by Arianna Hart
“That’s enough!” Pastor McBride shouted as he marched out onto the porch. Mrs. Campbell and Pansy jumped back, and J.T. quickly moved next to Nadya. “What gives you the right to come to this woman’s house and cast aspersions on her character?”
“I was just trying to find you to talk about the bake sale on Sunday. When I didn’t find you at the meeting house, I asked around, and Mabel Jones said she saw your car headed out on Deer Creek Road. Well, everyone knows the only things on Deer Creek are trees and the gypsy whore.”
“And her whore daughter,” added Pansy.
Nadya made a move toward Pansy. If that little bitch called her or her mother a whore one more time, she’d be looking for her teeth. J.T. grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against him.
“Don’t let her get to you. She’s a jealous cow and not worth you getting arrested over.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Nadya bit out.
Pansy let out a scream of fury and lunged toward Nadya. Before Pastor McBride could stop her, Pansy slapped Nadya across the face.
“That’s enough!” Pastor McBride shouted again, hauling the rather chunky Pansy off the porch. “Orleane, take your daughter home until she can control herself.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know what shenanigans were going on here. It’s my God-given duty as a member of the church board to make sure our pastor isn’t preaching one thing on Sunday and sinning the rest of the week.”
“Unless it’s with you. Isn’t that right, Orleane?” Tala said as she stepped in front of Nadya. Her black eyes blazed with fury. “You came to me last week asking if I had any gypsy potions to make someone fall in love. When I turned you away, you came back looking for the reason why. It wouldn’t have mattered if the good pastor was baptizing me in the creek, you were bound and determined to find something dirty out here.” She stepped off the porch and got right in Mrs. Campbell’s face. “You can say what you want about me. I’ve been called whore before, but you leave my daughter and the pastor out of your jealous temper tantrum.”
Mrs. Campbell was several inches taller and many pounds heavier than the petite Tala, but she stepped back from the naked fury on the smaller woman’s face.
“Or what?” she said with false bravado. “Will you put a curse on me?”
“I don’t need to. Your pettiness will stamp itself on your face without any help from me. That will be your curse and your fate.” Tala spun around, her skirt flaring around her calves, and glided up the steps.
“Thank you for your…guidance, Pastor McBride,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “But I think I’ll stick with my own faith. Nadya, go on inside. I’ll put a cold compress on your cheek.”
Nadya slipped out of J.T.’s arms and went to her mother. They locked the door behind them and didn’t bother to look as two cars pulled out of the drive.
Chapter One
New York City, Present Day
“I cannot believe you are wasting your vacation time going to Deliverance, Georgia. If I had a month of vacation, I’d go to the Caribbean.” Sandra Goldstein, Nadya’s best friend and co-peon in the gigantic law firm where they worked, knocked back her vodka martini and signaled the waiter for another one.
“If you put in as many billable hours as I did trying to pay off college loans, you’d have a month of vacation to use before the end of the fiscal year too. Besides, it’s Dale, Georgia, not Deliverance, and I won’t spend the whole month there. It should only take a week or two to get the last of the estate through probate. It’s not like my mother had that many personal assets.” Nadya sipped her martini a bit more slowly. It was perfectly chilled and smooth as silk.
“Dale, Deliverance—same difference. It’s filled with flannel and butt cleavage and there’s not a chance you’ll find anyone with their own teeth, forget working brain cells.”
More like judgmental bigots and rednecks.
“Don’t remind me. It’s not like I want to go. It’s something I have to do.”
“Whatever, bubele. I still think you’d be better off on an island somewhere.”
“It’s not like you’re going to the Caymans—you’ll be in Miami.”
“Oy, don’t remind me. I get to spend my one week of vacation with my family. Maybe butt cleavage isn’t all that bad.”
“Depends on whose butt.” Nadya laughed.
“Was there a particular butt you wanted to see again?”
