After grace, Kate began to pass food around the table. First the platter of pot roast and then a bowl full of potatoes and carrots. Ginger wondered if fried chicken was always served on Friday and pot roast on Saturday. Betsy had told her already that she was planning to make the traditional Easter ham on Sunday.

You wanted memories, the little voice in the back of her head said loud and clear. No ocean or anything you could look at could provide memories like this. Fate led you to this place. Enjoy it while you can.

She caught Sloan staring at her just as she nodded in agreement with the pesky voice. She flashed a smile his way, and his head bobbed once, as if he had read her thoughts and knew exactly what she’d been thinking. She was more than a little intimidated by him. The way he looked at her made her feel like he could read her mind.

“I’ve got a question,” Ginger said. “So, was there a school here in Rooster at one time?”

“Oh, yes, honey,” Connie answered. “It wasn’t ever very big, and when we were in high school, there were only maybe thirty or forty white children that went to it, but we had our school.”

“When they finally shut it down about forty years ago, there were only six seniors. The next year, the Hondo school system ran buses out here to get the kids.” Kate sighed. “That was a sad fall for all of us. We lost the post office a few years later. Once those two things are gone from a community, it’s all but a ghost town.”

“If the majority of the kids were black, then why did you have trouble being a cheerleader?” Ginger placed her hand on her stomach. Lucas had come from Cajun folks down in Louisiana. He’d told her that his nanny when he was in preschool had been French. She should have realized then that he’d grown up in a different social world than she did.

“Honey”—Connie patted her on the arm—“if we’d been black we might have stood a better chance. Neither race, black nor white, really wanted us.”

“We’re sure glad that times have changed,” Betsy said.

An awkward silence followed her statement. Ginger thought about Lucas. If it hadn’t been that she was carrying his baby, things could have gone different for her. She might have found another waitress job when the café she’d been working at closed down, but no one wanted to hire a woman who was visibly pregnant.

Lucas had said that he loved her when he talked her into moving out of the shelter and into the ratty apartment with him, but his actions often hadn’t matched his words. He’d lose his temper if her tips were a few dollars less than they’d been the day before, and twice he’d slapped her. She couldn’t even find tears to cry when the police came to tell her that he was dead, because down deep, she’d been relieved that she was out of the relationship. She had never known that any of his relatives were alive, but his parents had claimed the body and taken it home with them for burial.

“So did y’all get the corn planted?” Connie changed the subject.

“About half of it. We’ll take care of the rest of it Monday afternoon. We’ve got other things to do when we’re finished eating,” Kate answered.

“I’m thinkin’ that Ginger can wear my dress from last year,” Connie said.

Kate cocked her head to one side and eyed Ginger. “It just might fit her at that. I’m glad this is my year to choose the Easter dress, so we don’t have to wear those flowing things you always choose.”

“Hey, just because you’re skinny and nothing binds up your waist don’t mean me and Betsy want to have to wear a girdle and a waist-length bra to look good for the picture,” Connie fussed.

“She’s right,” Betsy agreed. “Last year’s dress was so comfortable that I felt like I was wearing a nightgown.”

Ginger took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t want to offend them, but Lord have mercy—she sure didn’t want to wear one of their dresses if it looked like a nightgown, either. “I have something I can wear, but thank you for the offer.”

“If you change your mind, it’s a cute little pink linen with butterfly sleeves,” Connie said. “I’ll show it to you after we eat and you can decide.”

“That would be great.” Ginger managed a smile and decided that if the dress came close to fitting her, she’d wear it. So what if it made her look like Dumbo’s baby sister? Church services would only be for one hour, and if it made Connie happy, then it would be worth it.

A vision of the dresses from last year flashed through Sloan’s mind. He didn’t know a blessed thing about fashion, but in his mind those dresses sure didn’t look like something Ginger would wear. Both days that he’d been around her she’d worn tight-fitting britches and a faded knit top that hung almost to her knees.

Kate interrupted his thoughts when she passed the platter of biscuits to him. “Are you going to church with us tomorrow?” she asked.

“Now, Miz Kate, who’d hide the eggs if I went to church?” he asked.

“You could do that job while I get dinner on the table,” Betsy told him.

“Then you’d all be peeking out the windows trying to see where I put them.” He chuckled. “I know you, Miz Betsy, and how much that hundred-dollar prize means to you.”

“Busted!” Betsy giggled. “But you are welcome to go with us anytime that you want. Your granny wouldn’t be happy that you don’t attend.”

“I know that, and I hate to disappoint her, but,” Sloan said in a slow drawl, “God and I have got some things to straighten out before I don’t feel like a hypocrite sittin’ in His house.”

Kate reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “When you get it right with Him, you’re welcome to sit with us on our pew.”

“Thank you.” Sloan didn’t expect that he’d be attending church anytime soon, but it was nice of Kate to offer her support. Before he enlisted, he’d gone every single Sunday morning and sometimes on Wednesday nights with his granny. He’d gone to chapel a few times, but only in basic training. After that, it was hit and miss, depending on whether he was in the field or not and whether he was hungover on Sunday morning. When his buddies were all killed in one fell swoop, he blamed himself—and then he questioned God. If the Almighty Maker was all that great, how could He let a bomb take out Sloan’s entire team?

“Where did you go to church, Ginger?” Connie asked.

“Depended on what foster family I was with,” she answered. “I seldom stayed more than a year with any one of them, sometimes even less. I remember one that was pretty religious, and we went every Sunday morning. On the way home, the lady would ask us questions about the sermon. If we couldn’t answer them, we were punished.”

Sloan’s hands knotted into fists under the table. No child should suffer because of something like that. It would make them hate God even worse than he did.

“I didn’t think foster parents were allowed to whip kids.” Connie’s chin quivered.

“There’s lots more ways to punish a child than to use a belt or a paddle,” Ginger told her. “The punishment if we couldn’t answer the questions was that we had to go to the bedroom, get down on our knees, and pray the whole time the rest of the family was eating dinner. Now”—Ginger’s smile didn’t reach her pretty eyes—“tell me how we go about decorating the eggs this afternoon. How do y’all color them?”

“We’ve got all kinds of things, from glue and glitter to dye kits and pretty little decals.” Betsy stopped what she was doing and gave Ginger a quick hug. “Decorating the eggs has always been such a big afternoon for us. We don’t get in a rush, and we bring out all our artistic abilities, and, honey, you’ll never miss a meal here at the Banty House.”

Sloan glanced over at Ginger. “I have trouble hiding the eggs because they sparkle in the sunlight as it is. It takes me the whole hour and a half that they’re gone to get the job done.”

He liked that he’d made her smile and her brown eyes had taken on a sparkle. He couldn’t imagine how hard her life must have been, or how he would have survived without his grandmother’s support after his mother and dad were both killed.

When the dishes were all done and put away, Kate gave Sloan orders for what she wanted done in the rest of the corn patch, and then she hurried downstairs to check on the mash she had setting up. Betsy started two pans of eggs to boiling, and Connie took Ginger upstairs to try on the pink dress.