Laid off from a job in the city, Katie Montgomery and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Carol Grace, move home to Sardis County…to the farm that had been owned by her grandfather, Arthur “Junior” Ballantine, with the hopes of raising her daughter in the relative safety of rural America.
Alan Blake is a cop. He also leaves the city to go to Sardis County…but not for the same reason. Alan arrested one of the Giambini crime family’s star gamblers: poker expert Moses Turley. Alan also grew up in Sardis County, but no one in the city knows that except his partner. Alan must hide out and stay alive long enough to testify against the mobster.
Katie lets her former high school classmate, Alan, hide out with her and Carol Grace. But, in order to lie low on Junior’s Farm, he has to work as Katie’s farm hand.
Then Katie discovers two things: She’s a descendant of the Sardis family, and she’s head over heels in love with Alan!
Has Katie inherited the Sardis magic? Will Katie and Alan live happily ever after? Or will the Giambinis wipe out any chance of happiness? Find out in Junior’s Farm, the second installment of Tales Of Sardis County.
Genre: FICTION / Romance / GeneralThis was published August 23, 2014.
This story has already been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
Katie Montgomery glanced at the gradually receding city in her rear-view mirror. Sure won’t miss that, she thought to herself. Nothing there but greed, apathy, and fakery. Time to go be a real person again.
Having thought that, Katie glanced at her daughter. Carol Grace was sitting in the passenger seat of the late model sedan, ear buds in her ears, listening to music with all the feigned indifference a thirteen-year-old girl could muster. The scene in the kitchen of their apartment when Katie broke the news that they were moving back to Perry had not been a pretty one, and Carol Grace had thrown a fit.
“I am NOT moving to ‘Podunk’!” she had shouted. “I don’t have any friends there, and I simply will NOT be a friggin’ farmer!”
“And you don’t understand, young lady,” replied Katie firmly. “Since I got laid off, we can’t afford to live in this city any longer! Thanks to Gram, I own that little farm, with no payments to make and no rent to pay, and we will move there while I still have money to move with!”
“OHHHHHH!” said Carol Grace disgustedly, retreating to her room in tears.
Since then, Carol Grace had been moping around the house, packing when she had to, and sighing a lot. There hadn’t been a lot said between the two for the last two weeks.
Katie sighed. Oh, Mark, I wish you hadn’t died. I could use a little support right now.
Katie’s husband, and Carol Grace’s father, had died five years earlier. Brain aneurism. He was probably dead before he hit the floor, the doctors had told her. As if that made it any better.
