Falling for You

  Falling for You

  by

  Kathleen Y’Barbo

  Forget Me Not Romances, a division of Winged Publications

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the authors.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Falling for You

  Table of 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

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To my home town, Port Neches, Texas with love!

  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory,

  are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

  2 Corinthians 3:18

  Chapter One

  December 29

  “What in the world is Sue Ellen up to now?”

  Deputy Sheriff Bud Briggs swallowed the lump in his throat as he cruised past the Catfish House. Ignoring the pointed stares of the guys at the counter, he stopped his squad car at the station, directly across from the Rhonda-Vous House of Beauty, and tried not to look too obvious.

  Ever since Rhonda sold out to Sue Ellen Caldwell after the last hurricane, strange things had been happening at the Rhonda-Vous. Today’s spectacle, however, beat all.

  Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm December morning, the owner herself, all decked out in form-fitting red jeans and a blue and white top with her fair hair tied up in a long ponytail, stood perched on a rickety ladder. A dozen or so yards of red ribbon draped over her shoulder and hung down her back, and a length of it spilled onto the sidewalk to puddle around the base of the ladder.

  Only four days after Christmas, and she’d already removed all the blue decorations from her absurdly titled Blue Christmas Color-and-Cut Special. Her shop tree, formerly covered in blue bows and various beauty-related items, now lay at the curb ready for the trash pickup tomorrow.

  Faeoni Ledbetter, the sheriff’s recently arrived sister-in-law from Bogalusa, drove by doing her customary twenty-five in a thirty-five zone, and a few stray pieces of silver tinsel glittered in her wake.

  “Afternoon, Deputy,” she called, waving her gloved hand in his direction.

  Bud returned the gesture, then turned his attention back to Sue Ellen and the ladder, which looked rickety at best. That, combined with the fact that she kept reaching just a bit farther than was safe to drape the goofy ribbon, made Bud glad he was a praying man.

  A banner advertising a “New Year, New Do” special for the upcoming month of January had been hung beneath the neon pink letters of the store’s original sign, and Sue Ellen seemed to be trying to deck it out in red ribbon. The place looked like the Fourth of July rather than two days before New Year’s Eve.

  New Year’s Eve.

  The reminder of the holiday, and his mission regarding it, put the lump right back into Bud’s throat. Hoping to dislodge it, he took a swig from his thermos of bottled water and chased it with a vitamin E and a couple of Cs.

  Why had he thought to listen to the guys down at Gus’s gas station? He’d certainly never cared about having a date to anything, much less to the Camerons’ New Year’s Eve bash.

  They teased him all the time, and generally Bud recognized it and ignored the whole lot of them. If he’d found the gumption to follow his usual procedure regarding the old coots, he’d be happily planning his final long weekend at the fish camp before it went on the market.

  Instead, he had to either admit defeat to Wendell, Gus, and the boys or step out of the patrol car and ask Sue Ellen Caldwell to the big New Year’s Eve party at Dottie Jean and Fletcher’s new place. Pride demanded he follow through, while good sense kept him glued to the seat.

  He cast a glance heavenward. I’ve been meaning to deal with my pride issues, Lord, and now seems as good a time as any to start, don’t You think?

  Obviously the Lord was too busy laughing at him to answer.

  “What’re you afraid of, Bud?” He leaned to the right a notch to adjust his sunglasses in the rearview mirror. “It’s just Sue Ellen Caldwell. What’s she going to do, turn you down? You two go way back.”

  And they did.

  He and Sue Ellen Caldwell had known each other since the church nursery, where they’d spent nearly every Sunday morning together until junior high, when the pastor decided that separating the boys from the girls would better focus wandering attentions back on the Lord. Despite the inconvenience of different Sunday school rooms, Bud managed to position himself outside the church in order to arrive just as Sue Ellen and her brothers climbed out of her father’s baby blue Impala.

  He told himself he just wanted to be nice, but somewhere down deep he knew he wanted to get a glimpse of her smile. That always put a special shine on the Lord’s Day. Of course, she put a shine on every day, even when they spent an afternoon together digging for worms to sell down at Sassy Hatchett’s bait shop.

  With the money they earned, they’d race to the Catfish House for chocolate shakes, then get them in carryout cups and take them to the water to drink while they caught fish. Bud still couldn’t go fishing down at the fish camp without thinking about chocolate shakes, and he couldn’t go fishing at all without thinking of Sue Ellen Caldwell.

  Well, Sue Ellen Caldwell and Elvis. That girl sure liked to treat him and all creation to her version of every tune Elvis ever crooned, even if her singing did chase most of the fish away.

  “Sue Ellen Caldwell.” He tested the name, rolling it around in his head before whispering it aloud.

  By the time they walked the hallowed halls of Port Neches-Groves High School, Bud finally admitted to himself he had it bad for her, although he would never have said a thing for fear of jeopardizing their friendship. They were pals, partners in crime in homeroom, and on the rare Saturday afternoon, still fishing buddies.

