demons, and demonoids.
Norm reality. A window opened in Sassy’s mind and the truth she’d been avoiding flooded in. Her legs gave out and she sank onto the couch. For twenty-five years, she’d known—or thought she’d known with absolute certainty—her world and her place in it.
She’d lived a lie. She didn’t belong in Mama’s world any more than Blake Peterson. She’d never belonged. She was an orphan. No matter what happened with the mill, she could not go back to the life she had lived before.
The realization was like stepping into nothingness and falling, falling.
A woman’s voice yanked her out of her tailspin.
“Miss Peterson?”
An older woman swished down the hall in a broomstick skirt and a lightweight knit sweater. Houston clomped behind her.
“I’m Lucy Barnett.”
“Trey’s secretary—yes. We’ve spoken on the phone.” Sassy rose and shook the woman’s hand. “Thank you for staying after Trey’s death. I hope you will continue to work here. I’ve got a lot to learn.”
The worry lines around Lucy Barnett’s eyes eased. “Thank you. I’d like to stay. The men will be relieved to hear you aren’t selling. Rumors are flying. They’ve been worried.”
“Ms. Barnett—”
“Call me Lucy, please.”
“Lucy,” Sassy amended. “I’d like you to meet my friend, Taryn.”
Lucy saw the huntress and jumped. “Goodness me, I didn’t see you standing there. How do you do?”
“How do I do what?” Taryn raised her brows.
“Foreigners. Pay her no mind, Lucy. She ain’t from around here.” Houston stomped to the door. “Lucy’s found you something to wear. I’ll be back in ten minutes. See that you’re ready. I got work to do.”
He slammed the door behind him as he left.
Lucy motioned toward the hall. “My office is this way, Miss Peterson, if you’ll follow me.”
“Please, call me Sassy. My mother calls me Sarah Elizabeth when I’m in trouble.”
Lucy’s eyes twinkled. “Sassy, then.” She looked at Sassy’s high heels. “Goodness, you’ll ruin your beautiful shoes. I found a pair of boots in a closet the other day. I think they may fit.”
The secretary turned to Taryn with a smile. “I see you’re already wearing boots, and such pretty ones, too. My youngest granddaughter would love those.”
“A granddaughter? How lovely,” Sassy said. “How old is she?”
“Thirteen.”
Taryn muttered something under her breath.
Ten minutes later, Sassy and Taryn were outfitted in twill coveralls with front and back pockets and concealed snaps at the waist. The garments were stiff and musty from disuse. Taryn’s was olive green. The coverall was a trifle large on her. It didn’t matter. With her fiery coloring and leggy beauty, the huntress was a model on a catwalk, especially in the sparkly boots.
Sassy’s garment was a yucky safety orange, and the boots were ready for the garbage can, not the runway. They were cracked and stiff with age. She turned them upside down and shook them. Bits of dried insole, dirt, and leaves hit the floor. A spider was knocked loose and scurried away.
“Where did you say you found these boots?” Sassy asked.
“In the store room under some boxes,” Lucy said. “I think they may have belonged to your brother when he was a kid.”
Sending up a prayer that she would be spared some deadly, pernicious form of foot funk, Sassy shoved her feet into the boots. She rolled up the sleeves and pants legs of the coverall. It was miles too big, a hopeless bag. Her fashion sense shrieked at such an affront, but what could she do?
A bouquet of fresh wildflowers on Lucy’s desk caught her eye.
“Lucy, may I have one of your flowers?” Sassy asked.
“Help yourself.”
Sassy plucked a daisy from the vase and stuck the flower through the buttonhole of her front pocket. There. That was better. Spirits lifted, she thumped into the lobby with Taryn gliding along beside her. Leroy Houston was waiting for them . . . and so was the Dalmatian. Trey was curled up on a sofa cushion like he owned the joint. Which, Sassy supposed, he did, in a manner of speaking. The dog lifted his head when they entered the room.
Sassy waited for Houston’s reaction to the animal on the couch, but the manager didn’t seem to notice the dog.
He stroked his mustache and looked Sassy up and down.
“Good God A’mighty,” Houston said. “You’re rolling around like an English pea in a brown paper sack in that thing.”
“Leroy, you’ll make her feel self-conscious,” Lucy scolded. “It’s what we had.”
Lucy, Sassy noted, didn’t notice the dog, either.
Trey stretched and jumped down from the couch. Without a backward glance, he trotted out the