“So you got drunk,” she said. “Is that the reason they sent you home? Over one night of drinking?”

“No.” He cleared his throat and went on to say, “I was hungover the next morning when my team got a call to go out to one of the far buildings on the base. Someone had called in a bomb threat. They left me on my bunk with a trash can beside me and told my commander that I had the flu.” His voice sounded hollow in his own ears. “They took another bomb tech along, and . . .” He stopped to swallow the lump in his throat. “And, well”—he took a deep breath—“to make a long story short, it wasn’t just a threat, and the guy they took with them had evidently never dealt with a device like that.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“My entire team, plus a ’cruit that had just arrived the day before, were killed,” he whispered. “John Matthews,” he said, and tears began to flow down his cheeks. “Chris Jones.” The first sob caught in his throat. “Creed Dawson.” He grabbed a tissue. “Bobby Joe Daniels and Wade Beaudreaux. I didn’t even know the new guy’s name until later, when I read about the private memorial that was held on the base.”

“And you blame yourself?” Ginger took the tissue from him and wiped his face with it. Then she tilted up his chin and looked him right in the eyes. “Don’t punish yourself.”

“Who else is there to blame or to punish?” he asked.

“Way I look at things is that everything happens for a reason. Evidently God has a purpose for you to fulfill on this earth before He takes you on to heaven to be with your granny. He’s not obligated to tell us His plans, but we should respect them.” She didn’t blink or look away.

“You really believe that?” he asked.

“I went to church with the cook sometimes, or to just whichever one was open when I left work.” She gave a brief nod. “I kind of lost my faith for a while, and I’m still not real sure what God’s plan is for me, but I do know that it wasn’t your fault that all your buddies were killed. Did you go to any of the memorials?”

He shut his eyes. “I was in the hospital at the time with what they said was the worst case of depression they’d ever seen. I was almost catatonic. I remember wishing that I could just stop breathing, but my body wouldn’t let me. I killed those men, Ginger, just as surely as if I’d executed them one by one with my rifle.”

She slapped him on the thigh. “No, you did not. Whoever the hell that terrorist was that planted that bomb killed them. You’ve got to get that shit out of your head, Sloan. Work it out with sweat. Cry it out with tears. But get it out however you can, because it’s going to wind up eating away at you if you don’t.”

“How’d you get to be so smart?” he asked.

“Hard living,” she answered without hesitation. “At least you had someone here to take you in and love you when they sent you home. When I finished high school two years ago this month, I had no one and no place, except a shelter that the social worker recommended.”

“But you never killed your best friends, did you?” he asked.

“No, but if I’d had a shotgun, I might have blown holes in three guys one night when Lucas wanted me to take two of his buddies to the bedroom. They offered to give him fifty bucks if he’d make me have sex with them. They even offered to let him join in the fun,” she said.

“Holy shit,” Sloan said. “What did you do?”

“I left the apartment and didn’t come home until the next day. That’s when I found out that Lucas was dead, and I didn’t even care. I felt guilty for not having any emotion other than relief, but it was what it was. I had no idea that I was probably six weeks pregnant when that happened,” she said.

Sloan took her small hand in his. “I guess we’ve both lived through some rough times.”

“Yes, we have, and it’s made us tough enough to face whatever lies ahead of us,” she said. “Maybe God or Fate or Destiny put us here in this place at this time so we could help each other make peace with the past.”

“I like that idea.” He smiled.

“Me too,” she said. “Now I reckon I should be goin’ on back to the Banty House. The sisters will be gettin’ worried.”

Thunder sounded like it rolled right over the top of the house.

“Let me drive you home,” Sloan said. “You’re liable to get wet if you walk.”

“Thank you.” Her smile lit up the whole room. “I will surely take you up on that.”

He pulled her up by the hand and kept it in his the whole way outside and across the yard to his truck. She didn’t resist, and that simple little fact, and knowing that she was going to stay in Rooster for a little longer, brought him so much comfort that mere words couldn’t have begun to describe the feeling.

Chapter Ten

There was an envelope lying on Ginger’s plate at the breakfast table on Friday morning. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Your paycheck for the past week,” Betsy said. “We all get paid on Friday. Our CPA takes care of the payroll and puts ours directly into our individual bank accounts. If you want, we can have Sloan drive you into town this afternoon, and you can start a bank account with yours. After you do that, we can have Suzanne do a direct deposit for you, too.”

“Are you serious?” Ginger asked when she peeked inside the envelope. “This is more money than I made in two weeks at the café, and I had to pay rent and utilities and buy groceries.” She had always held her breath and hoped that she could stretch each check from one payday to the next. There had certainly never been enough money to even think about starting a bank account.

“Well, do you want to start an account?” Connie asked.

“Yes,” Ginger said, nodding her head the whole time. “Yes, I do. I wouldn’t even know what to do with all this money except to save it up so I can buy what the baby needs.”

“All right, then. As soon as Sloan gets through taking care of the car, he can drive you into Hondo to our bank and help you get things done. And while you’re in town you can run by the store and pick up a few things that I forgot yesterday,” Betsy said. “I was so excited about seeing the baby like we got to do that I plumb forgot to get some vanilla extract, and I need another twenty pounds of sugar for blackberry jam this week.”

“Just make a list, and I’ll be glad to get whatever you need.” The thought that went through Ginger’s mind was that she could pack her bag and get all the way to California with the money she already had and there would be enough left to stay in a cheap motel until she could find a job. She thought about it for a split second before she shook the crazy notion from her head. Next week, she’d have a paycheck just like this one, and by the time the baby came, she’d have even more. For the first time in her life, she’d have money in the bank. She couldn’t leave behind a deal like this, not even to dip her toes in the ocean.

When breakfast was over, the table cleared, and the dishes done, she and Betsy put a turkey in the oven for the noon meal. In this part of Texas, that was dinner and the evening meal was called supper. Ginger had been in one upscale foster home where the meals were called lunch and dinner and some not nearly as fancy where they were dinner and supper. Lucas used the terms “lunch” and “dinner” and looked down his nose on anyone who did differently.

“What on earth are four people going to do with a whole turkey?” Ginger shook her head to get rid of the vision of Lucas’s face when he made snide remarks about the people he considered beneath him and his family.

“We eat what we want, and then, when you get back from town, we’ll pick all the meat off the bones, make a couple of turkey potpies for the freezer, and maybe if there’s enough left, we’ll have turkey-salad sandwiches for supper tonight,” Betsy said. “That way if we get a call that someone in Rooster is sick or has died, all we have to do is pop a potpie in the oven and we’re good to go.”

“To go where?” Ginger started taking the leaves off the ends of strawberries.

“Honey, if someone dies, we take food to the house where the family is gathering. If someone is sick, then they probably ain’t feelin’ like cookin’ for the family, so we do the same,” Betsy explained.

“That’s so sweet.” Ginger thought she might never leave this place if all the folks were that kind. She cocked her head to one side. “Who’s whistling?”

Betsy cupped a hand around her ear and slowly made her way to the door leading out to the garage. “That’s not Kate’s whistling. Hers is higher pitched and not nearly as happy.” She picked up a glass from the counter, put the top of it against the door, and placed her ear against the bottom.

“What the hell are you doin’?” Kate asked as she opened the basement doors. Alcohol fumes mixed with a faint hint of something minty followed her into the kitchen.