Stella's Sheets

By LA Parker

With the promise of spring just around the corner, Stella Reece’s motorcycle riding boyfriend, her abused sister and her job have all left town. Stuck with a broken down car, a ten-year-old nephew and no money of her own, Stella’s life is unraveling.

And one more thing, the handsome Cherokee Stella danced with at her best friend’s fiesta has just gotten out of prison—for murder.

Squeaking by on two part time jobs, selling flowers at the farmer’s market and hoping tourists will buy her one-of-a-kind quilts, Stillwater’s bad girl is hoping for the window that’s supposed to open when doors get slammed shut.

Adam Blackcrow has come home to find his entire life has been worked out for him. A house, a car and half of a booming construction company--all his for the taking. More than any ex-con deserves, more than Adam wants. His brother, Simon, is so determined for Adam to escape his past that he fails to recognize the one person leading Adam into the future. A failure that pits brother against brother, husband against wife and puts Stella in the center of small town gossip.

When the American Dream heads south of the border, can a trashy southern beauty patch together a new dream for the people she loves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: LA Parker
• Release date: Mar 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301291427

LA Parker

Between stints as a lion tamer and exotic dancer, LA Parker earned a degree in Art History from the University of Delaware. After a harrowing experience excavating ancient ruins along the Amazon, she earned a second degree in Computer Science from East Carolina University.Dabbling in the art of lying for fun and profit, she has published three works of fiction: Against the Grain, Stella’s Sheets and Society of Benevolent Strangers.Settling for a quieter life, LA is currently residing in North Carolina with her son, Zach, and criminally inclined dog, Max the Bandit, where she is happily dreaming up more fantastical and phenomenal lies for your entertainment.LA Parker has been an LGBT Ally since 1976. Saving Rainbow Falls, which will be released by Raven Press, is her first LGBT novel. It addresses LGBT issues that are important to everyone in our vast community whether they are lesbian, gay, transgender, bi-sexual, or ally’s and she does so with grace and respect, and a wonderful Fannie Flagg sense of humor.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Stella Reese paused at her back door, cocked her head and listened as flowered sheets flapped in the brisk February breeze. Lifting slowly and dropping with a crisp snap on the line behind the little blue trailer. It was a perfect day for drying sheets in bright sunshine under a clear-blue winter sky. Taking a deep breath, she smiled and headed toward her workshop, ready to start a new project.

Stella loved flowers. Any kind of flowers. Painted, printed, embroidered, appliquéd, even the kind she grew in the abundant garden surrounding her home. In her workshop, she had refurbished hand-me-down furniture with paint and embellished fabrics with her creative stitchery. Floral patterns decorated every corner of her home.

Her kitchen table had been painted a clean white with a bold design of sunflowers and morning glories hand-painted across the surface. Even the legs had tender vines of paint coiling around them. Cabinet knobs were ceramic flowers, the curtains were flocked with yellow violets. In the living room, the old couch had been slip-covered with denim—a mix of yardage from the clearance bins and scraps of old jeans—that had been patched and embroidered. Everything she owned had been ‘fixed-up’, even her thrift shop clothes.

Buck McCann had built the workshop for her a few years back. All fifteen by twenty-five unheated square feet of it.

That had been a surprise. A really nice one. The shop had become one of Stella’s favorite places second to her trailer and just a bit ahead of the old farmhouse where she grew up.

Unlike her mother and sister, Stella had few expectations when it came to men. She did not need a man to pay her rent and electric, buy her new tires--even though the set on her old Honda had bits of steel showing through the smooth rubber treads--or build her a project room. All Stella wanted was to be treated well, made love to passionately and not held too jealously.

Stella absolutely did not want a man to marry her because then she would have to depend on him just as her mother and sister depended on their husbands. It might have worked out for her mother the second time around but not for her sister, Dee.

Buck had built the shop because he loved Stella. As a professional carpenter, putting up the building was something special he could do for her. Even her Uncle Wilber had been grudgingly impressed by the man’s gift, impressed enough to pay an electrician to wire it. Wil and Flora Strayhorne had not often been impressed by Stella’s boyfriend. Not his unkempt, long hair and loud motorcycle, nor his frequent comings and goings. Leaving Stella alone for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.

Buck’s excuse was that his job with Blackcrow Construction took him out of town often. The company had full time crews working overtime on the new phase of a sprawling outlet center on I-95 and others, sub-contracted, to build resort properties, commercial and residential, along the golden strand of Myrtle Beach. Could he help it if business was booming?

Crystal Strayhorne Reese Bell, Stella’s mama, did not buy that excuse. Buck might have gone out of town for a job but he was supposed to come back when the job was done, not a week or two later. And, as Crystal reminded Stella often, Buck could have stayed on at the outlet center job instead of riding down to South Carolina every chance he got.

