Just because, p.1
Just Because, page 1
JUST BECAUSE
FOR THE LOVE OF THE FLIGHT
KATHRYN KALEIGH
To learn more about Kathryn Kaleigh, visit
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www.kathrynkaleigh.com
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JUST BECAUSE
PREVIEW SECOND CHANCE KISSES
Copyright © 2022 by Kathryn Kaleigh
All rights reserved.
Written by Kathryn Kaleigh
Published by KST Publishing, Inc., 2022
Cover by Skyhouse24Media
www.kathrynkaleigh.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, or incidents are products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, places, of events is purely coincidental or fictionalized.
Created with Vellum
CHAPTER 1
Samantha Johnson had the patience of a saint.
She stood behind the cluttered and stained counter of the paint station at Marigold Hardware Store, three different colors of pink paint splattered on what had started out as a white bib apron. The apron looped over her head and had three large pockets just below the waist for her cell phone, a measuring tape, peppermints, and whatever else she happened to need on any particular day.
There was a stripe of lemonade pink at her waist. A splash of crepe pink across her left pocket. And a rather large splash of flamingo pink in the center of her chest. Quite honestly she could barely see a difference between the colors and found them all equally pretty.
Samantha looked like she’d been in a paintball war. But she found the smell of fresh paint comforting. It reminded her of her father and the days when he used to flip houses. That was before they’d moved back to Marigold.
Mr. Miller, a regular customer, stood on the other side of the counter with his seven-year-old granddaughter, Abby. Mr. Miller wore a light gray fedora hat over his gray hair. A look no one in Samantha’s age group could pull off. Mr. Miller looked like a man who would smoke fine cigars and read Shakespeare, but apparently his specialty was fine carpentry work.
The three of them were the only ones in the front of the store. Samantha didn’t mind mixing paint, especially when it made Abby so excited.
“How about something like this?” Samantha asked, holding up a pale pink paint card that reminded her of the roses on her senior prom corsage. It was called ballet slipper.
“Oooh. That’s pretty.” Abby Miller’s eyes lit up. “Let’s try that one.”
Samantha tucked her hair behind her ears, smiled, and pulled a fresh pint of paint from the shelf behind her. She keyed in the color code and locked the paint in the mixing machine. She pulled a peppermint from her pocket and slipped it in her mouth. She’d had nothing but a pack of peanut butter crackers for lunch.
The roar of the paint machine filled the air.
Abby stood on a little foot stool allowing her to reach the top of the counter. She plucked a fresh brush from the glass jar of clean sample paint brushes. Then she entertained herself by sorting the paint cards – about twenty-five in various shades of pink - while they waited for the paint to mix.
“How big is your dollhouse?” Samantha asked as the paint machine did its thing.
“It’s as tall as I am. Maybe taller. And it’s got soooo many rooms. My grandpa made the whole thing.”
Samantha exchanged a smile with Mr. Miller. “Your grandpa must love you a whole lot.”
Abby bounced on the stool. “He does. And it’s going to be so pretty when it’s painted pink.”
“You know,” Samantha said. “Pink’s my favorite color, too. In fact, I think you could use one of these darker colors,” Samantha tapped one of the cards in front of Abby. “like this watermelon pink, for the trim and maybe this rosewood color for the roof.”
“Maybe.” Abby studied the paint splashes on the block of wood in front of her. They’d tried those two colors earlier, so Samantha was only suggesting colors Abby had already shown interest in.
The paint mixer stopped turning. Samantha pulled out the little bucket of ballet slipper paint and opened the lid. She was pretty sure she’d soon be wearing this color, too.
Ten minutes later, she gathered up all six paint cans and hauled everything over to the checkout counter.
As Mr. Miller swiped his credit card, Samantha bagged up the paint. “Be sure and bring me a picture when it’s all painted.”
“I will.” Abby said. “Do you want to come help us paint it?”
Samantha laughed. “I just might do that.”
The store was quiet after they left. As usual for a late Tuesday afternoon, there wasn’t much business. Samantha sat on a metal stool – the most uncomfortable seat possible - behind the checkout counter where she’d propped her iPad and found her place on her Kindle app.
She was about ninety-five percent finished with Jane Eyre and had a test on it at the university in the morning.
After about ten minutes, she stood up and slid the stool aside with her foot. It was more comfortable to just stand up. She smiled as she noticed a splash of pink paint on her white canvas sneakers. The pink paint matched the pink laces in her shoes.
After reading the last page, she went into the back storage room and began to sort the unbelievably disorganized mess of boxes and metal shelves. If a customer came into the store, the door sensor would chime an alert.
It didn’t take any time at all for her to have a stack of empty boxes to throw out. After setting the boxes on the counter until she could take them out to the dumpster later, she saw a customer standing in front of the cash register.
