A Mother's Homecoming. Tanya Michaels

back tomorrow sometime,” Violet offered.

      Pam bit her lip. “Could you maybe recommend a good place for me to stay the night?” Should she admit what kind of budget she was on? No doubt that would elicit more pity.

      “A couple of those big hotel chains have places out by the highway.”

      “I was thinking more … quaint.”

      “Well, Trudy rents rooms, by the night or longer, in that faux mansion of hers on Meadowberry. She’s probably got a couple of vacancies. Although …”

      “Although what?” Pam prompted reluctantly. From the way Violet was squirming in her seat, it couldn’t be good.

      “Excuse me, ladies.” Helen reached between them to set down two steaming plates of food. Too bad Pam had entirely lost her appetite. “Can I get y’all anything else?”

      Pam shook her head mutely, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She tried to take comfort in the fact that no matter what Violet’s next words were, they could hardly compare to the shocking news of Mae’s death.

      When the waitress bustled off, Violet attempted an unconvincing smile. “Mmm. Nothing like Granny K’s home cookin’, is there?”

      “Before we were interrupted, you were going to tell me something?”

      Violet toyed with the lacy collar on her dress. “Now, I don’t want to speak out of turn—Cora always scolds about me being a gossip—but it’s no secret that you and Nick Shepard used to—”

      “Nick?” The world tilted with nauseating speed, the way it had on mornings she’d tried to stand up too fast with a hangover. “What about him?”

      “He lives on Meadowberry, too. Kind of across the street from Trudy. With his daughter.”

      “F-Faith is in town?” Nothing was right in the universe. Her mother was suddenly unexpectedly gone, and her daughter—who had supposedly relocated to North Carolina—was here? I have no right to be within ten counties of that poor kid. If you looked up unfit in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Pam. It seemed to be a female family legacy, one she had vowed would stop with her.

      Belatedly, the other half of what Violet said clicked. Tiny black spots obscured Pam’s vision as the blood drained from her face.

      Nick was in Mimosa.

       Chapter Two

      If this evening was a sign of what the teenage years were going to be like, Nick Shepard should go out right now and buy up the pharmacy’s aspirin supply. Maybe he could get some kind of bulk discount. He’d have to drag his mutinous twelve-and-a-half-year-old daughter along with him to the store rather than leave her here because apparently she couldn’t be trusted.

      He and Faith were currently having dinner, seated side by side on high-backed stools at the breakfast bar—a habit that drove his mother crazy. “You have a perfectly nice kitchen table, Nicholas,” his mother would say. “I don’t understand why you insist on eating at the counter as if this were some low-budget diner.” For once, he found himself wishing that they were at the table. If Faith were sitting across from him, it might be easier to read what was going on in that tween brain of hers.

      As it was, she kept her head bent over the plate. She scraped her fork across the ceramic at discordant intervals but didn’t actually eat anything. Her dark hair—the only visible trait she’d inherited from him—hung down, obscuring her features and shutting him out.

      They’d always been so close, but lately …

      He sighed, determined to try again. “Can you explain to me, rationally, why you’re the one who’s angry? You’re a good kid, so you know what you did was wrong and that grounding you for the upcoming weekend is probably less than you deserve. Your grandmom and aunt Leigh already think I’m too soft on you.”

      From behind the curtain of Faith’s wavy hair, he could swear he actually heard her eyes roll.

      “Why can’t they just butt out?” she grumbled.

      He occasionally had that same thought. But then he remembered that, technically, he’d blown two marriages and his daughter needed some female influence in her life to counterbalance the rough-edged construction workers Nick employed. “If you want them to interfere less,” he suggested, “stop proving them right!”

      “You act like I got caught running a meth lab. I missed one lousy class.”

      “A math class! I thought you wanted to take advanced math courses when you get to high school.” He would like to claim that her skill with arithmetic came from him, but truthfully, it dovetailed with her innate gift for music—rhythm and frequency and pattern. When she sang, it was as if he were being haunted by her mother.

      Pamela Jo might not be dead, but she was definitely the ghost of his past.

      “It’s only the second week of school, Dad. Everything’s review right now. I didn’t miss anything important.” Suddenly Faith flipped her hair back, meeting his eyes and changing strategy. “Besides, you’ve always taught me the importance of loyalty and being a good friend. Morgan really needed to talk. She was so upset, that’s why I bailed.”

      At the mention of Faith’s boy-crazy best friend, Nick fought the urge to gnash his teeth. The girls weren’t even in high school yet and Morgan was already dating. At the Fourth of July cookout, he’d caught Morgan in his backyard making out with some teenage punk who should have been old enough to know better. God knew what kind of trouble Morgan would get into by graduation.

      Hypocrite. He knew what kind of trouble he’d been into at that age. Which was all the more reason why he wanted Faith to expand her circle of friends.

      “There’s a difference between wanting to help someone and letting them drag you down with them,” he said. “If you skipped class every time Morgan was upset over a boy, you’d flunk out by Christmas.”

      “What a jerky thing to say!”

      Jerky, perhaps, but not untrue. “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to your father. If—”

      When the phone rang, he wasn’t sure exactly which of them was being saved by the bell. He pointed to her plate while he stood to check caller ID. “Eat. We’ll discuss this later. After your homework and a written apology to your math teacher.”

      If that was Morgan on the other end of that phone, she was in for a rude awakening. But no. Ashford, Leigh. It was his sister calling. Had she heard about Faith’s trip to the principal’s office today? Possibly. Leigh’s husband taught eighth grade science at the middle school.

      He stifled a sigh. “Hello?”

      “Hey, Nicky.”

      Nicky? It was a childhood nickname, used now only when she was deeply concerned. He’d heard it a lot after the divorce. How you hanging in there, Nicky? You’re doing the right thing by moving back home, Nicky. Granted, he was having a difficult afternoon, but Faith had missed class—it wasn’t as if she’d set the school on fire.

      “Hey, sis.” He carried the cordless phone toward the living room. Call it male pride, but if his kid sister was about to lecture him on his parenting deficiencies, he didn’t want to chance Faith overhearing. Halfway out of the kitchen, he circled back to collect Faith’s cell phone off the island, throwing her a pointed look as he did so. Somehow the phone that had originally been purchased “for emergencies” sent and received an awful lot of texts.

      “I thought you might need to talk,” Leigh said hesitantly.

      He frowned. It was highly unlike Leigh to be tentative, especially where Faith was concerned. Normally the women in his family lobbed their unsolicited opinions at him with all the subtlety of grenades.

      “To tell the truth,” he said, “I’m not much of a conversationalist