“That’s really none of your business, but the girls and I live with my mother. She’s not well, so they do a lot to help her. She’s more than willing to let me have my weekends to cut loose and let my hair down.” Tilly took a couple of steps toward her car and then turned around. “If things go in the crapper, honey, and you change your mind about all this changing stuff, I’m right here for you. Did your red-haired cousin give you my number?”

“She did.” Flynn couldn’t make himself head to his truck.

“Well, okay then.” Tilly sighed louder than the crickets. She blew him a kiss just before she slid in behind the steering wheel, and then she rolled down the window. “Thanks again for being up-front with me. At least I know you don’t think I’m ugly or too brassy. It’s one of those ‘It’s me, not you’ things, and I can live with that.”

“You are so welcome, and if you decide that you want something else out of life and need to talk, just holler at me.” Flynn waved. “And Tilly, you are a very attractive woman. You have such a lovely smile. You should kick any man who makes you feel ugly out the door.”

“Thank you for that.” Tilly laid a hand over her heart, and then blew more kisses toward him. She drove away, leaving a puff of dust in her wake. Flynn made sure he had his wallet in his hip pocket, crossed the yard with Tex right behind him, and got into his truck. “Want to go with me and be my wingman at the drive-in window of the ice-cream shop?”

Tex didn’t need a second invitation. He bounded up into the truck and sat down in the passenger seat. When Flynn drove past the fork in the road, Tilly fell right in behind him. Evidently she had been waiting to see if he was telling the truth.

“That was downright liberating, Tex. Maybe she’ll think about what I said. Maybe not. But it sure helped me to say it,” he said as he watched her pull her car in behind his truck.

He drove five miles below the speed limit, hoping that she would go on past him, but she hung back. Then he drove five miles over the speed limit and hoped that she might lose him, but she didn’t. When he finally pulled in at the ice-cream shop, she honked.