nodded. “Sure. I’m bringing the apples, remember?”
James got into the squad car and backed down the drive. Collin closed the front door and rested his forehead against it for a second.
“What the hell were you thinking, Amanda? What are you trying to do?”
She didn’t answer.
“Are you trying to get sent to some halfway house for rejects? Because if Sheriff Calhoun or one of the other deputies catches you out one night, that’s where you’ll go. It won’t matter that I’m your older brother, but it will matter that I don’t have custodial rights. That you don’t have parental supervision.”
Still no answer.
“You could wind up in juvenile hall.”
Nothing.
Collin turned around.
Amanda lay on the sofa, a round pillow clutched to her chest, asleep. Her legs were curled up to her chest, the way she’d slept when she was a baby, and the ponytail was fanned out over the sofa cushions.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, but her only answer was a soft snore.
Collin gathered his sister in his arms as if she weighed nothing and carried her upstairs and down the long hall to her bedroom. When he pulled back the electric-pink covers, he saw Mara’s old doll on the pillow. It was one of those life-size dolls that seemed to walk alongside when a little girl held its hands. Mara had used it to fake out their grandparents every time she’d snuck out as a teen.
“I’m trying, Amanda, but I don’t know what you need,” he said as he laid her sleeping form on the bed. Collin pulled the covers over her and smoothed her hair off her face. “I wish I could say they’re coming back, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I wish I could change it. I wish I could make our family like every other family in Slippery Rock, but I can’t. I’m what you’ve got, kid. Me and Gran, and she’s not as strong as she used to be. The upside of that is that the two of you are all I’ve got, and I’m not going to let you down the way our parents let me and Mara down, okay? I’m going to get you through this.”
Amanda snuggled into her pillow as another snore escaped her lips. The sullen expression was gone, the rebellious bent to her shoulders nonexistent. She was just a kid. A lonely, screwed-up kid whose parents showed up two weeks after her grandfather’s funeral, saying it was a wake-up call, and that they wanted to build a relationship with their youngest daughter. They had actually stayed at the orchard for just over a year, but when Gran needed the hip replacement, things got too real for Samson and Maddie and they’d left in the middle of the night, just before Christmas.
From the second they arrived, Collin wanted to make them leave, but the hope he’d seen in Amanda’s eyes, the desperation he’d seen in Gran’s, had kept him from kicking them right back to wherever they’d been living. Prior to that visit, the last time they’d been at the orchard had been when Collin and Mara graduated from high school, and that had been a quick trip between what Samson Tyler called “business meetings.” Collin had heard him begging for money from Granddad, though, so he’d known it was a lie.
Collin had caused Amanda’s rebellion. If he’d only kicked them out, like Mara had suggested, none of this would be happening. There would have been no time for Amanda to get so attached to them that she forgot they couldn’t be relied upon.
He’d been pissed after their mother had called to say they were taking more time in Florida. Even more pissed when the two weeks she’d said they needed turned into two months. He hadn’t heard from them since mid-January. Not a phone call or an email. At first, all he’d thought about was what an inconvenience it was to have to look after Amanda while they sunned themselves in Florida. How much time he was taking away from the orchard and his plans.
He’d never thought about the toll this must be taking on her.
Collin closed her bedroom door quietly.
For as long as he could remember, Samson had talked about how things would be different in Florida. How they would find a good life in Florida. Apparently, they had found that better life.
Now he had to figure out how to make a better life for his sister here in Slippery Rock. Before he lost her.
* * *
SAVANNAH WOKE THE next morning feeling restless. She showered and dressed and then shoved the sequined number she’d worn the night before to the back of her closet. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded of Collin Tyler’s walkout.
Or her own idiocy.
Mama Hazel was in the kitchen when she walked in, squeezing orange juice into a tall carafe. Hazel Walters was sixty-two years and one hundred pounds of feisty. Her hair was steel-gray and she had lines around her eyes, but the backs of her hands were still smooth and rich.
“It’s about time you got out of bed. You’re back on the ranch now, not in your fancy Nashville apartment.”
“So I’m supposed to wake up with the rooster and ride the range?” Savannah teased as she snagged a glass from the cabinet and poured juice from the filled carafe. Hazel began filling a paper plate with biscuits and bacon.
“Wouldn’t hurt. Levi and your father have been up since dawn, you know.”
“Levi is a paragon of virtue,” Savannah said drily. Levi had left the bar early, and alone. Levi hadn’t made a play for a woman and been walked out on.
Levi was a football star. Levi made the pros. Levi would have been inducted into the Hall of Fame if not for a squidgy hit. But even though he’d blown out his knee, he’d kept his opponent from scoring.
Levi. Levi.
Freaking. Levi.
“Pssh. Levi has his bad qualities.”
“And I have my good ones. After all, if it weren’t for me, the Walters clan wouldn’t have a black sheep. And every family needs a black sheep.”
“Sweetheart, you’re no black sheep. You are my beautiful angel.” Hazel reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind Savannah’s ear. “When I saw these braids for the first time on television, I wasn’t sure I liked them. Your natural hair was always the prettiest of corkscrew curls. I was wrong, though, it’s just as beautiful like this.” She put the plate of food in Savannah’s hands, tucked a thermos between her elbow and rib cage and motioned her to the door. “Take this out to your brother. He didn’t bother to come in for breakfast. He’ll be in the barn by now.”
Savannah walked across the front yard toward the massive barn. It was painted red, as it had been for as long as she could remember, but the black tin roof was new. The last time she’d been home the roof was still shake-shingled. Not that it mattered what the roof of the barn was made from. It just looked funny to her.
The same swing, fashioned from the metal seat of an old tractor, hung from a limb of the ancient oak in the side yard. The same ranch trucks sat before the barn, and the same horses ran in the paddock behind it. At least, they looked like the same horses. Somehow, despite growing up on the ranch, she hadn’t learned much about farm animals.
She found Levi in the barn office, clicking through