Crystal told her sister-in-law, Flora Strayhorne, that Buck used her youngest daughter as his own personal Holiday Inn and if the girl had any sense she would hang out a no vacancy sign the next time he blew into town on that big Harley.

Of course, Crystal was not one to speak. Stella’s mother had dragged her girls around several southern states for years—after their no-good father had abandoned them—all in search of a better job and a better man. Preferring the latter.

Stella knew that moving every few months was far worse than being left alone in her pretty little trailer.

And the truth was, Stella never stayed alone for long.

Men liked Stella Reese. She was unreasonably beautiful with the face of a dark-angel and the body of a stripper. Stella liked men to look at her and was thrilled that they wanted her because she wanted them right back. When Buck was away, Stella did as she pleased. And when Buck came back, took her for a thrilling ride on his bike and an even more exciting ride in her bed, Stella forgot about the other men.

For five years, Buck kept coming back. This last time he had brought a diamond ring with him. Stella had been shocked at the unexpected offer since marriage had never been high on her list of priorities.

Crystal was on her third and this one looked like a good one, except Stella believed her mother had married for money and was using Ronnie Bell. Everyone who had an interest in NASCAR liked the gruff, quiet, good ol’ boy who had led the pack around the track for the last twenty years. Her mother had latched on to him and his money like a tick on a dog. Stella had a soft spot for Ronnie and did not want to see him hurt by her scheming mama.

Her sister, Dee-Dee was miserable after her second trip to the altar, dumping a decent, hardworking man—the father of her son—for a handsome man from a privileged family. That marriage had created a stir since the second husband, Randy Barefoot, worked for one of Ronnie Bell’s competitors, Burley Fergusson.

Mother and daughter had both made the same mistakes: getting pregnant before they left Stillwater High and letting Uncle Wil and Aunt Flora push them into marriage for the baby’s sake.

Len Suggs had been willing to marry Deidra Denise. The man had knocked her up intentionally to hold on to her but had only ended up stifling her. Dee-Dee had wanted more, and when, as a lark, the blue-eyed Randy Barefoot had started showing Dee special attention, Dee had fallen hard for his movie star good looks, bottomless wallet and charming ways. Only Dee ended up married a man who loathed her and daughter-in-law to a couple who did not want her or her son in their family.

No, Stella did not want to follow in either woman’s footsteps. Only her Uncle Wil had the rare, ideal marriage. Wil adored Flora and after thirty-five years of marriage Flo still believed her husband lit the sun at dawn and sprinkled stars across the night sky.

Stella would take one of those marriages. She knew that love like that was as rare as a rose blooming in the snow.

By taking lovers during his absences, Stella proved to Buck how little she needed him but after he came back, she was happy to show him how much she desired him. When Buck McCann had nervously held out a little diamond nestled sweetly in a tiny black velvet box, Stella had answered briskly with an irritated no.

Buck had put up with a lot to keep Stella but in his opinion that no had been the caboose on the end of their train wreck of a relationship. After making love to Stella, reveling in her incredible body and passionate abandon one last time, Buck had packed up and gone.

Just that morning.

As she stepped into the sunshine, Stella felt the wind swirl around her and caught the sharp scent of sun-warmed earth. Spring was coming and she felt buoyed by the promise of a new year, new flowers and maybe even a new lover or two.

Chapter 2

Everett Barefoot sat behind his desk in his office at the Barefoot Oil Company. The only sound was the clock ticking on the wall. Trying to focus on some budget numbers, he sipped the coffee he had brewed earlier.

The coffee had gone cold.

Slamming it down, ignoring the slosh across his blotter, he glanced around the room, restless. Everett was killing time. He had spent an hour flipping through a few contracts his lawyer had already reviewed, another few minutes dealing with a couple of suppliers via e-mail. Nothing he had to attend to on the Sabbath but he could not sit at home and just wait.

Everett was in no mood to be around anyone else.

His wife, Sue Ellen, had gone to church alone. She was a smart woman, she would have the housekeeper prepare him a meal, something he liked, but she would keep out of his way. Everett figured she would probably take the preacher and his wife to the Wayland Inn for supper before returning to the church for choir practice. Everett’s gruff baritone would not be missed and he was glad that Sue Ellen would not be home to bestow one of her sour looks on him when he pulled the stopper out of the decanter of scotch. Later his smart wife would lock her bedroom door to keep her drunken husband from climbing into the large canopy bed with her.

Everett glanced at the large clock, ticking off the seconds loudly in the abnormally quiet office. In ten minutes it would be noon and at noon, his brother’s killer would walk out of prison. In ten minutes the man who murdered Jake would be free. Free to live out the rest of his life. Worse, he was apparently going to live his life right here in Stillwater.

Sheriff Littleton had stopped by early in the week to inform him that Adam Blackcrow was coming home and that weasel, Littleton, had had the pure unmitigated gall to tell Everett that he wanted no trouble from the senior Barefoot or his sons.

