Nobody's Child by Austin Boyd Page B

shoulders, long gentle fingers clutching her with a familiar vigor. “Nothing else?”
    She shook her head, tears flowing unchecked. Ian gripped her with the warm strength she’d yearned to feel. No money was worth losing him, not even the thousands she’d been promised if she’d return to the Morgantown clinic one last time. She buried her head in his shoulder, hiding her face as he wrapped his arms about her.
    â€œNo. That’s all,” she said, her voice cracking in a desperate mix of secrets, tears — and lies.

C HAPTER 9
    J UNE 21
    â€œYou need me, girl. With my help you can pay for this place.”
    â€œI’ll manage — without you.” Laura Ann watched Uncle Jack’s every move where he stood at the edge of the drive, mindful of Granny Apple’s warnings about him.
    â€œYou won’t survive.” Uncle Jack flipped a cigarette butt into the middle of her garden. “How much you got, anyway? A few thousand dollars? Paying the bank at twenty-three hundred a month? You’re gonna crash. That is, if the bank doesn’t call your note first.”
    â€œMy bank account is none of your business. If my father were here,” she continued, “he’d thrash you for talking to me this way.”
    â€œIs that so? Well, he’s dead and gone, isn’t he? But no matter.” Her uncle kicked at the swinging gate on the picket that surrounded her herb garden, slamming it back hard. The entire fence shuddered under his ire.
    â€œLet’s hope the bank doesn’t come calling with an audit of your worthless mortgage,” he threatened, walking toward his blue pickup. “My offer might not be there when you come looking for help.”
    â€œBe assured, you’re the last person I’d ask,” she said, working to control the quivering in her voice.
    â€œStubborn girl. Like your old man.”
    â€œThank you,” she said, her grip tightened on the hoe handle at her side. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
    â€œStupid too.”
    Uncle Jack lingered at the driver’s door, as if his words might have stirred some special desire in Laura Ann to relent to his wishes. He watched her, a deep frown creasing his face. In her twenty years, she’d only seen him smile once. Every visit to the farm ended like this. On the best of days a honk summoned Auntie Rose to the car. Explosive visits — and there were many — always ended with Daddy standing in the drive, holding his ground as Uncle Jack slunk away. Her uncle’s swearing would start soon.
    â€œBetter get that tobacco in the ground this month” — his hand gripped the lip of the door, white knuckles showing on thick fingers — “or it’s over.”
    â€œIt
is
over, Uncle Jack. There won’t be any planting, and I won’t sell the allotment. Not to anybody.” She jammed her hoe handle into the dirt, an exclamation point on her determination. No matter what, Uncle Jack would never grow that noxious weed on this land.
    â€œYou’re a fool. When the bank takes this place, I’ll be standing on the curb laughing.”
    â€œI have no doubt of that.”
    Uncle Jack cocked his head to the side, and then shrugged. “Call me when you change your mind.” He opened the door and started to slide into the seat, stopping to throw one more insult her way through the gap between the door and the frame.
    â€œAbout time for another of those big deposits, isn’t it?” He turned and spit, then looked back at her before he slid into the seat. “Tell your sugar daddy I’m watching him.”
    Uncle Jack slammed the door. He spun the big Ford’s wheels in reverse, and rocks shot out when he kicked the truck into drive, some of them peppering the fence in front of her.
    A middle-finger salute made his parting message quite clear.
    Laura Ann’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground in her herb