She spotted a shabby play area under the screen. It held an empty sandbox, along with half a dozen fiberglass dolphins mounted on heavy springs. She guessed the dolphins had originally been bright blue, but the passing years had faded their color to powder. A rusty jungle gym, the frame of a swing set, a broken merry-go-round, and a concrete turtle completed the pathetic cluster of equipment.
"Go play on that turtle while I talk to the man, Edward. I won't be long."
His eyes silently pleaded with her not to leave him alone. She smiled and gestured toward the playground.
Other children might have thrown a temper tantrum when they realized they weren't going to get their way, but the normal feistiness of childhood had been leeched out of her son. He worried his bottom lip, ducked his head, and tore her insides into a million tiny pieces so that she couldn't let him go.
"Never mind. You can come with me and sit by the door."
His small fingers clutched hers as she drew him toward the concrete building. She could feel the dust invading her lungs. The sun pounded down on her head while the music wailed like a death scream.
She dropped Edward's hand at the door and leaned down so he could hear her over the poisonous guitars and feral drums. "Stay here, punkin."
He clutched at her skirt. With a smile of reassurance, she gently disentangled his fingers and stepped into the concrete building.
The snack bar's counter area and appliances were new, although the dirty concrete-block walls still held a decade-old assortment of ragged flyers and posters. A pair of mirrored sunglasses lay on one section of the new white countertop next to an unopened bag of potato chips, a sandwich wrapped in plastic, and a radio that blasted out its violent music like lethal gas being pumped into an execution chamber.
The drive-in's owner stood on a ladder mounting a fluorescent light fixture to the ceiling. He had his back to her, which gave her a moment to observe this latest mountain standing in the path of her survival.
She saw a pair of paint-splattered brown work boots and frayed jeans that revealed long, powerful legs. His hips were lean, and the muscles of his back bunched under his shirt as he braced the base of the light fixture with one hand and twisted a screwdriver with the other. The rolled cuffs of his shirt revealed deeply tanned forearms, strong wrists, and broad hands with surprisingly elegant fingers. His dark-brown hair, cut a bit unevenly, fell over his collar in the back. It was straight and showed a few threads of gray, although the man didn't seem much older than his early- to mid-thirties.
She walked to the radio and turned down the volume. Someone with less steady nerves might have been startled into dropping the screwdriver or making an exclamation of surprise, but this man did neither. He simply turned his head and stared at her.
She gazed into a pair of pale-silver eyes and wished he were still wearing his mirrored sunglasses. His eyes held no life. They were hard and dead. Even now, when she was most desperate, she didn't want to believe her eyes looked like that-so unfeeling, so empty of hope.
"What do you want?"
The sound of that flat, emotionless voice chilled her, but she forced her lips into a carefree smile. "Nice to meet you, too. I'm Rachel Stone. That five-year-old you terrorized is my son Edward, and the rabbit he carries around is named Horse. Don't ask."
If she'd hoped to draw a smile from him, she failed miserably. It was hard to imagine that mouth ever smiling. "I thought I told you to stay off my property."
Everything about him irritated her, a fact she did her best to conceal behind an innocent expression. "Did you? I guess I forgot."
"Look, lady-"
"Rachel. Or Ms. Stone, if you want to be formal. As it happens, this is your lucky day. Fortunately for you, I have a forgiving nature, and I'm prepared to overlook your giant case of male PMS. Where do I start?"
"What are you talking about?"
"That sign I saw on the marquee. I'm your help wanted. Personally, I think we should get that playground cleaned up right away. Do you know what kind of lawsuits you're setting yourself up for with all that broken-down equipment?"
"I'm not hiring you."
"Of course you are."
"Now why's that?" he asked with no particular interest.
"Because you're obviously an intelligent man, despite your surly manner, and anyone with intelligence can see that I'm a terrific worker."
"What I see is that I need a man."
She smiled sweetly. "Don't we all."
He wasn't amused, but neither did he seem annoyed by her flippancy. There was simply nothing there. "I'm only going to hire a man."
"I'll just pretend I didn't hear that, since sexual discrimination is illegal in this country."
"So sue me."
Another woman might have given up, but Rachel had less than ten dollars in her wallet, a hungry child, and a car that wouldn't run.
"You're making a big mistake. An opportunity like me doesn't come along every day."
"I don't know how to say it any plainer, lady. I'm not going to hire you." He set the screwdriver on the counter, then reached into his rear pocket and pulled out a wallet that had molded to the shape of his hip. "Here's twenty bucks. Take it and get out."
She needed the twenty dollars, but she needed a job more, and she shook her head. "Keep your charity, Mr. Rockefeller. I want steady work."
"Look for it someplace else. What I have is hard manual labor. The lot has to be cleared, the building needs paint, the roof repaired. It'll take a man to do that kind of work."
"I'm stronger than I look, and I'll work harder than any man you'll ever find. Besides, I can also provide psychiatric counseling for that troublesome personality disorder of yours."
The moment the words were out, she could have bitten her tongue because his expression seemed to grow even emptier.
His lips barely moved, and she thought of a flat-eyed gunslinger with a mile-deep grudge against life. "Anybody ever tell you that you've got a smart mouth?"
"It goes with my brain."
"Mommy?"
The drive-in's owner stiffened. She turned to see Edward standing in the doorway, Horse dangling from his hand and lines of worry etched in his face. He kept his eyes on the man while he spoke. "Mommy, I got to ask you something."
She moved to his side. "What's wrong?"
He lowered his voice into a child's whisper, which she knew the man could hear clearly. "Are you sure we're not gonna die?"
Her heart twisted "I'm sure."
The foolishness of coming here on this wild-goose chase once again hit her. How would she support them until she found what she was looking for? No one who knew who she was would give her a job, which meant her only chance lay in finding someone who'd moved here recently. That brought her full circle to the owner of the Pride of Carolina Drive-in.
He stalked to the old black wall phone. As she turned to see what he was going to do, she spotted a tattered purple flyer hanging nearby. Its curled edges didn't conceal the handsome face of G. Dwayne Snopes, the dead televangelist.
Join the Faithful at the Temple of Salvation
as We Broadcast God's Message to the World!
"Dealy, it's Gabe Bonner. A woman's car broke down out here, and she needs a tow."
Two things hit her at once-the fact that she didn't want a tow and the man's name. Gabriel Bonner. What was a member of Salvation's most prominent family doing running a drive-in?
As she remembered, there were three Bonner brothers, but only the youngest, the Reverend Ethan Bonner, had lived in Salvation when she'd been here. Cal, the oldest brother, had been a professional football player. Although she understood he'd visited frequently, she'd never met him, but she knew what he looked like from photographs. Their father, Dr. Jim Bonner, was the county's most respected physician, and their mother, Lynn, its social leader. Her fingers tightened on Edward's shoulders as she reminded herself that she had come to the land of her enemies.