I’ve missed him so much.

She looped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. The rhythm of his heartbeat steadied her, and as she calmed, her gratitude gave way to hypersensitivity. The plane of his chest was well-muscled from time spent in construction, hard beneath his shirt and against her body. He still used the same shampoo he always had, and she inhaled the familiar smell, letting the sense memory take her back. The soothing metronome of his pulse had picked up speed. She wasn’t the only one reacting to their embrace.

Nick’s breathing grew rougher. “Pam.”

Dear Reader,

One of the reasons I love writing for Harlequin American Romance is because I’m a firm believer in happy endings. I don’t think that happy endings only occur in fiction or that they happen magically. I’ve watched real people work toward their happy endings—whether it’s diligently pursuing a dream despite difficult odds or regularly expending the effort to keep marriages and other relationships strong. Some of the people in my life have overcome troubled pasts and addiction to create a happy ending.

I also believe in second chances, so it was very fulfilling to write about Pam Wilson. Despite mistakes Pam made in her past, she’s come home to Mimosa, Mississippi, to try to forgive her estranged mother and perhaps, finally, forgive herself. Pam’s trip doesn’t go at all as she’d planned, though. For one thing, she wasn’t expecting to see her high school sweetheart and ex-husband, Nick Shepard. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to see Faith Shepard, the daughter Pam gave up twelve years ago.

Are twelve years of regret and resentment too great a divide for three people to bridge? Not if forgiveness, love and genuine effort are involved. Second chances may not be easy, but they can lead to the happiest endings of all.

Best wishes,

Tanya

A Mother’s Homecoming

Tanya Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

As part of her long overdue efforts to become a better person, Pamela Jo Wilson tried to find something positive about every situation. Right now the closest thing to a silver lining she could muster was: The car will probably break down before I get there. She could hope, anyway.

Or maybe the balding tires would simply melt in the muggy August heat, a painfully plausible scenario.

Even with the windows rolled down, heatstroke seemed imminent. The air-conditioning in her four-door compact had died last year, mere blocks from the used-car lot. She’d known better than to try to get a refund. In that neighborhood, she’d been lucky to get title and registration. But the dilapidated automobile had proven as stubborn as its owner, persevering all the way from California to the delta.

Now, Mississippi sun beat through her windshield with enough intensity to make her feel like an ant on the frying end of a juvenile delinquent’s magnifying glass. Though Pam wasn’t enjoying the heat—or the periodic stench of baked marshes and paper mills—she grudgingly appreciated the simple majesty of the azure sky above the rural stretches of untamed land she’d passed. Perfect, fluffy clouds dotted the horizon, looking more like they were from a painting than real life.

As her car chugged up the incline, a cheery wooden sign came into view. The paint job was so flawlessly fresh that she imagined some civic-minded volunteer in coveralls at the side of the road at dawn each day applying touch-ups with a can of aldermen-approved acrylic. Enjoy Your Stay in Beautiful Mimosa. Perfectly welcoming. Yet every molecule in Pam’s body shrieked, “Turn the heck around!”

Giving up swearing was a result of step number four. It had been dam … Darn difficult. But she’d done it, examined her many flaws and resolved to change. With a little bit of persistence and a whole lot of divine intervention, she could do this, too. When she’d left Mimosa almost thirteen years ago, sneaking away in the night to catch a Memphis-bound bus, she’d only imagined one scenario that could bring her back. The long dead fantasy now seemed both laughable and petty.

Having been assured her entire youth that she had “the voice of an angel,” she’d entertained a vindictive daydream of returning as—she tried not to wince, the memory felt so foolish—a country music superstar. She’d pictured arriving in town, a chart-topping American sweetheart, with just enough time in her packed schedule for a charitable concert and a shrug of indifference toward her mother … who would naturally beg forgiveness for all that had passed between them.

There was only one aspect of reality that even distantly matched her childish dream. Pam was indeed making this return trip to see Mae Danvers Wilson.

No matter what form of address Pam had been required to use aloud as a kid, she’d thought of the woman by her given name rather than Mom. Mae Wilson possessed all the warmth and maternal instincts of a cottonmouth. Oh, and you did any better? At thirty-one, Pam was no longer as judgmental as her teen self; she had a boatload of mistakes to keep her humble. Possibly an entire fleet’s worth.

Remembering some of those mistakes, including a disastrous flirtation with motherhood, Pam blinked hard. Don’t go there. She hadn’t driven this far just to come unglued and wrap her car around a white oak.

Within the official limits of Mimosa, the first two buildings were a gas station across the street that looked new and, to her right, Wade’s Watering Hole, a dive older than she was. At least it had been considered a disreputable dive over a decade ago. Now the siding and roof gleamed, and parking conditions were several evolutionary steps above the previous mud pit. Of course, one couldn’t make judgments based solely on an exterior. Who knew what lurked inside the belly of the beast?

Beer, she imagined with a sigh. Cold brew on tap with just enough bitterness to make a person smack her lips. And all her old friends standing in a proud line behind a teak bar—José, Jim, Jack.

Lord, she missed Jack.

Suddenly thirsty, she gripped the steering wheel and made a sharp turn toward the filling station. She could get herself a soda here. Or water, even healthier. Besides, a bucket of bolts like her car needed fuel just as much as any self-respecting automobile. As she shifted into Park, her lips spasmed in a fleeting smile of apology. She should be more appreciative of the bolt bucket. It was the most valuable thing she owned, next to a blue aluminum token and an old Gibson acoustic guitar she refused to play.

Digging through road-trip debris on the passenger seat, she located a green billed cap. Her blond hair was shorter and darker than the signature fall of corn silk it had once been, but her chin-length shag was still plenty long to be gnarled by humidity and a sixty-mile-per-hour airstream.

She got out of the car, marveling that the sensation of being slapped with damp heat even registered when she was already so hot and sweaty. It was like checking on baking biscuits—that first wave of unbearable heat when you opened the oven door didn’t keep you from flinching further as you leaned down into it. At the gas pump, she selected the “pay inside” option, then circled her vehicle to grab a twenty-dollar bill from the glove compartment.

Inside the station she was met with the overhead jangle of a cowbell and a nearly orgasmic blast of air-conditioning. If she stayed in town any length of time, maybe she’d apply for a job here just to bask in how cool it was. Her contented sigh reached the ears of the bearded, middle-aged man standing behind the counter a foot away.

He laughed. “Hot out there, isn’t it?”

She almost stumbled, nodding in response while keeping her face averted. Bucky? Until he’d spoken, she hadn’t recognized him, guessing him to be older than he was. She searched her memory for Bucky’s real name. Travis. Travis Beem, who’d had the bad luck to enter second grade with pronouncedly crooked front teeth. They’d eventually been corrected, but the nickname followed him all the way to graduation anyway. Change was darn near impossible in sleepy, small towns.

She remembered the day at lunch when he’d asked her to junior prom, his expression sheepish.

“It’s not like I expect you to say yes—the whole school knows you’ll go with Nick—but Tully bet me five bucks I wouldn’t have the guts to ask.” He’d grinned boyishly. “And I could use the five bucks.”

Of course, the whole school had known she would be at the dance with Nick. She and Nick Shepard had been inseparable back then. If she wanted to, even all these years later, she could easily recall the exact timbre of his laugh, the scent of his cologne lingering on the lettered jacket she’d so often worn. Her stomach clenched and she shoved away the encroaching memories.

Thank God he lives in North Carolina.

Facing her mother would be unpleasant, but Pam had promised herself and her sponsor, Annabel, that she would go through with it. If she’d thought there was a risk of seeing Nick Shepard, however, Pam never would have willingly set foot in the state of Mississippi. And not just for her own self-preservation, but for Nick’s as well. Gwendolyn Shepard’s accusation echoed in her mind. Don’t you think you’ve done my son enough damage?

Pam grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler against the far wall and took it to the register. Her stomach growled when she passed a display of candy bars and potato chips, but snacks were a luxury item. Maybe the possibility of food at Mae’s house would keep her motivated to finish her journey.

Eyes down, she slid her cash across the counter to Travis. “Put whatever’s left after the water on pump two, please.”