A murderer would be loose in Stillwater and the sheriff was worried about the victim’s family causing trouble.

It was beyond laughable.

Everett grabbed the mug of cold coffee and flung it across the room. Smashing the glass on the clock. Yet the ticking continued.

Barefoot had known the man would get out eventually—unfortunately, Adam Blackcrow had not been given the life sentence he deserved—but there was no reason he should enjoy an early release.

If Everett’s stupid, useless niece, Lauren, had told him about the parole hearing maybe he could have gotten his lawyer involved. Maybe he could have kept Blackcrow behind bars for another couple of years. If he had known, Everett might have been able to reschedule his business trip to Louisiana and gone to the hearing himself. None of his boys could be bothered. Everett snorted thinking of the useless lot. They had forgotten about their uncle, and when he had confronted his niece, she had told him she just wanted to put her father’s death behind her.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Put it behind her? For the life of him, Everett could not understand his brother’s family.

Jake’s pretty widow, Lindy, had relocated to Florida in a hurry. She only remembered Jake when her monthly check was late. Jake’s share of the business earnings now went to Lindy with a portion put into a trust for the kids. Lindy had remarried faster than Everett and Sue Ellen thought appropriate but what could they do about it? Everett’s biggest regret was that JJ, Jake Junior, never really got to know his father, not man to man. Lindy had taken the boy away so that Everett could not tuck him under his wing and show him what it meant to be a Barefoot.

Because of JJ and Jake, Everett would have fought the parole with everything he had. If he had only known about the hearing. Try as he might he could not understand why Lindy and Lauren had kept it quiet so that no one could go speak for Jake.

That upstart, Simon Blackcrow had sent his activist, lawyer wife into the parole hearing with all kinds of damning material about Jake. Witnesses even.

The sorry-assed prosecutor from Charlotte, assigned to the parole hearing at the last minute, had told him all about it after Everett had left a half-dozen messages. The attorney had said that the defendant served his time well, had earned the early release and that Adam Blackcrow was truly regretful. Everett knew it was not the prosecutor’s fault that a murderer was going free but it did not stop him from ripping the man a new one through the phone.

****

Simon Blackcrow sat alone in the dark green Ford Explorer with the motor running. He was parked at the front entrance to the Mecklenburg Correctional Institute for Men. Already two guards had come over to ask his business there. Patiently Simon had told them he was waiting for a prisoner to be released. Both times, they checked their watches and told him it would be a few more minutes and that he should wait in visitor parking. The second guard had stood there watching him menacingly until Simon reluctantly drove to the lot across from the entrance.

Simon had been waiting ten years, he probably could wait a little bit longer and it did not matter where he waited, he thought, as he eased the SUV into a vacant slot where he could keep an eye on the gate. Just as long as Adam walked out that gate a free man.

He put a CD into the player. Leaning back and drinking in the new car smell of the SUV with pleasure he listened as the first strains of Patsy Cline’s Crazy came over the speakers. This had been his father’s favorite and he thought it was appropriate for the occasion. Adam would like it.

The music took him back and Simon became lost in memories. Thinking about his father, how Caleb Blackcrow, had inherited Lakeside Farms from a distant cousin of his mother’s. It was a good-sized piece of land just outside Stillwater, bordering the north side of Serenity Lake and ending at Willow Branch Creek where it butted up to Wilber Strayhorne’s larger operation then doglegged north along I-95.

Caleb Blackcrow had returned to Qualla Boundary, the Cherokee Reservation in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, after a two-year tour of Southeast Asia courtesy of Uncle Sam. He had told his sons that had known forever that he would marry Susannah Williams and he had tied the knot his first week back. The couple had struggled the first few years. Caleb had trouble finding and keeping a job. He was a hard worker but after the war he had some issues with authority.

The inheritance came when Susannah was pregnant with Adam, and Caleb had given up on his prospects in the mountains. Gratefully they took over the farm, though never having farmed, Caleb got off to a rough start. He did not know this flat land, did not understand its needs as he understood the mountains and he had almost given up again. Stillwater’s flat, hot sandy soil was unappealing compared to the rich dark slopes of the cool green Smoky’s.

Fortunately, he and Susannah formed a friendship with Wilber and Flora Strayhorne. Wilber gave him an education in agriculture, a trial by fire and although Caleb never felt connected to this land, he did all right and he found working his own soil preferable to the limited opportunities in Cherokee.

When Adam was six and Simon had just turned four, Susannah became pregnant again and was suffering in the humid summer. She missed the women of the tribe, the help and companionship she would have gotten from her sisters and her mother’s family. Desperate to get somewhere cooler she took Adam and Simon to spend several weeks with her older sister, Bonnie, and to attend her younger sister, Amanda’s wedding.

