Joella frowned. She hated the notion that even a seven-year-old could see the difference between the Ratchfords and a man like Jordan Scoville. Breeding and power were written all over his face, were apparent in every inch of him, from the way he carried himself and the way he spoke, to the way he looked right at home in that suit. Why that suit was probably worth more than every single item Joella possessed, including her grandmother’s antique sleigh bed, the only thing she owned with any monetary value at all.
“You’re right about that,” she conceded.
“I knew it. If you want to be successful, you can’t let things like supper stop you,” Nathan proclaimed. “You’ve got to—”
“Rich folks don’t eat supper,” Joella interrupted. “Rich folks eat dinner.”
Nathan paused to consider that. “They do?”
“Yep. About six courses. First they get soup.”
“What kind of soup?”
“Not chicken noodle. Something like turtle or oxtail, maybe.”
“Oh, yuck! Mom, that is so gross.”
“Well, you want to be hoity-toity like Mr. Scoville, you better start cultivating a taste for turtles and oxtails.”
He screwed up his thin, freckled face and stared into his plate for a moment. “What else? For dinner, I mean.”
“Then you have to eat salad.”
“Okay. I’ll take potato salad. No onion.”
“That’s not upper-crusty enough, either. You’ll probably have to have avocado stuffed with artichoke hearts. How’s that sound?”
He responded by pointing his finger down his throat and making a gagging sound. “I’ll bet real rich people just eat peanut butter and jelly whenever they want it.”
Joella had a hard time imagining the Scoville heir eating peanut butter and jelly. “You think so?”
Nathan thought about it and apparently had the same problem with his imagination that she was having. “Naw. Maybe not.” Then he giggled. “All that grape jelly’d probably just squoosh out all down your tie and your really, really white shirt and boy would you be in trouble then.”
Joella laughed with him, despite the pang in her heart as she was once again struck by fear. What was she going to do? With the mill closing, how was she going to take care of Nathan?
The Reverend Martin would tell her—had told her many times—that all she needed was faith that God would meet her needs. But she’d tried that these past four years and look where it had gotten her. Living in a tiny little mill village house with butter beans and cornbread for dinner, and facing the day when even that little bit might be out of reach.
Having faith would be easier, she thought, if she had only herself to worry about.
If push came to shove, she’d have to humble herself and let all those social services people take Andrew to court for child support, the way Venita had been telling her to for years. Then Andy would think he’d been right all along when he said she didn’t have the brains to take care of herself.
All these years she’d been dead-set determined to prove him wrong. It hurt like crazy to think she might have to swallow her pride and let him know she couldn’t make it on her own, after all.
“I thought he was Dad, at first,” Nathan was saying.
“What? Who?”
“That Mr. Scoville.”
“Why in the world would you think that?” she asked, but she didn’t have to hear his answer. In all the superficial ways a child would notice, Jordan Scoville was exactly like Andrew Ratchford. Tall, imposing, well dressed, with that precise way of speaking that you didn’t hear much in a small town like Bethlehem.
“You know, Mom. ‘Cause he was intimidating.”
That he was. Her reaction to him had felt like fullscale panic—heart racing, knees shaking. Joella had no idea how she was going to make him take her seriously over the next few weeks. Maybe she ought to call Fred Roseforte right now and admit she was no match for Jordan Scoville.
Then she tried to picture prickly-pear Fred up in Jordan Scoville’s face and knew precisely how much that was likely to gain the hardworking folks of Bethlehem. No, as long as she was the only one who believed the Scovilles would treat them right, had every intention of taking care of them, she needed to keep Jordan Scoville away from people like Fred Roseforte.
“’Cept he didn’t intimidate you, did he, Mom? You stood right up to him.”
“Well, I have to admit, I was a little…scared.”
Nathan grinned. “I knew that. ‘Cause your hand was sweaty when we went out the door.”
“You scoundrel. What’re you trying to do, catch me in a fib?”
“Yeah.” He laughed so hard he almost slipped out of his chair. Then his mirth vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he turned his serious young face in her direction again. “Mom, when are we gonna get a Christmas tree?”
Joella looked down at her plate. “Um, I’m not sure, Nathan. I was thinking…maybe we won’t exactly have a tree this year.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you know I was telling you how money’s going to be tight. I was thinking, maybe we’d spend that money on other things, instead of a tree that we’ll have to throw out the first of the year anyway.”
“What things?”
She heard the challenge in his voice and knew she was treading on thin ice. She dared not say what she was really thinking. Things like bread and milk or one more month of paying the heating bill. No, that would never do. “I don’t know exactly, but…Christmas things, maybe.”
Nathan flattened a crumb of cornbread under his thumb, then drew it thoughtfully to his mouth. “I liked it better before Patsy Kelley told me Santa Claus didn’t bring the presents.”
Joella sighed. He was growing up so fast. Too fast to suit her. “I know. Me, too.”
“So, when is the town going to turn on all the lights and stuff?”
The ice she trod grew thinner yet. Explaining to the children of Bethlehem that there might be no lights this year would be just as bad as explaining there was no Santa Claus to bring their hearts’ desire. This year the Grinch was truly in danger of stealing Christmas, at least here in Bethlehem, South Carolina.
“Sweetheart, I don’t know the answer to that yet, either.” But she kept praying that the miracle of Christmas would come to Bethlehem one more time before the village rolled up its sidewalks for good. “But you know that lights and presents aren’t what Christmas is all about anyway, don’t you?”
He ignored her question. “You only call me sweetheart when something’s wrong. Something’s wrong about Christmas, isn’t it? I mean, something besides the money being tight.”
Joella stifled another sigh. Raising a son alone was hard enough without having to raise one who, to all appearances, was too smart for his own good. “Finish eating, Nathan. You’ve got all those posters to finish before bed.”
He put his fork down on his plate and stared at her with the unyielding look that was his father all over. “They’re not going to celebrate Christmas this year, are they?”
She sighed. No fibs allowed. “I don’t know, Nathan. Maybe not. Nobody’s sure yet.”
“It’s that Mr. Scoville, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t that, Nathan.”
“It is, too! Just look at him. If Patsy Kelley hadn’t already told me