“Sure th—” At his abrupt halt, she reflexively raised her gaze, immediately wishing she hadn’t.

His dark eyes widened.

Oh, no. She wasn’t naive enough to think she could be in her hometown without people finding out, people recognizing her, but she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Annabel was wrong, I’m not ready.

“Uh, sure thing,” Travis finally said. He glanced out the window to where her heap sat, lowering the property value just by being there.

“Thanks.” She turned to go. With concerted effort, she kept from sprinting like some overage Ole Miss student trying out for the Rebel’s track and field team. After all, the one thing she’d learned in the last twelve and a half years was that she couldn’t outrun her past—not at any speed.

Behind her, Travis called, “You have a nice day, Pamela Jo.”

Too late.

IT WASN’T THAT YOU couldn’t go home again, Pam thought as her car bounced in the exact same pothole that used to make Nick’s vintage Mustang stutter after their dates. You just have to be crazy or desperate to do it. In her case, both.

But maybe people with closer-knit families viewed revisiting their roots in a different light.

She turned onto the long and winding gravel driveway. The Wilson mailbox was the same faded, ugly mustard yellow. An enduring copse of trees still blocked the view of the house from the road. However, the weeping willow that had once been at the front of the wild and unruly yard was gone.

Mae’s 1980 LTD Crown Victoria was parked in the carport attached to the brick two-bedroom home; the rusted vehicle clearly hadn’t been roadworthy in some time. Pam leaned forward, staring through her windshield. The car wasn’t the only thing in a state of disrepair. Instead of curtains or the familiar living room suite visible through the house’s grimy windows, there were large flat boards blocking further view. The concrete slab generously called a front porch had cracked, and flower-topped weeds flourished in the fissures. Several roof shingles had fallen atop neglected shrubs, and another hung precariously, as if it were barely holding on and planned to give up the ghost at any minute.

Pam knew the feeling.

She parked the car, sagging back against her seat. Defeat and relief swirled in a bitter cocktail. Mae didn’t live here.

No one lived here. It didn’t appear as though the house had been sold, what with the Victoria parked in its habitual spot. If not for the deliberately boarded windows, she might have worried Mae had simply slipped and broken her fool neck with no one the wiser. Pam experienced a rare twinge of regret that she and her mother hadn’t kept up some sort of communication over the years … Christmas greetings, postcards, hate mail with a return address.

Had her mother moved into the nursing home in Mimosa? Surely not. Although the woman’s lifestyle had probably aged her prematurely, she was only in her fifties. Had she perhaps moved in with her pursed-lip, disapproving older sister Aunt Julia? Pam shuddered at what that household would be like. Poor Uncle Ed.

Pam opened her car door, though she wasn’t sure why she felt the need for a closer look at her childhood home. She didn’t have a key. Breaking in to the tiny residence would be relatively simple but also relatively pointless. She doubted she’d find more than spiders and field mice. Why waste time here when she should be tracking down Mae? As much as the thought of talking to her mother ripped at the lining of Pam’s stomach, that’s what she had come all this way to do.

During a discussion with Annabel about making amends, she’d groused in a moment of self-pity that it was too bad Mae had never joined the program because there was a woman with some amends to make. No-nonsense Annabel had pointed out in her wry, get-a-clue way that hating Mae was damaging Pam far more than her estranged mother.

Pam had decided that if she couldn’t get forgiveness from the people she’d hurt—Nick’s face flashed in her mind—the next best thing she could do was to forgive the person who’d hurt her. Maybe once Pam made peace with her mother, she could truly move forward. Because right now, Pam’s life was as much in shambles as this pitiful little house.

Kicking a rock out of her path, she stepped closer. The room on the corner closest to her was the kitchen. The majority of meals in Pam’s childhood had consisted of cereal or microwaved entrées. Every once in a great while Mae had cooked up something fantastic, mostly to impress new boyfriends when she was sober enough to care. There had been one guy, a truck driver, who’d returned to them again and again for an entire winter. He’d taught Pam how to play guitar. It had been one of the happiest seasons of her life. She had fond memories of strumming in the living room and losing herself in the discovery of new chords.

Bittersweet were the later memories of that same living room when she and Nick, juniors in high school, had lost their virginity together on the couch. They’d been kids, completely inept at what they were doing. Yet how many times in the years since had she wished she could once again sink into his embrace, those arms made muscular by football practices, and made safe by his love?

According to Nick’s mother—furious that Pam had the gall to phone after all these years, even if it was only to get contact information for an apology—Nick was happily remarried and raising his daughter in North Carolina. Our daughter. Pam’s chest squeezed so tightly she couldn’t breathe. Finally a harsh sob grated out, opening up her airway and allowing her to inhale in jagged, hiccupy breaths.

The sound startled a group of grackle in the tree above her. She couldn’t help envying their escape as they took to the air. One stubborn bird maintained its perch, narrowing its beady black eyes as if to challenge, Now what?

Excellent question.

PAM HAD BEEN ON THE WAY to Aunt Julia and Uncle Ed’s when her car overheated. As proof that there was indeed a God, the car sputtered to a stop right across the street from Granny K’s Kitchen. Pam wondered if Granny K’s, a venerable town institution, still served the best chicken-fried steak known to man.

Technically she shouldn’t be splurging on dinner or she’d be broke by the end of the week. Then again, she was supposed to be taking life one day at a time. Besides, Annabel had admonished more than once that Pam was “damn near skeletal.” A gravy-laden meal from Granny K’s while the car cooled down would be good for both Pam and the vehicle.

Granny K’s was the type of establishment where you seated yourself. Within minutes, Pam had placed an order for chicken-fried steak and a side of mashed potatoes. Although the menus had been redesigned, she was thrilled to see all her favorite dishes still remained.

The platinum-haired waitress—Helen, according to the unevenly spaced letters on a white plastic rectangle—bobbed her head in acknowledgment of Pam’s order. “I’ll be right back with your glass of water, hon.”

“Wait.” Pam surprised herself with a burst of curiosity. “The original owner, Kat McAdams? Does she still run the place?” Pam had no real sense of the proprietor’s age. When Pam was a teenager, Kat had seemed ancient, but anyone over twenty-five had seemed that way. Now that Pam thought about it, she doubted Kat had been anywhere old enough for granny status back then.

Helen narrowed her hazel eyes, assessing. “You from around here?”

“A long time ago, yeah.”

“Then you don’t know about the stroke? Kat recovered, but the doctors told her she had to slow down. She has a room over at Magnolia Hills Senior Community, but she’s in here at least once a week to make sure everything’s shipshape. She sold part ownership to Davy Lowe, but he didn’t come in to oversee dinner shift tonight because his champion beagle is supposed to have her pups.”

“Thank you.” Pam had cut all ties with Mimosa the night she left; the relatively impersonal inquiry about Kat McAdams was a low-risk way of easing back into her past life. It was unexpectedly reassuring to know that Granny K was alive and kicking and still looking out for her diner.

Helen moved to the next table, greeting a young couple and their boisterous toddler, and Pam surveyed the diner. The setup hadn’t changed much over the years, although the color scheme—formerly red and white—had been altered to a deep green and softer ivory. Additional booths had been installed toward the back where there had once been a jukebox and a coin-operated air-hockey table. During her perusal of the surroundings, Pam noticed that a young woman—maybe early twenties—was staring at her. Pam couldn’t understand why. The stranger seemed too young to be anyone from Pam’s past. And too old to be Faith.

Swallowing, Pam pushed away the thought. If she kept picking at emotional scabs, she would never heal.

Suddenly she realized that the other woman had stood and she looked as if she were coming this way. Crap, for all Pam knew, Mae had remarried and this girl was her stepsister. But before the stranger had taken two steps, another woman ducked into Pam’s line of sight and the twentysomething altered course.

“Why, Pamela Jo, that is you,” a tiny redhead drawled.

Pam tensed, feeling ridiculously vulnerable without her baseball cap and no food yet to occupy her attention or make her look busy. Luckily the woman already cheerfully seating herself on the other side of the table seemed friendly. She wore a sleeveless floral dress and barely topped five feet—not exactly the intimidating type. If she managed to break a hundred pounds, it would be because the heavy cloud of auburn framing her face tipped her over the edge. Pam forced her expression into an answering smile.

