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  Copyright © 2015 by Sharon Sala

  Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover image © Pat Canova/Getty Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  An Excerpt from The Curl Up and Dye

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Chapter 1

  Adorable Grant rolled over in bed and shut off the alarm as a familiar cramp rolled across her belly. The monthly miseries had arrived, and by the smell coming from the baby bed where her son, Luther Joe, was sleeping, the baby food jar of prunes she’d fed him last night may have been a mistake. Between her cramps and Luther’s runs, it was not the optimum way to start a workday, but she had already learned the hard way what it was like to live on leftovers.

  She made a mad dash down the hall to the bathroom and came out a few minutes later carrying a tube of ointment for Luther’s diaper rash. There was nothing glamorous about being a seventeen-year-old unwed mother, but after giving birth, she had vowed never to complain about getting her period again.

  She hastened her steps as she headed back to her bedroom. Luther was awake and beginning to whine, and she didn’t want to wake Granddaddy until the very last minute.

  “Hey, little man,” she said softly as she hurried toward the crib.

  Luther was big for his age and already pulling himself up and standing inside the baby bed. His little, fat hands were curled around the spindles, and he was chewing on the bed rail, probably trying to cut teeth, but it had yet to happen. As soon as he saw her, he smiled that toothless baby smile she loved while saliva dripped down onto his chin and points below. He clutched the bed rail and squealed as she approached.

  Dori chuckled. “Shh, now! You’re gonna wake Granddaddy.”

  The mere mention of his favorite male sent Luther’s gaze straight toward the door.

  Dori sniffed, then rolled her eyes.

  “Ooowee, Luther Joe! You sure do stink. Here, lay down a minute and let Mama get you all cleaned up again.”

  She unsnapped the crotch of his pajamas and began to clean him up while making faces at him, then laughing as he tried to mimic the expressions she was making. It was a game they’d been playing for almost a week now, and she was convinced that he was going to be a genius. As soon as she finished, she picked him up out of the crib, settled him on her hip, and headed for the kitchen.

  It was still dark outside, but Dori’s job as a dishwasher at Granny’s Country Kitchen began at six a.m., when they started serving breakfast. She settled him into his high chair, handed him a teething biscuit, and started making coffee and warming milk to put in his cereal as she glanced out the kitchen window. The sky was still dark, but she could see darker, heavy-looking clouds. May was always a rainy month and this May was no exception. Maybe if she hurried, she’d get to work before it began.

  Within minutes, she had bacon frying and beaten eggs in a bowl ready to scramble. She was putting bread in the toaster when Luther let out a big squeal. She turned to see her grandfather entering the room. He was slightly stooped from so many years as a roofer but still in fine form for seventy-six.

  “Mornin’, Granddaddy.”

  “Morning, honey,” Meeker Webb said and wiggled his fingers at Luther, who squealed again and whacked his teething biscuit on the tray of the high chair.

  Meeker eyed his granddaughter closely as he kissed the top of her head and swiped a piece of crispy bacon. From the day she’d been born, he’d always thought she was the prettiest thing in Blessings, Georgia, and still did, although her blue eyes weren’t as sparkly as they used to be, and she didn’t pay much attention to how she looked anymore.

  He’d given up trying to get her to tell him who Luther’s father was. He had already figured out that she wasn’t telling because of what she feared he’d do to him. She wasn’t a run-around girl, and she hadn’t had a boyfriend when she turned up pregnant. Meeker might be old, but he wasn’t stupid. Somebody had his way with Dori and left her to suffer the consequences alone.

  “Looks like rain,” he said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  Dori nodded as she strained off the bacon grease, then poured the eggs into the hot skillet and began to stir.

  “I know, Granddaddy. I’m going to leave just as soon as I feed Luther.”

  “I’ll feed ole buster here, and you sit yourself down and eat breakfast for a change. You’re wasting away. I can eat after you’re gone.”

  She hesitated. He already did so much for her, but his offer was tempting. She sure didn’t want to work all day in wet clothes.

  “But your breakfast will get cold,” she said.

  He tweaked her ear.

  “I know how to heat it up, now, don’t I?”

  She grinned and handed him Luther’s bowl of cereal. She dished herself up a serving of eggs and bacon, grabbed a piece of toast as it popped up, and ate standing up.

  Meeker frowned. “Honey, the least you could do is sit down.”

  “No time,” she muttered, talking around the mouthful of food she was chewing.

  Within minutes, she was in her bedroom, throwing on clothes without care if they matched or not and brushing out tangles in her long, dark brown hair. She used to take pride in her appearance. Before her parents were killed, everyone used to talk about how much she looked like her mother, with her baby-doll features and little turned-up nose, but she couldn’t see how it mattered much anymore. Her pride, along with everything else, had taken a great fall when she turned up pregnant, and like Humpty Dumpty, she didn’t know how to put herself back together again. She grabbed an umbrella and then stopped off in the kitchen before she left.

