'Til Grits Do Us Part Read online

  © 2012 by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

  Print ISBN 978-1-61626-366-9

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-558-8

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-557-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To Lessa Goens, AKA “Grace”: a cousin, friend, and partner in fun.

  Most of this book is yours. You’re the best pal a girl could have!

  Acknowledgments

  It’s a bit of a mystery how a book is written. One holds the contract, but a hundred others rightfully deserve their names on the cover.

  For starters, none of this would have been possible without the help and encouragement of Roger and Kathleen Bruner, who read my earliest work and taught me about publishing. Roger, congratulations on your awards, and thanks for this amazing journey. I never could have done it without you.

  Lessa, you gave the initial idea with your legal background and spent countless hours (probably hundreds!) on the phone with me going over details. Thank you for your patience and perseverance!

  To my critique group—the “Yay-Sayers”—you have been incredible. Thanks so much to Jennifer Fromke, Christy Truitt, Shelly Dippel, and Karen Schravemade. Your spur-of-the-moment solutions and ideas held this book together. I owe you everything.

  To the Barbour team, especially Rebecca Germany, April Frazier, and Laura Young, you are wonderful! Thanks for making this book—and all the others—possible. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with you.

  To all of those who gave me grace and patience through the last crazy months of writing and editing—like Lila Donato, my husband, Athos, and my son, Ethan—thank you! I can hardly believe it’s done.

  Thank you, Lord, for making one of my life’s greatest dreams come true!

  Chapter 1

  Are you crazy?” I put my hands on the seat back of the pickup truck and swiveled my head from Tim to his wife Becky. “I’m not doing this, whatever it is!”

  Tim’s white Chevy lurched across a gravel driveway that bordered a dark field, and he cut the lights. Tim shifted into NEUTRAL and glided us to a smooth stop right in front of the pasture fence. A ridiculous grin crinkled his eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Why not? It’s loads a fun!” Becky poked her blond head around to see me in the backseat, where Tim’s camping stuff and fishing poles poked me in the knees. At least hunting season had ended; tents and inflatable mattresses were a lot softer than his crossbows and ammo boxes.

  Tim turned off the ignition, and the lilting mandolin plinks and tinny voice abruptly died in his tape player.

  “Good. No more country music.” I smirked to myself, peering out the window at a spread of shadowy grass. Christie, my German shepherd puppy, put two paws up on the glass and whacked her tail in my face.

  “You crazy, woman? That ain’t country music.”

  Oops. He heard me.

  “That’s bluegrass.” Tim scowled.

  “Country, bluegrass, whatever.” I pushed Christie off my lap. “It’s all the same to me.”

  Becky inhaled with an audible gasp, and Tim froze in his seat, hand still halfway to the ignition to grab his keys. “Oh no you don’t.” He turned around and raised a warning finger at me. “Don’t touch the bluegrass. It’s sacred.”

  He pressed a closed fist to his chest like I’d pained him. “Bluegrass is old-time fiddlin’. It’s Gospel and longin’ fer heaven and laments of Appalachia. It’s pure soul poured out in strings, Shiloh. Don’t ya ever forget it.”

  For Pete’s sake. Tonight I wasn’t in a mood for speeches about redneck music—especially when I had no idea what Tim and Becky had planned, and I had three unfinished news articles to finish on my laptop. I tried to move my legs, muscles still stiff from a five-miler before daybreak, and pulled a battered volume from under my thigh. I held it up to the dim overhead light as Becky tugged open her door.

  “Shakespeare. You read Shakespeare.” I tossed Julius Caesar on top of Tim’s fishing tackle box. Which already groaned with Hank Williams and Brooks and Dunn tapes piled on top. Yes, tapes.

  Tim put a finger to his lips and peeked over his shoulder at the darkened ribbon of road behind us then reached for his door handle. “Good stuff, that Julius Caesar book,” he said, nodding in its direction. “That Mark Antony guy says it jest right in his funeral oration—lotta things about honor and power that’s still true today. Y’oughtta read it, Shiloh. I’m sure Jerry’ll lend it to ya when we’re done.”

  “Jerry? The same Jerry who used to sign my paychecks with a pen he swiped from Taco Bell?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised! He’s an extremely literary man. Yesiree.” Tim shot me an indignant look. “People ain’t always what ya think, Shiloh. Ol’ Jer got me hooked on the classics. I’m jest itchin’ to read War ‘n’ Peace.” He waved at me. “C’mon, Yankee! Yer stallin’! Hurry up an’ get out.”

  Hmmph. Literary my foot.

  I shoved away a Styrofoam cooler and reached for the squeaky door handle, feeling a headache come on.

  “Well, I doubt Jerry would be too keen on our little outing tonight. Especially when Tim keeps peeking over at the road like he’s nervous.” I crossed my arms. “I bet whatever we’re doing’s illegal, isn’t it?”