“Yep. It’s me. But I just go by Pam now.”

The woman winked, conspiratorial. “Now that we’re all grown up, hmm? Well, I’m still Violet, same as I ever was.”

Violet Keithley. Pam blinked, reacclimating to yet another piece of her past rising up to meet her. “Sure, I remember you.” They’d been in different grades, not close at all, but Violet had been a member of church choir with her. Backup soprano, not one of the frequent soloists like Pam.

“It’s so nice to see you again.” Violet shook her head, setting the voluminous mass in motion. “I always expected I’d turn on the radio one day and hear your voice.”

“Yeah, well … So are you here tonight with your family? Husband, kids?” Pam was more than willing to coo appreciatively over wallet-sized pictures of Violet’s children if it meant not having to talk about herself.

“Oh, no.” Violet tittered. “Haven’t found the right guy to make an honest woman of me yet. My sister Cora got married last June and told me I should take up fishing to meet men. That’s how she did it.”

At the image of ultrapetite Violet wrestling a bass out of the Yazoo River, Pam fought a grin.

“I was going to meet one of my friends for dinner,” Violet continued, “but she called when I was already halfway here to say her little boy is feeling funny. He doesn’t usually mind staying with his daddy, but you know how it is. Everyone wants Mama when they’re sick.”

Not everyone.

Almost as soon as Pam formed the sardonic thought—born more of habit than heat—she reconsidered. Alcoholism was an illness and, as part of her attempted recovery, here she was seeking Mae.

The waitress returned with two glasses of water and offered a menu to Violet, who glanced questioningly across the table. Pam shrugged. Violet was harmless enough and no doubt could fill in some of the blanks about life in Mimosa since Pam’s departure.

“You mentioned mothers,” Pam said awkwardly once the waitress had gone with Violet’s order. “Do you, um, remember mine?” Colorful at best and a drunken home-wrecker at worst, Mae was nothing if not memorable. Pam felt the best way to bring the woman into conversation was slowly. No telling how many townsfolk had legitimate axes to grind.

“Mae Wilson. Of course.” Surprisingly Violet’s expression softened. “My condolences on her passing.”

“Passing?” The clatter of the diner fell away, drowned out by the pounding in Pam’s ears. Although she’d earlier allowed the snarky thought about Mae breaking her neck inside her house—which now struck her as in incredibly poor taste—she hadn’t for a second believed it. Mae had once totaled a boyfriend’s car and walked away without a scratch on her.

Besides, this was her mother. Wasn’t there some sort of psychic umbilical cord? The woman who had brought her into this world and raised her had died. Ceased to exist. Wouldn’t Pam have experienced at least a minor twinge?

Maybe you were too wasted to notice the twinge.

Violet pressed a hand to her heart, and Pam lip-read her words more than heard them. “You didn’t know? My God. I’m so sorry. I thought …”

Blindly, Pam grabbed the glass in front of her and instinctively tossed some of its contents down her throat. Instead of the burn of whiskey she still half expected on some base, cellular level, there was only tepid water. It took her a moment to reorient.

Right, she didn’t drink whiskey anymore.

And Mae Danvers Wilson wasn’t alive anymore.

I’m too late.

Perhaps it was hypocritical to feel devastated by the loss of a mother she’d barely known even when they shared a house. Having not interacted with Mae in years, it was silly to think that not doing so now would truly affect her day-to-day life. But to drive all this way, to have rehearsed and rehashed and wondered for hundreds of miles how her olive branch would be received …

“Wh-what happened?” Pam’s question seemed to echo from a distance.

“I heard liver failure.” Violet ducked her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Pam. I knew you didn’t make it back in time for the funeral, but … Earlier this summer your aunt and uncle hired someone to find you. I thought maybe that’s what brought you to town.”

“My aunt and uncle.” Pam swallowed. “They were going to be my next stop after dinner.”

“The Calberts?” Violet was practically trembling with discomfort, her gaze darting around as if she wished she could flee. “Oh, honey, they’re not home. Your aunt was gone for a long weekend, one of those craft shows she does in the next county. I know because Cora’s been watering all their outside plants while … Listen to me prattling on. I’m so—”

“No, it’s fine,” Pam said. But of course it wasn’t. What a horrible thing to say. Her mother was dead and she was blurting “it’s fine”? She just hadn’t wanted Violet to keep apologizing.

“I think they’re getting back tomorrow sometime,” Violet offered.

Pam bit her lip. “Could you maybe recommend a good place for me to stay the night?” Should she admit what kind of budget she was on? No doubt that would elicit more pity.

“A couple of those big hotel chains have places out by the highway.”

“I was thinking more … quaint.”

“Well, Trudy rents rooms, by the night or longer, in that faux mansion of hers on Meadowberry. She’s probably got a couple of vacancies. Although …”

“Although what?” Pam prompted reluctantly. From the way Violet was squirming in her seat, it couldn’t be good.

“Excuse me, ladies.” Helen reached between them to set down two steaming plates of food. Too bad Pam had entirely lost her appetite. “Can I get y’all anything else?”

Pam shook her head mutely, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She tried to take comfort in the fact that no matter what Violet’s next words were, they could hardly compare to the shocking news of Mae’s death.

When the waitress bustled off, Violet attempted an unconvincing smile. “Mmm. Nothing like Granny K’s home cookin’, is there?”

“Before we were interrupted, you were going to tell me something?”

Violet toyed with the lacy collar on her dress. “Now, I don’t want to speak out of turn—Cora always scolds about me being a gossip—but it’s no secret that you and Nick Shepard used to—”

“Nick?” The world tilted with nauseating speed, the way it had on mornings she’d tried to stand up too fast with a hangover. “What about him?”

“He lives on Meadowberry, too. Kind of across the street from Trudy. With his daughter.”

“F-Faith is in town?” Nothing was right in the universe. Her mother was suddenly unexpectedly gone, and her daughter—who had supposedly relocated to North Carolina—was here? I have no right to be within ten counties of that poor kid. If you looked up unfit in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Pam. It seemed to be a female family legacy, one she had vowed would stop with her.

Belatedly, the other half of what Violet said clicked. Tiny black spots obscured Pam’s vision as the blood drained from her face.

Nick was in Mimosa.

Chapter Two

If this evening was a sign of what the teenage years were going to be like, Nick Shepard should go out right now and buy up the pharmacy’s aspirin supply. Maybe he could get some kind of bulk discount. He’d have to drag his mutinous twelve-and-a-half-year-old daughter along with him to the store rather than leave her here because apparently she couldn’t be trusted.

He and Faith were currently having dinner, seated side by side on high-backed stools at the breakfast bar—a habit that drove his mother crazy. “You have a perfectly nice kitchen table, Nicholas,” his mother would say. “I don’t understand why you insist on eating at the counter as if this were some low-budget diner.” For once, he found himself wishing that they were at the table. If Faith were sitting across from him, it might be easier to read what was going on in that tween brain of hers.

As it was, she kept her head bent over the plate. She scraped her fork across the ceramic at discordant intervals but didn’t actually eat anything. Her dark hair—the only visible trait she’d inherited from him—hung down, obscuring her features and shutting him out.

They’d always been so close, but lately …

He sighed, determined to try again. “Can you explain to me, rationally, why you’re the one who’s angry? You’re a good kid, so you know what you did was wrong and that grounding you for the upcoming weekend is probably less than you deserve. Your grandmom and aunt Leigh already think I’m too soft on you.”

From behind the curtain of Faith’s wavy hair, he could swear he actually heard her eyes roll.

“Why can’t they just butt out?” she grumbled.

He occasionally had that same thought. But then he remembered that, technically, he’d blown two marriages and his daughter needed some female influence in her life to counterbalance the rough-edged construction workers Nick employed. “If you want them to interfere less,” he suggested, “stop proving them right!”

“You act like I got caught running a meth lab. I missed one lousy class.”

“A math class! I thought you wanted to take advanced math courses when you get to high school.” He would like to claim that her skill with arithmetic came from him, but truthfully, it dovetailed with her innate gift for music—rhythm and frequency and pattern. When she sang, it was as if he were being haunted by her mother.