Leaving a tribal meeting Susannah Blackcrow had danced across the lot to her younger sister’s car, her body heavy with child, trying to catch raindrops on her tongue and wishing Caleb was there. She missed her husband badly and was ready to take their boys home after just one week. Mountain roads often became slick after the rains, the cooling sweet rains that Caleb’s wife had missed so much, making them treacherous for even the most experienced drivers. The three adults, Amanda, her fiancé and Susannah were laughing, joyously planning their future when their car hit standing water, spun into a sudden skid and left the mountain road, flying off the side. The Ford landed in a crushed ball of metal one hundred feet below.

Devastated by his loss, Caleb went to the reservation for the funeral, collected his sons from their Aunt Bonnie and returned to Stillwater to raise them by himself.

The boys grew up on the farm but neither grew up loving farming. Dutifully they worked the corn, the cotton and the tobacco fields, dealt with the pigs and the chickens and dreamed of the day they could finally leave.

Adam Blackcrow was a natural mechanic. He had been taking apart anything electrical or mechanical for years, as a teen he had spent his free time fiddling with the farm equipment generally with a positive result. His first real job had been working at a local auto repair shop afternoons and weekends during his senior year at Stillwater High. Adam applied to and was accepted by the University of Michigan with a scholarship in automotive engineering. Caleb was bursting with joy at his son’s success.

Until Adam got sidetracked.

The summer before college the mechanics at Henderson Chevrolet, the dealership where Adam was working, had a chance to work with the pit crew at an exhibition race for a young NASCAR driver. The owner of the dealership had become the primary sponsor for Hitch Jackson and wanted his best mechanics to work on the car. Hitch had started to win the secondary contests consistently. By the end of that summer, it was generally acknowledged that Adam Blackcrow’s way with an engine was as much the reason for the car’s success as Hitch’s driving. They were giving Team Liberty Bell a run for the money and Burley Ferguson’s Mean Green Machine was not living up to its name against the young team.

Adam worked hard to convince Caleb that he should do this for a couple of years, telling his father that he needed to make money for Michigan; the scholarship covered tuition but not living expenses. In a couple of years, Adam had promised, once he had money saved up in the bank he would continue his education.

His son’s rationale for postponing University of Michigan did not fool Caleb. His son found the prestige and glamour of the NASCAR job irresistible and Caleb was impressed as well. NASCAR was as much a southern religion as the Baptists and in North Carolina racing was taken very seriously. Some drivers like Ronnie Bell and Burley Ferguson were major celebrities. The sport was spreading nationwide, going mainstream, and Adam was riding the crest of the wave.

Caleb’s younger son, Simon Blackcrow, had always been fond of building things. He was good with wood and had a personality that appreciated precision. Measure twice and cut once was more than a reminder to work carefully; for Simon it was a way of life. Weekends and summers, the youngest Blackcrow worked in construction while he finished school.

The jobs had been an early showcase for his growing talents at building and project supervision. Simon had taken on extra responsibilities, earning the attention of his bosses and putting him in charge of men who had been working construction since Simon was in diapers—as one man had put it—but they never resented the young man. Actually they respected him more than some of the older supervisors on the site.

Bottom line, Simon treated people fairly but had no time for slackers.

College had never been in his plans, academics were not his thing but after graduating from high school, Simon took night classes in drafting and business at a local community college, eventually earning an associate’s degree in business. Working toward this little bit of education got him out of the framing crew and into the offices at Reynolds Construction.

Simon enjoyed hands-on building but he really liked the logistics of project planning and oversight. It was in his nature to plan everything down to the smallest detail. His boss, Bill Reynolds, after losing a bid for a government project, joked once that he should make the Cherokee a partner so that as a minority owned business he could use affirmative action for his gain. That comment started Simon thinking hard about the future. Simon realized despite the talk Bill Reynolds would never take anyone on as a partner, and he knew he had gone as far as he wanted with Reynolds Construction.

There were few competitors in the area worth working for and not enough growth to keep a plethora of upstarts in business. Reynolds was right being a minority owned business would give him a bidding edge. But only an edge, then he would have to sink or swim on his own merits. As a pledge of trust in Simon, Caleb took out a hefty mortgage on the farm and Adam turned over his college savings to his brother. They loved Simon and they had confidence in his ability to come through with their investment. At twenty, Simon started Blackcrow Construction, put together a crew and won his first government contract.

It only took one small federal job for Simon to know that he was going to have to find a better way to make a living. The government not only watched his overhead carefully, they were reluctant to pay more than one cent for a two-penny nail. It made him wonder who had gotten the five hundred dollar hammers and ten thousand dollar toilet seats. Simon could almost believe that these overcharges funded covert operations and unnamed departments deep in the belly of the pentagon. They certainly were not the norm in his experience.

