“What kinda germs?” Neeci wrinkled her nose.

“Gross kinds. What if somebody picked up used gum from the ground? Or went to the bathroom and didn’t wash their hands? That’s just nasty.”

Neeci’s eyes rounded and she looked down at her hands. As those hands crept back behind her back, Ressa bit back a smile. Neeci had never much liked germs.

With a sigh, Neeci leaned in and rested her head on Ressa’s shoulder. “What if nobody likes me? What if I don’t make friends? I had a couple of friends at preschool, but none of them go here. What if I never make another friend my whole life?”

“Oh, honey.” Now her heart was twisting and turning all over. Pulling her cousin into her lap, she hugged her. There was nothing the girl could have said that would have hit home harder. “Neeci, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t make friends. You’re funny and you’re nice and you like people. All you have to do is be nice and you’ll find people who like you.”

Neeci was quiet for a minute. “But you’re funny, and you’re nice. You like people. But you had all kinds of problems getting people to like you. I heard you talk about how you didn’t have many friends in college and you didn’t have a lot in school either, and the friends you did have was trouble. What if I’m like that?”

“Were trouble,” she corrected automatically, even as she thought about little ears. Just what had she been talking about and what had Neeci overheard?

There wasn’t an easy answer to this, was there?

“I didn’t make friends all that well, you’re right,” she said slowly. “We’ve talked about this, Neeci, you and making friends. We’ve talked about it a lot. Yeah, I did some bad things growing up and I hung out with bad kids. I did stupid things that could have gotten me in trouble.”

“And your daddy was an asshole.”

“Neeci!” Ressa glared at her in the mirror.

“I heard Granny Ang say it,” Neeci said defensively.

“What Granny Ang says and what you can say are two different things.” Ressa blew out a breath and shrugged aside the knee-jerk instinct to defend her father. Not only was he past the point of needing defending, he also had been an asshole. A terrible father, even if he had loved her in his own twisted way. Bad people can still love. That doesn’t make it healthy—for anybody. “My father wasn’t a good man, no. He did stupid things and made bad choices, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m telling you. I made my own choices, too. And once I started making better choices, sweetie, I made better friends. I found people who liked me.”

“Did they like you even though you did stupid stuff?”

Snapping a band around the last plait, she turned Neeci around and bent over so they could see eye to eye. “When it comes to stupid stuff and your friends, that’s how you know who your real friends are, baby. Your real friends are the ones who are going to love you . . . even after they know all about the stupid stuff and the bad mistakes. They know . . . and they love you anyway.”

Neeci scuffed the toe of her new pink sneaker on the floor. Not looking at Ressa, she said softly, “I was talking to Mama about school and she said since I was so pretty, people were gonna like me. But what if people don’t think I’m pretty? What if other girls are prettier?”

Typical. Ressa didn’t even bother giving in to the urge to be frustrated. “There’s a lot more to being a friend than being pretty.” She rubbed her hand over Neeci’s neck, turning it over in her head. Then, easing back, she waited until Neeci looked up. “Hey, you know old Tom? He lives in the place across from Granny?”

“Yeah!” Neeci’s face lit up. “He gives me suckers when Granny isn’t looking and he tells cool stories and he lets me read his comics.”

“I know, right?” Ressa grinned at her. “He’s got a classic set of Marvel Comics that he let me read . . . if I didn’t take them out of his sight. Anyway, so he’s nice. Fun to be around, yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s really nice.”

Twining one of Neeci’s plaits around her finger, Ressa lifted a brow. “But what about those burns on him? They twist his face all up, and when he smiles or talks . . . Doesn’t that make him scary?”

“No!” Neeci looked outraged, her eyes flashing and her small face folding into mutinous lines. “How can you . . . Oh.”

She pulled away and wagged a finger at her cousin. “Ress, that wasn’t nice. Mr. Tom is awesome.”

Ressa rolled her eyes. “Mr. Tom is beyond awesome. But those burns did mess up his face—and he’ll be the first to tell you he’ll never win any beauty pageants. Not having a pretty face doesn’t make him less of a friend, does it?”

“No.” Moving back to the sink, Neeci stood there and waited. “I’ll make friends . . . right?” Her face was hopeful, her eyes so sad.

Moving back up behind her, Ressa took the brush. “I think you will. And don’t go telling me that you don’t have any friends around here. You’ve got a bunch of friends. The Logston girls love playing with you and so does Jacob down the street. Should be a piece of cake to make more.”

Neeci smiled, but with her solemn eyes, that smile did more to tug at Ressa’s heart than anything else.

Sometimes, she thought, she could just shake Kiara.

Ressa had been Neeci’s guardian for years and still Kiara managed to sink all these hooks of doubt into her daughter.

*   *   *

Ardmore Elementary was in a pretty, borderline exclusive neighborhood. At times, she felt as out of place there as she had when Mama Ang had practically dragged her, kicking and screaming, into the household she shared with Bruce MacAllister.

She’d been fifteen and had lived on her own for nearly four months, using up her precious cash and paying the bills, working under the table for more cash and doing just fine.

But then Mama Ang tracked her down.

Mama Ang had been doing a search for her brother, Darnell—she did them once a month, and this time, she’d found his obituary. She’d spent weeks trying to track Ressa down, first in the foster care system—where Ressa should have been, and then she’d just started checking out all the places her brother would have lived.

Sometimes Ressa wondered, if they’d left her alone, maybe Kiara would have turned out okay. Who knows what Ressa would have been doing, but maybe . . .

Maybe . . .

Maybe . . . maybe if she’d talked to a certain someone a few weeks back, she could—

Maybe. The most useless word in the English language.

Stop. I’m done with this. There was never any maybe there. It was just a fantasy. A fling. Nothing would ever happen—could ever happen there.

You know how he’d react if he knew the truth about you?

She squared her shoulders. Yeah, he’d react pretty much the same way just about every other guy in her life had. Screw the maybes.

“Ressa, you’re squeezing my hand really hard.”

Grimacing, Ressa let go and looked down to see Neeci wiggling her fingers. They’d parked in the lot the e-mail had directed them to—most days, parents weren’t allowed in, but they made a few allowances for the first day of school and kindergarteners. Which was good, because Ressa had two heavy totes loaded down with supplies—crayons, folders, tissues, wet wipes, paper towels.

She sure as hell didn’t remember having to lug all this stuff to school when she had been Neeci’s age. Nodding to the doors she’d been looking for, she said, “That’s where we go in.”

Neeci shoved her hand back into Ressa’s. “I’m scared.”

“Aw, now. Don’t be scared. It’s going to be fun. Just give it a chance.” Ressa hoped she wasn’t lying.

The scents of crayons and books and children hit her as she walked in. It was something unique to a school, Ressa decided, and it tugged on memories long forgotten—a few of them were even pleasant. When she had gone to school, she’d enjoyed it, and for the most, she’d attended fairly regularly. She’d only graduated a year behind, thanks to the determination of Mama Ang.