A man she hadn’t seen before.
CHAPTER 2
Colton Mitchell stepped inside the back door of his family’s hardware store and the smell of fresh paint mixed with treated lumber swept him back to his teenage years.
The hardware store was jumbled and crowded with boxes of unknown things. Colton would have sworn that some of the cardboard boxes that had been left on the floor next to the shelves were the same boxes that had been there when Colton was a teen or maybe even before that.
He passed by the two back rooms, the door to his father’s office was closed and locked. The other, the door to the all-purpose room stood open. There was a white box of cookies and doughnuts that someone dropped off every morning. Every single morning. The box of sweets from the local bakery was as much a part of the store as the screwdrivers and paint cans.
Colton almost stopped to see if there were any red heart cookies left, but he was determined to avoid sweets.
Colton had spent his summers working here at the family store for as long as he could remember. Even before his dad had him officially working, he’d bring Colton to the store and let him play. Play had slowly morphed into work and the hardware store had become a way of life.
But it wasn’t the way of life that Colton wanted. Colton took after his mother in that way. His mother had loved to travel while his father preferred to spend his days in the hardware store. After a few years, his mother had started traveling without Colton’s father.
When Colton hadn’t been in the store with his father, he’d been seeing the world with his mother.
Personally, Colton preferred the scent of jet fuel to that of fresh paint.
He’d shaken the dust of Marigold off his feet five years ago. Unfortunately, life didn’t always go as planned.
His younger brother, Jack, had left town two months ago to chase his dream of playing baseball. Colton didn’t hold that against him. He’d chased his own dream of becoming an airplane pilot. But now their father was recovering from a heart attack and Jack wasn’t in a place to come home to pick up the slack. If he gave up on his career now, there would be no second chance.
Sometimes being the older child was a pain in the neck.
Thank God for the hired help. Especially Dave Butcher. He’d been with the family since before Colton was born. But Dave couldn’t do everything. He was out this afternoon, leaving someone named Sammie in charge.
According to his dad, Sammie was a part-time college student. Colton’s first official task was stopping by to check on Sammie and lock up the store. Sammie, he was told, didn’t have keys.
His father didn’t give out keys to the store lightly. Dave Butcher had a set of keys, but other than that, Colton knew of no one else who had ever been granted the privilege, dubious as it may be.
As he’d suspected, the store was deserted. Back before the big box stores hit, the hardware store had been a hub of activity. Retired men would come to the store just to hang out, drink coffee, and eat the cookies and brownies.
Colton had to admit it was a great ploy on his father’s part. Every day at least one of the men would leave with a purchase. And anytime they needed a hammer, a screwdriver, or plywood for their latest project, they automatically thought about Marigold Hardware.
It had been an icon in Marigold.
Then the older men started to die off. That combined with the big chain stores had hurt business. Colton didn’t know if his father even turned a profit anymore. And he wasn’t about to ask. Not while his father had breath in him. The hardware store was an extension of his father and no one dared question its importance.
Not even Colton’s mother. She’d given up travel to stay home a
Colton’s grandmother lived in the backyard of his father’s house. She didn’t drive anymore, so Colton’s mother drove her to all her doctor’s appointments and what not. And she always had dinner with Colton’s parents.
At the moment, his mother was taking care of both Colton’s father and her mother. Colton didn’t envy her.
He’d taken his two week vacation to come home and help out. Even though he could run the hardware store himself, it was not something he ever wanted to have to do.
When he stepped into the store, the second thing he noticed after the lack of customers, was the lack of staff.
If that Sammie had gone off without locking up the store, he might as well look for another job. With things the way they were now, everything in here could disappear. It was a far cry from the days when a man would come back to pay for a box of screws that he accidentally wasn’t charged for.
Those were days Colton had grown up on. He couldn’t even think about coming back here now and giving up flying. No matter how much he tried to get his mother to take a trip with him, she wouldn’t leave the responsibility of taking care of his grandmother and now his father.
When a Mitchell committed to something, there was no stopping them.
Colton stood in front of the check-out counter and, after making a visual sweep of the store, glared at the unoccupied counter.
He did not want his first job to be firing the part-time help.
There was a supply room behind the counter where they kept things as they came in. If someone needed something that wasn’t on the shelves, there was a good chance that it was somewhere in that room. At least if someone could find it.
He watched as a young lady in a pink splattered apron came out of the back room, her arms loaded with boxes.
She saw him the moment she set the boxes on the counter.
“I am so sorry, Sir,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. The battery in the door sensor must be out again. What can I help you with?”
CHAPTER 3
Samantha dusted her hands on her apron. The back room was an unorganized, dusty mess. Though she stole minutes here and there to read assignments, those moments were few and far between.
