“This isn’t your concern, Cliff,” Luther said.
“I’m making it my concern. Molly’s a good girl. She deserves a chance to get out of this place.”
“I won’t take her in when she comes crawling back.”
“You won’t have to. If she needs to, she can stay with Edith and me.”
Uncle Cliff waved her out of the room, asking her if she didn’t have suitcases she needed to pack. Grateful, Molly escaped any further recrimination from her father.
Now Uncle Cliff was gone and her dad sat on the front porch in the chilly January air, no doubt trying to figure out how his only child could have strayed so far. And he didn’t even know that her plans involved gambling.
At nine o’clock Molly stretched out on the twin bed next to her son, propped a pillow behind her back and crossed her ankles. She twisted the cowboy lamp on the nightstand so its light fell on the map in her lap. “You want to see where we’re going tomorrow?” she asked Sam.
“Sure, Mama. Is it a long way?”
“It’s pretty far. We’re starting here on this big road called Highway 35…” she traced a line south with her finger “…all the way to another highway, which leads us to River Bluff. That’s where we’ll stop.”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“I’d say about four hours, depending on how often we stop.” She smiled at him. “Part of the fun of traveling is stopping along the road.”
Sam looked up at her, a worried frown marring his chubby angelic features. “I don’t think it’ll be fun at all.”
“For heaven’s sake, why not?”
“’Cause when Grandpa found out we were going, he was plenty mad. So it must not be a fun thing to do.”
“You shouldn’t worry about Grandpa, baby,” she said. “He won’t stay mad. Why, I’ll bet that in a day or two he’ll have forgotten he was angry and will want to hear all about our adventure!” If there was a way to keep communications open between her father and her son, Molly would. “You can write him a letter if you want. He’d like that.”
Molly wrapped her arm around Sam’s shoulders and pulled him close. “Besides, I think we’re going to have lots of fun. And if we don’t, then we’ll go someplace else. Texas is a big state.” She held up the map to illustrate her point. “Maybe you can pick the place next time.” She stood up, kissed his cheek and turned off the lamp. “Just go to sleep now, Sammy. I’m going to stay in your room a while to pack up your things.”
She handed him his favorite stuffed pony and he snuggled into his blankets. “G’night, Mama.”
By the faint glow of his nightlight, she neatly folded his clothes into a suitcase. While she worked, the last moments between her father and her uncle played in her mind. Luther had said he was sick and tired of dealing with the mistakes his daughter made of her life and trying to explain to his congregation how a supposedly God-fearing child could grow up to cast such a shadow of shame over her family name.
Sometime, years ago, her father had stopped thinking of Molly as an individual and began to see her as an extension of her mother. Two women whose identical sinful natures conspired to ruin his life and reputation. That was sad, but Molly couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe she was too much like her mother. And maybe she wanted to be.
She closed Sam’s suitcase and filled a box with his favorite toys. Thinking he was asleep, she tiptoed to the door. “Mama?”
She looked back at the bed. Sam lay perfectly still, but his voice was hoarse with a little boy’s determination. “I think I’ll wait and see if Grandpa writes me first.”
“That’s fine, sweetie.”
She left the room more convinced than ever that she and her son were two people very much in need of an adventure.
CHAPTER THREE
BRADY HUNG HIS HAT on a hook in the mudroom and left his boots by the back door. After washing his hands at the utility tub, he went to the kitchen where he snuck up behind Ruby, the woman who’d been the family cook since he was a boy, and kissed her warm brown neck. She swatted at him. “I knew you were back there,” she said. “You can’t surprise me anymore. Not since you’ve grown four feet and put on a hundred pounds.”
He laughed. “I guess a six-foot-three man has lost some of the upper hand when it comes to surprise attacks.”
She tried not to smile. “You wash those hands?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You hungry?”
“You need to ask?”
“Go on in the sunroom. Your daddy wanted lunch in there today. I’ve got it set up on the buffet.”
He went down the hallway past his father’s study, a guest bathroom and the formal dining room and entered the cheerful six-sided glassed-in area his mother had designed when the house was built. She referred to it as the conservatory and filled it with hanging ferns and philodendron, but everyone else called it the sunroom.
Marshall set down his newspaper and looked closely at Brady. “Late night?” he said.
“You could say that.”
“Did you win at least?”
“Came out okay despite having a lot on my mind.” He glanced at his father’s plate and the remains of something once smothered in gravy. Another test for Brady’s arteries, but whatever was in the chafing dish smelled too good to pass up. He headed to the buffet table. “I’m guessing stew,” he said.
“Ruby’s specialty. And mighty tasty.”
Brady ladled two helpings onto a plate, picked up a couple of biscuits from under a cloth napkin and chose a seat across the table from his father. “Where’s Mom?”
“Still sleeping, I guess,” Marshall said. “I was beat when we got home from Henley’s last night and turned in early. Angela was still in the den. I don’t know what time she came upstairs.”
Brady was sorry to hear this news. Before he’d left for the poker game, he’d come to the house to tell his mother about Amber Mac. It was after dark and he’d found her in front of the television. She was staring vacantly at an old black-and-white movie and he saw a drink in her hand. It only took a minute for him to realize she’d obviously started drinking at the cocktail hour and had continued with rum and Cokes well into the evening. Her interest in the new colt had been cool at best.
“Are you still having the hoedown on Sunday?” The annual event, which began at Cross Fox twenty-nine years ago to celebrate Marshall’s thirtieth birthday had become a Carrick family tradition. Brady figured his dad might cancel the party if Angela wasn’t up to hosting.
Marshall furrowed his brow. “Of course. Folks expect it. Besides, a man can’t stop living just because…” He never finished his thought and instead went to the buffet, filled a bowl with peaches and poured heavy cream over the top. “Are any of your friends from the poker game coming?”
Brady had invited Blake, Cole, Jake and Luke, the four regulars on Texas Hold ’Em nights. “Yes, they’re coming. Along with their girlfriends and wives.” Marshall knew Blake’s wife, Annie. She was a reporter for the River Bluff newspaper and expecting their first child. And Brady figured his dad would remember Rachel Diamonte, a former River Bluff prom queen, who’d recently come back to town. She and Jake had a history to mend, but since he’d hired her to renovate the bar they’d worked out their differences and were planning a future together. But he’d never