you win so you wouldn’t pout like a baby,” Betsy shot back at her.

  Lucy wrapped a plastic cape around Connie’s neck and asked, “Are y’all ready for Easter?”

  “We’ve got our new dresses and white gloves all ready, and we’ll get our ham when we do our shopping after we get our hair done. I wouldn’t be caught dead in the grocery store lookin’ like I do now.” Connie leaned her head back. “Betsy might need her roots touched up. I can see a gray peeking out.”

  Lucy glanced over at the middle sister. “I’ll check her out.”

  “Well, go ahead and do what needs doin’ anyway. I don’t want them showin’ for our Easter picture,” Connie said.

  “Y’all take an Easter picture, do you?” Lucy wet Connie’s hair and then worked shampoo into it.

  “Have every year for our whole lives,” Kate answered. “Mama started it the Easter after I was born. She made me a little pink dress and a cute bonnet. I was only three weeks old that year. The next year, Betsy was a few weeks old and she wore that same dress and bonnet, and when I was two, Connie wore it. Mama had all of us a year apart. She said it was like raisin’ triplets, so once a year, she dressed us like that.”

  “Until I was a teenager, I lived in their outgrown clothes,” Connie sighed. “Except for Easter, and then we all got new dresses.”

  “And they were exactly the same,” Betsy said. “Mama thought it was cute to dress us alike, but we did get different hats.”

  “So every year”—Kate sat down and picked up a magazine—“we buy identical dresses and hats of our choice, and we have our picture made for the Easter photo album.”

  “That’s adorable,” Lucy said. “I wish I had a sister or two and we had a tradition like that.”

  Kate had two sisters that she’d gladly give Lucy if she’d just take them off her hands.

  Ginger Andrews picked up the small suitcase containing all her belongings and stepped off the bus in Hondo, Texas. Other nineteen-year-old girls might be scared out of their wits to be in a strange town without a single penny to their name, but this wasn’t Ginger’s first rodeo. Different town and different street, but living on the streets was all the same. She’d survived for the past year, and she’d live through this experience, too. She sat down on a bench and put a hand on her very pregnant stomach. She just hoped that she at least found a shelter before the baby came.