  “It ain’t illegal. And Faye’s farmer friend don’t care.” Tim scooted out his open door, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth before leaning over to kiss Becky on the cheek. “ ‘You are my true and honorable wife,’ ” he said in his distinctive country twang. “ ‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart.’ ”

  “Great. Now you’re quoting Shakespeare.�
� I rubbed my forehead wearily with the heel of my hand. As if bluegrass wasn’t bad enough.

  Becky grabbed her jacket. “Aw, come on!” She reached back to punch my shoulder affectionately. “We do all kinds a fun stuff here in the South, and we’re jest givin’ ya a li’l peek at it. Seein’ as how you’re gonna be livin’ here a while longer.” She bobbed her eyebrows at me.

  “Fun?” I reluctantly unclipped my seat belt and threw my black leather jacket to the side. “You call this fun?” I waved a hand at the dark fields.

  “Well, sometimes we sit ‘n’ watch bugs sizzle on them blue lanterns. Or shoot tin cans out at the gun range, or birds ‘n’ stuff like that. Shucks, Shiloh!” Becky drawled out my name in her own distinctive way, which sounded more like Shah-loh. Two long, lazy, syllables. “We invented fun! Now hush and get outta the truck.”

  She hopped out and yanked my door open, letting Christie jump down with a clatter of toenails.

  “Speakin’ of fun,” whispered Tim, shoving aside a camping tarp so I could swing my feet around and drop into the cool grass. Scents of damp cornfields and distant honeysuckle tickled my nose. “If yer gonna play hide-’n’-seek, don’t hide in the bathroom! Why, one time I hid in the shower, and my big ol’ two-hunnerd-pound uncle come in there, not knowin’ a thing, and—”

  “Stop!” I hollered, clawing for the truck door. “Take me home right now!”

  They burst into guffaws and high-fived each other.

  “Now shush, Yankee! You’ll wake up the neighbors!” Tim clicked the truck locked and pushed me away from it. “And make sure that dog a yers don’t run off. Here. Give ‘er ta me.” He clipped on the leash and pulled her away from a patch of orange daylilies.

  “I’m not a total Yankee, you know,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “I know how to say ‘Staunton.’ ”

  That ought to chalk up some points. After one year in this small Virginia town—pronounced STAN-ton by the locals, not STAWN-ton, thank you very much—I could even make biscuits and sweet tea. Not that I’d admit that publicly.

  “Say ‘bought.’ ” Becky put her hands on her hips.

  “What?”

  “Just say it.”

  I mumbled it under my breath.

  “Told ya.” She winked. “You still got that funny New York accent. But yer gittin’ there, my friend. Maybe in another year or two you’ll git ya some redneck blood and learn how ta talk like me!”

  In my cranky state, I decided to keep my comments to myself. “So what are we doing, anyway? I’m busy.” I tried to see my watch in the moonlight.

  “Well, since you’re one a us now, ya gotta act like one.”

  “If you think I’m going to start eating squirrels or something, forget it.”

  Becky cackled. “Wouldn’t do ya more harm than that nasty raw-fish sushi you’re always talkin’ about. You eat grits, don’t ya? Adam said so.”

  “Grits?” I screwed up my nose. “Gross. I ate grits once, okay? Because I had no food left in the house. And I didn’t say I liked them.”

  “You will soon enough. Now git over here an’ let me put this on ya so you can be formally initiated.”

  “Initiated into what?” I yelped.

  “The South.” Becky dug in her pocket and pulled out a bandana. “G’won! Close yer eyes.”

  And before I could dash off, she grabbed me by the arm while Tim tied the bandana around my eyes. Tight. I stumbled around and hollered, groping for the bed of the truck. Then I boosted myself up onto the bumper, stomach bent over the tailgate.

  “Hey! Come back here!” Becky tried to pull me by the waist, but I wiggled free and plopped into the hard metal truck bed, rubbing my banged knees and elbows.

  “Forget it! I’m not going.” I wrestled with the knot at the back of my head, which had swallowed several tender strands of hair.

  “You’re really gonna stay in the truck?” Tim leaned over and peeled my blindfold off, his mustache and shaggy brown mullet grinning back at me from under his battered NASCAR cap. “With that killer on the loose? The one that knocked off that Amanda gal a few years back?”

  “Cut it out!” I tried to smooth my hair back in place, suddenly feeling chilly in the night breeze that blew in from across the deserted fields. “You watch too much CSI. There’s no way her killer could be back—if someone actually murdered her. It’s been what, eleven years? Twelve?” I rubbed my arms. “Forget it. It’s just a bunch of kids pulling pranks. Leaving notes. Silly stuff.”

  “Hey, you’re the crime reporter.” Tim shrugged, taking a few steps back as Christie pulled at the leash. “Not me.”

  “I’m not doing that story. It’s a hoax anyway.” I peeked over my shoulder at the desolate country road, winding into a blue-black distance, figuring the lunatics I knew were better than the ones I didn’t.

  Nobody did much in Staunton but smash mailboxes and spin tires, but Tim’s stupid “killer-on-the-loose” business creeped me out.

