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much.”
    Callie led her to a rocker with soft, worn cushions shaped to fit the woman’s thin frame. She stayed longer than she wanted to, making sure David’s mother was calmer before she felt it was all right to leave.
    Once they’d left, however, she turned on Albert Manning and that satisfied smile on his face. She didn’t want this, any of it. Looking back never accomplished anything, only moving forward counted.
    She lifted her chin. “Let’s get finished. Where to next?”
    If the older man looked startled, maybe disapproving, well, it meant nothing to her. Life wasn’t a popularity contest. She would take care of what she had to and move on.

CHAPTER FIVE

    S HE COULDN’T SETTLE .
    After an endless day touring properties, the sight of all those anxious faces lingered. Exhausted as Callie was, she couldn’t seem to relax. She had washed the meager store of clothes she’d bought to tide her over until her assistant Anna could send her own things. Now she paced Miss Margaret’s house, flipped the television channels without seeing, picked up three different books from the shelves and none of them snagged her attention. She wasn’t hungry, and try as she might to focus on her career, not a single plan to rescue it would form.
    She slapped open the screen door and walked outside. Down the front walk and out onto the road she strode, hoping exercise would take the edge off the restlessness that would not leave her alone.
    It wasn’t until a couple of miles later when she spotted the cemetery off to the left that she realized where she’d been heading without thinking.
    She’d have a word with Miss Margaret.
    And, if she could summon the courage, she’d visit that small grave she’d been running from for years.
    She entered between the columns of stacked stones that had been there for generations. Miss Margaret’s plot was easy to find—a high mound of fresh dirt covered with wilting blossoms. As Callie approached, she thought about how much had changed in only two days since she’d last stood here.
    “You have some nerve,” she began. “What do you expect me to do? This is crazy. I don’t belong here. You can’t possibly think—” Her shoulders sank on a sigh. She couldn’t seem to sustain her fury after all, and a wry smile wouldn’t be stifled. “I loved you, you know. I have no idea what you saw in me—” Callie was shocked at the choking rush of emotion. She’d never understood why Miss Margaret would go to so much trouble for her. They were the most unlikely of companions, yet now, years later, Callie realized that in many ways, Miss Margaret was the best friend she’d ever had.
    She’d loved Callie, too, even though tender words hadn’t come easily to her.
    “You lived your words instead, didn’t you?” She’d taught by example, and a powerful one it had been. Margaret Jennings might have borne no children and married no man, but in her own fashion, she’d nurtured a town nonetheless.
    “I’m not like you,” Callie murmured. “I can’t—”
    Can’t or won’t? she could almost hear Miss Margaret challenge, just as she had so often, over big things or small. Can’t sew? Here, fix this button, hem these pants. Can’t cook? Knead this dough and next thing you know, you’ve got bread .
    Can’t go back to school and finish? How do you plan to keep this baby if you can’t feed it? Don’t you dare expect that boy to take care of you both.
    Miss Margaret had no use for the word can’t , and no patience for won’t.
    After Callie’s mother had dragged her back to South Carolina once she’d lost the baby, she’d run away, yet Miss Margaret’s voice had followed her. Be practical, child. A woman’s got to take care of herself, and you can’t do that without that diploma.
    For all that Callie had neglected Miss Margaret for so many years, she realized now that she’d carried the older woman with her as she’d worked her way into community college, then university and,