Pamela Jo might not be dead, but she was definitely the ghost of his past.

“It’s only the second week of school, Dad. Everything’s review right now. I didn’t miss anything important.” Suddenly Faith flipped her hair back, meeting his eyes and changing strategy. “Besides, you’ve always taught me the importance of loyalty and being a good friend. Morgan really needed to talk. She was so upset, that’s why I bailed.”

At the mention of Faith’s boy-crazy best friend, Nick fought the urge to gnash his teeth. The girls weren’t even in high school yet and Morgan was already dating. At the Fourth of July cookout, he’d caught Morgan in his backyard making out with some teenage punk who should have been old enough to know better. God knew what kind of trouble Morgan would get into by graduation.

Hypocrite. He knew what kind of trouble he’d been into at that age. Which was all the more reason why he wanted Faith to expand her circle of friends.

“There’s a difference between wanting to help someone and letting them drag you down with them,” he said. “If you skipped class every time Morgan was upset over a boy, you’d flunk out by Christmas.”

“What a jerky thing to say!”

Jerky, perhaps, but not untrue. “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to your father. If—”

When the phone rang, he wasn’t sure exactly which of them was being saved by the bell. He pointed to her plate while he stood to check caller ID. “Eat. We’ll discuss this later. After your homework and a written apology to your math teacher.”

If that was Morgan on the other end of that phone, she was in for a rude awakening. But no. Ashford, Leigh. It was his sister calling. Had she heard about Faith’s trip to the principal’s office today? Possibly. Leigh’s husband taught eighth grade science at the middle school.

He stifled a sigh. “Hello?”

“Hey, Nicky.”

Nicky? It was a childhood nickname, used now only when she was deeply concerned. He’d heard it a lot after the divorce. How you hanging in there, Nicky? You’re doing the right thing by moving back home, Nicky. Granted, he was having a difficult afternoon, but Faith had missed class—it wasn’t as if she’d set the school on fire.

“Hey, sis.” He carried the cordless phone toward the living room. Call it male pride, but if his kid sister was about to lecture him on his parenting deficiencies, he didn’t want to chance Faith overhearing. Halfway out of the kitchen, he circled back to collect Faith’s cell phone off the island, throwing her a pointed look as he did so. Somehow the phone that had originally been purchased “for emergencies” sent and received an awful lot of texts.

“I thought you might need to talk,” Leigh said hesitantly.

He frowned. It was highly unlike Leigh to be tentative, especially where Faith was concerned. Normally the women in his family lobbed their unsolicited opinions at him with all the subtlety of grenades.

“To tell the truth,” he said, “I’m not much of a conversationalist right now. It’s been a rough day, and I’ve got a pounding headache.” Amazing how half an hour with a twelve-year-old girl could be more skull-crushing than a six-hour shift surrounded by jackhammers and other power tools.

“I understand,” Leigh agreed. “But Nick …? However much it’s against the manly men code to talk about your feelings, you’re gonna need an adult to vent to. I remember how badly wrecked you were before, and Faith was just a baby then. This time, she—”

“Wait.” Nick paced the living room, trying to process his sister’s words. What before and this time? “You’re not talking about Faith getting detention, are you?”

“She got detention!” For a second Leigh’s voice rose in outrage. But then she regrouped. “Not why I phoned, one problem at a time. I assumed you’d heard because I’ve already got three calls from Granny K’s, but … Your rough day’s about to get worse, bro.”

He stopped by a row of shelves where younger, sweeter Faiths grinned at him from myriad frames. “Just say it quick, Leigh. Like ripping off a bandage.”

“Pamela Jo Wilson is back.”

No. After almost thirteen years, he’d come to believe he’d never have to hear those words. Squeezing his eyes shut, he leaned his head against the top shelf. Pamela Jo? Visions of handbaskets danced in his head—all plummeting straight downward and taking him along for the ride.

PAM TURNED THE KEY in the ignition. While she wasn’t one-hundred-percent enthusiastic about driving over to Meadowberry, she was definitely ready to leave the diner. The meal had been a dismal failure. Although Violet was too well-bred to simply bolt when the conversation had grown horribly awkward, it was as if she’d become too afraid to say anything else. She’d abruptly stopped talking, shutting the barn door after the horse had already escaped. At which point, it broke its leg and had to be shot.

Honestly, how could Violet have worried about making it any worse?

The two women had endured the rest of dinner in virtual silence. When Pam couldn’t take any more, she’d asked for a to-go box and brought the painful evening to a close. Until her aunt and uncle returned tomorrow, her options seemed limited to renting a room at Trudy’s or sleeping in her car. That’s all her day needed, to be arrested for illegal loitering.

Although Pam drove by several subdivisions with stately brick entrances and cookie-cutter houses, Meadowberry Street had been established long before any newfangled neighborhood zoning. The winding lane was dotted with an odd assortment of residences, from modest ranch houses to a rare cottage to a grandiose three-story house to a rust-sided trailer that looked like it would blow away in a strong gulf breeze.

There was no telling where Nick lived—she slouched low in her seat and steadfastly avoided reading the names on mailboxes—but Trudy’s plantation-style “mansion” was unmistakable. It wasn’t necessarily the biggest home, but it was far and away the most ornate with its columns and decorative arches. In the golden summer dusk, it was easy to see the place needed some paint and repair. Still, Pam would bet it was picturesque in the moonlight.

She felt a moment of kinship with the old house. I don’t look my best in direct sun anymore, either. There were two driveways—one that curved into a horseshoe in front and a gravel drive that ran alongside the house and disappeared in the back. Maybe it had once been a servant’s entrance. It took Pam safely out of sight of anyone who might be watching from across the street.

Where the driveway met the backyard, a barefoot woman in a denim housedress and wide-brimmed straw hat stood watering plants. She spun around at the sound of Pam’s car, splattering the driver’s side window with water. Pam waited until the hose had been safely lowered before opening her door.

“Who the hell are you?” the woman demanded in a thick accent. “You look worse than some of the halfmangled critters my cat brings into the house.”

Pam was so startled she almost grinned. Apparently this little old lady hadn’t received the memo about Southern hospitality. “Pam Wilson, ma’am.”

The woman jerked a thumb toward herself. “Trudy. And this is my place.”

“I heard in town that you sometimes rent to boarders,” Pam began.

A white brow hitched in the air. “Awfully late to be dropping by unannounced in search of a room.”

It was barely twilight, but since Pam didn’t relish the idea of sleeping in her car, she nodded contritely. “I apologize for the hour.”

Trudy sniffed. “There are four rooms upstairs, twenty-five dollars cash each. Tonight, all of them happen to be available. Ladies and married couples only. I don’t house any single men traveling alone, even with Cappy for protection. And no gentleman callers!”

“Absolutely not.” Pam wondered absently whether Cappy was a hound dog, husband or sawed-off shotgun.

“The bedrooms each have small private bathrooms with a shower stall, but I don’t guarantee hot water.” The woman tossed this comment out belligerently as if she doubted Pam were tough enough to weather a cold shower. “There’s one TV, downstairs in the common area. You’re free to use the microwave, but other than that, my kitchen is off-limits. I’ll need to see some ID. Is there a Mimosa citizen who can vouch for you?”

“Violet Keithley is the one who recommended you,” Pam said as she reached into her car for an old driver’s license. Technically it hadn’t expired yet, but the address was hopelessly out of date. “I just need a place to stay the night until my aunt Julia gets back tomorrow.”

Trudy nodded sharply. “Well, come on then, if you’re coming. In another few minutes, I’ll be missing my program.”

After grabbing her duffel bag and leftover chicken-fried steak from the car, Pam followed Trudy—no last name; Mimosa, Mississippi’s answer to Cher and Madonna—into the house. The air-conditioning rattled through the vents in a feeble attempt to ward off the day’s heat. It wasn’t the cool bliss of this afternoon’s gas station, but it was a vast improvement over Pam’s car. In her tired, grungy state, a shower sounded like heaven, no matter what the temperature of the water.

It was a humbling commentary on her life that the cranky septuagenarian and her run-down house were easily the best things to happen to Pam today.

