Read Under the Lights for Free Online Page B

you’re not even looking. How about you? Married?”
    â€œNope. Came close, but we went our separate ways last month.”
    â€œSorry to hear it. It’s nice to have a woman to hold your hand during the hard times.”
    Since Chase had a woman who’d kicked him in the emotional balls when times got hard, he wondered if he should have spent more time in the library and less time at bars back when he’d been looking. “And you’ve got just the two boys?”
    â€œYup. They’re usually hanging around with me during the summer, learning to turn wrenches, but Cheryl’s got them helping her make meatballs for the spaghetti dinner benefit. Good thing we’ve got a freezer in the basement, because she’s made enough freaking meatballs to keep the town alive if the Apocalypse comes.”
    â€œWhen it comes to an all-you-can-eat benefit dinner, I can pack away the meatballs. Whatever she’s made, she should double it.”
    Deck laughed, then looked up at the old-fashioned clock hanging askew on the back wall of the garage. “I’d best get back to work. Promised I’d have this junk done today.”
    Chase shook his hand again, slapping him on the other shoulder. “Good to see you again, Deck. No doubt I’ll see you around all the events. We might even have to practice a little.”
    Deck snorted. “Like that’ll help.”
    Once he was back in the truck, with no idea where to drive next, Chase put it in drive and waited for a Stewart Mills PD cruiser to go by before pulling out. He couldn’t really see the driver, but he could tell by the general build it wasn’t Kelly.
    Officer McDonnell,
he mused, allowing his mind to wander briefly to an image of her slapping handcuffs on him and giving him a
very
thorough pat down.
    Very briefly, though. The more he allowed his Officer McDonnell fantasy to grow, the more he was going to think about Kelly, who needed very much not to star in his fantasies. She was Coach’s daughter, and Chase was there on a mission, which was to help the man save his job. Then he’d go back to New Jersey and start putting his life back together.
    â€”
    K elly put the finishing touches on the tollbooth sandwich-board sign and then pushed herself to her feet so she could stretch her back. If she never saw blue, white and gold paint again, it would be too soon. As soon as Gretchen finished the matching sign and Jen wrapped up the massive yard sale signs, they could wash the brushes and call it a night.
    They planned to put the tollbooth signs on the yellow line in the center of town, just before the stop sign, and hoped passing drivers would drop donations into footballhelmets being held out by the players. Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons would yield the most traffic from out of town, and those were generally the people with a little extra cash to spend. The cheerleaders had done it a few years before to raise money for new uniforms and it had been a big success, but things were a lot different then, financially.
    â€œI happened to drive by Deck’s place today,” Gretchen said, her voice emerging from behind her sandwich board. “Saw Chase Sanders leaving.”
    â€œMmhmm.”
    â€œI think he’s even hotter now than when we were in high school.”
    Kelly didn’t think that. She
knew
it. Like Albert’s homemade dandelion wine, Chase had gotten more delicious and a lot more potent with age.
    Jen stood up from behind a yard sale sign and sighed. “Very take-charge kind of guy, based on how he acted with Hunter at the meeting.”
    Gretchen nodded. “I bet a take-charge kind of guy is just what Kelly needs. A guy who won’t put up with that authoritative cop crap and will take her up against the wall if he damn well feels like it.”
    Even as she shook her head, Kelly felt her cheeks flame and made busy cleaning her brushes so her friends wouldn’t see