  “I’m going now,” she said and
kissed her little boy good-bye. “Luther Joe, you be good for Granddaddy.”

  Luther grinned and blew bubbles with a mouthful of oatmeal, which made Meeker grin.

  Dori rolled her eyes. “Don’t laugh at him, or he’ll just do it again.”

  “Why not?” Meeker said. “You used to do the same thing, and I laughed at you.”

  Dori hugged her grandfather’s neck.

  “I hope you know how much I love and appreciate you.”

  Meeker squinted and gruffly cleared his throat.

  “I love you too, girl. Now hustle or you’re gonna get wet. Luther and I will be just fine.”

  Dori blew him a kiss, then put on her raincoat and, after she stepped out onto the porch, opened her umbrella.

  The sun had yet to come up, but the streetlights lit the way out of her neighborhood toward downtown Blessings. She took a deep breath of the cool morning air as she came down the porch steps. It even smelled like rain. Without hesitation, she lengthened her stride and shifted into work mode.

  She’d never made it to a high school prom, and her days of going to football games and school trips were over. She’d tried homeschooling, then decided it was a waste of time and took the GED. Now she was almost through with online college courses on building websites. She could have felt sorry for herself, but all she had to do to get past it was think about her baby. She wouldn’t trade him for all the parties and dances in the world. She paused briefly to check for traffic as she reached the corner, and when the first drops of rain began to fall, she started to run.

  * * *

  When twenty-year-old Johnny Pine’s alarm went off, he rolled his long-legged self out of bed with a groan. Five a.m. came far too soon, but he needed the extra hour to do a load of laundry and make breakfast for his little brothers before he sent them off to school. When he was little, his mama never made him breakfast, let alone got out of bed. But he remembered what it felt like to go to school hungry and was determined that wasn’t happening to his brothers.

  Marshall was ten and in fifth grade, and Brooks, a.k.a. Beep, was seven and in second grade. Although they were young enough to still need a mother, that wasn’t happening. Their mother had overdosed on meth two years ago and was buried in the Blessings Cemetery. Their daddy was doing time in prison with no hope of ever getting out. Johnny was all they had left, and he wasn’t going to be the next one to fail them.

  He headed for the bathroom on bare feet, wincing at the feel of grit on the floor. He’d meant to sweep up last night after dishes and the boys’ homework, but he’d forgotten. Maybe he’d have time if he hurried through his shower.

  A short while later, he was in the kitchen, stirring oatmeal and sipping his second cup of coffee. The washer was on the spin cycle—so far, so good. He eyed the oatmeal, then turned off the fire and set the pan on a back burner as he went down the hall to wake up the boys.

  The Ninja Turtle night-light in their room used to be his. It was cracked, and one of the turtles was missing an arm, but it still worked, shedding a pale green glow on their faces. They both had black hair like Johnny’s, and when they got older, he suspected they’d look a lot like him, as well. He did what he could to keep them in line but feared he was a poor substitute for a parent. If he hadn’t already been eighteen when their mama died, the state would have taken them away from him. Now he kept everything on the up-and-up for fear they still might.

  He turned on the light in the room and then leaned over the bed they shared and shook each one gently.

  “Hey, Marshall. Hey, Beep. It’s time to wake up. Oatmeal is done. Get up now and don’t dawdle. You can’t be late for school.”

  The boys were mute as they rolled out of bed and padded across the hall to the bathroom to pee. He got out their clean clothes and then set their shoes side by side on the floor before he left the room. He could already hear giggling inside and knocked on the bathroom door as he passed.

  “Quit piddlin’ around and get dressed!” he yelled.

  Silence followed his footsteps as he went back to the kitchen. The washer was through spinning, so he dumped the load of wet clothes into the dryer and turned it on. The clothes would be wrinkled when he got home this evening, but at least they’d be clean and dry. They might be living life at the bottom of the barrel, but they didn’t have to live it dirty.

  He glanced at the clock. Already a quarter to six and he still hadn’t fixed their lunches. They qualified for the free lunch program at school, but he wasn’t putting that kind of stigma on the boys if he could help it. He got out a can of Spam and began making sandwiches. Marshall liked mayonnaise, Beep wanted butter, and he liked mustard. He made one for each of the boys and two for himself, added a banana apiece in their lunch boxes and a honey bun in his, and then left them on the corner of the table as the boys entered the kitchen. They were dressed, but their hair was a wreck. He’d work on that later.

  “Sit,” he said. “I’ll dish up the oatmeal.”