  Some thought they were an item, owing in large part to the amount of time they spent with each other. The truth was, Sue Ellen’s mama was one of those women of delicate nerves, and Sue Ellen’s daddy was gone more than he was home. The combination of having a federal marshal for a husband and Sue Ellen for a daughter often sent the elder Caldwell female into a tizzy.

  When Mama Caldwell had one of her hissy fits, Sue Ellen headed for the Briggses’ house. For his part, Bud tried to pretend that it wasn’t the closeness of their homes that drew her there but rather the unconfessed love she felt for him.

  Either way, Bud was smart enough to know that Sue Ellen Caldwell, a cheerleader and senior class homecoming queen, was way out of his league. A girl like her didn’t belong in a town like Port Neches anyway, so when she went off to beauty school in Houston and he signed up for the Marines, Bud figured he’d never see her again.

  When word came to him that Sue Ellen’s mama had convinced her husband to hang up his badge and buy an RV, you could’ve knocked Bud over with a feather. Jim Caldwell had always been somewhat of a hero to him. To think of the lawman driving around in an oversized tin box with black socks, sandals, and a came
ra made Bud shudder.

  He should have returned home right then, for surely something was awfully wrong. Still, he’d signed on for another four years in the Corps. Sue Ellen was long gone, so what did it matter?

  By the time Bud had finished his tour of duty, spent a few years on the force in Houston, then settled into a job at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, he should have forgotten all about Sue Ellen Caldwell. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. Every blond-haired, green-eyed gal who crossed his path reminded him of her.

  If he thought about it, which he tried not to, Sue Ellen Caldwell was most likely the reason he found himself single and facing thirty-three with no one but his hunting dogs, Bullet and Zeke, for companionship.

  You could have bowled him over with a feather when Dottie Jean down at the Catfish House showed him the letter she’d gotten last September announcing that Sue Ellen was headed home to buy what the hurricane didn’t tear up of the town beauty parlor. A few new panes of glass in the front windows and a trio of brand-new shampoo bowls, and she was in business.

  Over the past year, their paths had crossed more than a time or two, an unavoidable occurrence in such a small town. Each time Bud saw her, he found himself as tongue-tied as a kid on his first date, so he took to avoiding her as much as possible.

  At first, Sue Ellen had acted kind of cool at his change of behavior, and that had made him rethink his policy of keeping his distance. Then she seemed to get used to his polite nod and his pretending to study something on the other side of the room whenever she came into the Catfish House. Pretty soon, she ignored him and his sorry disposition altogether.

  Bud, however, found it harder and harder to carry on his act. Lately, despite his better judgment and an application pending at the FBI Academy up in Virginia, he’d begun to entertain the prospect of taking up their friendship where it had left off.

  The thought sounded better than Dottie Jean’s pecan pie and scared him worse than that same delicacy’s cholesterol count. Running the other way seemed to be the only sane solution, at least until the boys at the gas station got involved.

  So what if there had been more engagements in Port Neches in the past six months than he could count? So what if her best friends Dottie Jean, Leota, and even cranky old Sassy Hatchett had settled down? That didn’t mean Sue Ellen was looking for a man.

  The guys at the diner saw it differently, however, and they’d given Bud the idea that Sue Ellen had set her cap for him. Gus hadn’t exactly confirmed it, but he hadn’t exactly denied it, either. Being her grandfather, he ought to know.

  The thought scared Bud to death and got his hopes up all at the same time. He felt the same way now, sitting all hunkered down in the front seat of his squad car as if he were working a stakeout.

  Out of the blue, an idea struck. The time had long since passed for him to make a friendly visit to the Rhonda-Vous. Word was out that she’d done up the whole inside in some sort of wild animal print with brand-new shampoo chairs in the same color pink as the sign out front. At least that’s what Tilly told him last week when he ventured into her establishment to try out her latest coffee concoction.

  He ought to get out and mosey across Port Neches Avenue. Just to be neighborly, of course.

  Bud continued to watch Sue Ellen struggle with the ribbon as he worked on a plan.

  Checking his watch, he noted the better part of the morning was behind him and he hadn’t accomplished a single thing beyond pulling a cat out of the tree behind Patty’s Posies and stopping a speeder for doing thirty-five in a school zone on Merriman. It was Tuesday, after all, and a slow day in Port Neches.

  But then, every day was a slow day in Port Neches.

  “Might as well take the rest of the day off,” he muttered as he unlatched his seat belt and opened the door to step out. “Maybe I’ll invite her to go fishing for old time’s sake.”

  “Fishing! For crying out loud, Bud. Is that how you intend to charm Sue Ellen Caldwell? Do go on.”

  Bud whirled around to see Sassy Hatchett standing on the other side of the patrol car with a frown and a bag of groceries balanced on one hip. Obviously her engagement to the town postman hadn’t softened her as much as he’d heard.

