“New and improved,” Hayley said, then winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s just how I feel.”

“Jolene said she’d given you the Jo Special.” Delighted, Stella walked a circle around Jane. “Boy, didn’t she just. I love your hair.”

“So do I. Your stepmother, she’s been so good to me.”

“She’s enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve had reports, but I have to say, a picture’s worth a thousand. I hope you’re doing as well as you look.”

“I love my job. I love my apartment. I really love feeling pretty.”

“Oh.” Stella’s eyes filled.

“Same thing happened to me,” Hayley said as she got a two-way from behind the counter. “Roz,” she said into it, “we need you at checkout.”

She clicked it off on Roz’s staticky complaint about being busy.

“I don’t want to drag her away from her work.”

“She’ll want to see you. And I want to see her see you. God, this is fun!”

“Tell us what else you’ve been up to,” Stella said.

“Work’s number one. I really love it, and I’m learning so much. I’ve made a couple of friends there.”

“Male types?” Hayley wondered.

“I’m not ready for that yet. But there is this man in my building. He’s very nice.”

“Is he cute? Shoot, customer,” Hayley grumbled as one came in through the back with a loaded cart. “Don’t talk about anything sexy while I’m busy.”

“I thought I’d be embarrassed to see the two of you again.” Jane turned to Stella as Hayley waited on the customer.

“Why?”

“That time, when I met you, I was so whiny and horrible.”

“You were not, you were scared and upset. For good reason. You were taking a big step, letting us in so Roz could get those journals.”

“They belonged to her. Clarissa didn’t have the right to take them from Harper House.”

“No, she didn’t. But it was still a big step for you, to let Roz get them back, to move out, start a new job, a new life. I know how scary that is. So does Hayley.”

Jane glanced over her shoulder to where Hayley rang up sales and chatted with her customer. “She doesn’t look like she’d be scared of anything. That’s what I thought when I met her, and you. That the two of you would never be afraid to stand up for yourselves, never let yourselves get pushed around like I did.”

“We all get scared, and we don’t always do something so radical and positive about it.”

Roz came in, the only sign of irritation the slap of her gardening gloves on her thigh. “Is there a problem?”

“Absolutely not.” Stella gestured. “Jane wanted to see you.”

Roz’s brows lifted, and her smile spread slowly. “Well, well, well. Jolene is a woman of her word. Aren’t you just blooming.” She stuck her gloves in her back pocket, then lost her breath as Jane threw arms around her. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll never be able to tell you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m so happy.”

“I can see that. Feel it, too.”

“Sorry.” Sniffling, Jane released her. “I didn’t intend to do that. I wanted to come, to thank you, and to tell you I’m doing a good job at work. I got a raise already, and I’m making something of myself.”

“I can see that, too. I don’t have to ask if you’ve been well. I’m happy for you. And, however small it might be of me, I’m downright delighted to see you looking so pretty, so excited about your life because that must just burn Cousin Rissa’s bony ass.”

Jane gave a watery laugh. “It does. It has. She came to see me.”

“What’d I miss, what’d I miss?” Hayley demanded as she hurried over. “Go back and repeat all the good stuff.”

“I think we’re just getting to it.” Roz angled her head. “So Rissa got her broom out of storage and came to see you?”

“In my apartment. I guess my mother gave her my address, even though I asked her not to. It was about a month ago. I looked through the peephole and saw her. I almost didn’t answer the door.”

“Who could blame you?” In support, Hayley patted Jane’s back.

“But I thought, I can’t just sit here like a rabbit hiding in my own apartment. So I opened the door, and don’t you know she walked right in, sniffed the air, ordered me to fetch her some sweet tea, then sat down.”

“Bless her heart,” Roz drawled. “Her ego never withers.”

“What floor’s that apartment on again?” Hayley squinted as she tried to remember. “Third or fourth, as I recall. She’d’ve made a nice splat if you’d tossed her out the window.”

“I wish I could say I did, but I went and got the tea. I was just quaking. When I came back with it, she said I was an ungrateful, wicked girl, and I could cut off my hair, get myself into some rathole of an apartment, fool some brainless ninny into giving me a job I was certainly unqualified to handle, but it didn’t change what I was. She said a number of uncomplimentary things about you, Roz.”

“Oh, tell.”

“Well, um. Scheming harlot for one.”

