Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(127)

She’d also helped the community by setting up a group to run the Pride of Carolina on a nonprofit basis. The drive-in had become the most popular spot in town on summer weekends.

“It’s hard to believe . . . Just over a year ago, everybody in Salvation hated her guts. Now she’s a local heroine.” Cal spoke with a great deal of pride for a man who’d been one of her chief persecutors.

Rachel had Snoozer in her arms as she stuck her head up to the screen. “Everybody’s getting hungry, Gabe. How about starting the grill?”

The men ambled out to the backyard where their parents sat together on an old quilt with Rosie perched between them and the dogs reclining nearby. Ethan moved over to Kristy, and she cuddled up to him. Cal wrapped his arm around Jane, then reached over to pat her uneasy stomach.

Gabe simply stood there, taking in the sight of these people he loved so much. Rachel set a stack of paper plates on the picnic table and looked up at him. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, their thoughts perfectly matched.

I love you, Gabe.

I love you, Rach.

Chip charged forward. Gabe knew what he wanted, and he reached out his arms.

A moment later, Chip was settled on his shoulders, his hands clasped across his father’s forehead, legs dangling over his chest.

Rachel started to cry.

She did this sometimes at family gatherings when her happiness got to be too much for her. They were all used to it. They liked to tease her about it. They’d tease her about it today. Soon . . . Maybe after lunch . . .

But for now, Cal needed to clear his throat. Jane sniffed. Ethan had a little cough. Kristy wiped her eyes. His mother handed a tissue to his father.

Gabe’s heart swelled. Life was good on Heartache Mountain.

He threw back his head and laughed.The last of Rachel Stone’s luck ran out in front of the Pride of Carolina Drive-In. There on a mountainous two-lane blacktop road shimmering from the heat of the June afternoon, her old Chevy Impala gave its final death rattle.

She barely managed to pull off onto the shoulder before a plume of dark smoke rose from beneath the hood and obscured her vision. The car died right beneath the drive-in theater’s yellow and purple starburst-shaped sign.

This final disaster was overwhelming. She folded her hands on top of the steering wheel, dropped her forehead on them, and gave in to the despair that had been nipping at her heels for three long years. Here on this two-lane highway, just outside the ironically named Salvation, North Carolina, she’d finally reached the end of her personal road to hell.

“Mommy?”

She wiped her eyes on her knuckles and lifted her head. “I thought you were asleep, honey.”

“I was. But that bad sound waked me up.”

She turned and gazed at her son, who had recently celebrated his fifth birthday, sitting in the backseat amidst the shabby bundles and boxes that held all their worldly possessions. The Impala’s trunk was empty simply because it had been smashed in years ago and couldn’t be opened.

Edward’s cheek was creased where he’d been lying on it, and his light-brown hair stuck up at his cowlick. He was small for his age, too thin, and still pale from the recent bout with pneumonia that had threatened his life. She loved him with all her heart.

Now his solemn brown eyes regarded her over the head of Horse, the bedraggled stuffed lop-eared rabbit that had been his constant companion since he was a toddler. “Did something bad happen again?”

Her lips felt stiff as she formed them into a reassuring smile. “A little car trouble, that’s all.”

“Are we gonna die?”

“No, honey. Of course we’re not. Now why don’t you get out and stretch your legs a little bit while I take a look. Just stay back from the road.”

He clamped Horse’s threadbare rabbit’s ear between his teeth and climbed over a laundry basket filled with secondhand play clothes and a few old towels. His legs were thin, pale little sticks hinged with bony knees, and he had a small port-wine mark at the nape of his neck. It was one of her favorite places to kiss. She leaned over the back of the seat and helped him with the door, which functioned only a little better than the broken trunk.


Are we gonna die? How many times had he asked her that question recently? Never an outgoing child, these last few months had made him even more fearful, guarded, and old beyond his years.

She suspected he was hungry. The last filling meal she’d given him had been four hours ago: a withered orange, a carton of milk, and a jelly sandwich eaten at a roadside picnic table near Winston-Salem. What kind of mother couldn’t feed her child better than that?

One who only had nine dollars and change left in her wallet. Nine dollars and change separating her from the end of the world.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and remembered that she’d once been considered pretty. Now lines of strain bracketed her mouth and fanned out from the corners of green eyes that seemed to eat up her face. The freckled skin over her cheekbones was so pale and tightly stretched it looked as if it might split. She had no money for beauty salons, and her wild mane of curly auburn hair swirled like a tattered autumn leaf around her too-thin face. The only cosmetic she had left was the stub of a mocha-colored lipstick that lay at the bottom of her purse, and she hadn’t bothered to use it in weeks. What was the point? Though she was twenty-seven, she felt like an old woman.