Determined not to fail, Simon brought the job in under budget and made a small profit. Next, he teamed up with a young architect, Brighton Kelly. Using the profit, they built a luxurious spec house in a Myrtle Beach resort. It sold quickly and for more than they had expected. Simon had found his niche. More high profit, full-of-detail residential and commercial resort jobs came their way, both commercial and residential and then the clincher that secured his future came along.

Simon Blackcrow bid on a contract for phase one of an outlet mall on I-95 just north of Stillwater on the tail end of Lakeside Farm. The job was for a northern development corporation. Blackcrow Construction got the job and Caleb was able to sell a small strip of the farm as part of the deal for a nice sum of money. He settled some debts and put the remaining profits back into the construction company, thoroughly convinced that his youngest son would be successful.

Just when both of Caleb’s sons seemed to be established in good jobs, Hitch Jackson was killed in a fiery collision at Daytona. The lead car blew out a tire, spun out of control and took out the two cars following close behind him. Of the three cars, Hitch was the only fatality. Without a driver, Henderson Racing shut down and Adam Blackcrow found himself out of a job and deeply missing a good friend. At loose ends, he toyed with the idea of trying college but after Hitch was buried, Adam was inundated with job offers from competing teams. Each offer just that much sweeter than the last.

Burley Ferguson’s offer was the one he took and Adam moved to Charlotte.

Simon had become an avid NASCAR fan and grasped every opportunity to visit Adam when there was a race nearby. Caleb, though not as big a fan, let his son know how proud he was and Adam did not have the heart to tell his father or Simon about his problems with his boss, Jake Barefoot. Jake was a Stillwater native, too. Their common background had made Adam feel more secure to be working with someone from his hometown. However, Jake did not care for upstart young mechanics and made every minute of Adam’s job hell. Adam found out that while Burley had really wanted him on the crew, Jake had only wanted to keep the competition from getting him and had no intention of letting Adam work on the lead car.

Adam could have quit, taken one of the many other jobs he had been offered but he was not a quitter. He had confided his problems to his live-in girlfriend, Lily Hodges. She had urged him to give it a year and then look for a better position.

Within months of taking the job, another terrible accident causing the death of a young driver on the Ferguson’s Green Machine had Jake Barefoot accusing Adam of recklessness in his care for the vehicle, inferring that this death might be related to Hitch Jackson’s. Two accidents, same mechanic, there were suspicions. Only Adam had never worked on the Green Machine car, Jake had and Jake and Burley knew it.

Even knowing Jake had lied and that his actions may have led to the death of another driver, Burley refused to let his head mechanic go and instead fired Adam. It was easier to blame the new guy. Eventually the charges Jake made were disproved, not everyone on the crew liked Jake or hated Adam. Adam was cleared at the inquest and was immediately offered a better job with Ronnie Bell’s team.

Adam never had the chance to accept the job with Team Liberty Bell. While Adam was celebrating the outcome of the inquest at a rundown dive frequented by NASCAR mechanics, Jake Barefoot had ended up dead.

Adam pled guilty; there was no trial. Simon never learned all of the details, only bits and pieces from the prosecutor at the sentencing. Lily Hodges had been too upset to think clearly and had not been much help; she had gone home early leaving the boys to keep on partying and had not witnessed the murder. It was just recently, when Simon’s own wife, Feather, had been preparing for the parole hearing did Simon Blackcrow find out what led to his brother bashing Jake Barefoot’s brains out on the bar’s cinderblock wall.

At the time of the murder, all of the Blackcrow family’s cash and assets were tied up in Simon’s business. Adam, overwhelmed by guilt refused to fight, he was prostrate before the courts and was about to be charged with first-degree murder based on exaggerated reports that he had made threats to kill Jake Barefoot. Simon desperate to save his brother asked the tribal council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee for help and they in turn brought in the best tribal lawyer from the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Joseph Twoelks thought he could save Adam if only he could get the young man to stand up for himself, but Adam was bereft. He had hated Jake but had never meant to kill him. To make matters worse, just before the trial Caleb Blackcrow was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. The best Twoelks could do was to get the sentence reduced to murder two with a guilty plea. The judge had not been lenient with the sentencing and did not consider the defendant’s clean past or obvious remorse. He gave Adam fifteen to twenty with parole after ten. The Barefoot family was far from satisfied with the outcome but they had little influence in the Charlotte courts.

The Blackcrow family was devastated.

Adam went to the medium security Mecklenburg Correctional Institute to wait out his sentence. Caleb Blackcrow died a year and seven months later giving Simon control of the entire Blackcrow fortune. It was a very small fortune, Lakeside Farms, a bit of money and the family’s investment in his construction company.

Determined to make a good life for himself and his brother Simon decided that whatever he had Adam would have the same. In anticipation of Adam’s release from prison the fire in Simon’s heart drove him to build the fastest growing construction company in the Carolinas.

