Funeral home owner and undertaker Dual Hood knows a good thing when he sees it, so when Charlie Soder applies for the job of embalmer, he snatches up the young man in a heartbeat. Charlie, fresh-faced and just out of college, also knows a good thing when he sees it, and immediately sets his sights on his new sexy boss.<br><br>It doesn’t take long for sparks to fly and romance to blossom. But Dual worries what folks in his small Mississippi town will say, and whether his family-owned business will suffer if word goes round about his new love interest. He isn’t at all certain he has the courage to do the right thing and grab love before it slips through his fingers.

The Undertaker's Secret

“A man’s gotta do what he’s got to do,” he would say to me often. “Let it alone,” was another favorite. “You gone worry that like a dog worrying a bone. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”


I could hear his voice. Talking to me. Telling me what I needed to do. Besides, any good Southern boy knows that when the best thing that has ever walked into your life is walking away, you need to get off your ass and go after it before it’s well and truly gone.


I went to the steps to Charlie’s apartment where the kids had been sitting. I plopped my ass down. I needed a minute. I dabbed at my eyes with my eyes and tried to get hold of myself.


Like Daddy used to say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.13


Chapter 25