the suitcase, too. I decide the time has come for the truth.
“Mr. Johnston’s taking me down to Asheville.” I shrug off Hearty’s hand. “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” He seems unable to comprehend the word.
“That’s right. I’m going to start a new life.”
“With what?”
I ponder that a moment. I’m leaving home, setting out for an uncertain future, and Hearty has only zeroed in on what for him is the crucial question. How have I gotten enough money to make this escape, and how can he get it away from me?
“I’ll miss you, too, Hearty,” I say, leaning close. “Thanks for the good times and good wishes.”
His eyes narrow. “Where’d you get the money to leave?”
“Gran left me just enough to get away from you. She did the best she could.”
“How much?”
I shake my head. “Don’t matter. You aren’t getting a cent of it.”
“Who’s going to take care of things?”
The switch is so sudden, it takes me a moment to catch up. “Things?”
“The farm? Get me dinner when I’m home? Take care of things!”
“I have no idea. Maybe you’ll figure that out.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Try and stop me.” I hear Bill’s door slam and his footsteps as he rounds the cab.
“It’s your job to stay and take care of…things!”
I see Bill come up behind my father. “Can we leave now?” I ask.
Bill is a substantial man, outweighing Hearty by fifty pounds and topping him by at least four inches. Right now I’m glad for all the years and pounds of his wife’s deep-fried country cooking.
“You can’t take her,” Hearty says.
“I don’t want a fight,” Bill responds. “But the girl’s going where she wants to.”
Hearty considers that. I can almost see him weighing his options. Winning a fight with the well-fed Bill isn’t one of them. He turns back to me.
“You leave now, I’ll give my share of this farm your grandma loved so much to one of my drinking buddies when I die. You won’t be able to get your hands on my piece of it.”
I shrug because I’m fairly sure that Hearty will destroy the farm before it comes to that, burn down the house, whatever it takes.
“Or that ridge land of mine, neither,” he says, when he sees I’m not impressed enough. “You won’t get a square inch of it.”
From his own family Hearty has inherited land too steep for anything but logging, something Hearty does when he absolutely has to earn money. The more valuable Hale land was left to his four sober sisters, who stayed away from Hearty and, by extension, me, as if what ailed their baby brother might be catching. The ridge land was a blessing, because when he was there hauling out trees, Hearty was gone for days.
“You’re welcome to everything,” I say. “I don’t want to lay eyes on you again. Not ever. You can drink yourself to death, or sober up and change your ways. Makes no difference to me.”
I glance at Bill and see that the last part of my speech dismayed him. I know I sounded heartless, so I sigh and add, “Of course, for your sake, Hearty, I hope you can change.”
“I want some of that money your grandmother gave you. Right now.” He holds out his trembling hand, palm up. “I deserve it.”
“The girl’s heading for a new life, and you want to steal her money?” Bill asks.
“If she’s got money, it came from this farm. I own part of the farm.”
Bill shakes his head, and this time he shoots me a sympathetic glance. “We’re going now.” Bill reaches around Hearty and takes my arm.
I skirt my father and step up to the running board. Bill’s wife, Zettie, moves over to the middle to make room for me, then she leans over and opens the door. “You get inside, Lottie Lou. And don’t you give that man one red cent.”
I slide inside, but Hearty holds on to the door. “You got nothing for your father?” he says.
“That’s what you gave me my whole life.” I have to force the words past a sudden lump in my throat. Hearty Hale is my father, and while I despise him, he is my blood and my past. Suddenly the future looks very frightening, more frightening than I had anticipated.
“That’s what you’ll get if you leave me,” Hearty says. “I’m warning you.”
Bill has already circled the truck, and now he slams his door shut and starts the engine. Without another word he starts forward. I grab the door handle, and when my father loses his grip on it, I slam the door shut.
A part of me knows I ought to turn my head for one more look at the man who sired me. I will not come back. These will be our final moments together. But I don’t turn. I hold tight to the door handle all the way down to Asheville.
Chapter Eight
HARMONY AWOKE IN a strange bed, and for a moment panic filled her. She had been dreaming of home, of the muffled footsteps of her mother wearing the slippers Harmony had given her as a birthday gift. Before that, no matter the season, Janine Stoddard had tiptoed around the house in her bare feet, because she had been afraid of prematurely waking Harmony’s father.
Harmony’s childhood had been all about walking on tiptoes, about muffling laughter or tears, about apologies. The dream was no surprise, but this bed and this room startled her into stillness. She was afraid to move, afraid to cry out. And whose name would she call, anyway?
Slowly the events of last night came back to her. Her shift at Cuppa, the man who had succeeded in making her feel small and stupid. The chunks of salad spread on the floor with dressing pooling beside…
She wouldn’t think of that now.
Charlotte Hale, who had witnessed everything, had found her lying in the backseat of her Buick. Her cheeks burned at the memory. She had been afraid to park on a darker side street until it was okay to go back to Jennifer’s. Instead, she had parked far enough away from Cuppa to feel certain no one would spot her. When she’d returned to the car after her shift, she had stretched out in the back as best she could, an army blanket rolled under her head and another pulled over her.
She had wondered where Davis was at that moment—and with whom. She had wondered exactly why she was alive.
Then she’d opened her eyes to see Charlotte Hale staring down at her.
Now she was in the woman’s mansion, because Harmony could think of no other word for this house. It was a home beyond
