Free Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge

“Is there something I can help you with?”
    “I’m looking for the owner,” she said in a voice at odds with her appearance—soft and somewhat tentative, with a girlish lilt to it. Lindsay noticed she had a slight overbite, which, along with her pouty lips and tousled hair, gave her a sex-kittenish look. Her skin was so pale that Lindsay could see the tracing of veins beneath. Her eyes were the color of a fresh bruise.
    “That would be me.” Lindsay smiled and put her hand out. “Lindsay Bishop. What can I do for you?”
    The woman’s fingers trembled slightly in her grip, and her palm felt damp. She was staring at Lindsay as if she knew her from somewhere. “I’m not sure, actually. I guess it all depends.”
    Lindsay wondered if it was a job she was after. That would explain the tentativeness. Didn’t she know you weren’t likely to get hired dressed like that, except maybe in a dive bar? “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” she said, her smile stretching to cover her impatience.
    The woman smiled in return—the hard, flat little smile of someone reluctant to commit to it wholeheartedly, perhaps for fear of appearing vulnerable. “You don’t recognize me, do you? No, I guess not.” A spark of disappointment flared in her eyes before settling into a more resigned expression.
    Lindsay eyed her in confusion. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
    The damp hand slipped like cool water from her grip even as those bruise-colored eyes remained fixed on her. “You could say that. Actually, that’s what I’m here to see you about. You see, the thing is—”
    Before she could finish the sentence, she was interrupted by a cry of jubilation from the other end of the store. Both women, along with several customers, swung around at the sight of Miss Honi tottering toward them as fast as her high heels could carry her, her cheeks flushed and her bonnet of blond ringlets bouncing along with her breasts.
    She threw her arms around the pink-haired woman, who was too startled to react. When at last Miss Honi drew back, it was to peer at her intently. “Lord have mercy, it is you,” she declared. “I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me at first, but here you are, real as can be.” She turned to Lindsay with the flushed cheeks and shining eyes of one in the throes of an almost religious rapture. “It’s like a miracle, ain’t it? Our very own Kerrie Ann.”

C HAPTER T HREE

    “I KNOW YOU . Y OU’RE . . .” Kerrie Ann stared at the old lady, frowning in concentration. Then it came to her in a lightning flash of recognition, and she realized she’d known it all along, the name tucked away like a stick of gum in her back pocket. This was the woman in her dream. “ . . . Miss Honi?”
    The old lady beamed at her as if she had just given the correct answer to the million-dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? “I guess I ain’t changed so much you wouldn’t recognize your old pal.”
    Kerrie Ann took in the blond ringlets, the bright-red lipstick, the plump but still shapely figure decked in bling. “Yeah, but . . . but how did you know it was me ?” she sputtered. According to her records, she’d been only three years old when last seen by Miss Honi—a lifetime.
    Tears were running down Miss Honi’s powdered cheeks, catching in their creases. One false eyelash had come partially unglued, and her mouth was stretched in a wide grin that wouldn’t stay put. “As if I could ever forget that face! You’re still my baby girl, ain’t you?”
    “It’s been a long time.” She spoke cautiously, not used to being welcomed with such enthusiasm. “People change.”
    Miss Honi brought a finger to the small scar on Kerrie Ann’s chin, just below her lower lip. “You got that climbing out a window when you were two,” she said. “Fell flat on your face and busted your chin wide open. Lord, you never seen so much blood. I just about fainted, but you barely