Ginger shook her head. This was all surreal. She would have death certificates and ashes. She might have been an orphan, but now she’d have parents, even if they had been dead for so long. “Their ashes,” she whispered, breaking into sobs.

The other two sisters gathered around her like mother hens. Betsy was closest, so she wrapped her up in her arms, and Ginger didn’t even care that she smelled like a van from the 1970s. Kate kissed her on the cheek, with a waft of blackberry moonshine. It didn’t matter. Connie made it a four-way hug, and Sloan’s words came back to Ginger about her being their sneaky child.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t even know my parents, but it’s like they just died yesterday, and it hit me hard.”

“Darlin’, you can’t mourn for something you never knew,” Kate said. “You are grieving for what you wanted them to be, and that’s all right. Just let it all out. When they get here, we’ll bury them in the Cottonwood Cemetery and get a couple of memorial headstones so you can visit them from time to time.”

“Can you bury ashes?” Ginger dried her eyes on the tail of her T-shirt.

“Of course you can,” Connie reassured her.

“I just want my baby to know that she had grandparents.” Ginger hiccuped.

“Honey, that sweet child will have three grannies who love her very much,” Betsy said.

That brought on more sobs. “I can’t ever repay y’all for giving me a home and . . .” Ginger laid her head on Betsy’s shoulder, and the weeping began all over again. The sisters cried right along with her.

Chapter Seventeen

Rain poured out of dark clouds that hovered overhead when Sloan reached Randlett on Friday afternoon. His goal was to visit all his teammates’ graves to put a measure of closure to the guilt he’d been carrying around with him for so long. So far he’d had fairly good experiences, but he wondered if the dark clouds were an omen.

He drove through the cemetery and located John Matthews’s gravesite, but there was no way in the pouring-down rain that he could get out of the truck and lay a hand on it the way he’d done the others. Instead, he sat in his vehicle and thought about all the times John had told them he’d sell one of his kidneys for a good old Oklahoma rainstorm. Of all the things he’d missed when they were in Kuwait, he’d said that the smell of rain topped the list.

Sloan rolled down the window just enough to get a whiff and said, “I miss you, my friend. I hope, wherever you are, that you’re enjoyin’ this rainstorm. I’d like to say that I ordered it up special just for you, but I can’t take the credit.” The driving rain blew into the truck and got his shoulder wet, but he didn’t care. Getting wet was well worth the price of saying a final goodbye to his old friend.

According to the map on his phone, it was only twenty-five miles to the hotel where he had reservations in Wichita Falls, Texas. That should have taken less than thirty minutes, but with the rain slowing the traffic down, it took him an hour to get to the hotel. Poor old Tinker whined the last ten minutes and squirmed over there in the passenger’s seat. Sloan snapped the leash onto his collar and dreaded going out into the rain to the section marked for dogs, but Tinker took care of that problem in a hurry. He hiked his leg on the back tire of the truck, and Sloan could’ve sworn that the dog let out a long sigh when he finished his job.

He left Tinker in the truck and got checked in. Then he went back out to drive the truck around to the nearest entrance to his room. As luck would have it, there was no awning over that door, so he and the dog both got soaked again going from the vehicle into the hotel. Sloan was a little jealous of the dog when he shook from his head all the way to the tip of his tail in the hallway, slinging water everywhere. He had to wait until he was in the room to strip out of his own wet clothing.

As soon as he’d changed into dry pajama pants and a T-shirt, he sent a text to Ginger asking if she wanted to do some FaceTime with him. In seconds she called back, and he could see her bright smile right there on the screen.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said.

“I’m glad you think so. I see more life in your eyes than when you left,” she told him.

“Oh, really? Want to tell me why you think that?” He knew that his heart had made peace with what happened, but what did that have to do with his eyes?

“When I first met you, there was a curtain over your eyes,” she said. “You do know that the eyes are the windows to your soul, right?”

“Seems like I heard that somewhere.” He grinned.

“So that meant you were holding sadness inside you that you didn’t want anyone to see. Every so often a shimmer of light would come through, kind of like opening the curtains in a big auditorium just a crack. Then it would go away, but now it’s like I can see the real Sloan Baker, and that’s real nice,” she told him.

“My granny used to talk about old souls,” he said. “I think you must be one of those to be able to see and understand things the way you do.”

“I read lots of self-help and psychology books when I was in high school. I so wanted to understand why my parents were the way they were and how it affected me,” she said. “And speaking of parents . . .” She told him about the ashes that would be arriving in a couple of days.

“You do know that if you bury your folks in the Cottonwood Cemetery, it means you’re probably going to be staying in Rooster.” He got up and moved from the chair to the bed, where he could stretch out his legs.

“I’ve thought about that.” Her expression changed from cheery to serious. “I love it here at the Banty House, and I love the ladies so much, but I think it would be best if I moved out when I can. Not moved on. I’ve figured out that someday I can take my daughter to visit the ocean and see other places, but she needs to have a permanent place to call home. And since my parents’ ashes are coming here and the ladies have offered me space to put them in the Cottonwood Cemetery”—she paused—“I want to be near them even though I never knew them. I want my child to know that she had grandparents, no matter what kind of folks they were.”

“Where would you move to if you did move out away from the Banty House?” he asked.

“Close by so all y’all can still be a part of my life,” she answered. “I would love to work for the ladies forever if they want me to. I like it here.” He could tell by her expression that she was struggling for words to explain the way she felt. “They want this baby to be their grandchild, and it would be ideal to be able to bring her to work with me every day.”

“But they’re overpowering sometimes, right?” he asked.

“I’d never talk about them behind their backs.” She sighed. “I just want to be the mother the baby needs me to be. I’m fine with them seeing her all the time, and even spoiling her.”

“I understand completely.” Sloan nodded. “That’s what my mama said when Granny kept me so much. Even when she was gone, she was the mother, and my granny pretty much abided by her rules.”

“So it’s not ugly of me to want to live somewhere other than the Banty House?” she asked.

“Not at all, and don’t worry—the sisters will understand,” he assured her.

“I don’t want them to think that I don’t want to raise my daughter here because it used to be a brothel. Or because”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“because there’s moonshine and pot in the place.”

“Don’t fret about it. It’ll all work out, just like this trip has worked out for me,” Sloan said. “We’ll get through it together. I’m here for you.”

“You can’t know what that means to me,” she told him.

“Right back at you. You’ve helped me through so much, too, you know.”

“I’m here for you, too, Sloan.” Hetty jumped up into her lap and laid a paw on the phone screen. “Looks like she wants to say hello.”

“Where’s Magic?”

“Right here beside me.” She turned the phone so he could see the white cat curled up in a ball right next to her.

“Where’s the ladies tonight?” he asked.

“They’ve already gone upstairs. I’m putting it off. It’s gettin’ harder and harder to lug this pregnant belly up the steps,” she answered.

“I’ve got a spare bedroom,” he said. “My house is small, but you could always move in with me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she laughed and then got serious. “Seriously, thank you for the offer. Someday I want a house like yours—a small, cozy place with pictures of family all around me.”

“Even if it’s right next door to a cemetery?” he asked.

“That makes it even better if I bury my folks there. Your grandparents and parents are right across the fence, too,” she answered.

All the shackles around his soul fell away when she said that. The long, dark tunnel was behind him, and he stepped out into a light so bright that it was almost blinding. That cold rain was beating on the hotel window didn’t matter one iota. Sloan Baker’s heart and soul were basking in sunshine.