The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society (28 page)

“I don’t have a problem. None. Zero. So you do-gooders can leave me alone.”

“Lucky you, with no problems.” Camille picked up a pen from the counter and twisted it between her fingers. “You know, we could’ve just turned a blind eye.”

Hannah laughed, which irritated Camille even more than the eye rolling. “I’m so glad I could help you all feel good about yourselves.”

And that’s when Camille realized the problem. Hannah was angry that Eugenie had sent her to work at the dress shop.
Camille recognized the symptoms of abandonment and betrayal. Goodness knew she ought to considering what had happened in her own life in the past twenty-four hours—never mind the past twenty-four years.

“Just because Eugenie asked me to take you on here doesn’t mean she’s not interested in you anymore,” Camille said.

Hannah blanched, and her entire body stiffened. “I don’t care what that old biddy thinks. As long as she doesn’t call the cops. I’ve got one more meeting of that stupid knitting group to go, and then she can’t boss me around anymore.”

“Hannah? What’s really going on?” Camille’s stomach knotted, thick and hard. She recognized so much of her own struggle in this girl. Fear for the future. A present full of pain. And not old enough to have a past to take comfort in.

“Nothing’s going on.”

Camille almost smiled because she remembered when she used to answer her mother with those same words and in that same tone. Nothing was never nothing. It was always something.

“Did something happen at home? With that guy?”

“No.” Hannah crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry I ever said anything to you. I didn’t know you were gonna throw it in my face all the time.”

Camille decided not to point out that asking her about her mother’s boyfriend one time was not exactly throwing anything in her face. But Hannah’s answer told her all she
needed to know. She had started to change over the last few months, change for the better. What had happened to bring the old Hannah back to the forefront?

“If you need an adult to help, Hannah, all you have to do is ask. There are five of us who would be happy to do so.”

“Why do you think you can help me when you can’t even help yourselves?” Hannah’s eyes widened as she realized what she’d said, but she didn’t look away.

For a long moment Camille couldn’t respond to the stinging question. “I don’t need help,” she finally said, but even she knew how defensive she sounded.

“How long do you think those ladies would let you stay in their club if they knew you were sleeping with that old witch Esther’s son?” Hannah’s eyes were lit with triumph. “Want to place a bet on that? ’Cause anything over ten seconds would be money in my pocket.”

“Don’t turn on me just because your life stinks,” Camille shot back. She couldn’t believe she was arguing like this with a thirteen-year-old.

“Stinks?” Hannah’s laugh was as bitter as any medicine Camille had to give her mother. “You have no idea. You with your fancy dress shop and your mother who would do anything for you. Don’t tell me what I do or don’t need.”

“You’re a kid. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“I haven’t been a kid in a long time, only no one else wants to admit it. Adults only tell me I’m a kid when they want something or when I tell the truth.”

Camille had the grace to blush. Hannah was right. It hadn’t been that long since people had done the same thing to her. Still did, to some extent, if she ever said more than the bare minimum about her mother’s health. People only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. That fact probably didn’t change whether you were thirteen or a hundred and three.

“I’m sorry.” Camille doubted the words would make much difference, but they needed to be said. “I didn’t mean to sound so awful. It’s just been a really bad day.”

The unexpected apology seemed to drain the tension out of Hannah’s body. Her shoulders sagged. “No big deal.”

“Hannah, do you want me to try and talk to your mom?

About her boyfriend, I mean?”

Fear widened Hannah’s eyes and pinched her mouth. “No. There’s no problem.”

“Hannah, you said—”

“I made it up.”

“You did not.”

“I did so!” Hannah balled her fists so tightly that Camille thought the girl might snap the handle of the feather duster she held.

“If he’s done anything to you—”

“He hasn’t. I wouldn’t let him.”

“It’s not always a matter of ‘letting’ a guy do anything,” Camille warned. “Your mother should be protecting you.” She paused. “Does she even know about the library stuff? Or the Knit Lit Society? Or your coming here after school?”

Camille hadn’t asked the questions to hurt Hannah, but she could see past the heavy makeup to the pain in the girl’s eyes.

“It wouldn’t make a difference if she did. She doesn’t care.”

Camille could hardly argue with that. “Will you promise to tell me if you need my help?”

“I promise to think about it.”

Camille knew that was as good an agreement as she was likely to get. “I hope you’ll do more than that.” Pursuing the matter anymore, though, was unlikely to improve the results.

“Now, you’d better get started with the dusting. We close up at six.”

Hannah’s eyes widened. “You think it will take me two hours to dust this place?”

“To my satisfaction?” Camille asked. “Probably.”

“I should have stayed at the library,” Hannah grumbled, but she did as she’d been asked, and for the next two hours Camille could take comfort in the fact that at least for that amount of time, no one would hurt or bother the girl.

What happened after they left the shop at closing time was another matter entirely.

The phone rang next to Merry’s head, waking her as it sent her pulse skittering and shortened her breath. She looked to the other side of the bed and saw Jeff there, snoring contentedly. A ringing phone wasn’t enough to blast him out of his slumber.

She groped for the receiver and hit the button to answer the call, her eyes too bleary to read the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Mrs. McGavin?” The voice was small, scared, and familiar.

“Hannah?”

“Mrs. McGavin, could you come get me?”

Merry glanced at the clock. Two in the morning. “Where are you?” She could call 911 and have the sheriff pick Hannah up. He’d probably get there faster than she could anyway. “Are you okay?” A small part of her had been expecting this kind of call for a while now.

“I’m at the Rest-A-While Truck Stop on I-65.”

“What?” That truck stop was a good forty-five minutes away on the two-lane state highway that led from Sweetgum to the Interstate. “Hannah, you need to call the police. Right now.”

