The garish monstrosity had been his idea of a Southern plantation. A pair of black wrought-iron gates decorated with gold praying hands blocked the bottom of the drive, while the exterior of the house held six massive white columns and a balcony decorated with ugly gold grill-work. The interior was filled with crypt-like black marble, ostentatious chandeliers, swags and tassels, mirrors and glitz, all of it capped off by a marble fountain in the foyer featuring colored lights and a Grecian maiden with showgirl breasts. She wondered if Cal Bonner and his wife possessed the good taste to remove the fountain, but then, she couldn't imagine anyone with good taste buying the awful house in the first place.

It was a steep descent into the valley, but one she'd made many times during the four years she'd lived there as she'd escaped the oppression of her marriage on her morning walks. The impatient part of her wanted to make that descent tonight, but she wasn't that foolhardy. Not only didn't she have the strength, but she also needed to be better prepared.

Soon. Soon, she would descend Heartache Mountain and claim what belonged to her son.

7

After the incident in the snack shop, Rachel dreaded having to face Gabe again, but for the next few days, he did nothing more than bark out orders, then ignore her while he performed his own jobs. He spoke little, never met her eyes, and in general, reminded her of a man doing hard penance.

At night, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep brought on by exhaustion. She had hoped the regular exercise would make her feel better, but the dizziness and weakness continued. On Friday afternoon while she was painting the interior of the ticket booth, she fainted.

Bonner's pickup turned into the drive from the highway just as she dragged herself back to her feet. Her heart thudded as his truck slowed. She tried to figure out how much he'd seen, but the inscrutable expression on his face gave her no clue. Grabbing her paintbrush, she scowled at him, as if he were interrupting her work, and he drove on.

Kristy volunteered to keep Edward on Saturday while Rachel worked, and Rachel gratefully accepted. At the same time, she knew she couldn't keep imposing on her housemate. If she were unlucky enough to still be in Salvation next Saturday, she would bring Edward along whether Bonner liked it or not.

Unfortunately, Rachel's plans to climb down the mountain and break into her old house the next evening after she'd tucked Edward in bed were thwarted by a torrential rainstorm. If only she could have driven, everything would be so much easier, but the locked gates made that impossible. On Monday, exactly one week since her car had broken down across from the Pride of Carolina, she promised herself she'd make the descent that night.

The day was cloudy, but dry, and by late morning, a few threads of sunlight had appeared. All morning, she'd been applying gray enamel paint to the metal walls of the rest-room stalls and thinking about how she would get into the house. The work wasn't hard, and, if it weren't for her dizziness and constant fatigue, even after her day of rest, she'd be enjoying it.

Leaning down, she used one hand to hold her blue chambray dress back as she dipped her paint roller in the pan. Painting in a dress was awkward, but she didn't have a choice. On Saturday, her jeans had finally given out in the seat, and they couldn't be patched.

"I brought you some lunch."

She spun around to see Bonner standing in the rest-room doorway, a fast-food sack in his hand. She regarded him with suspicion. He'd stayed away from her since that nasty scene in the snack shop last Wednesday. Why had he sought her out now?

He scowled. "From now on I want you to bring a lunch. And stop working long enough to eat it."

She, forced herself to meet his dead silver eyes straight on so he would know right away that his Jack the Raper performance hadn't intimidated her. "Who needs food? Your smile alone is enough to nourish me for weeks."

He ignored her jab and set the sack in one of the sinks. She waited for him to leave, but instead, he came over to inspect her work. "It'll take two coats," she said, doing her best to hide her wariness. "That old graffiti's hard to cover."

He nodded toward the door she'd just finished. "Make sure you keep the paint away from those new hinges. I don't want them binding up."

She set the roller in the paint pan and wiped her hands on the piece of terry cloth she was using as a rag. "I still don't see why you couldn't have chosen a nice eggshell-white instead of this drab old gray." She didn't care about the color. She only cared about keeping her job and not letting him suspect for a moment how little energy she had left for even simple tasks.

"I like gray."

"Matches your personality. No, I take that back. Your personality is about ten shades darker than gray."

