Finding Glory. Sara Arden

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       CHAPTER ONE

      A LACY COLLAR lay expertly arranged atop the judge’s black robes, like the doily positioned just so underneath the orange carnival glass bowl that held an endless supply of her grandmother’s hard, ribbon candy. The kind Gina had chipped her front tooth on when she was eight. Seeing it perched there, so crisp, so proper, caused a heavy knot to turn in on itself in her gut.

      “Sit up straight,” Maudine Townsend whispered in Gina’s ear. “Just because I’ve played pinochle with Helga Gunderson every Saturday for as long as I can remember doesn’t mean she’s going to look kindly on you. She’ll be fair.”

      “How is it fair to judge someone by their posture? Especially when I know that you two have never played pinochle. You play five-card stud and shoot whiskey,” Gina whispered back to her blue-haired grandmother. The woman’s hair was literally a light shade of blue. She’d dyed it for the street carnival two weeks back and temporary had turned out to be more permanent. But she’d accessorized nicely, striking an imposing figure in a white vintage Chanel suit circa 1963. Somehow, she’d made it work.

      Maudine raised a perfectly drawn eyebrow. “Don’t be tart.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Gina straightened her posture. She was a grown woman, former army, and her grandmother still had the power to make her jump to. She didn’t mind it much. Her grandmother was the reason she was a fighter. Her grandmother was the reason she’d made it through high school after her mother died.

      And her grandmother was the reason that Gina believed she could be a good mother to her niece, Amanda Jane, after Crystal died a year ago.

      There’d been a lot of loss and a lot of sorrow in the past few years. It was a lot for anyone to bear, especially a six-year-old girl.

      Suddenly, her grandmother’s fingers tightened around hers, the cool metal of her mail-order costume rings digging into Gina’s palms.

      She looked up and saw him.

      Him.

      Reed Hollingsworth.

      Gina thought she’d prepared herself for this—for seeing him after all these years. For facing him and demanding he do what was right.

      No, faced with him, she felt like she’d opened the door to confront the monster in the closet and found out he was real. No, no...Reed wasn’t a monster. He was just a guy. A man like any other, even if he didn’t think so anymore.

      He smelled of money, or she could tell that he would from across the courtroom.

      Reed was ushered into the court by some shark masquerading as a man in a suit. They each had haircuts that probably cost more than all the shoes in her closet combined. Of course, that probably wasn’t saying much.

      His hair gleamed, perfect and golden under the light. Too perfect, she wanted to muss it, push her fingers through it and disturb its perfection. She wanted proof that he was still Reed underneath this shiny veneer. Still the same boy, at heart. Because if he wasn’t, how would she survive this?

      She’d survive anything, because she had to, she reassured herself.

      Gina crossed her ankles and tucked her dollar-store flats underneath her, self-conscious of her hand-me-down dress and the slightly gnawed tips of her unpolished fingernails.

      “I’m not worried about the judge, I’m worried about him. Don’t give him the satisfaction,” her best friend and lawyer, Emma Grimes, said from the seat next to her. “I don’t doubt he’s going to try to pull something here. That attack dog he’s got with him looks much too smug.”

      “Good thing you’re better than an attack dog. You’re a nuclear weapon.” Or so Gina hoped. She’d need it to stand her own.

      Gina had never been so angry as the day she found out that Reed had bought a house on Snob Hill. He had money for houses, for fancy cars, for whatever he wanted. Not just what he needed, but wanted. Any little thing—especially coming back to Glory and showing everyone he’d succeeded even when the world had been against him.

      Well, that was just lovely for him, but what about his daughter? What about Crystal?

      And what about herself?

      Gina didn’t begrudge him his success and she didn’t want a handout. She was more than happy to work for everything she had, but it wasn’t fair that she was back to waiting tables, working as an EMT and trying to get through premed, all while raising his daughter with no help from him.

      If he didn’t want to know the beautiful girl his daughter was, fine. But helping pay for her education, for her food and the clothes on her back was his responsibility, too, not Gina’s alone. She’d be damned if she’d let him waltz back into town and lord his money and success over everyone while Gina went without so Amanda Jane could have the things she needed—let alone anything СКАЧАТЬ