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her for free. Which meant that in addition to being badly educated and without any options for the future she was up to her ass in debt. But she’d been a loyal daughter, her ma’s second-in-command in the dumb, sad war their adversaries hadn’t even known they were fighting.
             
    T HEY PULLED UP in front of her house. Josh looked out his window at the surrounding trees.
    “This it?” he asked.
    “Welcome to my ancestral home,” she said.
             
    “W HY DO YOU KEEP ON LIVING HERE ? You hate this place,” Denny had said once, right after he got sober. He was seeing a therapist in his rehab program, and “confronting issues” was part of the cure. Fortunately, he’d gotten over it.
    “I own it, remember?”
    “You could sell it for a fortune to some rich jerk from Atlanta.”
    “I’ve gotten kinda partial to it.”
    That wasn’t true; she disliked everything about the house. A small rainstorm could wipe out her driveway, making it an impassable trail of red clay muck. A medium-sized rainstorm could knock a tree branch down on her one power line and wipe out essentials like the lights, the well pump, the television, and—God help her in summertime—her precious AC. Squirrels got themselves trapped in the crawl space under her roof and died horribly; mice fried themselves chewing electrical wires, and one day they’d probably burn the place down. And then there were the memories of Sara Jayne, drunk and living or finally sober but dying.
    In spite of all that, she stayed. Because the place was a reminder that being a loser was not necessarily in her DNA. It was a symbol of the one battle her family had won. And living in it was her way of giving the finger to Garrison Gardens, the trust that now ran them, and to the town that sucked up to them.
             
    J OSH GOT OUT OF THE CAR and looked around at the surrounding trees. “Jesus, it’s quiet!” he said.
    “That’s the point of living in the bosom of Mother Nature.”
    “Don’t you go out of your mind?”
    “I’m a simple country girl. I love it.”
    He shot her a look that said
bullshit.
Obviously, in spite of all her attempts to put him off, he’d spent at least a few seconds wondering who she was. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The light sexy mood of the night had long since shattered. She probably should hand back his expensive sports jacket, which now smelled of beer, get rid of him, and find some other way to go to work in the morning. It certainly would be the smart thing to do. So she said, “Why don’t you come on in?”
             
    B ACK IN HER BEDROOM AT LAST , Li’l Bit pulled on a freshly washed nightgown and buttoned it all the way to the neck. Her discarded clothes were in the hamper. Her shoes were on the rack in her closet. The sink in the bathroom had been rinsed, and she’d lined up her toothpaste next to the brush. She walked out of the bathroom and got into bed. It was over. There was nothing more to be done. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep. But she couldn’t because she heard the sound of someone sobbing. And when she reached up and felt the wetness on her cheek, she realized she was crying.
             
    W ITH A BOURBON BOTTLE in her hand and a bag of dog biscuits tucked under her arm, Peggy went from room to room turning on all the lights. The dogs followed her in a pack, silent for once, all twenty-four eyes fixed on the treats. Finally, the house was as bright as she could make it. She moved into the den, selected a CD from her stack of golden oldies, and popped it in the player. The sound of Frank Sinatra filled the air. She turned to the dogs. “We’re gonna celebrate,” she told them fiercely. “We’re gonna have a goddamn celebration.”
             
    T HE FIRE WAS HOT , but Maggie wasn’t aware of being warm at last. She was back in a world when the pecans fell like green hailstones so the men below could harvest