Famous In A Small Town. Kristina Knight
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Amanda snuggled into her pillow as another snore escaped her lips. The sullen expression was gone, the rebellious bent to her shoulders nonexistent. She was just a kid. A lonely, screwed-up kid whose parents showed up two weeks after her grandfather’s funeral, saying it was a wake-up call, and that they wanted to build a relationship with their youngest daughter. They had actually stayed at the orchard for just over a year, but when Gran needed the hip replacement, things got too real for Samson and Maddie and they’d left in the middle of the night, just before Christmas.
From the second they arrived, Collin wanted to make them leave, but the hope he’d seen in Amanda’s eyes, the desperation he’d seen in Gran’s, had kept him from kicking them right back to wherever they’d been living. Prior to that visit, the last time they’d been at the orchard had been when Collin and Mara graduated from high school, and that had been a quick trip between what Samson Tyler called “business meetings.” Collin had heard him begging for money from Granddad, though, so he’d known it was a lie.
Collin had caused Amanda’s rebellion. If he’d only kicked them out, like Mara had suggested, none of this would be happening. There would have been no time for Amanda to get so attached to them that she forgot they couldn’t be relied upon.
He’d been pissed after their mother had called to say they were taking more time in Florida. Even more pissed when the two weeks she’d said they needed turned into two months. He hadn’t heard from them since mid-January. Not a phone call or an email. At first, all he’d thought about was what an inconvenience it was to have to look after Amanda while they sunned themselves in Florida. How much time he was taking away from the orchard and his plans.
He’d never thought about the toll this must be taking on her.
Collin closed her bedroom door quietly.
For as long as he could remember, Samson had talked about how things would be different in Florida. How they would find a good life in Florida. Apparently, they had found that better life.
Now he had to figure out how to make a better life for his sister here in Slippery Rock. Before he lost her.
* * *
SAVANNAH WOKE THE next morning feeling restless. She showered and dressed and then shoved the sequined number she’d worn the night before to the back of her closet. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded of Collin Tyler’s walkout.
Or her own idiocy.
Mama Hazel was in the kitchen when she walked in, squeezing orange juice into a tall carafe. Hazel Walters was sixty-two years and one hundred pounds of feisty. Her hair was steel-gray and she had lines around her eyes, but the backs of her hands were still smooth and rich.
“It’s about time you got out of bed. You’re back on the ranch now, not in your fancy Nashville apartment.”
“So I’m supposed to wake up with the rooster and ride the range?” Savannah teased as she snagged a glass from the cabinet and poured juice from the filled carafe. Hazel began filling a paper plate with biscuits and bacon.
“Wouldn’t hurt. Levi and your father have been up since dawn, you know.”
“Levi is a paragon of virtue,” Savannah said drily. Levi had left the bar early, and alone. Levi hadn’t made a play for a woman and been walked out on.
Levi was a football star. Levi made the pros. Levi would have been inducted into the Hall of Fame if not for a squidgy hit. But even though he’d blown out his knee, he’d kept his opponent from scoring.
Levi. Levi.
Freaking. Levi.
“Pssh. Levi has his bad qualities.”
“And I have my good ones. After all, if it weren’t for me, the Walters clan wouldn’t have a black sheep. And every family needs a black sheep.”
“Sweetheart, you’re no black sheep. You are my beautiful angel.” Hazel reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind Savannah’s ear. “When I saw these braids for the first time on television, I wasn’t sure I liked them. Your natural hair was always the prettiest of corkscrew curls. I was wrong, though, it’s just as beautiful like this.” She put the plate of food in Savannah’s hands, tucked a thermos between her elbow and rib cage and motioned her to the door. “Take this out to your brother. He didn’t bother to come in for breakfast. He’ll be in the barn by now.”
Savannah walked across the front yard toward the massive barn. It was painted red, as it had been for as long as she could remember, but the black tin roof was new. The last time she’d been home the roof was still shake-shingled. Not that it mattered what the roof of the barn was made from. It just looked funny to her.
The same swing, fashioned from the metal seat of an old tractor, hung from a limb of the ancient oak in the side yard. The same ranch trucks sat before the barn, and the same horses ran in the paddock behind it. At least, they looked like the same horses. Somehow, despite growing up on the ranch, she hadn’t learned much about farm animals.
She found Levi in the barn office, clicking through a file on his computer. “Mama said you skipped breakfast,” she said, setting the plate on the desk.
“And you’re her errand girl sent to make me eat?”
Savannah sat in the hard wooden chair across the desk from her brother. “Something like that. I didn’t want to get roped into whatever confection she was starting to make, anyway.”
“Fish fry on Sunday. She’s probably prepping her apple-caramel pie.” Levi eyed the plate as if trying to convince himself not to eat.
“You on a diet or something?”
“No.” He stuck a couple of bacon slices into the center of a biscuit. He took a bite. “Have fun at the Slope last night?”
Savannah folded her arms across her chest. “What if I did?”
“Just tell me you didn’t go home with Merle, okay?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t go home with anybody. I came back here.”
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Are you my keeper now?”
“No. Dad mentioned—”
“Would you both back off? I’m twenty-seven years old, and I’ve been living on my own in a major metropolitan area for the past couple of years. I think I can handle Slippery Rock without accidentally falling on some guy’s penis and impregnating myself.”
Levi blinked. “It isn’t that we don’t think you can take care of yourself—”
“Sure it is.” Savannah stood and began to pace. “You want me to be helpless, but I’m not. I’m like Mama.” At least I want to be.
Mama Hazel was always calm, always knew what to say and how to fix a hurt. She baked pies and loved her family.
“Mama has a purpose.”
“And I don’t?” She didn’t know why she was picking a fight with her brother. It was stupid and childish, especially when she wasn’t sure she wanted the things she kept telling her family she wanted. She liked singing, and she was good at it, but there was a difference between the fun of karaoke night with a few friends and singing in front of an audience in an arena. In having all those people scrutinize her every move. There were good points, too, like meeting little girls who wanted to be singers. A few of them had looked up to her. At least, it seemed as if they had.
Levi just watched her for a long moment. “Mama worked in the Peace Corps, Van. She didn’t vagabond all over the world with a hobo sack over her shoulder.”
“I’m not a vagabond, and my luggage is Louis Vuitton. I lived in Nashville and I’ve been on tour with the top artist at the label.”
Levi nodded as he finished his biscuit.
“Fine,