Fiddling with Fate by Diane Kelly

Author:Diane Kelly [Kelly, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

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On Friday morning, Smoky batted his jingle ball around our cabin while I took care of some long-neglected domestic duties. I washed the pile of dishes that had been sitting in my sink for days, scoured the bathroom, and ran three loads of laundry. I vacuumed the dust bunnies from under the bed, ran a cloth over the furniture, and tossed out the old food in my fridge, some of which was so fuzzy it was no longer identifiable. The one downside to running a retail business that was open seven days a week was that my home life suffered. Then again, maybe my business was just a convenient excuse. Even before I’d started making moonshine, my cabin hadn’t exactly been immaculate. A woman’s got to make her priorities, after all, and housework was pretty far down on my list.

After cleaning the inside of the cabin, I swept the front porch. Movement caught my eye as a little birdie alit on the top of the shed behind my home. Leaving the broom on the porch, I walked to the shed and pulled the doors open. Inside sat the 1932 Ford flathead V8 that my great-grandfather had used in his moonshine business. With all the rust covering it now, you’d never know that the car had outrun law enforcement hundreds of times during the Prohibition era, including Marlon’s great-grandfather on multiple occasions. If not for a tire blowing out, Sheriff Landers might have never caught Eustatius Hayes. My granddaddy might still lament the capture of his father, but I was glad that the sheriff’s great-grandson had chosen to pursue me. Admittedly, I’d been much easier to capture. Marlon hadn’t needed a weapon. He’d disarmed me with his sexy smile and Southern charm.

I stepped inside the shed and circled the ancient car, carefully looking things over. Hmm. I blew a layer of dust off the hood and bent over to take a closer look. While much of the hood had succumbed to oxidation, a few spots of the original shiny black paint remained. I wondered whether the car could be restored—assuming the cost wouldn’t be prohibitive. I also wondered whether it was something I could do on my own. After all, Kiki and I had fixed up the horse trailer and transformed it into a mobile moonshine bar. After some thought, I realized that, while she and I were perfectly capable of completing a simple, whimsical project like the trailer, it would take someone more skilled to properly restore and repaint the vintage automobile. I also decided it was worth looking into.

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