When Golf America Properties and Resorts were rumored to be looking to build a golfing community somewhere in North Carolina Simon approached them with a plan. He offered them the land north of Serenity Lake, it was Caleb’s farm and Simon had not had the heart to sell it. He had been renting the farmland to Strayhorne and had built a small house on the lake for himself and Feather.

Their plan was to live in the small house while a larger one was built just above and to the right of it and then to develop an upscale lakeside community around them. He just needed a way to finance it. Golf America, in exchange for the land, would give him the contract to build the lavish clubhouse and would pay for the infrastructure development of Lakeside Farms as he was calling the neighborhood that would lie between the north side of Serenity Lake and the championship golf course. In return, Simon would give them enough land for the course and for another smaller residential development to the north of the fairways and greens. They took the deal. Stillwater was not quite as run down as many small towns in the rural south and it had enough character in its architecture that one of the developers had referred to it as a little Pinehurst, fueling a rumor around town that their sleepy little town would become another upscale resort.

After hearing, the rumor Simon took a good hard look at the small town with a critical eye and decided it was worth preserving. He bought up properties as they became available and resold or rented them when he could or just sat on them, waiting for the right opportunity. Blackcrow Construction also restored a few key landmarks. The Wayland house, a tobacco baron’s mansion, was now the Wayland Inn, a restaurant and bed and breakfast. Blackcrow developed two blocks of Magnolia Street across from the Public Library, giving artists and artisans the properties rent-free for a year if they opened studios and retail spaces. He restored the old theater and got a major cinema chain to buy it and run it along with their multiplex—which he also built—out on one of the highways. Becoming an advocate for Stillwater won Simon favor with most of the local gentry with the exception of the Barefoot family. Despite their influence and animosity eventually, Simon and Feather were accepted into Stillwater society.

A sharp businessman and wise investor, Simon had become wealthy and so had Adam.

The ten years went by for Adam neither quickly nor slowly. They just passed. When the first parole hearing came up Simon was ready for it. He was older now, wiser and he was not going to let Adam go undefended again. His wife, Redbird Feather Twoelks Blackcrow, daughter of the Oklahoma lawyer who had tried to defend Adam, had character witnesses lined up.

Lily Zale, the former Lily Hodges, Adam’s ex-girlfriend—now the wife of a respected Honda dealer in Winston-Salem—was set to testify that Adam had never been violent, had never so much as raised his voice in anger. She also had told Feather that Jake had given Adam a hard time and that she had witnessed several incidents of what she called just out and out meanness.

Jonah Black, a former co-worker of Adam’s, was prepared to describe the tension that Jake Barefoot had fostered within the mechanical team and the way that Adam had dealt with it calmly.

Neither her father nor Simon would talk about the trial. Joseph Twoelks had considered it a personal failure that Adam had gotten so much time behind bars and Simon had just wanted to put it behind him. In preparing for her brother-in-law’s parole hearing Feather had read the transcripts not only of his trial but of the inquest to the fatal stock car accident that led directly to Jake’s death. The inflammatory testimony of Jake Barefoot implicating Adam and the conclusions of the panel that refuted every scrap of Jake’s testimony had shocked her. No wonder Adam had been so angry.

Adam refused to allow her to bring any of the exculpatory evidence up at the hearing. There was no point in rehashing it, the trial had been long over, the sentence served, there was no excuse Adam could offer that would change what he had done and he did not want to shame Jake’s children by speaking ill of their father. Only none of Jake’s family came to the hearing, a situation that had surprised all three Blackcrow’s.

Simon spoke of the loving family that they had been raised in, how they had lost their father while Adam was in prison and how Simon was willing to do whatever was necessary to help his brother adjust to life outside of prison.

The warden gave a dry report that basically stated that inmate Blackcrow had not caused any problems. He had never been caught with contraband, never taken any drugs and had, for a short time until the budget cuts, taught other inmates basic automotive maintenance so that they had the skills to get a job at a Quick 10 or Jiffy Lube after they were released.

Adam sat quietly and listened to everything that was said only looking up once to catch Lily Zale’s eye and give her a solemn nod of thanks. He had to repress a smile at the warden’s statement. The part about contraband and drugs was not necessarily true. Adam had gotten drugs while he was behind bars, plenty of them.

Simon and his father had paid money through a shady connection to insure that Adam was protected while in prison and that he had anything and everything he would need to survive. They had not intended that the money pay for Quaaludes and other tranquilizers but the Native American inmates who had befriended Adam for Caleb’s money had no qualms in providing him with the pills.

At first, Adam saved up the pills, toying with the idea of killing himself by taking a massive dose at lights out but he could not actually go through with the plan. Death would have been the easy way out and Adam would not settle for anything easy. Instead, he took liberal doses of the drugs to numb his pain. After weeks in a haze, he decided the pain and the guilt felt better than the drug induced nothingness. He got used to them, pain and guilt, like a monk adapts to a hair shirt because forgetting the terrible crime he had committed would be the worst thing Adam could do, for if he forgot, if he let himself forget, then he might do it again.