She bit into the peppermint she’d had in her mouth and winced. She’d promised herself she at least wouldn’t bite the candy. She did not want a broken tooth.
With Mr. Mitchell out recovering from a heart attack and Dave Butcher doing his best to keep up with the business side of the store, Samantha had tons of autonomy.
When there were no customers, she used the time to straighten and organize the storage room. It was embarrassing to have to go back there, spend an hour looking for something that she was certain they had, only to come back empty-handed because she couldn’t get to things that just hadn’t been put on the shelves yet – and probably never would be.
Maybe after she finished organizing the storage room, she’d start on the store. There was enough work to keep one person busy for years.
Even without the authority to get rid of unused things, she’d still taken out three large garbage bags of things that obviously had no use, like old cardboard boxes and used paint brushes.
Samantha hadn’t heard the customer come in. And she hadn’t seen him before. He wasn’t a regular. She had the fleeting thought that he must be from out of town. He didn’t look anything like the typical Marigold hardware store shopper.
He was handsome in a Liam Hemsworth kind of way. He was wearing a pair of broken-in jeans, a white t-shirt, and dark brown leather oxford shoes. He was clean-shaven and had a good haircut, short, but fashionably styled. His hair was a dark brown, the color of rich coffee.
And he was looking at her with a curious grin on his face.
“Um…” she said, remembering to breathe. “I apologize. What can I help you with?”
His brow furrowed as he seemed to consider the question. Maybe he was just coming in to browse. Men did that sometimes. One had described the hardware store as a toy store for grown men.
Then as though he suddenly remembered why he was there, he reached in his pocket. “Could you copy a key for me?”
Samantha had used the key maker machine once with Dave Butcher walking her through the whole thing.
The machine terrified her. It was loud and she wasn’t even sure she knew where to start. Her heart pounded much too fast in her chest.
“Sure,” she said, with her best sunny smile.
He walked over and held his key ring out in his palm. Somehow she managed to take the keys without touching his hand. She held them out in front of her.
The key ring was actually a BMW fob. There were two keys attached.
“Which one is it?” she asked. The two keys looked identical to her. Not a good sign.
He took one of the keys and held it up. “This one.” His fingers brushed against hers.
She took the keys, pulling away from his touch. “It’s… um… a house key?” Dave had gone over the different types of keys with her, but maybe she’d been in overload that day. At any rate, she was a little lost.
The key machine sat on a table by itself, off to her left, surrounded by hundreds of keys on little carousels.
She took the man’s keys and stood in front of the keys. She twirled one of the carousels, the keys clinking innocently against each other.
She couldn’t just pick a key at random and she couldn’t just keep trying them until one worked. There was a method to this madness.
But she didn’t know how to solve it.
CHAPTER 4
Colton watched the girl wearing a pink paint splattered apron as she studied the key racks. When she’d stood in front of him, he’d noticed that she smelled like soap with a faint scent of peppermint. No heavy perfumes. And no make-up on her pretty face.
Someone riding a motorcycle parked just outside the front door and the door chimed as the customer came inside.
The girl didn’t seem to notice that the door sensor wasn’t actually broken. Good. He didn’t have to explain how he came in through the back door.
She had pink paint pretty much everywhere. Besides on her clothes, she had a streak of light pink paint on her wrist and a little smudge of a slightly darker pink on her cheek.
Her ivory skin was flawless and the pink paint which should have looked messy, only looked charming on her.
She wore a pair of faded blue jeans that hugged her in all the right places and black t-shirt beneath the white apron. Her white canvas shoes not only had a splash of fresh paint on them, but she had pink shoe laces.
Her hair, a layered bob with dark brown roots blending into blonde ends softly framed her face. When she moved her straight hair fell across her face and she absently tucked it back, leaving a stray lock across her cheek.
Before she’d turned away, he gotten a good look at her bright green eyes and when she’d flashed that bright southern smile on him, he’d nearly come undone.
Colton had suddenly not wanted to tell the girl who he was. It was an impulsive decision, foreign to him. No one at Auburn University cared who the Mitchells of Marigold, Louisiana were. And everyone in Marigold knew him.
Except, it seemed, this girl.
He wanted to get to know her without her knowing that he was the boss’s son. He didn’t want her worried about things getting complicated with the whole family business thing.
Because, frankly, he was here temporarily and it made no difference to him that she obviously worked for his father.
And his father had obviously neglected to tell him about the girl he’d hired. The only worker in the whole store at the moment as far as he could tell.
Colton had made hundreds of keys on the key machine. He could do it with his eyes closed. He couldn’t tell her that, though, without tipping his hand about who he was.
He went to stand next to her. “There are a lot of keys,” he said.
She nodded. “You might want to come back when Dave is here.”
“Nonsense,” Colton said, shooting her a mischievous glance. “Between the two of us, we can figure this thing out.”