NICK YAWNED, wishing that the day’s forecast called for rain. The cheery morning sunlight that filled his kitchen was doing nothing to help his headache. He estimated that between turning off the late-night sports show before bed and getting up to fix Faith eggs a couple of hours ago, he’d slept a total of … about four minutes. Thoughts of Pamela Jo Wilson had kept him awake all night.

No, he corrected himself as he chugged a third cup of coffee in the now-empty house. He hadn’t been thinking about Pamela Jo, the person. He’d been over her for years. His mind had only been occupied with the possible repercussions of her visit.

Last night had been like learning a Category 3 hurricane was headed in his direction. It stood to reason that he’d spend a little time battling denial and being angry, then start planning for how best to cope. It was a damn shame he couldn’t protect his daughter from Pamela Jo’s presence with sandbags and an emergency supply of bottled water.

In fact, he was kicking himself even now for letting Faith go off to school unprepared. He’d wanted to learn more about Pamela Jo’s intentions before he said anything to his daughter—who was barely speaking to him right now anyway. But what if she found out from a schoolmate that her mother was in town? None of her peers had ever known Pamela Jo, of course, but eventually adult gossip trickled down to the younger citizens of Mimosa.

Then you’d better deal with this immediately. Leigh had suggested he meet with a lawyer today, which he’d initially rejected as overkill.

“She left us with no more than a note,” he’d pointed out bitterly, “in which she granted me full undisputed custody of our daughter. And all this time later you think she’s had a change of heart and came back to Mimosa to fight me for Faith?” He couldn’t picture that. In the short time Pamela Jo had lived with them, she’d had to be bullied into even holding the baby.

“She was a scared kid,” Leigh had replied. It was the single most empathetic statement she’d ever uttered about his ex. “I mean, so were you, that’s no excuse, and she was horrible and selfish, but one assumes she might have regretted her actions since then. We don’t know anything about what her last couple of years have been like. What if she’s settled down and tried to have kids, but can’t? What if she thinks Faith is her last chance at motherhood?”

Screw that. Pamela Jo forfeited any such chance a long time ago. And she was crazy if she thought to drag Faith through some sort of custody battle or belated “Mommy’s home now, darling!” movie-of-the-week moment. Despite his sister’s well-meaning suggestion of hiring legal counsel, Nick favored a more direct approach.

One that centered around figuring out where Pamela Jo was staying, then running her out of town on a rail.

Chapter Three

Shortly after nine in the morning, Pam’s prepaid cell phone rang. The only reason she was still in bed was misplaced optimism. She hadn’t managed to get any sleep the night before but kept hoping that, any minute now, slumbering oblivion would be hers.

“Hi, Annabel.” She’d known who was on the other end before she even pressed “accept call.” No one but her sponsor had the number. The phone had been a parting gift. A reminder that you’re not alone, Annabel had said when she’d hugged Pam goodbye. Given how early it was on the west coast, Annabel was probably just now getting out of bed for her morning run before work.

“D’you make it through the night?” Annabel asked without preamble. “I’ve been worrying about you ever since you called last night. That was a hell of a lot dropped on you.”

“Tell me about it.” Pam felt like some hapless cartoon character with a big hole through her middle where a cannonball had been fired. “But, yeah, I made it through. Booze-free.”

One might assume that was a perk of being near broke—not having the funds to fall off the wagon—but there had been a few years in her past when she simply would have undone a couple of top buttons, made her way to Wade’s Watering Hole and struck up a conversation until some guy bought her a drink or two. Or six. She fought back a ripple of shame with the reminder that she’d been sober eight months and counting. She clenched trembling fingers into a fist. Never again.

“I’m a little shaky right now,” Pam admitted, “but that’s from lack of sleep.”

“And the announcement that your mother is dead,” Annabel said with brutal honestly. “And the news that your ex-husband and child are somewhere in the vicinity. Don’t downplay what you’re going through. You have a right to be angry and upset and conflicted.”

“I’m not in denial, I’m just numb.” Plus she was too exhausted to muster the energy for hysterics. She’d driven so far over the last few days, fueled by caffeine and a kind of grim eagerness. Having made the decision to confront Mae, she’d wanted to get it over with and, whatever happened between them, move on from there a healthier person. “I haven’t had much rest lately.”

“I won’t keep you then,” Annabel said. “When were you planning to see your aunt and uncle?”

“I’m going to call them after lunch, find out if they’re back yet.” She wondered nervously what kind of reception she’d get from her only remaining family. Not your only family.

Yes, they were, she argued with herself. Pam had given up any right to claim Faith years ago—probably the most responsible thing she’d ever done. Even at eighteen she’d realized what a train wreck of a mother she would be.

“If you’re not going to track them down until after lunch, you still have a couple of hours to catch some z’s.” Annabel was half drill sergeant, half big sister. She was constantly admonishing Pam to eat, sleep and generally take better care of herself.

Rest, however, didn’t seem to be in the cards. No sooner had Pam disconnected the call than there was a knock at her bedroom door. Surely it wasn’t time to check out already?

“Coming, Trudy.” As she shuffled to the door, Pam spared a second’s thought for her attire. She wasn’t exactly dressed for the day. Braless and bottomless except for a pair of bikini briefs, she wore a thin cotton T-shirt that was so oversized the hem fell halfway to her knees. Oh, well. The basics were covered. Cantankerous though she may be, Trudy didn’t seem like the type of person who shocked easily.

Pam swung the door open, her greeting to the landlady dying unspoken on her lips. A fuse overloaded in her brain. She thought she could actually smell something burning as her mental processes short-circuited. Her mouth fell open, and an unintelligible squeak escaped. She glanced up—was it possible he’d gotten even taller?—into Nick Shepard’s piercing blue eyes; they used to look to her like a tropical lagoon, all the faraway paradises she longed to visit. Now they looked like Judgment Day.

She couldn’t have been any more startled and horrified if her mother’s ghost had appeared at her door. “Y-you can’t be here.”

His lips twisted into a cruel line she couldn’t reconcile with the boy who’d loved her. “You seem confused about which one of us doesn’t belong here, Pamela Jo.”

“I meant, no, um, gentleman callers. Trudy’s rule. And it’s Pam.” Hearing him say the name she used to go by brought back a flood of memories—the kind that required an ark if you were to have any chance at survival.

“What the hell are you doing in Mimosa, Pam?” The sneering tone made her think that even after all her years of resenting Mae, she was still just bush league when it came to anger. Here was a pro.

She swallowed, fighting the urge to huddle into herself for protection. Right now, his glinting, accusatory gaze was locked on hers. She was afraid that if she crossed her arms over her chest, she might draw his attention to the fact that she was clad only in a T-shirt. She doubted he cared what she was—or wasn’t—wearing, but she felt painfully exposed already. “I came to town to talk to my mother.”

Surprise momentarily softened his expression. Blinking, he rocked back on his heels, hands hooked in the pockets of his jeans. “You came to visit Mae? Voluntarily?” A rhetorical question since he didn’t give her time to answer or explain. Cloaked once again in cold hostility, he asked, “You do know you’re too late?”

“I know.” She registered the taste of blood and realized she’d bitten her bottom lip. Hard. “I know I’m too late. I know I can’t … fix anything.” A fragment of the usual prayer tolled in her head like mournful bells. The serenity to accept what I cannot change. Today, there was no comfort in the phrase, only bleak finality.

She gripped the edge of the door, steeling herself. A stronger person—one whose inner core hadn’t been mindlessly shrieking ohGodohGod ever since she’d seen Nick’s face—would pull herself together and try to turn this disaster into an opportunity. If she couldn’t make amends for what she’d put him through, she could at least ease his mind, assure him she didn’t have any nefarious agenda. Grant me the courage. “Look. Nick.”

He flinched, no less affected than she’d been when he said her name.

“I’m not staying. I have to see my aunt and uncle today, but then I’ll be moving on.” That’s all she’d wanted for years, to be able to move forward, instead of uselessly spinning her wheels and looping in the same self-destructive cycle. She needed to let go of her past and build a new life with healthy habits and achievable, short-term goals.

Right now, her most pressing goal was to survive this conversation.

“I see.” Finally he broke eye contact, and Pam’s lungs remembered how to expand.

She took a much needed breath, assuming he would go now.

