Free Palmetto Moon by Kim Boykin

we’d have Miss Mamie to contend with. Couldn’t we just go somewhere else? Someplace closer?”
    “There are a couple of good eating places in Walterboro, if that’s okay. They even have a picture show.”
    “Sounds wonderful,” she says, inching a little closer. He’s glad she doesn’t know he emptied out the coffee can for gas money and a fancy supper. He had no idea what things cost in Charleston, but he’d be damned if he’d not given her the moon and then some on their first date. She nods and smiles, and he’s certain this will be the last first date for the both of them.
    As he turns the car around and heads in the opposite direction, her smile puts the pretty blue sky to shame.
    “I’m glad you asked me out, Frank Darling.” His heart sings every time she says his name. “But you don’t have to impress me.”
    “I thought maybe you didn’t want to go there because—I thought maybe you had somebody there. A boyfriend.”
    “I don’t have a boyfriend, Frank.”
    He grins at Vada, making her blush. “I’d sure like to fix that.”

• Chapter Seven •

    My breathing returns to normal. I smile as we pass a pretty field, but inwardly I am scolding myself for being so transparent. Why, I might as well have been wearing a great big sandwich sign that says, “I ran away to escape the tyranny of my parents.” Just the thought of Father sitting behind that huge, gaudy desk in the study, planning my capture and marital demise, is enough to make me sick again.
    No, he won’t take my leaving lightly. Not at all. And when his pawn, Justin, comes back empty-handed, he’ll take matters into his own hands. But even
he
won’t think I’m actually working, something Hadley women do not do.
    Besides, Father was never good at hide-and-seek. Not that he ever tried to look for me when I begged him to play. Father always sent Desmond to find me, because he didn’t have the first clue as to where to look. Desmond always knew, just as he knows where I am now. But he loves me like a daughter; he’d never betray me. The game is on a larger scale now, and I have the upper hand.
    The car veers off the road for a few seconds because Frank looks at me a lot while he drives. Really, it’s sweet, but I don’t think it’s very safe at all. The car groans to a stop at a stop sign. A woman at a tiny roadside vegetable stand looks up hopefully. A little girl is on her knees, playing jacks in the dirt, and another is chasing a pair of boys who look like twins. The children stop what they’re doing and wave wildly, motioning for us to pull into the yard.
    Frank lets the car idle. He’s smiling at me, making me feel like a schoolgirl before he steps on the gas again. The woman cranes her head downward as she sorts through a basket of peaches. She’s just like Claire, head down, always working. It’s hard to imagine Claire ever felt the way Frank makes me feel, but I know she misses her husband, misses being adored, feeling beautiful, special.
    “You’re awful quiet,” Frank says.
    “That woman at the crossroads reminded me of Claire.”
    “A friend of yours?”
    “No, silly, Claire Greeley from the boardinghouse. She’s such a dear woman, and those children are adorable. It’s terrible they can’t live in a proper house, or at least someplace the children aren’t encouraged to play in the street.”
    “Widow Greeley is nice—”
    I press my lips into a thin line, trying to keep my mouth shut, but I can’t. “Please don’t call her that.”
    “Well, she is nice.”
    “No. Don’t call her the Widow Greeley.”
    “Well, she is a widow, and her last name is Greeley. What would you have me call her?” He’s smiling, teasing.
    “Her name is Claire, and she’s not much older than me. Widow Greeley sounds, well, old, very old, and she’s not. Claire is young and beautiful.”
    I turn to face Frank. He almost runs off the road, so I turn around to watch the road for myself. He may be handsome, very