Most people believed that they could go through life and never harm another person, never kill. Adam had believed it. Except Jake Barefoot’s death had happened so quickly and so easily. To take one life was unforgivable; to take another life would have been intolerable. After making that realization Adam had used the remaining pills to pay for a painful but artfully executed prison tattoo.

Caleb, aware of the racism that plagued the local Lumbee, had raised his boys to fit in with the white community. Besides family gatherings every few years in the mountains, they did not have much opportunity to associate with other Cherokee. Adam had been a clean cut young man when he was on the NASCAR circuit. Now the Cherokee symbols for the Good Peace, To Hee Doh, were deeply inked over the well-defined muscles of his left triceps and he had not cut his hair since entering the prison, hair he usually wore in one long braid. The Cherokee had learned more about his heritage, using his time locked behind bars to learn to speak, read and write Tsalagi passably well.

At the end of the parole hearing Adam had been given a chance to speak for himself. He had tried to be honest and sincere without sounding overly rehearsed as he expressed his profound regret and his belief that he would never lose control again. The lawyer representing Jake Barefoot, sent from the prosecutor’s office, offered no objections to his release and since no member of the victim’s family was present, the hearing came to an uneventful close.

Two weeks later Simon learned that Adam’s parole had been granted.

Sitting in the parking lot outside the prison Simon drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, his usual sign of impatience. The fifth song on the Patsy Cline CD had just ended when Adam, wearing the new khakis and button-down shirt that Simon had sent him and carrying all of his possessions in an LL Bean duffel bag, also provided by Simon, stepped through the gates to freedom.

Chapter 3

After taking a deep breath and looking around in the bright sunlight Adam Blackcrow wished Simon had thought to send a coat. It was a cold February Sunday. He wished for anything to keep him warm and to cover up the silly clothes he was wearing. Adam had been verbally harassed by the other inmates as he had left his cell, most parolees left in clothes provided by the state. Ugly, cheap, ill-fitting things and here, except for the long braid, Adam was looking like he was on his way to casual Friday at the office.

A dark green SUV edged near and Adam saw his brother grinning behind the wheel. The passenger side window came down and Simon called out, Hey, you need a lift somewhere?

You wouldn’t be going to Stillwater would you? Adam stuck his head in the window, the new car scent filling his nostrils. He had an overwhelming desire to go home and as far into the future as he could see, Adam did not plan to leave Stillwater ever again.

Yeah, I’m headed that way. Climb on in. Simon could not contain the grin. This is what he had waited ten years for, his brother free, his brother back home.

Adam opened the rear door and threw the duffel on the seat. Then slamming it shut climbed in beside Simon.

Nice set of wheels, he commented, suddenly uncomfortable with his younger brother.

Adam knew he should hug him or something but he felt like a stranger. They had seen each other for monthly visits, in ten years Simon had rarely missed one. Feather, over the last few months, being his attorney, had seen him more often and taken him packages, books and messages from Simon. There were always papers to sign and Adam did so without reading them. Only knowing they had something to do with Simon’s business and Adam’s investment in it. He had known his brother was successful but success was relative, and until Feather had spelled it out clearly on one of her last visits, he had not understood exactly how successful Simon had become.

Glad you like it, she’s yours as soon as you pass the driver’s test and get your license. The book is in the dash. Think you can remember how to drive? Simon’s question was not meant as a joke.

In my sleep. Thanks. I like it but I thought I told Feather to get the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Adam had taken his brother’s question as a taunt and returned with his own joke until he saw Simon’s face. The old kidding around stuff was gone, that was for sure. What had their father called him when he was little? Simon-So-Serious. Hey, I was kidding. You know, Grand Cherokee, a joke? This is great. You shouldn’t have done it.

Actually you paid for it. Simon smiled back forcing himself to loosen up a little. It had been a good joke, Grand Cherokee, ha-ha. He had just wanted everything to be perfect, absolutely perfect for Adam.

Really, what else have I bought? Adam laughed.

Nothing yet. Simon shrugged.

What can I afford to buy? Adam asked.

Anything you want, Simon answered as he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a new wallet and checkbook. These are yours.

Adam took the leather wallet and the matching checkbook and looked at them carefully but did not open either one. Instead, he pulled the seat belt across his shoulder and lap as Simon pulled away from the curb and turned the vehicle out onto the main highway. Adam watched the prison fade in the side view mirror. Though he would not miss Mecklenburg, he felt uneasy watching everything he knew shrinking behind him since he did not know what to expect looking forward.

