Excerpt from The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Hey, Violet." Dash lurched right into his steady, who was coming in the other way. He slid his arm around her bare shoulders and gave her a small squeeze. Her skin felt cool to his touch and he had the urge to rush her off to the Plymouth in the back parking lot and explore some more of it. She'd let him that once, hadn't she? They had both been drinking that night. Gin. He had started gently at the nape of her neck, brushing back her bob with his hand and discovering a dime-sized birthmark at the hairline, an ink stain on pale onion skin. He had kissed it reverently. And then, not quite so slowly, he had worked his way around her throat and down. And further down, his hand finding his way beneath the slippery dress and her stockings while his mouth stayed on her breasts. She may have protested a little bit, he couldn't remember. But she let him push all the way into her with just the slightest moan, her arms wrapped tightly around the back of his head. Now that was heaven. Every girl just a different window into it.

"Want to go out back with me?" He hoped his tone sounded light.

"Dash, are you drunk?" His date hesitated a brief second before reaching up to hold his face in her hands, searching his eyes. He couldn't quite focus on hers, although they were large and shiny as a wild animal's.

"I might be." He smiled crookedly. "Pretty please?"

"Mmm. I'd love another dance? It's almost intermission."

He felt her steering him back the way he came. They had just made it through the door when a large young man with brilliantined black hair and his striped tie askew pushed them both roughly to one side as he parted the sea of merrymakers in his path, his face dark and thunderous.

Dash had heard that Jimmy Jeffers's girl had given him the heave-ho. He scanned the room for her. Nell. Dancing with someone Dash didn't know, probably from somewhere outside of Possum Flats. People came from fifty or more miles away for the Lamb's Hall dances each month. He reached for Violet's hand and wondered, ever so briefly, what it would be like to be thrown over for someone else. Not his experience. He typically broke up with a girl before it crossed her mind to drop him. Not that any girl would ever drop him, of course. But his attention span was short. And so was life. Too short to be tied to one girl, no matter how gorgeous or witty or charming. Even Violet here, her sweet breath against his chest as they moved onto the dance floor. At her throat she wore the gold heart he had given her, but he knew—even if she didn't—that it was a useless talisman against his restlessness.

He felt himself strangely moved by this thought. Or maybe it was just the gin. He drew her closer, wanting to protect her somehow, from the inevitable. Not tonight, of course. But soon. He would miss Violet, he really would.

Excerpted from The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson. Copyright © 2024 by Michelle Collins Anderson. Excerpted by permission of A John Scognamiglio Book. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.