Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(131)

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.





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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.

“ . . . then send the bill to me. And Dealy, take the woman and her son over to Ethan’s. Tell him to find them a place to stay for the night.”

After a few more terse words, he hung up and returned his attention to Rachel. “Wait by your car. Dealy’ll send somebody out as soon as his truck gets back.”

He walked over to stand by the door, one hand on the handle, his responsibility clearly discharged. She hated everything about him: his aloofness, his indifference, and she especially hated the strong male body that gave him a survival advantage she didn’t possess. She hadn’t asked for charity. All she wanted was a job. And his presumption in ordering her car towed threatened more than her transportation. The Impala was their home.

She snatched up the sandwich and bag of potato chips he’d left on the counter and grabbed Edward’s hand. “Thanks for lunch, Bonner.” She swept past him without giving him another glance.

Edward trotted at her side all the way down the rutted gravel lane. She held his hand crossing the highway. As they once again sat down under the buckeye tree, she fought against her despair. She wasn’t going to give up yet.

They’d barely gotten settled before a dusty black pickup with Gabriel Bonner at the wheel shot out of the drive-in’s entrance, turned onto the highway, and disappeared. She unwrapped the sandwich and investigated its contents for Edward: turkey breast, Swiss cheese, and mustard. He didn’t like mustard, and she wiped off as much as she could before she handed it to him. He began to eat with only the slightest hesitation. He was too hungry to be fussy.

The tow truck arrived before he finished, and a short, stocky teenager got out. She left Edward under the tree and crossed the road to greet him with a cheery wave.

“As it turns out, I don’t need a tow. Just give me a push, will you? Gabe wants me to put the car behind those trees over there.”

She pointed to a grove not far from where Edward was sitting. The teenager was clearly dubious, but he also wasn’t very bright, and it didn’t take her long to convince him to help her. By the time he left, her Impala was hidden.

For now, it was the best she could do. They needed the Impala to sleep in, and they couldn’t do that if it had been towed to a junkyard. The fact that the car couldn’t be driven made it even more imperative that she convince Gabe Bonner to give her a job. But how? It occurred to her that someone so devoid of emotion might better be convinced with results.

She returned to Edward and pulled him to his feet. “Bring along that bag of chips, partner. We’re going back to the drive-in. It’s time for me to get to work.”