Memories of a hot, steamy day with breathless kisses and awkward caresses flashed through her brain. “No.”
“I sense a certain wistfulness in your answer. Come on, give.”
Nadya heaved a sigh and finished off her drink quicker than the quality vodka called for. “You know that old Dusty Springfield song about the son of a preacher?”
“I think so. It was in a movie, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Anyway, there was a guy, a boy really, who was the preacher’s son, and he and I were together for a hot and heavy month before I left. I guess you always wonder what could have been, you know?”
“The only time I thought that was with Michael Schmitt, my boyfriend in eighth grade. I saw him at a cousin’s wedding and felt like I dodged a bullet. So, you think you’ll run into your teenage crush again?”
“Not a chance. The last time I saw him he was headed to the military and wasn’t coming back to Dale ever again.”
“Nice place. And you’re sure you have to go back there? You can’t get one of the clerks to handle probate?”
“Unfortunately, no. My mother left something for me, and the lawyer handling her affairs said I have to receive it in person. There might be some other complications since she died in California, but her papers were in Dale.”
“I can’t believe a hick town like that even has a lawyer.”
“Me either. It sure didn’t when I was growing up, but apparently my mother trusted him because he has her paperwork. He’s also older than dirt and doesn’t believe in faxes or email or other new-fangled technology.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Tons.”
“I’m only a phone call away if you need me. That is, if you get any cell service out there in the boonies.”
“Who knows? I’d be surprised if there’s a cell tower anywhere near Dale. It was just a tiny town on the edge of the state forest. For all I know, they don’t even have the Internet yet.”
Sandra shuddered. “Miami is looking better all the time. At least I’ll have air conditioning and access to wi-fi.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
…
On the road the next morning, Nadya plugged in her iPod and scrolled through until she found the song she was looking for. Hearing Dusty Springfield’s lament about the only boy who could ever move her brought all the memories of her month-long romance with J.T. McBride scrolling through her head.
In retrospect, she should have thanked him for being so honest with her when he told her he wouldn’t make any promises. Most eighteen-year-old boys would have happily screwed her and promised the world. At least she was spared the embarrassment of seeing him again after her failed seduction. She and her mama had packed up and fled in the middle of that night.
She still remembered their frantic rush to pack anything of worth into the beat-up station wagon Nadya had bought with the money she earned working at the general store.
Her mama’s words were burned in her brain. “Puishor, when the gadzé start throwing around words like ‘gypsy tricks’ and ‘whore’ it’s time to go. You don’t wait until you see the torches, you get out fast.”
“But, Mama, you’re not even a gypsy anymore. Your family disowned you before I was born.”
“Doesn’t matter. To the Outsiders, I’m still one of those filthy gypsies, and if Orleane gets the church stirred up about Pastor McBride, it’s me who’s going to get the blame.”
And her mama had been right. Nadya had called her friend Mary Ellen a few days later to tell her goodbye, and Mary Ellen f
illed her in on what had happened. Pastor McBride had been fired as the church’s preacher for failing to renounce Talaitha. J.T. had spent his last days in Dale in one fight after another. And someone had smashed every window in Nadya’s cabin and spray painted Gypsy Whores over the front porch.
Nadya wondered how the owner of the cabin had felt about that. It’s not like her mama had left a forwarding address. Hell, Nadya didn’t even know who the owner of the cabin was. All she knew was that her mother said the rent had been paid upfront years ago, and they could live there until Nadya graduated.
And now she was going back to Dale. Or at least stopping in. She’d decided against staying in the only bed and breakfast in town, and opted instead for a hotel an hour away. It would be less convenient if she had to spend any length of time dealing with the lawyer, but it would be far more comfortable for her peace of mind.
As she sped down the highway, she wondered what exactly her mama had left in the hands of a small-town lawyer. As far as she could remember, her mama had avoided contact with authority figures as much as humanly possible. The only thing she’d owned outright at the time of her death had been the RV she toured the country in. Nadya had co-signed the loan on that, and it had been handled in probate in New York.