“No.” She was sobbing. “They’ll take me to juvy as a runaway. Please, Mrs. McGavin.”

Courtney was going to go ballistic. The thought popped into Merry’s head, and she shoved it away. Too bad. Courtney would have to deal. But that meant Merry would have to put up with more tantrums and recriminations.

“All right. I’ll get there as quick as I can.” She pulled back the covers and levered herself out of bed, not an easy feat now that pregnancy had shifted her center of balance. “Do you have any money? Is there anybody there who looks trustworthy?”

Hannah’s bark of laughter was more fear than humor. “At a truck stop in the middle of the night?”

“Okay. Okay.” She poked around in the darkness for a pair of maternity jeans and a sweater. “Sit at the counter, and order something to eat. Surely there’s a waitress or something.”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

“Okay.” The word ended on a sob.

“Hannah, it’ll be all right.” She was afraid to ask how Hannah had wound up in such a place. She was afraid she already knew the answer.

“Mrs. McGavin?”

“Yes?”

“Hurry.”

Jeff wasn’t going to be any happier than Courtney. “I will, honey. Just sit tight.” She pushed the button on the phone to end the call and set the receiver back in its cradle.

“Jeff?” She nudged her husband as she sank down on the bed to slip on her shoes.

“Hmm?” He rolled over and opened one eye.

“Emergency. I’ve got to go out.”

Both eyes popped open. “What?”

“It’s Hannah Simmons. She’s at a truck stop on I-65. I have to go get her.”

He sat upright so fast the momentum almost knocked Merry off the bed. “Hold on a second.”

“I can’t. I have to go. Now.” She tried to remember where she’d left her purse. On the sideboard in the dining room maybe? “I’ve got my cell phone. I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Merry?” He rubbed an eye with the palm of his hand. “This is ridiculous. Just call the state troopers, and tell them to pick her up.”

“So they can put her in a holding cell at the county juvenile center for the rest of the night?”

“Where else is she going to go?”

Merry didn’t answer, and then the light of understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh no, Merry. Not here.”

“Where else?”

“What about some of those knitter friends of yours? Let one of them take her. Like Miss Pierce, the librarian. She’s probably got a spare bedroom. Where are we going to put her?”

Merry hadn’t considered that until Jeff raised the question. “I guess there’s only one place.” She thought of the canopied twin beds in Courtney’s room. Courtney had been after her for months to get rid of them, had denounced them as being for babies like Sarah, which had sent Sarah off into wails of humiliation.

“You’re seriously going to stick that girl in the other twin bed in our daughter’s room?”

Merry took a deep breath. “Looks that way.”

“What if her mother charges you with kidnapping or something?”

“I doubt Tracy Simmons will even notice that Hannah’s gone if she hasn’t already.” She headed for the door. “Plus I know a really good attorney.” She paused. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Merry—”

She didn’t wait to hear any further objections. Just took the stairs gingerly in deference to her burgeoning midsection and located her purse on the kitchen cabinet next to the refrigerator. Keys in one hand, she grabbed Jeff’s shearling coat off the rack in the utility room as she passed. Then, on
impulse, she grabbed a second coat—Courtney’s North Face jacket. Given Hannah’s lack of outerwear, the girl was probably freezing.

A few months ago, Merry never could’ve imagined setting off for a truck stop in the middle of the night, pregnant and alone, to rescue a stranded teenager. Now she couldn’t imagine not doing that very thing.
Welcome to Oz, Dorothy
, she thought as she opened the door to the driver’s side of the minivan and tossed Courtney’s jacket onto the passenger seat.

Thankfully not much traffic flowed along the two-lane highway in the middle of the night. Merry had no trouble staying awake. Adrenaline pounded through her veins, which in turn supercharged the baby. By the time she hit I-65, her insides would be black-and-blue from all the kicking and shoving. Forty-five minutes later she pulled into the parking area of the Rest-A-While Truck Stop. A few cars littered the lot, and she could see a number of eighteen-wheelers parked in the huge open area beyond the main building.
Please, Lord
, she prayed,
don’t let anyone have hurt Hannah
.

The truck stop’s twenty-four-hour diner looked like it was straight out of a movie set, a long chrome counter dividing the kitchen from the dining area of red vinyl booths under a bank of windows. Merry spotted Hannah immediately. The girl was slumped on a stool at the counter, her hands curled around a coffee mug as if she were holding on for dear life.

“Hannah.” Merry kept her voice low, not wanting to draw attention to the girl. A waitress at the far end of the diner looked up and then went back to gossiping with a cook.

“Thank heavens.” Merry slid onto the stool next to her and reached out to put an arm around her. But Hannah shrank back.

“It’s no big deal. I just need a ride.” Despite her brave words, her eyes were red from crying, her thick mascara streaked down her cheeks.

“Okay.” Merry at least knew enough about thirteen-year-old girls not to push. Not now. Later, when she got Hannah home and they’d both had some sleep, well, that would be another matter entirely. “Have you paid for your hot chocolate?”

“It’s coffee,” Hannah said in a challenging tone.

“Okay. Coffee. Have you paid for it?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” A rowdy group of young men appeared in the doorway, jostling one another and calling each other names that made Merry blush. Clearly they were ending a night of drinking with a meal of deep-fried food. “Ow,” Hannah complained, shaking off Merry’s grip on her arm. “Easy, will ya?”

“Easy?” For the first time since she’d been awakened by the phone, anger took the place of fear. “Easy?” She snagged Hannah once more, this time by the wrist. “No one calls me
up in the middle of the night, begs me to drive an hour to come rescue them,” she paused to catch her breath, which was getting shorter as the baby got bigger, “and then tells me to take it
easy
.” She stopped and whirled Hannah around to face her. “We passed
easy
a good hour ago.”