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“No, thank you” because she was mildly lactose intolerant, but Cora just laughed and asked her to try it.
    â€œI’m willing to bet your stomach will tolerate fresh milk just fine,” Cora had assured her, but Laci hadn’t been too sure. Her daddy had dropped her off with these old folks and now they were trying to kill her, she’d thought. But her daddy had ingrained in her a respect for her elders so, sending a prayer to heaven, she drank the milk and ate the flapjacks. When her stomach didn’t immediately rebel, she stared at Cora in confusion, prompting Cora to say, “I was raised on a farm with nothing but fresh milk and there weren’t nothing like that ‘lactose intolerant’ stuff going around. You know why? Because we didn’t monkey around with the milk. It came straight to our cups as God intended and you can’t tell me that God don’t know what he’s doin’ when it comes to his animals. That stuff you buy in the supermarkets got goodness-only-knows-what inside it and none of the good stuff that was put there in the first place. That’s why your body don’t mind it.”
    And after that, Laci never thought twice about drinking raw milk, until Trent came along and tossed it from her travel fridge, saying milk made phlegm and it was bad for her singing career. She hadn’t had a glass of milk—raw or otherwise—in years. Laci watched Kane until he disappeared into the barn and then went to the fridge. She found a glass container of milk and smiled. “Might as well make sure it doesn’t go to waste,” she murmured, pouring what was left into a mug and drinking it down. A sigh of happy nostalgia followed and she simply enjoyed the quiet moment.
    Maybe it was weird, but she’d come to really appreciate the small things since she’d hit it big. Most times, she never talked about her childhood to anyone within her inner circle, much less reporters who asked. Her daddy had done a fine-enough job for a single father, but times had been hard and there was no way of prettying up that simple fact. Her time with the Bradfords had been the first stint of stability she’d ever had, similar to Kane and Rian. Not that her daddy had been abusive like the Dalton boys’ daddy, God no, but her daddy hadn’t always done a good job of providing a sense of home for his only daughter.
Oh, Daddy...I wish you were still here. You’d know how to handle Trent.
    All she’d done was run away from her problem, but it would be right where she left it when she went back. The dissatisfying smack of reality threatened to sour the milk she’d just enjoyed, so she let it go. She’d deal with that later. In the meantime, she was going to find a way to help Cora without stepping on her toes too much. She turned a critical eye to the kitchen. Maybe some new appliances? Surely that wouldn’t be overstepping too much. But first...she surveyed her glittering costume with a smirk; she needed to get a few things from town.

6
    L ACI DROVE INTO W OODSVILLE , sunglasses on, trying as much as possible to blend in, but really, that was a tall order, particularly while wearing the glittery sparkler of a costume that practically screamed,
Hey, look at me!
While that worked well for being onstage, it definitely made her stand out—in a bad way—in a small town where cotton blends were the norm. The last thing she needed was someone to recognize her and Trent to find out prematurely where she was. She knew she had to return at some point—she had a tour to finish—but she wasn’t ready to face that world again. Not yet. First things first, she needed to find some different clothes.
    Laci walked into the first clothing store she found, a small consignment/thrift store. She cringed at the odd stares coming her way and hustled to the racks to find some simple jean shorts and T-shirts to get her through the next few