“I always wanted to be called a harlot. People just don’t use the word enough these days.”

“That’s what started getting my back up. I thought maybe she was entitled to call me ungrateful, because I was.” Jane fisted her hands on her hips, jutted her chin in the air. “My apartment’s not a rathole, it’s just sweet, but with her tastes it might seem like it, and she didn’t know Carrie—my boss?—so she might think she’s brainless to give me a chance. But she had some nerve calling you names when she’s the one who stole from you.”

Jane squared her shoulders, gave a decisive nod. “And I said so.”

“To her face.” Hooting out a laugh, Roz framed Jane’s face in her hands. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. I don’t know where the words came from. I don’t have much of a temper, but I was so mad. I just cut loose on her, said all the things I hadn’t hardly let myself think when I was living with her, and waiting on her hand and foot. How she was mean and spiteful and no one had an ounce of affection for her. How she was a thief and a liar, and she was lucky you hadn’t called the police on her.”

“Get you.” Hayley gave her an elbow nudge. “That’s better than tossing her out the window.”

“And I wasn’t even done.”

“Keep right on going,” Hayley prompted.

“I said I’d beg on the street before I’d come back and be her whipping girl. Then I told her to get out of my apartment.” Jane threw out an arm and pointed. “I gestured, just like this? Sort of over the top, I guess, but I was wound up. She said I’d regret it. I think she might’ve said I’d rue the day, but I was so stirred up I didn’t pay much mind. And she left.”

She blew out a breath, waved a hand in front of her face. “Whew.”

“Why, Jane, you’re a Trojan.” Roz took her hand, gave it a squeeze. “Who’d have thought?”

“It didn’t end there, exactly. She tried to have me fired.”

“That bitch.” Hayley’s face darkened. “What did she do?”

“She went to Carrie, told her I was a woman of loose morals, how I’d had an affair with a married man, and that I’d stolen from her when she’d graciously taken me into her home. Said she felt it was her Christian duty to warn Carrie about me.”

“I’ve always thought there were special front row seats in hell for Christians such as Clarissa,” Roz commented.

“When Carrie called me into her office and told me she’d been there, what she’d said, I was sure I was going to be fired. Instead she asked me how I’d stood living with that horrible old crow. That’s what she called her. And the fact that I had told her I had a lot of patience and fortitude, which she thought were good qualities in an employee. Since I had them and had proven I was willing to work hard and learned fast, she was giving me a raise.”

“I like Carrie,” Hayley decided. “I’d like to buy her a drink.”

“THERE’S NOTHING BETTER than a happy ending.” Unless, Hayley decided, it was sitting in the shade on the glider, sipping a cold drink while Lily played on the grass. And Harper swung beside her.

“It’s always a happy ending when Cousin Clarissa gets the heave-ho. She used to terrorize me when I was a kid, whenever she came around. Before Mama booted her out.”

“Know what Jane said she called your mama?”

“No.” The relaxed expression on his face settled into cold stone. “What?”

“A harlot.”

“A . . .” The stone broke into a huge, rolling laugh that had Lily clapping her hands. “A harlot. God, Mama would love that.”

“She did. You really know her, don’t you? It was just such a good morning. Pushed all the bad stuff away awhile. Seeing somebody who’d discovered themselves the way Jane has, or is, I guess. The one time I met her before? She was practically invisible. Now’s she’s, well, she’s pretty hot.”

“Yeah? How hot?”

She laughed, elbowed him. “Never you mind. One cousin at a time.”

“Exactly what kind of cousins are we anyway? I’ve never figured it out.”

“I think your daddy and mine were third cousins, which makes us fifth. At least, I think. Maybe we’re fourth cousins once removed. It could be third cousins, twice removed. I can never get it just right in my head. And there’s half blood in there, too with my great-grandmother’s second marriage—”

It was probably just as well he stopped her mouth with his. “Kissing cousins covers it,” he decided.

“Works for me.” Because it did, she leaned in to take his mouth again.

Lily interrupted with a few squawks and babbles, tugging on Harper’s legs until he hauled her up. Curling her arm around his neck, she pushed Hayley back.

“Well, I guess that shows me.” Amused, Hayley leaned in again, and Lily pushed her back and wrapped tighter to Harper.

“Girls are always fighting over me,” he said. “It’s a curse.”

“I bet. That one you were with last New Year’s Eve looked like she could scratch and bite.”