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me…and I shunned him.”
    â€œLightning’s going to strike you dead, Jackie Jo Cummings.” Arlene laughed, a hoarse, throaty, lifetime smoker’s rumbling chuckle. “You were as hot for Johnny Mack as every other girl in town.”
    â€œI was not! I found him uncouth and crude and—”
    â€œAnd exciting,” Arlene said. “We all did. He was the boy even the Magnolia Avenue girls fantasized about.”
    Glenn cleared his throat. “Well, explain this to me, ladies, if Johnny Mack is Will’s natural father, why on earth would Kent and Lane have adopted him?” Glenn shook his head and grunted. “Johnny Mack and Kent sure weren’t friends, and they certainly didn’t run with the same crowd.”
    â€œNobody ran with Johnny Mack,” Jackie said. “He was a loner.”
    â€œSo maybe the answer doesn’t lie with Johnny Mack. Maybe it lies with whoever Will’s real mother is,” Glenn said. “Could be that Lane and Kent knew when they married they could never have a child of their own and someone in town told them about a girl with a child she wanted to give away. Nobody knows where they got that boy.”
    Arlene tapped her long fake nails atop the manicurist’s desk. “I feel sorry for Will, and sorry for Johnny Mack if Will really is his son.”
    â€œAnd for the poor girl who had to give away her lover’s baby?” Glenn asked as he exchanged a pensive glance with Arlene.
    â€œI think y’all are assuming an awful lot.” Jackie laid both of her hands flat atop the desk. “Do my nails! Glenn and I are supposed to be at Heartbreakers by seven, and I still have to go home and change. This is my one night off this week, and I want to make the most of it.”
    â€œI guess we could narrow down the possibilities,” Arlene said. “Every girl in town didn’t sleep with Johnny Mack that last summer before he left town. He was mostly fooling around with the Magnolia Avenue girls.”
    â€œAny smart girl from Magnolia Avenue could have gotten an abortion.” Jackie snatched her hand out of Arlene’s grasp, inspecting the beginnings of her manicure. “So that means Will’s mama was probably trash just like Johnny Mack. Now, wouldn’t that be something? The bastard son of white trash being raised in the lap of luxury as the child of Lane Noble Graham. If Miss Edith suspected such a thing, she’d have a heart attack and keel over dead. Can you imagine her having Johnny Mack Cahill’s child as her heir?”
    â€œWell, my money’s on Johnny Mack being the father,” Glenn said. “But who could the mother have been? There weren’t many women between the age of sixteen and sixty who would have said no to Johnny Mack.”
    â€œI think there’s one possibility that we’ve all overlooked,” Jackie said.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Arlene asked.
    â€œThat Lane Noble is Will’s natural mother.”
    Â 
    Johnny Mack checked into the Four Way, a clean but inexpensive motel on the other side of the river. The place hadn’t changed much over the years. Some new furniture. A fresh coat of paint. A bigger neon sign.
    Johnny Mack glanced at his watch. Nearly six-thirty. He wanted to shower and change before he called on anyone here in Noble’s Crossing. For the time being, he didn’t want anyone to suspect just how successful he was. How rich and powerful. Later, when it served his purposes to reveal the truth, he would let everyone know just who they were dealing with.
    Picking up his suitcase, he tossed it on the bed, snapped open the lid and reached inside for his favorite pair of faded black jeans. Even though he was accustomed to tailor-made suits, linen shirts and silk ties, he was still more comfortable in jeans and boots. Despite his innate ability to wheel and deal with the best of them, he found the most pleasure in the