Sugarplum Homecoming. Линда Гуднайт

school and asked me all those questions about you and Mama and where we lived. I was real scared. I thought I might never see you again.”

      Lana reached across the console to pat her niece’s knee, taking note that Sydney didn’t worry about the loss of her birth mother. She worried about losing the aunt who’d raised her. “I know, baby. That’s why we’re here now. Nobody is going to take you away. Not ever.”

      “You won’t let them, will you?”

      “No.” Not as long as I have breath in my body and legs that can run.

      Because of Tess’s constant run-ins with the law, the child protective agency had investigated Sydney’s living situation. The interview at school had been a warning to Lana that she might lose Sydney if she didn’t take action. So she had. With her own less-than-stellar background, she feared social services would reject her as well as Tess—the reasons she and Sydney had come to Whisper Falls, the one place Lana had never wanted to see again.

      “I didn’t mean to tell my teacher about living in the car. It just kind of slipped out when she asked about making a fire escape plan for our house.”

      “It’s okay. You’re safe. We’re going to have a good, good life in Whisper Falls.” No matter what it takes.

      “Are we having Christmas here?”

      “Christmas?” Lana said, laughing softly. “We’re barely into November.”

      “But look.” Sydney’s nail-gnawed fingertip pecked against the passenger window.

      City workers high on the “cherry picker” lifts normally used to change streetlights, strung Christmas decorations across the short five-block main street. Christmas. She was always amazed how quickly the holiday arrived once October slipped away. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, Christmas, and winter, would be upon them before she could get the house in shape.

      Unless she enlisted considerable assistance.

      Her thoughts flashed to Davis Turner. He’d actually made her feel welcome as if her ugly reputation wasn’t dancing around inside his head. As if she would be accepted in her old hometown.

      He’d given her hope.

      With Sydney jabbering about Christmas and wondering if Paige would be in her class at school, Lana drove through town, turning down a side street and into a residential area that led to the school. A long, low, redbrick complex of buildings and facilities, the school had grown considerably since her days of skipping class to smoke in the gym locker room.

      But Jesus had wiped her slate clean. All she had to do was convince the rest of the world she’d changed.

      Tall order.

      She parked the car and went inside the elementary school, holding Sydney’s hand. Lana’s own palm sweated, though the temperature wasn’t overly warm as they stepped through the door marked Principal. Memories flashed. Detentions, threats, suspensions. Her own smirks and bad attitude. Not in this particular office, but in others like it.

      Lord, she’d been a nightmare.

      “May I help you?”

      The woman behind the reception desk looked familiar. Lana glanced at the nameplate. Wendy Begley.

      Choosing her words carefully, Lana said, “My little girl needs to enroll in third grade.”

      Wendy turned her attention to Sydney with a smile. “What’s your name, honey?”

      “Sydney Ross, ma’am. Are you the principal?”

      “No, honey. The principal is up in the high school right now. I’m the secretary.” Her eyes lifted to Lana. “I thought I recognized you. Lana Ross, right? Or is it Tess?”

      “Lana.”

      “I don’t know if you remember me. I was a few years behind you in school but I remember you and your sister, the infamous Ross girls.” She gave a soft chuckle that held no rancor. “I used to be Wendy Westerfeld. Married Doug Begley. You remember him, don’t you? His daddy owned the car wash. We have it now that Gordon retired.”

      “Oh, yes, of course.” Lana did her best to appear bland and polite but inwardly she cringed. She remembered Doug all right. He’d been a party to a few of her self-destructive moments. “Do we need to fill out some paperwork to get Sydney enrolled?”

      “Do you have her records from the other school?”

      “Uh, no. We, uh, I—homeschooled her. We moved around a lot with my job.” Liar, liar. Forgive me, God. “I have her shot record and birth certificate, though.”

      Before the other woman could inquire more deeply, Lana handed over the records.

      Wendy took the documents to a file cabinet where she extracted a folder and a packet of papers. “Here is the enrollment packet. The paperwork is lengthy so you can take the whole packet home if you’d like and send it back with Sydney tomorrow.”

      Lana accepted the thick stack, thankful for the relaxed manner of a small-town school. Trusting and nice, and oh, she wanted to be worthy of both those things. “Sounds good. Thank you.”

      “All I need today is this top form of contact info, emergency numbers, that kind of thing. Will she be riding the bus?”

      “We live in town. I’ll drive her.”

      Wendy made a notation on the form. “Cafeteria or bringing her lunch?”

      “Cafeteria for now. How much money does she need?”

      Wendy named the amount and Lana paid for the week, relieved that the enrollment was going so well. She held her breath while the secretary made a copy of Sydney’s birth certificate without so much as a glance at the parent’s name and slid the copy into a folder.

      One hurdle down.

      Afterward, Wendy walked them down a long hallway decorated in happy primary colors and motivational bulletin boards to one of the third-grade classrooms to meet Sydney’s new teacher.

      With a final hug, Sydney hitched her Hello Kitty backpack and disappeared into the classroom. As the frosty-haired teacher closed the door, Wendy said, “Mrs. Pierce is a wonderful veteran teacher. Sydney will love her class.”

      “She’s kind of shy.”

      “She’ll be fine.”

      Lana’s boot heels tapped against the white tile floor as they headed back toward the office. “You have children?”

      “Four of the little boogers. Two, six, eight and ten.” Wendy laughed. “That adorable two-year-old snuck up on us.”

      Lana laughed, too, relieved and grateful to Wendy Begley for her easy, welcoming demeanor. The school had chosen their secretary well.

      She was beginning to think her return to Whisper Falls would not be as difficult as she’d imagined when another woman stepped into the office.

      “Here’s our principal now,” Wendy said as she regained her desk chair. “Ms. Chester, do you remember Lana Ross? She just enrolled her daughter in third grade.”

      “Lana,” the woman said coolly, slowly turning on black, shiny pumps, her suit the color of eggplant and her eyes as frosty as January. “How...interesting to see you again. What brings you back to this dull little mountain town?”

      Lana’s confidence, buoyed first by Davis’s kindness and then Wendy’s, now wilted like a daisy in the snow. She barely remembered this woman but clearly she’d been judged and found wanting.

      The trouble was, she couldn’t argue. She was as guilty as charged.

      * * *

      Lana left the school feeling lower than a snake’s belly. Her fingers itched for her guitar and a chance to let the music melt away the disquiet in her chest. But she couldn’t today. Today she had her first face-to-face