“What do you want me to do? Would you rather read this yourself? What if it’s personal?”

“No. Your mother wrote it. Keep going.” She paused. “Besides, you know I’d probably turn around and tell you anyway.”

I nodded and continued reading out loud, but I felt like I’d landed in my best friend’s business.

She seemed thinner than usual, so I told her I’d buy her dinner if she met me at the diner. She met me there—which surprised me considering she’d looked liable to bolt with fright. I bought her a cheeseburger and fries and watched her inhale her food, wondering when I should broach the way she’d been sitting in the factory parking lot.

But she beat me to it. She looked up at me and asked, “Have you ever struggled with doin’ the right thing?”

I started laughing until tears ran out of my eyes, but she was getting downright angry. If she hadn’t been waiting on her dessert, she probably would have walked out then and there.

“Jenny Lynn,” I said, putting my hand over hers. “I’m smack dab in the middle of doing the right thing myself.”

She looked down at my huge belly and asked, “Is it hard? Having a baby all by yourself?”

I smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t had one yet.”

She grinned at that, then looked down at her plate. “But is it hard not being married? The women in this town don’t take to sinnin’ much. And they sure don’t approve of unwed mothers who don’t claim the father.”

I hesitated. I wasn’t surprised she knew all that about me. I was the best scandal to hit Henryetta in years. “That’s a complicated question.”

The dessert came, but before she started eating her cake, she said, “I think he’ll kill me if he finds out.”

“The father of your baby?” I asked. She looked surprised since she obviously wasn’t showing and clearly didn’t suffer from morning sickness based on the way she inhaled her dinner. “Surely you’re exaggerating.”

“He’s killed people before,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure he don’t want this hangin’ over his head.”

“But that’s so drastic.” Surely I’d misunderstood her.

She shrugged, concentrating on her cake.

“Have you gone to the police? They could protect you.”

She laughed. “The police won’t care about a Rivers. We stir up too much trouble. They’d probably be happy to have one less of us messin’ up their pretty town.”

That seemed drastic, too, but the Rivers family did have a reputation. And while the police chief seemed fair, a good portion of the officers were judgmental pricks. “Have you thought about . . . ending it?”

She looked up at me with big blue eyes. “You mean stop seeing him?”

“That too, but I was talking about, you know, the baby.”

“Oh.” Her eyes flicked down before rising again to meet mine. “No. Have you ever wanted someone to love you for you? A baby don’t know any better. They just love you. You’re their everything and they don’t leave.” She shook her head and took another bite of her cake. “No. I want this baby.”

“How old are you, Jenny Lynn?”

“Seventeen.”

“Are you still in school?”

She nodded. “I’m a senior.”

“What about your hopes and dreams?” I asked. “Don’t you want to go to college?”

She released a bitter laugh. “I can’t afford no college. He says he could pay for it, but I’m too stupid to go.”

I gasped. “He? Your boyfriend? Jenny Lynn, don’t let any boy get away with telling you something like that.”

“He’s a man, not a boy,” she said defensively, lifting her chin. “And he’s a successful business man. So he knows what he’s talking about.”

I took a moment to glance over at Neely Kate. She was twenty-four with a birthday coming up, which made the timing right. She’d already pulled into a parking spot in front of our landscaping office. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, and her face was pale.

“Go on,” she said, her chin trembling. “Finish it.”

I took a breath and tried to quell my nausea as I continued reading, knowing this wouldn’t end well.

A successful business man. A shiver ran down my back, but I forced myself to ask, “Does he live around here?”

“No,” she said. “He lives in El Dorado, but he comes here every few weeks for business and I stay with him then. He has an apartment.” Tears filled her eyes. “He gave me money for birth control pills, but I used it for something else. He doesn’t want to use condoms. And now . . .”

“How far along are you?” I asked.

“Not far.” She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but I could see the fear in her eyes. “Maybe two months.”

“It’s not too late to—”

“No.” Her tone made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate discussing it. “I’m keeping my baby.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. “He’s gonna find out eventually. What’s your plan?”

“I know a guy. He’s in a band and he’s about to go on tour.” She looked up at me with a sad smile. “He has a thing for me. He asked me to go.”

“Do you like this guy?”

She sighed, looking indifferent. “They’re all the same. That’s why I like being with him.” A wicked grin lit up her eyes. “He ain’t no boy. He’s all man. And he’s powerful.”

“But he’ll kill you if he finds out about the baby?”

“Yeah.”

“So why not just leave this man? What’s his name?”

She shook her head. “It’s a secret. I’m not allowed to tell anyone. He likes his women young, and he says people just don’t understand.”

“But you stay with him when he comes to town? You skip school?” When she nodded, I asked, “What if you just stopped going to his apartment when he comes to town?”

Fear filled her eyes. “No one tells him no. He’d have one of Steyer’s men hunt me down. I’ll have to run far away if I want to stop seeing, J—” The horror in her voice as she cut herself off broke my heart. “I didn’t tell you his name.” Her eyes were wide with fear.