But instead he took a challenging half step toward her, his voice a blade. “So your plan is to run away. Again.”

WITH THE ELEMENT OF surprise on his side, Nick Shepard had believed he was prepared to see her—until she’d opened the door. Shards of the past cut into him like slivers into the tender spot of a foot, an excruciatingly sharp wound that doesn’t even start bleeding immediately, as if the skin is still trying to process what the hell just happened. Dozens of disjointed memories sliced at him, most involving Pamela Jo, some more recent—such as a conversation he’d had with his daughter about impulse control and making good choices.

Where had his impulse control been just now? What on earth had possessed him to blurt that jab about her running away? It was what he wanted, for her to get as far away from Mimosa as geographically possible and never return. But he’d made it sound almost as if … he were daring her to stay.

She looked as perplexed as he felt, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

Faith had her mother’s eyes, but that meant something different on any given day, the changeable hazel reflecting various amounts of gold, brown or green depending on her mood and what she wore.

For instance, Pamela Jo’s eyes were a particularly vivid green because of that damn T-shirt. He’d been battling throughout their conversation to somehow un-notice that she was braless beneath that flimsy material. She was almost too thin, but certain curves had not diminished with time. And what kind of woman answered the door with no pants? He stubbornly ignored the fantasies he used to harbor about this exact woman opening doors to him wearing even less.

That had been a different reality. He was a single father now, not a horny teenager.

“So are you angry that I’m here,” she asked cautiously, “or angry because I’m leaving?”

Both. Neither.

If someone had broached the subject of Pamela Jo two days ago, before he’d learned she was in town, he would have said his long dormant anger had faded away. She no longer meant anything to him; so long as he was with his daughter, everything had worked out for the best. The swell of fury he’d experienced when Pamela Jo had met his gaze had knocked him off balance.

He shoved a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want you here—don’t want you here—but it’s a small town. There’s a chance that …” It was more difficult than he could have imagined to say their daughter’s name, as if a superstitious part of him worried that by mentioning Faith, he was somehow putting her at risk. “People know you’re in Mimosa, and people gossip. It’s likely that Faith will find out you’re here, and I don’t know how she’ll react.”

Pamela Jo’s eyes were wide. “I wouldn’t have … I thought you … Damn it, why aren’t you in North Carolina?”

As if he owed her any explanations? Like hell. Still, the words tumbled out. “I moved here after the divorce. My wife betrayed me,” he said with deceptive matter-of-factness. “Story of my life.”

“Nick, I—”

He held up his hand. “Don’t you dare apologize.” There was no way that all they’d shared, and ultimately hadn’t shared, could be encapsulated in a trite I’m sorry.

Her chin lifted, that one action suddenly making her look like the lover he’d once known, instead of a pretty stranger with short hair and eyes too like his daughter’s. On closer inspection, he saw that there were shadowed crescents beneath Pamela Jo’s eyes, yet another detail he didn’t particularly want to see.

“My condolences on your mother’s passing,” he said brusquely. He didn’t care overly much about what Pamela Jo was going through, but he needed a return to civil conversation. To normalcy.

She hesitated only briefly before reverting to their previous topic, the one that made him the most uneasy. “You think my passing through will hurt Faith?”

“It might raise some questions, some conflicted feelings, but she and I will deal with them. I shouldn’t have brought that up.” He was Faith’s family, the one constant in her life—as she’d been in his since she was born—and he would find a way to give her whatever assurances she needed. Despite his resolve, however, he couldn’t help thinking about all their recent arguing. Was his daughter pulling away from him? I won’t let that happen.

But standing in front of Pamela Jo, who looked so much like their daughter and had once ripped his heart out by walking away from him, magnified his uneasiness.

Coming here had been a mistake. “Don’t worry about us. Faith and I will be fine,” he insisted. “I won’t bother you again. Conclude whatever business you have here, and have a nice life.”

With one final nod, he spun on his heels and walked toward the staircase. He regretted his earlier taunt more than ever. Because, despite his calm manner and deliberately slowed stride, it felt very much as if he were the one running away.

Chapter Four

Nick’s retreat was almost as unexpected as his arrival. That’s it? Pam stared out into the empty hall, knowing she should be relieved but feeling strangely bemused. Considering what he must have gone through after she’d left him and their infant daughter without a word of warning, he was entitled to be angry, enraged even.

So it seemed almost … anticlimactic that he’d suddenly calmed down, told her to have a nice life and left. Granted, there’d been an unmistakably implied “and stay the hell away from us” at the end of his farewell, but that was still far gentler than she’d deserved. She shut the door, shaking her head at her irrational discontent. What, did you want him to scream at you?

Maybe. It might have been cathartic for him to get it off his chest, they might have achieved some measure of closure. She sank into a sitting position against the wall, too drained from their encounter to walk back to the bed. Instead of feeling they’d reached any resolution, now she worried about what he’d let slip before backpedaling. Would her being here, no matter how temporarily, have negative repercussions for Faith? That Pam hadn’t expected her daughter to be anywhere near Mimosa when she’d planned this trip didn’t stop a small kernel of guilt from forming.

But trying to second-guess the emotional reaction of a near-teenager she didn’t know was impossible. Pam’s mind stumbled back to Nick, someone she’d once known intimately. It had been amazing how quickly he’d reined in his emotions today. In his younger years, he’d been very direct. Whether he’d been on the football field or romancing her, he’d always been clear about what he wanted and let others know that he would pursue his goals diligently. The only times she’d ever seen him censor himself had been during their brief, ultimately doomed, marriage, when they’d lived with his parents.

Truth be told, he’d reminded Pam a little of his parents just now. Polite, by way of the Arctic Circle.

As a teen, Pam had liked to believe she was tough, impossible to intimidate. After all, she’d grown up alone in a house with a temperamental alcoholic. But she’d been scared to death of Gwendolyn Shepard. Instead of raging when she’d learned about the pregnancy—Mae’s diatribe had blurred in Pam’s memory, but “ungrateful whore” had been the recurring theme—Nick’s mother had been icy calm.

Well, then, I suppose that’s that. Welcome to the family… . Naturally you’ll be wearing ivory for the wedding instead of white.

Prior to announcing that his girlfriend was pregnant, Nick had never let his parents down. He’d been the slightly spoiled baby of the family who spent his short marriage trying to win back parental approval. The diplomatic balancing act couldn’t have been easy on him, but, at the time, all Pam had been able to see was the way he didn’t stand up for her. When she’d complained to him about it, he’d insisted she had to be patient with his parents, that they’d adjust in time. Meanwhile, she’d felt as if the entire Shepard family had ganged up on her—including the newest Shepard, a baby girl who shrieked all the time.

Pam’s recollections of those awful postpartum months were hazy, but she remembered Faith crying constantly, as if the infant had been channeling her mother’s confusion and misery. She was better off without me.

“Miz Wilson! You up there?” Trudy’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, nearly as loud as her strident voice. A frail old lady, Trudy was not.

“Yes, ma’am,” Pam called back, summoning the energy to stand. Get back on your feet. It was a life lesson it seemed she was always learning. Some day, she vowed, all of this would be behind her and she truly would be able to stand on her own, without daily calls to Annabel. Maybe—in the distant future—Pam would even be stable enough to be there for others, help them regain their balance.

Some day. Pam opened the door to her room, checking the impulse to ask Trudy why she’d let Nick up here? “Good morning. You’re the second surprise visitor I’ve had today.”

Trudy’s snowy brows lifted. “And this is how you greet visitors? Where are your clothes, girl? Day’s half over.”

“I drove to Mississippi from California. I had some sleep to catch up on.”

“You just be sure and catch up on your sleep alone.” Trudy craned her head, scrutinizing the bedroom. “That Nick Shepard isn’t still up here, is he? He promised he’d take only a few minutes of your time and that he needed to see you immediately because it was a family emergency.” She snorted. “I suppose you’re gonna try to tell me you two are cousins?”

“No, ma’am.” Given how bleak her morning had been so far, Pam couldn’t help the small, perverse moment of humor she took in startling Trudy as she revealed, “He’s my ex-husband.”

Trudy’s mouth fell open, but she recovered quickly. “You’re the gal who cheated on him in North Carolina?”

