She looked out at the lake and then her eyes shifted back to Matthew and she held out her palms. In one she had a fantastic summer of wild, crazy fun with parties and sleeping late plus some pretty good sex. In the other she had cabins to clean, a steaming-hot laundry with a never-ending supply of sheets and towels, and all the book work for the place.

Then she added all the trinkets on her bookcase to the hand with the work and it won the contest—hands down. She smiled at the pun and shook her head.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“That you think money could ever buy what I’ve got here.”

“And what’s that?” he asked. “A bunch of run-down cabins. You belong in five-star hotels drinking expensive champagne with me, not this, Tawny. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch earlier, but I just can’t understand what you see in this place when I’m offering you a good time.”

“I see family that supports me and trusts me.” She stood up and, without even a glance over her shoulder, went inside the cabin, leaving him on the porch. She sat down at the desk and laid her hands on her arms. She’d made her choice, and she hadn’t even had to think about it very long. This was where she belonged.

“Choices.” She raised her head up.

Yep, just like what George Jones sang about. We live and we die by the choices we make. She remembered that old vinyl record playing on the stereo system that used to sit in the living room. Nearly every time it finished, Granny would say those same words that had run through Tawny’s mind.

“Granny, if you had anything to do with that jackass showing up here tonight, I want to thank you. It’s put everything in the right perspective.”

She eased the door open enough to see that Matthew’s car was gone. He might call now that he’d figured out where she was, but it wouldn’t end well for him because she’d made up her mind about her future. She opened the door farther and over there on the bench by the café, the bright-red flicker of a cigarette glowed in the dark. She didn’t even slow down but marched barefoot across the grass and sat down beside Zed. He took a couple of long drags on the cigarette and then put it out.

“That was Matthew. He was my boyfriend, until he let me take the blame for a bag full of drugs that he’d bought for a party he was throwing that week. I was with him when he got caught. The drugs were in my purse.”

“Kind of like the problem with Brook?”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “Only this wasn’t weed and we were both of age. We could have both been sent to prison for the amount that he had.”

“Were you going to that party?” Zed asked.

She thought her neck wouldn’t bend, but finally she nodded a second time. “But Uncle Zed, I didn’t do drugs. I drank too much and that’s not much better, but I saw too many students who were addicted, even in high school, and I didn’t ever want to look like that. Vanity kept me from messing with them, but I drank as much as Harper during the time I dated Matthew.”

“Rich feller from the looks of it,” Zed said.

“Thank goodness his family had a lot of money. They hired a fancy lawyer that got him off. I had a public defender because my mother wouldn’t foot the bill for a lawyer.”

“How’s that lucky?” Zed asked.

“Judge couldn’t give me a hard sentence when he’d just let Matt off with a warning. It was a matter of he said, she said. He said he had no idea that I was carrying drugs. I told the truth and said that I knew they were there, but they weren’t mine. I’d passed the drug test and failed the alcohol one that night. He didn’t pass either one but had very little drugs in his system. I got three months’ community service and was told I couldn’t leave Austin until I’d completed it. And I got kicked out of college,” she told him.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Zed asked.

“I didn’t want to disappoint Granny or you, Uncle Zed. I guess you’ve heard that before from my sisters, right?”

He nodded. “Don’t reckon the past matters much. Just the present and the future. What was that fancy dude wantin’?”

She held out her hands, palms up, and didn’t have a moment’s doubt about the decision she’d made. “He wanted me to go with him for a summer trip to Europe and give up what I’ve got here. I weighed both options in my hands like Granny told me to do when I was a little girl tryin’ to make a decision.”

Zed chuckled and lit up another cigarette. “I guess you won that battle, but he’s used to gettin’ what he wants. Will you win the war?”

“I can. I’ve got an army behind me.”

A puff of smoke blew out into the night air. “Family.” Zed summed it up in one word.

“That and choices. I thought of that old George Jones song about living with the choices we make. Granny used to play it a lot.”

“George Jones was her favorite.” A fancy smoke ring floated out into the air.

“That looks like a halo.” She laid her head on Zed’s shoulder.

“Halos for my angels,” he said.

“Uncle Zed, you’d better learn to blow horns, because there isn’t a single one of us deserves a halo, not even a smoke one.”

He blew another perfect one. “First one for Harper. Second one for Dana. And this one is for you.” The third one drifted away from them. “Angels aren’t always perfect. You’ve come a long way, girl.” Zed patted her knee.