Regret warred with guilt as she thought about her beautiful mother. Could she have done anything differently if she hadn’t been so busy trying to make it in New York City? Would she even have been able to make her mother see a doctor before the cancer had spread throughout her body? She should have spent more time with her at the end. Would it have killed her to take a few weeks off?
Nadya knew her mother had an extended family but had no idea how to contact them to let them know of Talaitha’s death. Not that she’d tried very hard to find them. When her mother had gotten pregnant by a gadzé, an Outsider, when she was sixteen, her family made her an outcast and shunned her. Virginity was prized among the Rom, and her mother had not only slept with a man without the benefit of marriage, but she’d compounded the crime by sleeping with an Outsider. The betrothal her father had arranged for her was broken and her family shamed.
To this day, Nadya had no idea who her father was or what he’d done when Talaitha showed up on his doorstep sixteen, pregnant and with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Obviously, he’d helped her somehow, because even though they lived on the edge of poverty, Nadya hadn’t gone hungry or homeless.
Maybe that was what her mama had left with the lawyer in Dale? Could she have left the name of her father in a letter? Was that why Nadya had to pick it up herself?
Nervousness turned the coffee in her stomach to acid as she considered the possibility. Did she even want to know who he was? Could he be someone she knew from town? She’d already worked out that he had to have been married, because his name wasn’t on her birth certificate, and Mama had never breathed a word of his identity.
Pushing down the nausea with an act of will, Nadya decided she didn’t want to know the man who’d donated his sperm so she could come into existence. Her mother had raised her to know right from wrong, to value herself for who she was on the inside and to make her own place in the world. Other than showing up for father-daughter field day at school, Nadya didn’t really see where he could have added anything to her life.
So why was she going to Georgia anyway? She could turn the car around and book a flight to the Caribbean like Sandra had said. Or she could follow her mama’s lead and just drive wherever the road took her. There was nothing for her in Dale, and there hadn’t been for over a decade.
Except there was. Her mama had left one last message to her, and she had to read it. Nadya doubted it would give her closure, but she couldn’t leave it hanging either. With any luck at all, she’d meet with the lawyer on Monday, go to probate court on Tuesday and have all the loose ends tied up and be out of Georgia by the end of the week.
Maybe she’d take an extended road trip for the remainder of her enforced vacation time. A few weeks wandering America’s byways would be a way to pay homage to her mama and take a much needed vacation all in one.
But first she had to get through Dale.
Chapter Two
“Sandra, should I go androgynous or professionally sexy?” Nadya asked, her cell phone on speaker.
“You’re meeting with the old town lawyer who doesn’t believe in technology, right?”
“Yes. My appointment is in an hour and a half. If I don’t get moving soon, I’m going to be late, but I’m dithering over what to wear. I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot—you’re preparing for a meeting with an unknown. Are your hair and makeup done?”
“Yes. Understated makeup, French twist with the hair, pearl earrings and matching necklace.”
“Gold watch?”
“Yup. I just don’t know whether to wear the pinstriped suit or the black skirt and jacket.”
“Go for the skirt. It says you’re not afraid of your femininity but you’re all business. Do you have a lacy camisole to go under it?”
“No, but my slip has lace.”
“Perfect. If you need to manipulate the old bastard, unbutton the suit jacket until the lace shows.”
Nadya laughed and felt ten times better as she hung up. Sandra was right, she was preparing for the unknown. Now that she thought about it, it was more like she was gearing up for battle. A battle she’d been fighting most of her adult life.
With every accomplishment she’d earned, a part of her said, “Take that!” to the people of Dale who thought she’d never amount to anything. That was why she’d used her last bonus to buy the black BMW. Having a car in the city was an enormous expense. It would have made more sense to fly down and rent a car, but she’d gone out and bought the BMW as soon as the check cleared.