So it had been an affair? He’d implied as much, but Lord knows, there were lots of different ways to betray a loved one. Pam couldn’t imagine any woman throwing away marriage to Nick. She herself wouldn’t have left him if it had been just the two of them. He’d made her feel safe in a way no one else ever had, before or since. Plus, he was a wickedly good kisser, although, now that she’d seen him, that memory was uncomfortable. Nick was no longer abstract nostalgia but a living, breathing, solidly male part of her present. There’d been such heat coming off of him that Pam fancied a red-and-yellow outline of his body might still be visible if you were looking through one of those thermal scanners they used in movies.

“I’m not the one from North Carolina,” she said. “And I didn’t cheat on him.”

“Just how many wives does this guy have?”

“Only two that I know of.” She recalled his saying he’d moved back to Mimosa “after the divorce.”

Reassured that Nick wasn’t a bigamist, Trudy turned her disapproval back to Pam. “And I suppose you think you can do better than him?”

Pam smiled sadly. “Not really.” She’d feared more than once that Nick Shepard would be the best thing that ever happened to her. “But that doesn’t mean I get to stop living, just because the good old days are behind me. Right?”

Trudy pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t know. I’m smack in the middle of my prime.”

PAM’S FIRST SIP of god awful tea in her aunt’s antique-filled living room dredged up a long buried memory.

“Mom, do I have to drink it?” Even as a first-grader, Pam had been appalled by the idea of unsweetened tea. Iced tea in the south was synonymous with generous amounts of sugar. The bitter flavor of the special herbal blend aside, she’d also been alarmed by the long list of “beneficial” ingredients her aunt had recited. “She said there were geckos in this.”

Mae had looked blank for a second, then laughed, smiling at her daughter with amused affection. “Ginkgo, Pammy Jo. Not gecko. Although lizards probably taste better.”

Now, decades later, Pam’s fingers clenched around the glass. It seemed surreal that the frosted vintage set her aunt had used since the seventies was exactly the same when so much else had changed. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

Julia Danvers Calbert sniffed. “Then you’re deluded. The way my sister drank and carried on, the mystery isn’t that she’s passed, it’s that she lived so long.”

“Julia!” The one-word rebuke from quiet Uncle Ed was unprecedented. It was clear just from the seating arrangements who reigned over conversation. While Julia sat as regally and straight-shouldered as a queen in a richly upholstered wing chair, Uncle Ed was wedged into a ridiculously dainty chair with a heart-shaped back and gilded gold legs. It looked very expensive and very uncomfortable.

“I’m only telling the truth,” his wife protested. “And she’s grown up enough to hear it. She’s not little Pammy Jo anymore.”

“Still …” Flushing a bright pink that shone through his salt-and-pepper beard, Ed gave his niece an apologetic smile. “Whatever her age, she’s a woman who just lost her mama.”

“Just?” Julia shot to her feet. “No, Mae died months ago, if you’ll remember. And we had to deal with everything. Because this one—” her words illustrated by an accusing jab of the index finger “—was off gallivanting who knows where.”

“California,” Pam declared reflexively.

“Exactly!” Julia nodded, repeating the word with some venom. “California. I suppose you’ll content yourself with putting a few flowers on your mother’s grave and then head right back to the Sunshine State with little thought for the rest of us?”

Pam opened her mouth to inform her aunt that the Sunshine State was actually Florida, but bit her tongue. She’d never seen Julia, the proper, understated Danvers sister, quite so worked up before and didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. Pam never would have said that her mother and aunt were close—indeed, they seemed to hold a mutual contempt for each other’s lifestyles—but Julia’s hands were trembling and she blinked as if determined to keep tears at bay. Was she grieving Mae’s death?

“I won’t be returning to California,” Pam said. She doubted she could scrape together the gas money to get as far as Alabama, much less the west coast. “I don’t honestly know what my plans are from here, but—”

“You don’t have a job you need to get back to, then? A husband waiting for you?” Julia’s voice had softened, more weary resignation than censure.

“No, ma’am.”

Her aunt, like most normal people, might view the lack of a family and a career as failure. But what Pam did have waiting for her if she chose to return were weekly meetings and a sponsor. Which meant there was at least a chance for some kind of eventual success; that was more than she’d been able to say in a long time.

“I should bring out the rest of the tea,” Julia announced abruptly. Never mind that all three of their glasses were still full.

Pam shot a questioning look at her uncle. Since when was Julia so high-strung? When he said nothing to fill the ensuing silence, she prompted, “Is Aunt Julia okay?”

“The circumstances have been hard on her,” Ed answered, so quietly that Pam strained her ears to follow his words. “Losing her sister, to some extent. But mostly … losing you.”

“Me?” Pam had grown up with the vague sense that Julia didn’t like her. Julia had never seemed to much like anyone.

“There were things between your mama and your aunt.” He stopped himself, shooting a guilty look toward the kitchen. “If Julia was ever hard on you, it’s because she wanted better for you. She loves you. You know how she always finishes her Christmas shopping so early? That fall, when you left town, I found her in our room, crying over a package with your name on it. It’s still in her closet. She’s refused to donate it to charity, even though we didn’t know if you were ever coming back. Or if you were even alive.”

Tendrils of guilt curled through Pam like smoke, making it difficult to breathe. After her reckless flight from Mimosa, she’d spent sleepless nights alternately regretting the way she’d left Nick and hatefully hoping that her mother was worried sick. It had genuinely never occurred to her that her sudden absence might hurt Julia and Ed. Even with the picture he painted, Pam still couldn’t imagine her starchy aunt shedding tears. I wasn’t worth them.

“Uncle Ed, I’m …”

“You’re what?” Julia asked from the doorway, her expression suspicious. “Sorry to interrupt, I just couldn’t contain my curiosity. What have the two of you been discussing? Pam’s exciting life beyond Mimosa?”

Exciting was one word for it. Pam reached for the ends of her hair, a nervous girlhood habit. She had a moment’s disorientation before she remembered that she’d hacked a good six inches off of it last year and had been keeping it short ever since. She rose. “Can I help you with that tray, Aunt Julia?”

A pitcher of tea sat between a plate of muffins and—hallelujah—a china bowl of sugar.

“I think not,” her aunt said. “This pitcher is vintage. Everyone knows fatigue makes people unsteady, and you look like you haven’t had a full night’s sleep in a month of Sundays. You’ll stay with us tonight, not out there at Trudy’s.”

It took Pam a moment to process the imperious decree as an invitation. “Thank you. It’s kind of you to offer.”

“Well, we’re kin.” Julia sniffed. “Not that you could tell from the number of messages and letters we’ve had from you over the years.”

Now, beneath the criticism, Pam heard the decade plus of worry. “I’m so sorry I never let you know where I was.” Sorry for all of their sakes. If she’d allowed herself that familial anchor, would she have turned to them for help before she hit rock bottom?

Probably not. Hitting rock bottom was why she’d finally admitted she needed help.

“We knew you were in Tennessee, of course,” her uncle offered with exaggerated joviality. “It was something else, seeing you on television!”

“Oh.” Pam had only been on a regional cable channel, and she’d never been entirely sure whether her show was available this far out. “Thank you. I went to California after that. Guess I was hoping to do even more television, but it didn’t pan out.”

She’d first been “discovered” playing guitar and singing in a Tennessee bar. All those juvenile dreams she and Nick used to spin—about her eventual fame, and his leading an NFL team to the Super Bowl, where she would naturally sing at halftime—had kept her afloat when she was alone and scared out of her mind. Despite a small-time talent agent’s attempts, she’d never progressed beyond the periphery of the music industry. In the fading heyday of music videos, she’d briefly held a job as a video jockey, hosting a weekly country music countdown and reading entertainment-news bulletins.

But she’d yearned to find validation through stardom and quickly grew unhappy reporting on other people’s fame. So she quit a perfectly good job—the best one she’d ever had, really—to go with her loser boyfriend of the time to California. What followed had been a downward spiral of bad decisions and bad boyfriends.

