Chapter Three
Bailey Rae eyed the stack of cookbooks on the corner of her vendor table. Confused didn’t come close to describing this weird exchange. “Ma’am? You are?”
“My name is Gia.” The young mother swallowed hard, as if sharing even her name were some Herculean task. “Gia Abernathy. My daughter and I need a place to stay. This led me here.”
The woman’s words knocked around inside Bailey Rae’s head, jockeying for a place to land.
Winnie’s cookbook had led her here? Maybe she just meant Winnie’s reputation for helping folks, even letting them pick out necessities from the overstocked barn.
“There’s a bed-and-breakfast right up the road.
Reasonably priced. A cute little swing set in back.
And they serve the best pancake breakfast.”
“Not that kind of place.” Her face flushed red, her dark eyes darting. “I need, uh, like a shelter.”
“Oh, okay,” Bailey Rae said, sitting up straighter. “We don’t really have anything like that in Bent Oak, but I can ask around—”
“But this cookbook says ...” Her words dwindled off on three quick breaths, the shallow kind.
“Mrs. Abernathy, I want to help you, if I can. Truly, I do.” Seeing this mother and daughter sent her empathy into overdrive. She’d been in that little girl’s shoes.
Leaving a home with nothing but a backpack after her mother fell out with another man.
Warnings to stay quiet so as not to upset Yvonne’s newest guy.
And, in quiet times, sharing a sleeping bag in the back of the station wagon while Yvonne whispered reassurances that Bailey Rae would survive, just as she had as a kid.
Not realizing that the real strength lay in breaking the cycle.
Thank heaven for Uncle Russell and Aunt Winnie, who’d taught her how to steer her life rather than be dragged along by the undertow of her mother’s generational trauma. Now, though, she felt adrift without an anchor ...
“I must have misunderstood.” Gia gripped the tattered cookbook, her voice soft, each word separated by another of those hitchy breaths.
Bailey Rae shook off the past and focused on this woman’s very present need. “I’m sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding. Maybe you’re looking for my aunt—Winnie Ballard?” Even saying her name out loud stirred the grief. “If so, I’m sorry, but my aunt passed away recently.”
Libby tapped her cane against Bailey Rae’s leg. “Loose lips sink ships.”
“Luckily, Mrs. Libby, I don’t know anything to be blabby about.”
Gia frowned in confusion. “ Your aunt?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bailey Rae nodded. “But since she’s passed away ...”
“Oh no. No, no, no, no ...” Gia gasped, fidgeting and looking every which way like a bird about to take flight. Her agitation grew along with the rise of her voice.
Even Skeeter lifted his head with a whimper.
Gia clutched her daughter’s hand and sagged back against the table, her breaths hitching faster and faster. One tear streamed down her face, then another.
The woman was fast on her way to a full-blown panic attack.
Libby stabbed her cane into the ground and pushed out of her wheelchair, grasping the edge of the table for extra balance as she made her way around the edge to Gia. “Breathe in, breathe out ... slower. That’s it. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle.”
Aunt Winnie used to say the same when Yvonne would show up unannounced.
Even at the memory, Bailey Rae’s chest went tight all over again.
Like a beast was parked on her rib cage.
And the beast had a name. Fear. Fear that she would be hauled off in her mom’s station wagon with everything they owned, headed to heaven only knew where.
Sometimes sleeping in the back. Wasn’t “camping” fun?
She breathed in the equivalent of a bouquet herself and blew out a few more candles, grounding herself in the present. Gia’s fear mattered most now. Bailey Rae’s was in the past.
Gia pressed her fingers against the center of her rib cage. “I have nowhere to go, and if Ian finds me ... I’m scared of what he’ll do.”
Bailey Rae carried her chair around to the woman. Skeeter loped behind until he reached the end of his tether. “Take a moment to sit and catch your breath. Have you filed a police report?”
Libby snorted. “If you can get one of them over here. They’re in Keystone Cops mode directing traffic after that wild pig incident. Thea still hasn’t managed to convince her husband to put in another traffic light on Main Street.”
What a time for Libby’s memory to kick into overdrive.
Gia backed away a step, hitching her bag on her shoulder. “Never mind. I, um, shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Hold your horses,” Bailey Rae called, desperate for some Winnie-wisdom in navigating the woman’s situation. “I’m sure I can figure something out.”
Libby snorted again. Cane stamp. Stamp. “You’re a short-order cook, not a superhero.”
