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Bonita Bianca Colesonwould always remember Garrity County, Texas, as the place where her father had come from. Her grandfather, her great-grandfather. So many before.
Garrity County was whereshehad come from.
She was a Coleson.
One of the biggest names in medical research history for more than one hundred years.Once. Now they were just footnotes. Her father, her grandfather, even her great-grandfather and his father before him—extraordinary men who had changed the world with their medical discoveries. They’d saved countless lives.
She would always be proud of what they had done.
Her mother had been a gifted movie actress who’d retired to be with the love of her life while he changed the world. To have his children and to just help him do what he needed to do. To be a mother. She hadn’t seen that as a sacrifice, her diary had said, but as a gift. Her gift to the world.
To be amother.Well, Bonnie definitely understood that.
She was a mother ten times over now.
Her mother Maria had loved her family more than anything, until she had died when Bonnie was no more than four. Her father had remarried five years later.
Bonnie had always loved the stories of how her father had found love twice.
Romantic love didn’t seem to be in the cards for Bonita, but she had beenloved. Still was. Always would be.
Bonita smiled. She would leave her mark on the world with ten beautiful girls she loved, too. Each so precious and wonderful. She adored them all.
Her father and stepmother had been lost twenty years ago—leaving behind their four daughters. The youngest had been only five at the time. Their little Hope and Hope’s three older sisters, Marcia, Heather, and Joy, had come to Bonnie then. Bonnie had loved them, sheltered them, and provided for them, the best that she could.
Somehow, she had kept them all together.
Colesons took care of Colesons, no matter what.
Bonnie adored her younger sisters. She had never regretted giving them a home. She had fulfilled the promise she’d made her father the day Hope had been born. To always take care of her sisters. To love them. Even if he and their mother couldn’t.
Garrity had changed so much since she had last been there for their funeral twenty years ago. Then again, parts of it hadn’t. Some things were right where she remembered. Bonnie gave a laugh that was a bit too watery.
She was getting emotional again. It happened. Especially at her age. She had turned forty-nine a month earlier. Thingschangedin a woman in her forties. It was just a given.
She was a bit more emotional now than she wanted to admit.
Today was nostalgia. Grief. Memories.
There was a lot of history in Garrity.Colesonhistory. She hated seeing how much of it had been lost.
Well, she was going to change that. Now that she lived closer, she was going to take the time to record their history.
So that it could be passed on.
She had ten girls who had—or would have—families of their own. Their children and those children’s childrendeservedto know what Colesons had come before. What mark those Colesons had left on the world.
The only ones left now were Bonnie and her sisters, her nieces and nephews. Her daughters. Only Bonnie and Marcia and maybe the twins Heather and Joy were old enough to remember those who had come before.
Maybe the loss of that history was a bit Bonnie’s fault. Her two eldest sisters, identical twins, had taken off when they’d been less than sixteen. Diana and Denita hadn’t been able to get along with their father’s much younger wife. They’d been vain and spoiled and selfish. Pampered and entitled. Cruel.
Dog mean, and they’d bite when crossed.
She’d always known that. She’d been nine when they had left—and utterly terrified of them. Angela had been thirteen; she’d always protected Bonnie from them.
Angela. Her…star.
Her best friend in the entire world for so long. Bonnie would always miss Angela. Losing Angela as young as they had hurt. So much. It would forever.
