“Darlin’, we all make mistakes, but our mama set down the rules, and we’ve abided by them all these years. The rules ain’t never failed us, not one time,” Betsy said. “So soon as we pay our bill in here, you’re welcome to come home with us and help out at the Banty House, at least for the rest of today and tomorrow. Then you can be on your way if you want to.”
Ginger wasn’t sure whether to agree or to run, but the baby kicked hard right then. She took that as a sign that she should go home with them. Besides, it seemed like fate that Connie had chosen the very moment Ginger had gotten off the bus to need a smoke. She started to ask what the Banty House was, but when it came right down to it, she didn’t care if it was a floral shop, a restaurant, or a bakery. They had offered her a job, and even if all she got out of it was room and board, it sure beat sleeping in a park or in an abandoned house.
Chapter Two
Friday was Sloan Baker’s favorite day of the whole week. That was the day he worked for the Carson sisters. Usually he was up and going, trying to keep his mind busy, but that morning, he awoke in a cold sweat from the recurring nightmare that he’d had since he was sent home from the army.
He and his teammates made up the bomb squad, and in the dream, they were going into a tent where there’d been a threat. He went in first, located the bomb, and was about to dismantle it when the timer started clicking off minutes, not seconds. He turned to tell his buddies to run, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He awoke with his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound of the explosion.
He crawled out of bed and spread the covers out until there wasn’t a single wrinkle. He got dressed in faded camouflage pants, an army-green T-shirt that had seen better days, and his combat boots. The things that he’d brought home when they’d sent him back to the States a little more than two years ago were about to wear out—all but the boots. He figured he could get another five to ten years out of them.
He made a pot of coffee, poured himself a mug, and carried it out to the front-porch swing. “It was just a dream,” he said out loud.
Real or nightmare—it didn’t matter. His buddies had been blown up in an explosion that he could have prevented if he’d only been with them. He was glad to see the sun peeking up over the horizon, giving shape to the tombstones in the cemetery right next to his place. When daylight came, he didn’t have to worry about the dreams and he could stay so busy that sometimes he even forgot about the guilt he carried with him. He got into his twenty-year-old pickup truck and ate half a dozen cookies while he listened to the radio and drove the half mile up to the Banty House.
Washing their fancy car was his first job on Fridays. Most of the time the car didn’t even need to be cleaned, but Connie could find a fleck of dust hiding in a dirt pile. And she knew they stirred up all the dust driving into town on Thursdays for their beauty-shop appointment and their grocery shopping. After it was cleaned up, he’d check the oil and everything under the hood to be sure that nothing was needed there. Then he’d go on to mow the huge lawn and take care of Connie’s flower beds. Beyond that, they always found a few odd jobs to keep him busy the rest of the day—sometimes helping Kate in the cellar or maybe doing whatever Betsy needed to make her jams or jellies, or even helping Connie on the days that she decided to move everything out of a guest bedroom to clean it.
They always paid him well for his day’s work, but what he liked best was that they invited him to eat dinner with them at noon. Betsy was a fantastic cook, and her biscuits reminded him of his granny’s. He parked in his usual spot in front of the house and checked the rosebushes on his way across the yard to see if they needed any buds clipped. He whistled as he made his way up the four steps onto the porch and knocked on the doorjamb. He expected to hear someone yell for him to come on in, but that morning the door flew open and there stood the cutest and the most pregnant little blonde woman he’d seen in a while.
“I’m Sloan. I’m here to work for the Carson sisters today,” he said.
This was the first time in his remembrance that they’d brought home a pregnant stray. Usually, it was older women or sometimes men who needed a place to stay for a day or two while their house was being fumigated, or maybe just before they were about to make a move from their home to a nursing facility.
“Hello, Sloan.” She stuck out her hand. “Betsy told me that you would be coming this morning. I’m Ginger.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He shook her hand and then dropped it.
“Come on in,” Betsy called out from the kitchen. “Have you had breakfast? We’ve eaten, but there’s plenty of leftovers.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ve eaten.” Sloan removed his cap and wiped his feet before entering the house. He slid a sly look over toward Ginger again. Had the old ladies completely lost their minds? This was more than following the first of their deceased mother’s rules—the one about not turning away strangers. What if that woman had the baby before they could get rid of her? She might weasel her way right into their hearts with a baby and then rob them blind.
Betsy poked her head around the kitchen door. “I see you’ve met Ginger. She’s stayin’ with us. Today she’s helping me make elderberry jelly.”
“You about to use up all that juice we put up last summer?” Sloan reached for the key to the garage.
“Not quite. I figure it’ll last until harvest in late August, and then we’ll be ready to start all over. Folks sure like it,” Betsy said.
“You should’ve put in a café years ago,” Sloan told her as he headed across the kitchen floor. “If people ever got a taste of your biscuits with elderberry jelly on ’em, they’d swarm the café like ants to an open sugar bowl.”
“I’m too old to manage a café, and besides, I’d have to keep a schedule. With my jams and jellies, I just make them when I want to, and folks come to me to buy them. I sold the last of my wild plum the first of the week, so we may make a batch of that today, too,” Betsy said.
“If you ladies need me, just holler.” Sloan slipped out the door and closed it behind him. He’d have to keep a good eye on the ladies for sure, and see to it that this Ginger woman left in a day or two at the most. Poor old souls were so damn gullible that they didn’t know people in the modern world could be conniving.
Ginger pinched herself on the leg, and it hurt like hell, so she was definitely not dreaming. She’d had a bath in a big claw-foot tub the night before—one so deep that she could sink all the way down to her neck, leaving her pregnant belly the only thing poking up out of the water. She’d slept in a bed with sheets that smelled like flowers and laid her head on a soft feather pillow, and she’d awakened to the smell of coffee and bacon floating up the stairs to her bedroom.
The bedroom was an absolute dream, with a hand-quilted spread on the four-poster bed, a pretty crystal lamp on the bedside table, and even one of those long velvet chaise lounges against one wall. She felt like a queen when she sat on it and propped her feet up to read a book before she went to bed. To put the icing on the cake, there was a bookcase that reached from one wall to the other, and what shelves weren’t filled with novels had decorative things on them. She particularly liked the figurines that looked like little children, but she was afraid to touch them.