Bailey Rae bit back a smile and returned her attention to Gia. “Please wait. Let me text Officer Underwood and see if he can break free. He should be able to steer you toward available resources. And I’ll give you my number as well.”
It felt good to help in some way. Maybe not at a Winnie level, but assisting all the same. Bailey Rae scrolled through her cell phone until she found the contact info and tapped out a text. Then she grabbed a pen from a Mason jar and jotted her name and number on the back of a market map.
Her phone lit with a response from Officer Underwood that he was sending the game warden—Officer Martin Perez—her way.
Great. Maybe he could write her another ticket.
Sighing, she grabbed a rag doll for the child, channeling Winnie after all in doling out something from the pack-rat collection.
The bright-orange yarn hair was rough against her fingertips, simultaneously soothing and abrasive.
Like her memories of playing with one so similar, crafted by Libby from a basket of clothes that couldn’t be mended.
Everywhere she turned, those phantoms from the past blocked her path forward.
Kneeling, Bailey Rae passed over the doll, yarn hair trailing. “Here you go, sweetie. A new friend to keep you company.”
Wide eyes swept upward to her mom. Silent.
Perfectly normal to ask permission from her mother. But the lack of excitement on that wan little face? Far from normal.
The woman dragged in a ragged breath and nodded to her child. “Cricket, be sure to say thank you to the nice lady.”
Bailey Rae stood, feeling helpless—a bit like that gum on a bootheel. She’d done everything she could for the woman. Yeah, Aunt Winnie probably would have done more, but Bailey Rae wasn’t like her aunt.
The metaphorical beast on her chest turned into an elephant.
She was right to leave, to put this town and all the elephants behind her. Only then would she be free—able—to become a person worthy of Winnie’s second chance. Because right now, Bailey Rae fell way short of the mark.
Martin Perez’s favorite days on the job involved no people. Only animals, because animals didn’t lie. Today had been flush with people and only one wild pig. And the “people time” wasn’t close to an end.
Martin jogged past booths, weaving through the crowd, eyes locked on the cluster of folks around Bailey Rae Rigby’s spot.
He had hoped his job as a game warden in this sleepy little town would be low key and peaceful, the perfect place to recover from the nightmares spawned by his military career. No such luck.
In theory, he understood that in addition to protecting the wilderness, his job description included educating the public, assisting in backcountry search and rescues, and partnering with law enforcement. He just hadn’t expected it all to happen in the same day.
He’d barely had time to shower this morning after spending most of the night wading through alligator-infested swamps searching for a missing boater before heading over to man the SCDNR information booth at today’s market.
Then the wild pig happened.
He didn’t draw a gun often on the job as a game warden. Not like back in his days as an army cop. But when he did, it took him a good bit of time to clear the numb feeling. Adrenaline had a way of searing nerve endings until all sensation was gone.
Slowing as he drew closer, Martin could sense something was off about the cluster of people. There was a buzz, an energy he recognized on a cellular level from his military days.
Bailey Rae and Mrs. Libby were comforting a dark-haired woman who had tear streaks on her face. A child clung to her mother with one hand, gripping a rag doll in the other not as a treasure but more like a lifeline.
Maybe the mom was just stressed from struggling with a fractious kid. He exhaled. Hard. His instincts must be off this afternoon.
“Good afternoon, Bailey Rae. Mrs. Libby.” He nodded to each. “What can I help you ladies with?”
Born in Arizona, he’d given up on understanding why people in the South called anyone older by their first name plus Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss.
But rarely a surname. It was just the way things were done around here, and to say it differently would only add another unspoken barrier between him and the community he served.
Bailey Rae glanced his way, her auburn ponytail swinging.
The softness in her expression faded as she crossed her arms over her chest defensively, looking far too snooty for a woman wearing muddy hiking boots, cutoff jean shorts, and a concert T-shirt two sizes too big.
On the fishing ticket day, she’d worn one too.
Tina Turner, then. Today, Bruce Springsteen, the Boss.
He shrugged off the distracting thought.
The young mother shook her head quickly and scooped her daughter up onto her hip. “Nothing, we’re fine.”
Libby jabbed her cane against the ground for balance. “Wait, don’t go. You needed assistance, and I’ve found it for you in the shape of this fine-looking young conservation officer. Officer Perez, this lady needs your assistance.”
“Is something wrong, ma’am?”