The Last Bachelor. Judy Christenberry

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      “Your mother? Your mother sicced the INS on you?”

      Ginger nodded, keeping her gaze lowered. It was such a shameful thing, for her own mother to turn her back on her. She’d warned Ginger, of course, thinking it would make her come home and do what her mother wanted her to do. But it hadn’t.

      His stomach growled and he apologized. “I’m sorry, I’m hungry. How about we go to the Dairy Queen and grab something to eat?”

      “No. They would find out that you hid me.”

      “Sweetheart,” he drawled, and she almost grinned. She loved it when he sounded like John Wayne. “They won’t think I know your identity. Besides, they won’t think to look there.”

      “I can get out now and you can go back to the club and have a nice meal.” She was determined to do the right thing for this kind man.

      He started his car and backed out.

      “Wait, I have to get out.”

      “Nope. You don’t even have a sweater to keep the chill off.”

      Usually late March in this part of Texas was warm, but a storm had come through the day before and the wind was still blowing, the air chilly.

      “Please, I can—”

      “Come with me.” It was more an order than a request.

      Two minutes later he pulled into the Dairy Queen and led her inside. “Let’s take the back booth. No one will see us there.”

      She obediently slid into the booth, facing the door.

      “I’ll be right back,” he assured her. He ordered some food at the counter and came back to join her.

      “Now, tell me why your mother would try to get you thrown out of the country. That seems pretty weird to me.”

      “It is better that you know nothing. I shouldn’t have told you my real name. When they ask you questions, you must say you think I am Ginger.”

      “Maybe they just have some questions for you and that’s all. I don’t see why they’d want to kick you out. You’re a model citizen.”

      Her chest constricted. “I—I don’t have a sponsor. My mother wants me to—I won’t.”

      “Won’t what?”

      “Please, Mr. Turner—”

      “I think you should call me Joe, don’t you? You’re not waiting on my table now. We’re talking. We’re friends. Friends call each other by their first names.”

      Before she could protest, one of the employees brought over a tray of food and put it down on the table. “Here you go,” the woman said. “Need anything else?”

      “No, thank you,” Joe replied. After the woman walked away, he grinned at Ginger. “She doesn’t quite have your style, but the food’s hot. I got each of us a hamburger. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

      She shook her head.

      “There’s French fries, too, and a Coke.” He gently shoved her food toward her. “You have to eat so I don’t feel bad eating in front of you.”

      She took the food. Who knew when she’d have a meal again? She’d best be practical.

      Joe was relieved that she accepted the food. She was looking pretty fragile. After she’d had several bites, he asked casually, “What is it your mother wants you to do? And where is she?”

      Ginger looked up from her food. “She’s in New York. She married a man there.”

      “So she got her citizenship because she’s married to an American? How long has she been married to him?”

      “Three years. He came to Estonia and he proposed. We came to America three months later and they married at once.”

      “She knew him before?”

      Ginger shook her head.

      Joe stared at her. She was a beautiful, delicate young woman. If her mother looked anything like her, he wasn’t surprised that a man would marry her at once. “So why would she want to send you back to Estonia? She might never see you again.”

      Tears pooled in her blue eyes again and she looked away.

      “You’ve got to tell me, sweetheart. Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

      “You can’t help me, anyway. My mother will not change her mind.”

      “Just tell me,” he urged softly, reaching across the narrow table to lay his warm hand over hers.

      “She wants me to marry.”

      “Whom?”

      Her cheeks flushed again, as if the information shamed her.

      “Do you know him?”

      She nodded her head, but she didn’t look up.

      “You don’t love him?”

      “No!” When he didn’t speak again, she finally said, “My mother married a man who is a member of the mob in New York. I believe that’s what you call it, right?”

      “Yeah,” he said grimly. He didn’t like the way the story was going.

      “My stepfather’s friend is his boss. He decided I would make a good bride, but I said no.”

      “How old is he?”

      With her head still down, she whispered, “Fifty-eight.”

      “Damn!” Joe cursed. That kind of a marriage was barbaric, trying to force a beautiful young woman into a marriage with a man three times her age. “You were right to refuse.”

      “Even if it means my mother is beaten?” When she lifted her gaze to him, he read the guilt and pain there. He squeezed her hand.

      “It’s not your fault.”

      She looked away. “I was eighteen. I believed all the wonderful things they say about America. I thought I was free, that I could choose.” She sobbed, before she could compose herself. “I ran away.”

      “Good for you.”

      His reaction seemed to surprise her, but the thought of her being married to an old man, one involved in crime, made his gut clench. “I think if we explain the problem to the government men, they won’t send you back.”

      “They will,” she assured him, fear in her eyes. “I must go away where they can’t find me.”

      “Ginger, I don’t think you can hide that easily. You’ll need to work. They’ll be able to find you.”

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