Pa had finally snapped out of the darkness after Christmas, only to begin obsessively planning for the next tobacco season. The past month, he’d all but slept in the greenhouse, germinating seeds and then tending to the sprouts like they were fragile children needing their father’s care and comfort. Never mind the fact that he was neglecting the seven actual children he had, who were relying on each other to weather losing not only their mother but also, apparently, their father.

At least he was still breathing, and that meant there was hope he would return to living at some point.

I leaned against the counter and took a few deep breaths while rubbing my forehead. Nothing felt good, from my head to my stomach, yet I kept sucking it up and moving on to task after task. There was simply no other choice.

“What company?” Boss asked, late to the party even though he was sitting on the floor beside Charlotte talking gibberish to the babies.

“No company,” I mumbled, returning to my task of topping the bologna with cheese and second slices of bread. I glanced out the window toward the greenhouse, wondering if I should bother bringing Pa a sandwich.

“Ha!” Peg shouted close to my ear as he pointed out the window at a boxy van pulling up. “Told ya!” He turned and began limping toward the back door.

Pa came from the greenhouse, beating Peg to the unfamiliar vehicle, and was opening the passenger door in a blink. His face pulled into a spastic grin, reminding me of Jack Nicholson’s face when his character fell off his rocker and went totally mad in The Shining.

I saw the shimmery head wrap before the woman’s face as she stood from the van. Instead of being mostly hidden in layers of robes like last time, her revealing outfit of hip-hugging jeans and a blouse tied above her belly button hid nothing. A pair of giant white-framed sunglasses concealed her sharp cheekbones and onyx eyes, but there was no mistaking who it was. Foxy Deveraux was the kind of intriguing woman you couldn’t help but gawk at, and at the moment Peg was clinging to her bare waist like she was manna from heaven.

Swallowing hard, I gripped the edge of the sink to suppress the overwhelming desire to rush out there and cling to her too. To say the last six months had been difficult was like saying an infestation of red bugs was mildly irritating.