that little bitch called her or her mother a whore one more time, she’d be looking for her teeth. J.T. grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against him.
“Don’t let her get to you. She’s a jealous cow and not worth you getting arrested over.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Nadya bit out.
Pansy let out a scream of fury and lunged toward Nadya. Before Pastor McBride could stop her, Pansy slapped Nadya across the face.
“That’s enough!” Pastor McBride shouted again, hauling the rather chunky Pansy off the porch. “Orleane, take your daughter home until she can control herself.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know what shenanigans were going on here. It’s my God-given duty as a member of the church board to make sure our pastor isn’t preaching one thing on Sunday and sinning the rest of the week.”
“Unless it’s with you. Isn’t that right, Orleane?” Tala said as she stepped in front of Nadya. Her black eyes blazed with fury. “You came to me last week asking if I had any gypsy potions to make someone fall in love. When I turned you away, you came back looking for the reason why. It wouldn’t have mattered if the good pastor was baptizing me in the creek, you were bound and determined to find something dirty out here.” She stepped off the porch and got right in Mrs. Campbell’s face. “You can say what you want about me. I’ve been called whore before, but you leave my daughter and the pastor out of your jealous temper tantrum.”
Mrs. Campbell was several inches taller and many pounds heavier than the petite Tala, but she stepped back from the naked fury on the smaller woman’s face.
“Or what?” she said with false bravado. “Will you put a curse on me?”
“I don’t need to. Your pettiness will stamp itself on your face without any help from me. That will be your curse and your fate.” Tala spun around, her skirt flaring around her calves, and glided up the steps.
“Thank you for your…guidance, Pastor McBride,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “But I think I’ll stick with my own faith. Nadya, go on inside. I’ll put a cold compress on your cheek.”
Nadya slipped out of J.T.’s arms and went to her mother. They locked the door behind them and didn’t bother to look as two cars pulled out of the drive.
Chapter One
New York City, Present Day
“I cannot believe you are wasting your vacation time going to Deliverance, Georgia. If I had a month of vacation, I’d go to the Caribbean.” Sandra Goldstein, Nadya’s best friend and co-peon in the gigantic law firm where they worked, knocked back her vodka martini and signaled the waiter for another one.
“If you put in as many billable hours as I did trying to pay off college loans, you’d have a month of vacation to use before the end of the fiscal year too. Besides, it’s Dale, Georgia, not Deliverance, and I won’t spend the whole month there. It should only take a week or two to get the last of the estate through probate. It’s not like my mother had that many personal assets.” Nadya sipped her martini a bit more slowly. It was perfectly chilled and smooth as silk.
“Dale, Deliverance—same difference. It’s filled with flannel and butt cleavage and there’s not a chance you’ll find anyone with their own teeth, forget working brain cells.”
More like judgmental bigots and rednecks.
“Don’t remind me. It’s not like I want to go. It’s something I have to do.”
“Whatever, bubele. I still think you’d be better off on an island somewhere.”
“It’s not like you’re going to the Caymans—you’ll be in Miami.”
“Oy, don’t remind me. I get to spend my one week of vacation with my family. Maybe butt cleavage isn’t all that bad.”
“Depends on whose butt.” Nadya laughed.
“Was there a particular butt you wanted to see again?”
Memories of a hot, steamy day with breathless kisses and awkward caresses flashed through her brain. “No.”
“I sense a certain wistfulness in your answer. Come on, give.”
Nadya heaved a sigh and finished off her drink quicker than the quality vodka called for. “You know that old Dusty Springfield song about the son of a preacher?”
“I think so. It was in a movie, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Anyway, there was a guy, a boy really, who was the preacher’s son, and he and I were together for a hot and heavy month before I left. I guess you always wonder what could have been, you know?”
“The only time I thought that