  “Mornin’, Miz Hatchett,” he said as he failed miserably in his attempt to muster a smile. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t you ‘Mornin’, Miz Hatchett’ me, Bud Briggs.” She shifted her groceries to the other hip and pointed a finger at him. “I know exactly what you’re up to. You don’t fool me for a minute.”

  Chapter Two

  Bud Briggs didn’t fool her for a minute. Sue Ellen had felt him staring ever since he pulled up at the curb across the street. What she didn’t know was why, at least not for certain.

  After all, Bud hadn’t exactly been sociable to her in quite a while. In fact, she figured he’d just about decided she didn’t exist.

  On some days that didn’t bother her a bit. Other days, it got to her worse than a burr under a saddle to think he could so easily end a friendship that had been going on, with a few minor interruptions, since they were babies in the church nursery.

  Today, however, it felt nice to know he’d at least realized she still rode the same planet around the sun that he did. While Sassy Hatchett kept him busy, Sue Ellen took the opportunity to discreetly study the deputy sheriff.

  For all his faults, chief among them being the total lack of a sense of humor and his penchant for popping vitamins like most folks popped peppermints, Bud Briggs was undeniably easy on the eye. Unlike a good number of men in their graduating class, Bud had kept all his teeth, all his sun-streaked blond hair, and most of his male charm.

  Just once she’d like to get her hands on that hair of his. Although the good Lord had given him several natural streaks of pale blond, she’d like to add just a few more around the temples. And while the barber in Beaumont did a nice job of keeping his hair off the collar of his uniform, she knew she could do an even better job, given the ability to add a few layers and some gel to keep it in place.

  Then she’d work on that sense of humor.

  There wasn’t a joke ever spoken or written that could make Bud Briggs laugh since he left junior high school. Somewhere between learning to drive and graduating, her friend Bud had become someone she barely knew.

  It seemed like everything she did failed to make Bud smile, and the Lord knew she tried. She’d even taken to singing Elvis to chase the fish away just so they didn’t have to go home so soon, but the poor man never figured it out. Nor did he think her off-tune renditions were funny.

  Somewhere along the way, she started singing on key. She also found she really liked those Elvis songs.

  Then there was the realization that she really liked Bud Briggs, too.

  Humming her favorite, a toe-tapper about being someone’s teddy bear, she gave Bud another glance, then went back to work. While the improvements to his outside would certainly add to his good looks, Bud would never allow them. Nor, did it seem, would he ever regain the ability to enjoy life that he had before adulthood changed him.

  Sue Ellen shifted positions and her train of thought.

  In all the time they’d spent together growing up, why hadn’t he ever asked her out on a date or at least indicated a little bit of interest in her outside of catching catfish? He’d been a good friend and an even better fisherman back in the old days, but she’d been the one to come up with the most worms.

  “Just like my love life,” she muttered as she tossed the last of the red ribbon over the sign advertising her January special. “If there was a prize for picking the most worms, I’d win for sure. Guess the good Lord knew what He was doing when He called a halt to my social life.”

  For the most part, it had been easy to accept the knowledge that the Lord meant her to stay single, although she did have the occasional twinge of loneliness when she thought of her three best friends all paired up and in love. Most days, she handled the brief down moments with a pray
er and a chocolate kiss or two. That and a few stanzas of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” usually did the trick.

  Looking at Bud gave her yet another twinge, one of regret.

  “Don’t be silly. You can’t lose something you never had.” She cast one last glance over her shoulder at Deputy Briggs, then turned to take a careful step down Grandpa Gus’s ladder. “Or wanted,” she added.

  She lifted her gaze to stare into the deep blue of the winter sky. Lord, I realize You know what’s best for me and want me to stop waiting for Mr. Right to come along, but I just wish there was some way—

  “Sue Ellen, yoo-hoo.” Sassy punctuated the words with a piercing whistle, the same one she used to cheer on the Port Neches-Groves Indians football team most Friday nights in the fall.

  “What is it, hon?” Sue Ellen swiveled to stare at Sassy. Part of the wooden step swiveled with her, and she kicked it back into place. Someone’s going to get hurt using this old thing. Come tax time she’d have to use her return money to buy her grandfather a new ladder.

  “Come on over here and talk to this man before he makes a spectacle of himself,” Sassy shouted, attracting the attention of anyone within hearing distance.

  And there were plenty within hearing distance.

  Sue Ellen felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Whatever Sassy had up her sleeve, it wasn’t funny. She’d be sure to let her know this evening when they met for weekly Bible study.

  They were supposed to discuss ideas for a new Bible study. Maybe she’d bring some suggestions for one on taming the tongue.

  “I’m busy, Sassy,” she answered as she took another shaky step down the ladder. “Leave me be.”

  “Well, I’d just love to leave you be, but if I don’t help the deputy sheriff, he’s gonna be sitting here all day. You know the sheriff’s older than Cooter Brown and half deaf, and the rest of us will be left to fend for themselves in the event of a crime wave if Bud’s too busy staring at you.”