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and watch raindrops slide off glass.
    “How come you never moved into town?” he asked as the highway stretched into a half-kept road on the outskirts.
    She gave a small shrug and said, “Jelly Lou refuses to leave her house,” as though that answered everything.
    He knew her grandmother was her only family and that Jelly Lou needed help from time to time since she was in a wheelchair, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Glory ever got lonely living all the way out here. Then he wondered how she spent her free time, and about the point where he began wondering if she had anyone special to spend that free time with, Cal said, “How about some music?”
    He flipped the knob before she could answer, which was fine with him. He was done talking and wondering.
    A sugary voice with more pop than twang filled the car and poured out of the speakers. Immediately he shut it off. Too fast to cover Glory’s soft snort.
    “Taylor Swift?”
    “It’s a first-day-of-school thing.” He shrugged, feeling stupid.
    “That’s right. School starts Wednesday. Is Payton excited?” Her eyes grew soft and she flashed him a smile so sweet he forgot how to talk. Which was a problem because Glory wasn’t talking either. Nope. She was sitting quietly, patiently waiting for him to answer.
    “It’s all she’s been talking about.” Just not to him. Lately his baby girl had taken to locking herself up in her bedroom, talking on the phone to who knows, about hair and shopping and that damn Miss Peach Pageant.
    Cal felt himself scowl.
    “Good,” she sighed, looking relieved. “She was nervous about starting sophomore year because she has all of those AP classes. She was really worried about getting Mrs. Fry for biology but I told her that she was a great teacher and if she did the work she’d be fine.”
    Payton was nervous about her school? Why had she told Glory? And more important, why hadn’t she come to him?
    Cal must have looked confused because she added, “Your grandma sometimes brings her to Quilting Night at the Fabric Farm, and since Payton and I are the only two born after the Second World War, we talk.”
    “You quilt?” he asked as he eased on to Old Mill Road, his tires kicking up water. “You don’t look like a quilter.”
    “What is that even supposed to mean?” she asked, the offense clear in her voice. “What does a quilter look like?”
    “I don’t know.” But when he took in the sexy woman next to him who loved bartending and beer, he had a hard time picturing her sewing on a loose button, let alone making something as domestic as a quilt. St. Polly’s Girl she was, Holly Homemaker not so much.
    “Well, I can assure you that I’m a damn good quilter. Almost as good as Hattie. She started teaching me after, well…I started quilting senior year.” After I got chased out of school wasn’t said but it hung between them nonetheless.
    He’d heard enough stories from Brett to know that her senior year had been rough. He’d had no idea just how bad until one day Cal was driving home from a remodel across town and came across Glory walking down the highway heading home. She was cornered by a truck full of football players offering her twenty bucks for a BJ.
    Cal chased off the guys and, after she’d promised him that she was okay, drove her home, wondering how her grandma continued to let her go to that school. The next day she unenrolled.
    “I’m right there.” Glory pointed out the window. “The one with the big lemon tree on the porch.”
    Cal pulled off on the gravel road, coming to a stop in front of her house. If the lemon tree landmark was accurate, Glory lived in the apartment above a detached garage that sat kitty-corner from her grandma’s farmhouse. He squinted through the windshield, noticing a small herb garden on the apartment’s porch and a couple of potted peonies lining the steps. It was small but welcoming.
    The truck idled but neither moved. After a long moment Cal said, “If you