Feeding the Fire Read Free

Christmas.”
    Ivy had come home to spend the holidays with her fiancé, Blake Chamberlain, and her family, but Pepper had spent every spare moment dealing with her father’s failing health.
    The day after Thanksgiving, her father had a stroke. The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s were spent in hospital waiting rooms, doctors’ offices, and rehabilitation clinics in Birmingham. They’d finally gotten Dad home and able to get around, but he wasn’t 100 percent yet.
    “How is your dad?” Sarah asked.
    “Better. We’re still not sure if he’s ever going to be able to run the garage again. One of his mechanics has been helping my mother run the shop, but if he doesn’t make significant progress in the next few weeks, we might have to sell it.”
    She’d hate to do that. Her father had worked his whole life to make his way up from a gas station attendant to running the family auto shop. Having their own business had allowed her mother to quit her job in the elementary school cafeteria and work as the receptionist for the garage. It had paid for them to move from their trailer into a real house. They’d do everything they could to keep the shop open as long as possible.
    “That would be a shame,” Sarah said, echoing Pepper’s thoughts.
    “I’m still hopeful. My brother just moved home from Huntsville, so that should help.”
    “I thought I noticed someone renting the house on Morning Glory where the Rosewood Realty offices used to be. Is that where he’s setting up his practice?” Miss Francine asked.
    “Yep, that’s Logan. That house allows him to live and work in the same building, saving him a lot of overhead. Plus it’s across from the garage, so he can run over there if he needs to.”
    Speaking of Logan, she had to remember to take dinner over to his place tonight after the salon closed. She’d volunteered to help him unpack and get settled in his new place. Setting down her scissors, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket to set a reminder to call in an order to Pizza Palace.
    “A pretty gutsy move opening a law practice in Rosewood,” Miss Vera noted. “The Chamberlains have had the monopoly on that for seventy years.”
    “I’m sure there’s plenty of business for everyone,” Pepper replied before going back to trimming Miss Francine’s hair. Her brother practiced family law and could handle some minor civil or criminal cases if he needed to. Small-town lawyers had to be a jack-of-all-trades. She anticipated he would do good business here. There were certainly families in Rosewood that couldn’t afford the Chamberlains’ exorbitant hourly rate.
    Like her own. She’d had her brother put together a will and living directive for her father after he fell ill, but other families didn’t have that luxury of a lawyer in the family. The Chamberlains’ firm charged prices that had made her head spin. The average family couldn’t afford fees like that, and yet, they couldn’t afford not to have the protection and peace of mind that a will or directive provides.
    Pepper tried not to get pleasure from the idea of her brother chipping away at the Chamberlains’ turf, but it was hard not to hope for Logan’s success. Not everyone in town thought the Chamberlains were southern royalty. In her household, the name was rarely even spoken without her mother getting agitated and changing the subject.
    “Anyway,” Pepper continued, “it’s not like Norman has a child in law school to take over the practice when he retires.”
    Blake, the oldest Chamberlain, taught and coached football at the high school. Mitchell was in med school, and his twin, Maddie, worked at the bakery. Grant was a fireman and Simon was a cop. The youngest, Hazel, was still in high school, but somehow Pepper doubted that the bespectacled bookworm she saw around town would be interested in law.
    “In a few years, we’ll be thankful we don’t have to recruit a law firm to come into the area. Not many