“Duh!” Holly rolled her eyes. “Of course I want to stay here. This is way better than Austin, and besides, Sally said I can work in her store when I get sixteen, and who’d have Sunday dinner with Granny Hayes if I wasn’t here?” She did a head bob and then changed the subject. “Hey, when I get my homework done, would you and Mack play a game of Scrabble with us after supper?”

“Where’d you get a Scrabble game?” Lily asked.

“She was snooping in the old buffet in the dining room and found a whole bunch of board games,” Braden tattled. “I told her I could beat her because I used to play online on my tablet, back when we had Wi-Fi. Are we ever going to get it here?”

“I wasn’t snooping,” Holly argued. “I was just looking for something.”

“What?” Braden grinned. “A joint?”

Holly shoved a finger so close to his now multicolored eye that he jumped and almost fell out of his chair. “I was not, and I haven’t drank or smoked since we left Austin.”

“What’s going to happen when you get your phone back?” Braden argued. “All your pot-smoking, partying Austin friends are going to be texting and calling.”

Holly did one of her famous head wiggles. “I’ll take care of it. Are you going to run away and go back to your little hoodlum friends?”

“Nope,” he responded with a perfect imitation of her head roll. “I’m going to join 4-H and then FFA.”

Holly sighed loudly. “He’s horrible, Mama. Why didn’t you give him away at birth?”

“Because you needed me to take care of you,” Braden laughed.

At his last word, she stormed out of the room.

Someday they were going to stop their incessant arguing and be friends. At least Lily hoped so. Supper was in the oven—dessert in the refrigerator. She had a few minutes, so she wandered upstairs to see what, if any, other entries Rachel might have written in the journal.

“You got time to read another passage in the journal?” She rapped on Holly’s open door.

“Yes, ma’am.” Holly beat her mother to Lily’s bed.

Lily opened the flap of the old oak secretary, took the journal out, and opened it to the page where she’d left her bookmark. She was glad to see Rachel’s name on the next page, but sad that again so much time had passed between the new date and the previous one.

She read, “Rachel O’Riley Callahan, June 1926.”

“Yay!” Holly squealed. “We still got Rachel.”

Lily went on with a smile on her face: