![]() To anyone else, those words might have sounded sane. I’ll need to go into town and buy her a new one at Miller’s. I turned my attention to my daughter and smiled. Watching someone you love so much live lost in their own head was heartbreaking. We hadn’t been back in Lawton, Alabama, long, but the time we had been back hadn’t been easy. I’m going to clean this up, then I’ll make you some of your favorite steel-cut oats with brown sugar and apple slices. “I broke a plate.” Grandmamma’s voice was full of concern. “Eat this and let Mommy clean up the mess.”īryony picked up a piece of the round oat cereal and put it in her mouth. “Okay,” I told her and reached for a box of cereal to place some on her tray. A dish was also broken on the floor with what looked like applesauce on it. But that brief memory left and she had dropped a pot. For a moment, Grandmamma had known that meant she needed to feed her. If she’d woken up and found Grandmamma in the kitchen, she would have told her the same thing. That was her way of telling me she wanted food, and now. My mom normally woke me up before she left for work, but today she either had tried and failed or had forgotten. Most mornings I woke up earlier than my grandmother. I moved over to put Bryony in her high chair before going to take my grandmamma’s arm and move her away from the slippery mess. “I don’t know,” she said, which were words I heard often. The woman who had taught me to make biscuits and sang me songs while playing the pots and pans like drums was no longer there. She turned her gaze to mine, and the confusion there always made me sad. What do you want me to fix you, Grandmamma?” I asked her. “I’ll put Bryony in her high chair and get her some cereal, and then I’ll clean this up. Her voice sounded lost, like she wasn’t sure what she was saying or why she was standing there. “Grandmamma was trying to fix you something, I see,” I said, looking toward my grandmother, who was now looking down at the spilled breakfast at her feet. Holding her was enough reassurance to calm me down. I reached down to pick her up before she stepped into the mess on the floor and cradled her against me. The wild curls of her hair were sticking up everywhere as she stared up at me with wide eyes and a frown. Spinning around, needing to see her face and know she was okay, I almost slipped on the milk under my feet. ![]() “Momma,” Bryony’s sweet voice called out from behind me. Smoke was coming from the toaster behind her, and I moved quickly to jerk the plug out of the wall before things got worse. The pot on the floor had been full of uncooked oats and milk, which were now splattered on the tile floor. My grandmamma was standing at the sink with a frantic look on her face. Another crash happened just as I turned the corner into the kitchen. A million things ran through my mind as I went the short distance. Jumping up, I ran through the already open door of my bedroom and sprinted toward the kitchen. Her sweet blond curls and big blue eyes were what normally met me when I opened my eyes. Something was burning and Bryony wasn’t in bed beside me. The crash from the kitchen jerked me out of my dreams and into reality. Could Brady believe Riley and risk losing everything? Excerpt Not because he cares about Riley, of course, but because of the kid.īut after the simple car ride, he begins to question everything he thought he knew. When town golden boy Brady Higgens finds Riley and her daughter, Bryony, stranded on the side of the road in a storm, he pulls over and gives them a ride. But the town still hasn’t forgotten their hate for her, and she hasn’t forgotten the way they turned on her when she needed them most. Rhett is off at college living the life he was afraid he’d lose with Riley’s accusation, so Riley agrees to move back to Lawton so she and her parents could take care of her grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She’s at home raising the little girl that no one believed was Rhett’s. Now she’s back, but she’s not at Lawton High finishing up her senior year. After accusing the oldest Lawton son, Rhett, of rape, everyone called her a liar and she had no option but to leave. Two years ago, Riley Young fled from Lawton, Alabama. The third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Field Party series-a southern soap opera with football, cute boys, and pick-up trucks-from USA TODAY bestselling author Abbi Glines.
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