After the Night by Linda Howard Page A

the neckline. It had been oddly striking on Renee, with her dark red hair, but clashed horribly with Jodie’s carroty locks. "I had a hot date with Lane Foster last week and wanted to wear this, but she wouldn’t let me," she said resentfully. "I had to wear my old blue dress, and he’d seen it before."
    "Don’t take Mama’s clothes," Faith protested, her eyes filling with tears.
    Jodie gave her an exasperated look. "Why not? She won’t be needin’ them."
    "Pa said she’ll come back."
    Jodie hooted with laughter. "Pa don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Gray was right. Why on earth would she come back? Nan, even if Guy chickens out and goes running home to that ice cube he’s married to, Mama will get enough from him to keep herself real pretty for a long time."
    "Then we’ll have to leave," Faith said, and a salty tear trickled down her cheek to puddle at the corner of her mouth. "We should be packing."
    Jodie patted her on the shoulder. "Baby sister, you’re too innocent for your own good. Gray was mad as hell, but like as not, he won’t do anything. He was just shootin’ off his mouth. I think I’ll go see him, and maybe get the same kind of arrangement his pa had with Mama." She licked her lips, and a hungry look came over her face. "I’ve always wanted to find out if what he has in his britches is as big as I’ve heard it is."
    Faith jerked away, jealousy slicing through her misery. Jodie didn’t have the sense to see that a snowball would have a better chance at surviving a Fourth of July picnic on the equator than she had of attracting Gray, but oh, how Faith envied her the gumption to try. She tried to imagine how powerful it would feel, to have the self-confidence to walk up to a man and be certain he found her attractive. Even when Gray turned Jodie down, it wouldn’t put a dent in her ego, because there were too many other boys and men panting after her. It would just make Gray more of a challenge to her.
    But Faith had seen the cold contempt in his eyes that morning when he had surveyed the shack and its inhabitants, and shame had shriveled her soul. She had wanted to say, "I’m not like that," wanted him to look at her with admiration. But she was like that, as far as he was concerned, because she lived in this squalor.
    Humming happily, Jodie took Renee’s gaudy rainbow of clothes into the back room, to try them on and put darts in the bodice, because Renee’s breasts were larger.
    Barely choking back sobs, Faith grabbed Scottie by the hand and took him outside to play. She sat on a stump with her face buried in her hands while he pushed his little cars around in the dirt. Normally he would be happy doing that all day, but after about an hour he came over to her and curled up by her legs, and was soon asleep. She smoothed his hair, terrified by the faint blue tinge of his lips.
    She rocked back and forth on the stump, her eyes stark with misery as she stared at nothing. Mama was gone, and Scottie was dying. There was no telling how much longer he could last, but she didn’t think it would be more than a year. As bad as things had been, at least there had been a kind of security, because things were the same day after day and she knew what to expect. Now everything had come apart, and she was terrified. She had learned how to get along, how to manage Pa and the boys, but nothing was going according to plan now and she was helpless. She hated the feeling, hated it with a ferocity that made her stomach knot.
    Damn Mama, she thought rebelliously. And damn Guy Rouillard. All they had thought about was themselves, not their families, nor about the turmoil they would leave behind.
    She hadn’t felt like a child in a long time. Responsibility had been pushed onto her frail shoulders at an early age, giving her eyes a solemn maturity that jarred with her youth, but now she acutely felt her lack of years. She was too young to do anything. She couldn’t take Scottie and leave, because she