such old friends and all, I told Sophie you’d swing by on your way home from work tonight to see him. You get off at eight, right?”
“Eight. Right,” she repeated dumbly, her mind still whirling, her eyes burning with tears as she recalled the last time she saw Cain. She blinked to keep the painful memories at bay, angry that the mere mention of his name could have such a profound effect on her after all this time.
“So . . . you will?”
“I will,” she said. “Wait. Will what?”
“Land’s sake, Virginia Laire! You’re cotton-headed today.” Her mother paused, lowering her voice to a sorority sister–style purr. “Or maybe just excited to see your beau.”
“My . . .” Whatever trance she was in was quickly mitigated by her mother’s suggestion. “Woodman isn’t my beau, Momma. We’re friends.”
“He writes you once a week, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you mailin’ your letters back to him. And every time he’s home on leave, he’s takin’ you to the movies or for a bite at the club. You’re heaven together, Ginger.”
“Friends, Momma.”
“Your daddy was my friend too,” she said in a singsong, all-knowing voice. “But I also knew a good thing when it walked into my life, and Ranger McHuid was every bit as good a thing as Josiah Asher Woodman. You mark my words, daughter.”
Ugh. When her mother started calling her “daughter,” her feathers were getting ruffled, and Ginger would just as soon keep the peace.
“I love Woodman,” she said gently. “You know that, Momma, but I just don’t—”
“Love is love is love,” said her mother quickly. “You love him. That’s all that matters. Don’t forget to stop by after work and welcome him home, now.”
“Momma? Momma! We’re not . . . I don’t see him like—”
But the dial tone humming in her ear told her that Miz Magnolia McHuid had already hung up the phone.
Ginger took a deep breath before turning around and handing the receiver to Tanya.
“Everythin’ okay, honey?”
Ginger stared at Tanya’s perky smile and nodded. Then she headed to the nearest ladies’ room and promptly tossed her cookies.
***
An hour later Ginger pulled into the circular driveway at Belle Royale, cutting the engine of her white SUV and looking up at the grand old plantation house, second only to her parents’ in Apple Valley. Flipping down the visor mirror, she freshened up her lip gloss and took a minute to compose herself before ringing the doorbell. If Cain was staying here tonight and she had to see him, she had decided, she’d be polite, but she refused to be warm.
“I’ll shake his hand, and then I’ll give all my attention to Woodman,” she whispered to her reflection, nodding her head with purpose.
But her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, and her hands were all sweaty. And her reaction had nothing whatsoever to do with Woodman.
While she didn’t regret kissing Woodman at the homecoming dance three years ago, the reality was that, as much as she wanted to have romantic feelings for Woodman, she didn’t. She loved exchanging letters with him while he was away and spending time with him when he was home on leave, but the few kisses they’d shared in the past three years were . . . lackluster. And when she compared any of them—or all of them together, for that matter—with the one kiss she’d shared with Cain, they paled to almost nothing.
She did truly love Woodman, though. She looked forward to his visits home and loved being his date to the movies or out to dinner. Woodman was handsome and kind, and she felt like a queen on his arm. It wasn’t a mystery how he felt about her—his eyes reaffirmed everything she’d always known. And while she felt an increasing pressure to return his feelings since she’d graduated from high school, last June, he didn’t demand or force anything from her, which had allowed them to remain best friends who occasionally kissed. Mostly she just hoped it could remain that way indefinitely until they both found someone who set their souls on fire.
But who knows? thought Ginger, hopeful and doubtful at once. Maybe someday your feelings for Woodman will change and grow into the sort of love he wants from you.
After all, her feelings about Cain had certainly changed.
Once upon a time, he had been a god in her world, a bad boy she was sure she could reform with the power of her love for him. Now? He was a sharp and painful memory. The