  “Can I have raisins in mine?” Marshall asked.

  “I don’t want no raisins,” Beep muttered defensively.

  “You don’t want any raisins,” Johnny said, absently correcting the grammar as he dished up the hot cereal and dumped a handful of raisins on top of Marshall’s serving.

  Beep frowned. “That’s what I said.”

  Johnny grinned and kept dipping. Conversation ended as they began to eat. Oatmeal was not his favorite breakfast food, but it was hot, cheap, and filling, and that was that. Maybe when he won the lottery, they’d eat bacon and eggs.

  He swallowed his oatmeal in eight bites, turned around, washed and rinsed his bowl, and put it in the drainer.

  “Put your bowls in the hot water when you’re through,” he said and then pointed at Beep. “And don’t be putting any oatmeal in the dishwater again. Eat it. Don’t waste it.”

  Beep nodded without looking up and shoveled another bite into his mouth.

  “If he don’t want it, I’ll eat it,” Marshall said.

  “If he doesn’t want it,” Johnny said, correcting his grammar too.

  Marshall shrugged.

  Johnny frowned. “Don’t shrug that off,” he said shortly. “When you don’t speak properly, people think you’re dumb, and we’ve got enough to live down without people thinking we’re stupid, understand?”

  Marshall blinked. “I’m sorry, Johnny.”

  Beep looked nervous. If Marshall was in trouble, that probably meant he would be in trouble too.

  Johnny eyed the anxious expressions on their faces and sighed.

  “Look, guys, you’re not in trouble, okay? I just want you to be the best you can be, and that means no lazy talk, okay?”

  “Is ain’t a lazy word, Johnny?” Beep asked.

  Johnny nodded.

  Beep beamed. “Then I ain’t gonna say that no more.”

  Johnny grinned and left the kitchen shaking his head. It was time to cut his losses and end the grammar lesson, or they’d all be late.

  He scratched his chin as he paused in the hall. He had time to shave or sweep, and he opted for sweeping. He didn’t want to walk on that gritty floor again tonight, and since he drove a bulldozer for Clawson Construction, no one there cared if he had whiskers.

  By the time he was through, the boys were too. He sent them to brush their teeth and then went to look for rain gear. Marshall was outgrowing his hooded jacket. If Johnny had time this coming weekend, he’d stop by the Salvation Army resale shop and see what they had in stock.

  “Guys, hurry up!” he yelled as he tossed the jackets by their backpacks and strode across the hall and into the bathroom. He eyed their hair and grabbed a comb, yanking it through their hair just enough to give it a semblance of propriety.

  “Dang, Johnny! You messed up my ’hawk,” Marshall said as he re-combed his hair with his fingers until he had his Mohawk hairstyle b
ack the way he liked it.

  Johnny rolled his eyes and grabbed his youngest brother.

  “Stand still, Beep. I just need to get this…” Johnny stopped and frowned, then looked closer at the knot in his little brother’s hair. “What the hell is that in your hair?”

  “You cussed,” Beep muttered.

  Johnny parted the knot with the tip of the comb.

  “Is that gum? Did you go to bed with gum in your mouth again?”

  Beep shrugged.

  “Crap on a stick, boy, you aren’t gonna have a lick of hair left if you keep this up,” Johnny said and pulled a pair of scissors out of the drawer in the vanity.

  Marshall eyed the latest surgery absently, then pointed at the other bald spots near his little brother’s right ear.

  “At least it’s on the same side,” he offered.

  Johnny rolled his eyes. The kid’s head was beginning to look like he had ringworm, which would definitely set him up as a target if any of the kids noticed it.

  “Don’t let anybody pick on you,” he said.

  Marshall put his hand on Beep’s shoulder. “If they do, I’ll whup ’em,” he offered.

  “Every man has to fight his own fights,” Johnny said as he tossed the hair ball into the trash. “No more gum for you at night, bud,” he said gently and gave Beep a quick hug.

  Marshall frowned, listening as the rain began to hammer on the roof above them.

  “Oh man, it’s raining. We won’t get to go outside at recess,” he grumbled.

  “There’s always recess another day. Go get your stuff,” Johnny said. “I’ve still got to drop you off at Miss Jane’s so she can take you to school later. And don’t make her have to wait for you when school’s over. Get your butts out to the van.”

  “Okay, Johnny, we promise,” Marshall said.

  He was old enough to realize how fragile the framework of their little family really was—Beep not so much. If Miss Jane got mad at them and quit being their babysitter, then that would mess up Johnny’s job, and Johnny couldn’t lose his job, or they’d be homeless, and he didn’t want to be homeless. Daddy was in prison and wasn’t ever coming out, and Mama was dead and buried. He lived in fear of what they’d lose next.