  “Fine. I’ll do whatever you guys planned. But no blindfold. And you’ve got to tell me what we’re doing.”

  “And then you’ll come?” Becky put her hands on her hips.

  I sighed and nodded. “So what is it?”

  “Cow tipping.”

  Hands down, this topped the list of the most ridiculous things I’d ever done. The night glowed with moonlight, still and soft, and a velvet breeze swelled up from cornfields and pastures that teemed with the hum of crickets. We slipped across Faye’s yard, past the grassy spot where we’d set up her wedding arch and decorated it with flowering redbud and dogwood branches, and up to the barbed-wire fence that separated her yard from her neighbor’s cow pasture.

  Whew! I could smell the cows already.

  “Okay, now quiet, y’all,” whispered Tim. “Grab yer dog while I hold the wire for ya.”

  He stuck one cowboy-booted leg on the barbed wire and pulled it open, leaving a space for us to squeeze through. Becky shimmied between the rusty strands with a practiced air, not catching her jean jacket on the barbs. (A nice jean jacket, thanks to me, the so-called Fashion Nazi who saved her from rumpled overalls and too-big NASCAR T-shirts). She gestured for me to follow.

  Crickets chimed in low throbs across the darkened hills, and I thought of Amanda’s case files sprawled across the mess of my desk. The way she’d supposedly vanished without a trace twelve years ago, from right here in town, and the recent rash of spray-painted messages and letters the police thought might be related to her.

  Please. This was Staunton, Virginia, not New York. From the little I’d heard about the case, nobody could prove anything—including foul play. Amanda probably skipped town and moved to a place where rednecks didn’t shoot the deer in the public park.

  And if you asked me, the vandals were probably one of Tim’s sixteen first cousins out on parole with spray paint and nothing to do.

  “I’m a crime reporter!” I whispered as Becky helped Christie under the fence. “If we get caught cow tipping, what’s everybody going to say?”

  “Aw, quit being a baby! Nobody’s gonna find out,” fussed Becky, tugging on Christie’s leash. “Who knows? If ya did get arrested, might be Deputy Shane Pendergrass again an’ ask ya out on another hot date. He sent ya roses a couple times, didn’t he?”

  “It wasn’t a date! I’ve told you that a hundred times. And I’m engaged anyway.” My silver ring glinted in the moonlight, stoneless. The best Adam could afford in our current financial famine, but good enough for me.

  “So…where’s that gorgeous child of yours? Who’s got Macy?” I blurted, doing my friend Kyoko’s famous split-second subject change on Becky. “You guys are supposed to be responsible parents now.”

  “Mama’s keepin’ her. She’s awful hooked on that little gal.” Becky shook a finger at me. “And if Macy’d come tonight, I guarantee she wouldn’t whine half as much as you, an’ not even a year old. Shucks, woman! You’d think you was scared of some li’l ol’ cows or somethin’.”

  “I’
m not scared! But this is just…just…” I threw my arms up.

  “I don’t even see any cows!”

  “ ’Course not! They’re over yonder. Now git!” Tim shoved the barbed wire open in frustration. “I ain’t holdin’ this all night!”

  I sighed and rubbed my face. As long as nobody found out, maybe I could do this. Just this once.

  I stuck one leg through the wire.

  Tim’s flashlight bobbed a weak beam along the ground. “Watch yer step!” he whispered as we hurried through the grass. “Ain’t much fun washin’ that stuff off yer shoes!”

  “Exactly!” I minced carefully around a brown cow pile, wondering if Kyoko back in Japan had the right idea. I’d lived here too long, and I was turning half nuts like practically everybody else. What, was I supposed to start craving those pale, soupy grits Becky kept harping about or spit in a cup or something?

  I fell in step nervously behind Becky, scrutinizing every suspicious spot.

  “So how’s yer weddin’ plans comin’?”

  “Huh?” I lurched to a stop just inches from a brown pile.

  “Your weddin’ plans! You are gettin’ hitched in August, ain’t ya? Or did ya call that one off, too?” She tittered.

  “What do you mean, ‘too’?” I scowled, slapping aside some ticklish weeds.

  Becky tugged Christie away from something stinky. “Well, ain’t this your second time to plan a weddin’?”

  I froze in midstep, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that (1) Becky Donaldson was talking about my upcoming wedding while we ran through a cow pasture and (2) she’d brought up my ex-fiancé.

  “That’s it!” I turned and stomped back toward the truck. “I’m going home!”

  “Aw, I’m just kiddin’ ya.” Becky grabbed my arm between laughs and pulled me back, Christie’s leash wrapping around my legs and nearly knocking me over. “Don’t be mad, Shiloh! Yer jest awful uptight lately.” She put her arm around my shoulder and steered me around a muddy low spot. “I’m only tryin’ to make ya laugh.”

  I untangled my left foot from the leash. “Well, talking about Carlos sure isn’t the way to put me in a good mood.”