He didn't tense up. Instead, he leaned back against the unpainted side of the stall and studied her. "Tell you what, Rachel. I might consider giving you a raise one of these centuries if you start restricting yourself to four words when I talk to you. Yes, sir. No, sir."

Let it go, her mind pleaded. Don't bait him. "It'd need to be an awfully big raise, Bonner. You're the best entertainment I've had since Dwayne. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do, and you're a distraction."

He didn't budge. Instead, he openly studied her. "You get any scrawnier, you won't be able to pick up that paint roller."

"Yeah, well, don't worry about it, okay?" She bent down to pick up a rag, but her head began to swim, and she had to steady herself on the edge of the door.

He caught her arm. "Grab your lunch. I've just decided I'm going to watch you eat it."

She drew away. "I'm not hungry. I'll eat later."

He pushed the paint pan out of her way with the toe of his boot. "You'll eat now. Wash up."

She watched in frustration as he walked over to pick up the food sack. She'd planned to hide it in the back of the snack-shop refrigerator so she could save it for Edward, but she couldn't do that with him watching.

"I'll meet you at the playground," he said from the doorway. Then he disappeared.

She stomped over to the sink, where she scrubbed her hands and lower arms, splashing water on the paint-splattered skirt of her dress at the same time. Then she made her way to the playground.

He sat with his back propped against one of the jungle-gym bars and a can of Dr Pepper in his hand. One leg was stretched out, the other bent. He wore a Chicago Stars cap, along with a navy T-shirt tucked into jeans that had a small hole near the knee, but were still a thousand times better than the ones she'd had to throw out.

She found a place a few yards away next to the concrete turtle. He gave her the lunch sack. She noticed that his hands were scrubbed. Even the Band-Aid around his thumb was fresh. How did a man who worked so hard manage to keep himself so clean?

She placed the sack in the nest of her skirt, and pulled out a French fry. The smell was so delicious she had to resist cramming an entire fistful into her mouth. Instead, she took a nibble off the end and licked the salt from her lips.

He popped the top of his Dr Pepper, looked down at the can, and then over at her. "You deserve an apology for what I did the other day."

She was so surprised that she dropped one of the precious French fries in the grass. So that's what this cozy little lunch was about. His guilty conscience had finally caught up with him. It was nice to know he had a conscience.

He looked wary, and she suspected he was waiting for her to get all hysterical and go after him with both barrels. Well, she wouldn't give him that satisfaction. "Don't take this the wrong way, Bonner, but you were so pathetic that day I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing."

"Is that so?"

She expected his scowl to deepen, but instead, he relaxed slightly against the bar of the jungle gym. "It was inexcusable. Nothing like that'll ever happen again." He paused, not quite meeting her eyes. "I'd been drinking."

She remembered the way his breath had fallen on her-clean, with no hint of alcohol. She still had the feeling his attack had more to do with his own demons than hers. "Yeah, well, maybe you should give it up. You acted like an ass."

"I know."

"The king of asses."

His gaze flicked back to her, and she actually thought she detected a spark of amusement in those hard silver eyes. Was that possible?

"You're going to make me grovel, aren't you?"

"Like a worm."

"Does anything put a cork in that mouth of yours?" His lips curved in something that almost resembled a smile, and she was so stunned it took her a moment to muster a response.

"Disrespect is part of my charm."

"Whoever told you that lied."

"Are you calling Billy Graham a liar?"

For a moment, the curl of his mouth grew more pronounced, but then the familiar scowl returned. Apparently his time for groveling was over. He gestured toward her with his Dr Pepper can. "Don't you have any jeans? Tell me, what kind of idiot does manual labor in a dress?"

Somebody who doesn't have anything else to wear, she thought. She wouldn't spend a penny on clothes for herself, not when Edward was growing out of his. "I love dresses, Bonner. They make me feel all cute and feminine."

"With those shoes?" He regarded her big black oxfords with distaste.

"What can I say? I'm a slave to fashion."

"Bull. Those old jeans of yours gave out, didn't they? Well, buy yourself some new ones. I'll buy you some new ones. Consider it a uniform."