Page 29 of In These Hills

Josephine jumped back, embarrassed.

“Gracious, woman, what are you thinking?”

Josephine shrugged. “I-I guess I wasn’t. I’m a little nervous.”

“Here, let me do it for you.” Calla grabbed a cloth and adjusted the cover. “I need to fetch a fresh tablecloth. Milk’s in the icebox.”

Josephine pulled the sausage off the heat and poured in the milk. But no matter how long she mixed, the grease and milk wouldn’t come together. Then she smelled it.

Her biscuits!

She grabbed the oven door handle then sucked in a sharp breath, muttering a word she’d heard Sarah use too often. Snatching a drying cloth, she tried again. Smoke billowed out. The biscuits in the skillet had fused into a hard, lumpy mass. The ones on the baking sheet had spilled over the edges and dripped into piles onto the bottom of the oven. Two were in flames.

She doused the flames with water, and it hissed and crackled, sending up more smoke. She flung open the back door just as footsteps sounded behind her.

Calla stopped short. “What in land’s sake—”

“What is going on in here!” Miss Mary’s voice cut like a knife.

12

“I’M SORRY,” JOSEPHINE WHISPERED. “I-I’m so sorry. To you both.”

Miss Mary looked from the stove to the oven, then back to her. “This is your attempt at biscuits and gravy?”

“I can explain, Miss Mary. I—”

“You lied to me, Mrs. Dunham. Straight to my face, in my home, under my shelter last night, you lied.”

Fighting back tears, Josephine couldn’t bring herself to look either woman in the eye.

Miss Mary huffed. “What a mess. And with tenants sitting at my table waiting to be fed.”

“I can explain,” Josephine said again. “It’s true, I don’t know how to cook. But I do have other—”

“You should’ve been honest with me. From the very start, Mrs. Dunham, something told me not to trust you. But since you arrived in Dodge Coburn’s company—and anyone could see you were in a hard way—I decided to give you a chance.” Miss Mary shook her head. “But I see now that my gut was right.”

Her gaze moved to Josephine’s left hand. Josephine knew what she was thinking, and couldn’t argue. Wearing her mother’s ring had been a lie, too.

“I’d ask you to pack your bags,” Miss Mary continued. “But seeing as you don’t have any, I’ll just send for Dodge and have him tote you on back down to Tullahoma.”

“No, Miss Mary. Please.” Josephine’s voice broke. “I cannot go back to—” About to say Atlanta, she caught herself. “To him. If I go back, it will be the end of me.” Tears spilled freely now. “I can work. I’m a teacher. Or I was. I know how to—”

“Got no need for a teacher.”

“Maybe there’s a school—”

“We’ve already got honest people teaching our young.”

Josephine hiccuped a breath. The image of Clay Darden, rage in his eyes, filled her mind, followed by that of his father, Mayor Darden, and she began to shake.

“You could’ve been honest from the start,” Miss Mary said, her voice tightening. “Then maybe we’d be on better footing. But you made your own bed when you took to lying.”

“I had no choice,” Josephine whispered.

“We always have a choice,” Miss Mary snapped, her own voice catching. “No matter how hard the road is. It’s what makes a person who they are!”

Miss Mary’s eyes glistened, and Calla blinked back tears.