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
