Right Before His Eyes by Wendy Etherington Page A

reclusive.
    â€œC’mon, hotshot. Your adoring public awaits,” called out Will.
    Bart snorted. Then he threaded through the crowded dining room and focused on the handshakes and backslaps of congratulations coming his way.
    Â 
    S EVERAL DAYS LATER, ON the way to see Daisy Brookshire and her new baby, Lily was pouting in her car seat. “I wanna go see Bart.”
    Amelia Parsons, known by everyone in Mooresville as Mellie Donovan, sighed. Why her baby sister—half sister, actually—had formed such an intense bond to Bart Branch was a mystery. He was wonderful to Lily, of course—a surprise in itself for a hot bachelor—but he was way out of their league, to say nothing of the fact that she wasn’t in North Carolina to have a fling with a gorgeous man.
    She was only twenty years old and on the run. She desperately needed to find Hal Walker, her mother’s second husband who’d abandoned them all months before her mother had been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Her mother had died, leaving Mellie with no money and a baby half-sister to raise—along with eerie anonymous phone calls and their house turned upside down as though being searched for something…and only her mother’s deathbed mumblings about Hal and North Carolina to go on.
    Amelia hadn’t known what to do or where to turn, but after the day that a dark van tried to drive her off the road, the stakes had risen. She’d reported the incident but with no witnesses and no evidence, the sheriff hadn’t been able to help her. It was then that she’d been certain of only one thing: she had to find Hal Walker, whatever it took. At a minimum, he would have to take care of his child. Amelia was terrified that she wasn’t up to the job, though she loved her baby sister with everything in her.
    So long raven hair was chopped off.
    Amelia Parsons became Mellie Donovan.
    And a young, terrified girl headed for North Carolina with only her last paycheck to support herself and the little girl she let every assume was her child, for fear Lily would be taken from her. She’d wished to be able to change Lily’s first name, too, but at two—just recently turned three—Lily was too young to play along or understand. Thank goodness Lily already called her Mellie, their mother’s pet name for Amelia, and not her real name. Everyone who knew Lily understood that Lily had a mind of her own, and that made for an easy explanation of why Lily called her “mother” Mellie instead of Mommy . Mellie did everything she could tomoderate her little sister’s temperamental nature, but Lily had been through a lot in the past year, losing her mother and her home.
    Mellie couldn’t let herself think about all she, too, had lost.
    She was, however, more than grateful for the day she’d stopped at Maudie’s Down Home Diner to get food for herself and Lily. Meeting Sheila Trueblood, the owner, being offered a job, a place to stay and a loving grandmotherly woman, Louise, to watch over Lily had been the beginning of a new life Mellie wished she could keep.
    But every day of lying was getting harder, she thought as she pulled up in front of the cabin where her friend Daisy Brookshire was staying.
    She’d found no trace of Hal Walker. She couldn’t wait forever to resume her search. Lily had a father out there somewhere, and Hal should take care of his responsibilities to her.
    â€œI want Bart!” Lily shrieked.
    â€œMe, too, Lily,” she murmured, gathering the child to her and rocking her. “But it’s been a long time since I got anything I wanted.” She pressed Lily’s cheek to hers.
    â€œWe’ll be okay, sweetie. I promise we’ll be okay.”
    A tear rolled down her cheek as she reassured her little sister and wished there was someone to make her believe the same.
    Then Sheila walked out the front door.
    Lily’s eyes went as wide as her