Ironic. Pam remembered clearly the day she’d looked into her infant daughter’s squalling face and panicked at the flare of resentment that pierced her postpartum numbness. In that moment, Pam had realized how easily she could become like her own mother—a former prom queen who took her disappointment in life out on her kid and anesthetized herself with booze and men. So Pam had fled, wanting more for herself and more for baby Faith. I ran like hell, all the way to the opposite coast. Where I promptly turned into Mae.

The silver lining was that she hadn’t dragged her daughter down with her.

“You and your mother,” Julia chided, unknowingly echoing Pam’s thoughts. “Always so ambitious, always wanting more.”

“Like what?” Pam asked. “I never heard Mae mention wanting to be an actress.” Pam had grown up with the sense that her mother was deeply unhappy without ever having any idea what it would take to fix that.

“She wanted to be adored. Everyone was so surprised when beautiful, outgoing Mae married your father, who, let’s face it, was a shy, awkward man. But I know what the attraction was—that mile-high pedestal he had her on. He worshipped her like a goddess, and she treated him like … Well, he snapped after just a year and ran off with a clerk from the bookstore. A man needs to be nurtured! He can’t stay married to a woman who intimidates him.”

Pam wondered absently if Julia had become a more nurturing wife over the past decade; it wasn’t how Pam remembered her aunt and uncle’s relationship. Then again, what did Pam know? She’d always had the impression that her father had left because of her, because he wasn’t sure he was ready to be a father and because his physical interest in Mae had waned during her pregnancy.

“I’ll never be beautiful again,” Mae had complained one summer, meeting her young daughter’s eyes in a dressing room mirror. “Pretty, sure, but I was stunning once. You ruined that. See these stretch marks? I got huge with you. No wonder your daddy left us.”

To Pam, daddy had seemed as exotic and nonsensical as unicorn. Her biological father had never been more than the name on her birth certificate and monthly checks. Who knew what his side of the story sounded like? In her first year after leaving Mimosa, she’d suffered periodic anxiety attacks, waking in the middle of the night, worrying what Nick would tell their daughter about her own absent parent. For herself, Pam didn’t care—she deserved anything he had to say about her—but she’d prayed he was careful with the girl’s feelings, that Faith would never blame herself.

Faith. The name came more naturally to mind after this morning’s talk with Nick. For years Pam had continued to think of their daughter as “the baby,” long after she’d no doubt been enrolled in school.

“Speaking of ex-husbands,” Pam began hesitantly, “do either of you see Nick Shepard much? I understand he’d moved away but is back in town now.”

Julia and Ed exchanged a glance that made Pam ache inside. For all that Julia could be domineering and Ed could be oblivious, they clearly shared a bond. An entire conversation seemed to pass between them in a single moment of crystalline silence.

“That’s what we heard, too,” Julia said. “But, no. We … stay out of his way.”

“Right after you left, he used to come by,” Ed added. “A lot. He was convinced we knew where you were. Or that you’d contact us. After a few months, he realized we were as in the dark as he was.”

Pam winced. “I’m sorry. For any worry I put you through. I didn’t—I’m sorry.”

“It’s done now,” Julia said decisively. “Maybe you could start fresh, now that your mama left you the house. Move back to Mimosa. Your uncle might even be able to hire you on part-time at the furniture showroom—”

“Absolutely not.” Once the words were out, Pam regretted shooting down her aunt so quickly. Maybe she should have pretended to consider settling here for a millisecond, to spare Julia’s feelings.

But really? Move back to emotional ground zero? No. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around doing that even if Nick and Faith hadn’t been in Mississippi. With them here, it was impossible. Recalling the furious intensity in Nick’s blue eyes, she could just imagine the fit he’d throw if she announced she was staying. Pam shivered.

“I don’t know exactly what my plans for the future are,” she reiterated gently. “But I can’t see myself in Mimosa long-term. How can I start fresh by going back? I want to stay for a little while—at the house, if I become an imposition here—and I want to keep in touch with the two of you when I go. But I will be moving on.” That part was imperative.

Uncle Ed cleared his throat. “We understand,” he said, overtop of his wife’s entreaties. “The important thing is, you’re here now.”

After a moment, Julia nodded her reluctant agreement. “I’ll start on dinner in a few hours. A big dinner! You’re too scrawny. In the meantime, have some muffins. And drink your tea—it’s good for you.”

Pam eyed the glass in her hand. Beverage penance. Sure, why not? She took a big drink, meeting her beaming aunt’s gaze. Bleah. Yet considering where Pam was, other things coming her way would likely be much harder to swallow.

Chapter Five

“Pssst, Faith!”

Faith Shepard shot her best friend a warning glance. Even though both girls were finished with their pop quizzes, Morgan knew what a stickler Mrs. Branch was about talking in class. After yesterday, Faith was in enough trouble at home without her lit teacher sending a disciplinary note. Faith used to think of her dad as one of her best friends—not that she would ever say something so dorky out loud. In the last year, though …

She didn’t know what was going on exactly, but lately it didn’t take much for her previously cool dad to freak out. Maybe it was the divorce. Or Grandma Gwendolyn always harping on him.

“I have to talk to you,” Morgan whispered urgently. She always sounded urgent.

Keeping her eyes on the teacher’s desk, where Mrs. Branch had started grading, Faith asked out of the corner of her mouth, “About Kyle?” The way Morgan rhapsodized, you would think Kyle Gunn was Robert Pattinson’s hot younger brother.

Morgan shook her head slowly, also keeping her gaze forward. When she spoke again, her lips barely moved. The two girls could totally do their own ventriloquism act on one of those talent search shows. “No. About you.”

What? Faith abandoned their eyes-front subterfuge, whipping her head in Morgan’s direction. What did her friend know? Did it have to do with the strange murmurings in the cafeteria today when Faith passed, the way that hag Arianne had snickered this morning?

“After class,” Faith whispered, hardly caring anymore if they were caught. “My house.”

NICK CAME HOME EARLY for two reasons. The first was, he’d been thinking about his daughter all day and wanted to be there for her—even though he doubted she’d welcome his presence. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d grounded her, which meant he was destined to be persona non grata for a few sulky days.

The other reason he came home was much simpler. He oversaw a construction crew. And men who were distracted shouldn’t be around power tools and huge pieces of motorized equipment.

“Faith?” He walked through the back door, entering the kitchen and calling out her name. Based on the past few times they’d clashed, she would be holed up in her room, blasting some sort of music guaranteed to annoy anyone over the age of twenty-five, pretending not to hear him.

So it came as a surprise when she met him at the edge of the kitchen tile, hands on her slim hips, glaring at him through exceedingly red eyes. The eyes combined with her sniffling made it clear she’d just finished a crying jag.

“Faith? What is it, honey?” Stupid question, when he already knew the answer. The coincidence was too great. But on the one-percent chance that this wasn’t about Pamela Jo Wilson, he held his breath and waited for his daughter’s reply.

“Is it true? Is my mom in town?”

Nick sucked in a breath, wondering for the millionth time when this parenting gig was going to get easier. That entire first year, when Faith had been so tiny and fragile, he’d been scared witless. He’d told himself that when she was bigger, stronger, it wouldn’t be so excruciating. But then there’d come the day when he’d had to put her on the bus to kindergarten, and it had been like taking shrapnel in the chest. Which had been nothing compared to the first time she told him she liked a boy. And now …

“It’s true.”

She deflated, arms dropping, shoulders hunching. “I was hoping you didn’t know. I thought, no way would he keep something like this from me. I found out from Morgan, Dad. You don’t even like Morgan! Half the school knew before me. Or figured, anyway. Someone’s mom knew that you and this chick used to be a thing, so people were wondering … Do you know how squicked I was to hear that people were talking about my parents’ sex—”

“Please stop.” Nick flinched, hoping he’d never hear his daughter use the word sex again. While he wasn’t sure what the exact definition of squick was, he felt confident that he was right there with her. “If it makes you feel better, I haven’t known long, either. And it’s why I came home early today. Why don’t we sit in the living room?” This wasn’t going to be a simple conversation, suited to a few minutes of standing in a doorway.

“Okay.” But instead of turning around, she marched further into the kitchen toward the refrigerator. She pulled out a gallon of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, then went to the utensil drawer, shooting him a defiant look as she withdrew a spoon.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.