CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KIMBERLY SLOWED THE car down to a crawl as she inched past the driveway. She didn’t take her eyes from the dented mailbox that was in the shape of a chicken—a chicken, of all things. Even though she squinted, she couldn’t make out a number or a name.
“Hey, Mom! There! This is it! See the number?”
Marissa’s finger was trembling with excitement as she guided Kimberly’s attention to a house number on the mailbox post itself, almost obscured by the thigh-high Bahia grass that had overtaken the shoulder of the narrow country road.
There it was—3332. Marissa was right. Relief sluiced over her. They had found it—she had found it, no thanks to the rather vague directions she’d been given. She gave her daughter a high five that smacked loudly within the confines of the car.
Kimberly glanced at the rearview mirror and saw it was clear behind her, then reversed the car a few feet in order to make the turn into the drive.
No house was visible. She wound along a rutted dirt track between pastures dotted with cows.
“Hey, Mom, are those chickens?” Marissa asked, pointing at the field on the other side of the road.
“I think—” Kimberly squinted. Yes. There was a whole pasture, empty of everything except a huge flock of rust-colored birds streaming out from some sort of shed. As she drove past, she could see the chickens, cheek to jowl, pecking and scratching. “Yep. Those are chickens, city girl.”
“I just didn’t expect to see them like that, roaming around like cows,” Marissa said. “How do they keep them from flying away? Or wandering off? I thought chickens stayed in a pen.”
Marissa didn’t sound as though she really needed an answer, so Kimberly turned her attention to the road ahead.
Now the chickens gave way to corn, slightly wilted from the hot late-May sun. The corn, in turn, gave way to a field of leafy green bushes—bush beans, maybe—that extended as far as the open pasture until it ended in a grove of thick dark trees.
The car dipped suddenly into a mud puddle, jouncing both her and Marissa. It was proof of their stretched, taut nerves that neither noted the big bump.
Then one last curve revealed a farmhouse. The house was green, with a steeply inclined metal roof a shade darker. The porch was wide with big curving beds of marigolds flanking the front steps.
Kimberly put the car in Park and glanced Marissa’s way. Her daughter was twining one long red-gold strand of hair around her index finger, her lips compressed in concentration as she scrutinized the house.
“Do you think anybody’s home?” Marissa asked.
“The captain at the fire station said this would be where we’d find the fire chief,” Kimberly pointed out.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Marissa said. “It’s not as if they’re going to put on a welcome party for us, right, Mom?”
“Honey, there’s no need to be nervous.” Kimberly’s stomach, full of butterflies, belied her statement. She was nervous. But she shouldn’t let Marissa’s nerves be fueled by her own neurotic thoughts. “It isn’t as though we’re meeting your biological mother or father. This is just the guy who...”
She trailed off. In the silence that followed, she heard a low “roo-roo-roo,” the deep bark of what sounded like a decidedly large dog suddenly awakened from a midmorning nap.
“This is the guy who found me after my biological mom dumped me.” Marissa’s words were harsh and judgmental as only an eleven-year-old fixated on fairness and rules could be.
“Now, Marissa—” But before Kimberly could launch into her she-would-have-kept-you-if-she-could-have speech, a woman hurried around the side of the house, a large chocolate-brown dog at her heels.
“Hello, there!” she said as she wiped her hands on the dish towel she still held. The woman must have been in her sixties, but had a youthful appearance despite her salt-and-pepper hair, which was pulled back in a bun. Maybe it was the way she bounced as she walked, or the wide, welcoming smile on her face. “Can I help you? Are you lost?”
Kimberly had rolled down the window by now. “Uh, yes—I mean, no, I don’t think we’re lost. The captain on duty at the fire station told us we could find the chief here? That he was off today?”
“Daniel?” A frown marred the woman’s smooth, tanned face. “Yes. He’s here. I’m afraid he’s still picking butter beans for me on the back side of the property, but I can call him for you. It will be a little while, though.”
“Would you?” The doubt and anxiety that gnawed at Kimberly eased a little. “I would appreciate it. I’m Kimberly Singleton, and this is my daughter, Marissa.”
“Okay, let me just...” The woman started to leave, then turned back. “Would you—would you care to get out? Stretch your legs a bit?”
“Sure, that would be great!”
“Absolutely. Make yourself at home. Y’all can wait on the porch if you’d like, and I’ll bring you out some lemonade. Come on, Rufus! They don’t want a big smelly dog jumping on them. C’mon, boy!”
Rufus hesitated, his tail flicking, then he obediently trailed the woman back around the house.
On the porch swing, Marissa extended one flip-flop-clad
