“Can you keep a secret?” asked Ginger, sitting down in the chair beside her grandmother and grinning.
“You know . . . I can.”
She tugged her grandmother’s hand from her lap and embraced it between hers to keep it from shaking. “We kissed, Gran! Cain kissed me.”
“Oh, my!” she gasped.
“My first kiss,” sighed Ginger, beaming.
“And? How . . . was it?”
“Heaven,” said Ginger, releasing her grandmother’s hand gently and sitting back dramatically in her rocker. “Pure heaven.”
“So it’s Cain . . . is it?”
“Always, Gran. It was always Cain,” said Ginger softly.
“Why?” asked her grandmother, a flicker of worry flaring in her eyes, “when Josiah . . . is so . . . good to . . . you?”
A pang of guilt made Ginger frown for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t love Woodman.”
“So you . . . love them . . . both?”
“Of course,” said Ginger. “Just in different ways.”
“Cain sets . . . your blood . . . on fire.”
Ginger blushed, looking up to meet her grandmother’s eyes. “He does.”
“And Woodman?”
Ginger covered her heart with one palm. “He’s . . . he’s . . .”
“Your heart?” asked Gran hopefully, flicking her blue eyes to Ginger’s hand.
“My friend.”
During the lonely years when Ginger was homeschooled, her grandmother had become her most trusted confidante, her most intimate friend. She didn’t shy away from any conversation topic with Gran, but she also knew of Gran’s strong preference for Woodman over Cain.
“Gran,” she said evenly, “I can’t make myself feel somethin’ that just isn’t there.”
Her grandmother nodded, forcing a smile that looked lopsided. “Fair ’nough.”
Again the flicker of worry in her grandmother’s eyes.
Again Ginger ignored it, hopping up to plug in her rollers on the kitchen counter.
“Can you believe he’s takin’ me to the dance tonight?” called Ginger from the kitchen. “It’s like a dream come true!”
She heard her grandmother grumble something unintelligible, but she didn’t ask Gran to repeat herself, feeling defensive on Cain’s behalf. It made her crazy that no one seemed to see the good in Cain—the sense of adventure, the humor, the sparkle, the swagger. Ginger loved these things about him, but everyone else—her parents, her gran, Woodman, his parents, even Cain’s own father—everyone seemed to disapprove of Cain. And she hated it because she found so much to love.
“Always hoped . . .”
“Hoped . . . what?” asked Gran as Ginger reappeared in the porch doorway.
She shrugged. “That he’d see me. You know, not a little sister or a childhood friend or his boss’s daughter. But me.”
“And you . . . think he’s . . . seein’ you now?”
Ginger nodded. “Of course. We kissed.”
Her grandmother’s lips twitched, and Ginger couldn’t tell if it was the Parkinson’s or her grandmother’s censure of Cain. Deciding it was the latter, she crossed her arms over her chest in resentment.
“Why can’t you like him?” she burst out. “Why can’t anyone like him?”
“Not ’bout . . . likin’ him . . . doll baby. It’s ’bout whe-ther . . . or not . . . he’s good for you.”
“He is! I want him. I’ve always wanted him. How could it be bad to finally have what I’ve always wanted? Why can’t you be happy for me?”
Her grandmother nailed Ginger with her eyes, which were suddenly as sharp and focused as they’d been two years ago. Gran’s body quieted as though on command, and her voice was clear and firm when she said, “I don’t trust him.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why not? What’s he ever done?”
“Aside from . . . the arrests and . . . suspensions? Nothin’,” her grandmother answered evenly, the hand resting on the rocker arm, twitching. “Nothin’. That’s the . . . problem.”
“How? He’s done nothin’ wrong, but still you—”
“Doll baby . . . he ain’t done . . . nothin’ right . . . either.” Her grandmother sighed, the worry she’d managed to control flooding her eyes. “You know as . . . well as anyone . . . he’s a rascal . . . and he’s angry. I don’t know . . . that he’s got . . . a loyal bone . . . in his body. And his . . . reputation is . . .” She raised an eyebrow. “. . . reckless . . . at best.”
Ginger stared at her grandmother, the chill of her reproof seeping into Ginger’s skin like ice and making her cold and lonesome. She searched for memories of Cain, for