No one would believe the poor gypsy girl with the wild hair and hand-me-down clothes would drive into Dale in a foreign luxury car wearing pearls and a five-hundred-dollar suit. Maybe she’d take a stroll down Main Street just to let all the local gossips get a good look at her Jimmy Choo shoes and Kate Spade bag.
Lord, if her mama hadn’t been cremated, she’d be turning over in her grave right about now. Nadya laughed at herself as she slid into the leather interior of the BMW. Expensive trappings had never mattered to Tala, and seeing Nadya dressed like one of the gadzé would have made her mama shake her head in disgust.
The drive to Dale was only thirty miles, but it was all winding, narrow, tree-lined roads. At least they were all paved now. When she was growing up, much of the route into the hills had been gravel.
Acid churned in her stomach as she approached the town limits. God, she’d thought she’d never see this place again. She’d placed Dale firmly in her past the day she’d found out what the good people of the town did to her home based on the jealous ravings of one woman. What the hell was she doing back here? Was whatever her mother left for her worth seeing this place again? Bringing back all the memories of the cuts and slurs that had been heaped upon her her entire life?
Yes. If for no other reason than to shove it in their faces that she’d made it. While they were still living in the back end of beyond, she was in New York City working for a prestigious law firm.
The sign declaring Dale, Georgia, population 322 looked old and weathered. The gilt lettering had faded completely, and the black numbers were a watery gray now. Its state reflected the town itself. Several shops she remembered from her childhood were abandoned with faint For Sale or Lease signs in the windows. Weeds sprouted up through cracks in the sidewalk and were about the only things growing. She guessed even the Georgia sun couldn’t bake kudzu.
Nadya glanced at the lawyer’s address again to make sure she had the right place. The small, glass-fronted store looked more like a pharmacy than a law office. She hadn’t expected an office complex like the one she worked in, but this was ridiculous. Sure enough though, hanging off the door knob was a sign stating this was the office of one Marshal T. Hornblow
er, Esquire.
Bracing herself for the heat and humidity, she checked her appearance in the rearview mirror and reapplied her lipstick before stepping out of the air-conditioned coolness of the car.
“Mama, if you’re listening, help me through this.”
The heat hit her like a wet slap, and sweat immediately beaded up between her breasts. She was thankful she’d ditched the idea of nylons. The jacket she wore wasn’t exactly cool, but at least the meager breeze could waft across her bare legs.
A dog of undetermined breed barked unenthusiastically at her from next door where it was tied in the shade of the green-and-white-striped overhang. It didn’t even bother to get up. Did it ever get this hot in New York?
Nadya knocked at the door, then entered at a hollered, “Come on in!”
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the dimness of the office—such as it was. The glass window was covered by a blind that was frayed around the edges. A ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, and a window air-conditioning unit chugged away at the back of the office. There was only one desk out front and a small kitchenette in the back corner.
“I’ll be right with you,” the same voice that had told her to come in called from behind the refrigerator door.
Seconds later, an older gentleman who could have been Colonel Sanders’s twin brother, complete with white suit and trimmed beard, backed out from the depths of the fridge with two sweating glasses of iced tea.
“You must be Nadze…ah…Nadzedha Sarvo?”
“You can call me Nadya. And you’re Mr. Hornblower?”
“Yes indeedie. Why don’t you sit down here and have a glass of tea while I get your papers in order?”
“Thank you.” Nadya bit back the urge to tell him to get on with it. This was the South, and there was no such thing as getting straight to business. She’d have to make polite chitchat for close to half an hour before he finally got to the point as to why she was here. Might as well sit in the uncomfortable guest chair and bide her time.
Her gaze wandered the room as she sipped the sweet tea. It had enough sugar in it to keep ten dentists employed full time, but was ice-cold and refreshing. She sat up straighter when she spotted a fairly modern computer right next to a printer/copier/fax machine similar to the one she had in her office.
