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Daddy grabbed her hand and towed her around the truck. “Get in.”
Gerty did, and Daddy slammed her door. She seethed, her chest rising and falling too fast. She didn’t want to cry again, and she wouldn’t. Not here. Not where James could remotely see her.
He stayed on his porch while Daddy got behind the wheel and drove away, kicking up dust into the still, dry air. Gerty refused to look anywhere but out the windshield until Daddy found the highway again, and then her shoulders fell.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Had I known….”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Mom said from the front seat. “You do not get to take on his actions.” She turned and glared at Gerty. “You will not.”
Gerty nodded too, softening even more. She didn’t cry, surprisingly, but she did turn to look out her window. Daddy increased the volume on the radio slightly, and he drove them toward her grandparents’ house.
Gerty closed her eyes and prayed, feeling like she’d never prayed harder than she was in that moment.
I didn’t hit him with that post, Lord, but what am I supposed to do now?
No immediate answer came, and Gerty didn’t expect it to. God didn’t speak to her like that, though she wished He would. He gave her bite-sized pieces of thoughts, usually in a very quiet voice, and sometimes spoken through someone else in her life.
I want to do the right thing. What is the right thing to do?
This time, the words,Start overcame to her mind, and she opened her eyes and turned back to her mother. “Mom,” she said. “Will you make a list for me?”
“Gerty-girl, you know there’s nothing I like more than lists.” She bent to get a notebook out of her purse, and Gerty hadn’t even doubted that her mother would have one.
“I need a new bed,” Gerty said. “Sheets, and this time, I want the puffiest comforter in the world.”
“Remember when I got you that butter-yellow one?” Daddy asked, his eyes kind and filled with hope as he looked at her in the rear-view mirror.
She gave him a smile, and that felt like a miracle to her. “Yeah, but I want it to be twice as puffy as that.”
“Oh, boy.” Daddy chuckled, further lightening the mood.
“And blue,” Gerty said. “My favorite color is blue.”
“Blue comforter,” Mom said. “Sheets, towels, dishes.” She listed the items off one by one as she wrote them in her notebook.
“I need hangers,” Gerty added. “And a dresser and a nightstand.”
“We’ll buy it all,” Daddy said.
“No,” Gerty said as the sign for Saffron Hills came into view. “Grams gave me a bunch of money the last time I was here. Or she has an account for me. Some of Momma’s money or something.”
“What?” Daddy asked, his eyes creased with worry now. “Carrie can’t do that. They barely have enough.”
“They have plenty,” Gerty said. “Gramps’s investments kicked up a notch this year. They said it would’ve been Momma’s inheritance, and they wanted to give it to me.”
Daddy pressed his lips together, and Gerty knew he’d bring it up with them. She didn’t mind. If she couldn’t afford everything, maybe she’d get some help from her parents. Or maybe she’d just keep working and saving, one day at a time, to rebuild her life.
That’s the right thing to do, she thought. Rebuild her life one day at a time, and while James hadn’t known it when he’d stolen everything out of her storage unit, he’d cleared the way for her to do exactly that.
And Gerty was going to do it.
She’d start with a brand new foundation, at a brand new farm—her farm. And if she and Mike could find a way to merge his city life with her country life, perhaps she’d have found her happily-ever-after where she’d least expected it—on the farm she’d never wanted to move to in the first place.
27
Boone couldn’t seem to let go of his mother-in-law. His relationships always felt so complicated, but just because Nikki had died over two decades ago didn’t mean he could just leave behind Carrie.
He’d loved her like his own mother, because in a lot of ways she’d functioned as his mom. He’d never really had one of those to emulate, and he’d had to look to other women in his life for that example. Carrie had been the perfect addition to his life when he’d needed her.