Simon had sent a note with Feather asking Adam to list everything he wanted to do after he got out. In the letter his brother had written that Adam should not worry, that he, Simon, would make a list of the things Adam had to do: get a driver’s license, buy new clothes, see Frank the barber, check-in with his parole officer. Reading it Adam had smiled, it was just like Simon to list every single detail, even the obvious ones.

Adam started to write back that he did not know what he wanted, the idea of leaving the prison after so long was daunting but he wrote down a few things to please Simon. He wanted to eat a steak cooked on the grill, see his relatives in the mountains, visit his father’s grave, find a place to live, buy a car and get a job. Adam had contemplated adding that he very much wanted to crawl between the sheets with a willing woman but he was not sure how Simon would take that joke. He realized that he no longer knew his brother well and he was sure that Simon no longer knew him either. He was aware that he was no longer the same man he had been before Jake died. Adam sighed to himself, except for the visit to the barber, everything on Simon’s list could occupy the first few days and then Simon would make him a new list.

Reaching for the radio Adam punched the AM/FM button to tune in a station; he twisted the tuner until he heard music more suited to his mood. It was a pop station, jangly simple music that evoked no memories. Adam disliked country music, the old kind that Simon had been playing. It reminded him too much of the past, of things lost: his father, Lily and his career. That’s better. You don’t mind do you?

Simon looked at the dial for a moment to hide his disappointment that his surprises had not been received well, the music, the vehicle and the money. Adam had barely glanced at the checkbook or inside the wallet. Simon wanted his brother to understand that he was solid, that he would want for nothing, that from here on out he was truly free to live his life. Simon shook off the gloomy feelings that threatened to ruin the day. All that mattered at that moment was that Adam was free.

Pulling up to the exit, the highway clear to the left and the right, Simon asked. What do you want to do first?"

Go to Stillwater, I guess. Adam shrugged.

After that? Simon pressed.

"What do you have planned?" Adam hid a smile. Knowing, like the list, Simon had a month of events planned.

"There’s a steak dinner with your name on it back at our place. After you get settled I thought we could go up to the mountains, see the family. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Jackson ask about you all the time. Feather is big into the tribal thing. We go up there frequently.

And we have a place on the ocean just north of the Grand Strand. We planned to take you there for some R and R. It’s cold now but the beach is beautiful this time of year. After that, we go back to work. I have a position waiting for you at Blackcrow Construction.

Okay, fine but, Si, could we chill in Stillwater for a few. I need to get my bearings. A position, thought Adam, picking up on his brother’s choice of words. He just wanted a job, something basic, easy, and mindless. Simon had filled his list as if it were Christmas. Maybe Adam should have put the woman on it. He was sure by now, that if he had Simon would have had a willing female in his bed that night.

Sure, fine, you need to get your license and check in with the sheriff anyway. I’ve already cleared the beach trip and mountains with him though.

The sheriff? Adam asked.

Your parole officer is Sheriff Littleton. You remember Rod, don’t you?

Yeah, he was a deputy when we were in high school right? Wasn’t he the one that pulled us over after that game and made us dump the beer into the ditch? Adam remembered.

And as he brought each empty back to the car you stood over there behind his back and tried chugged them down instead of dumping them. Simon shook his head and smiled at the memory.

Hey, I didn’t want to waste good brew. Adam laughed at the memory and for a moment, it did really feel okay to be free.

Chapter 4

Stella had gone about her Sunday in the usual way. As Buck had packed his things, she had cleaned up the breakfast dishes, showered and dressed for the chilly day, pulled some new sheets out of a shopping bag, washed them and hung them out to dry with the others. After Buck left she headed to the shop and became lost in her creations, sketching out a new pattern that had been playing around in her head all week. Excited by how it was working out Stella began pulling fabric off shelves, stacking it on her worktable, in preparation for cutting the quilt pieces.

Flora Strayhorne, her aunt, stopped by late in the afternoon bringing her niece a plate filled with leftovers from their Sunday supper. Wrapped up in the new design Stella had worked right through the meal and had not noticed as the light turned the deep gold of late afternoon. She paused long enough to gobble up the good fried chicken with zucchini casserole, a side of creamed corn and dollop of potato salad. More food than Stella could eat in one sitting and she set some of it aside for her Monday lunch.

While Stella ate, Flora gathered the stiff dry sheets from the clothesline and set the basket beside the ironing board in the center of the large shed; the iron was plugged into an outlet in the ceiling just above. A kerosene heater glowed in a small open area toward the back of the room taking the edge off the chill but not really warming up the room. Flora settled into the one comfortable chair, slipcovered in quilt scraps and watched as her niece began to carefully iron the first sheet.

Stella had cleaned out a clearance bin at a local linen outlet buying the best of the damaged and irregular floral print sheets for only a few dollars. They may have been flawed but they were pretty and the fabric was exceptional. After washing and ironing them Stella would fold them and store them until she needed their prints or was inspired by their colors for one of her exquisite quilts.

Where’s Buck? Flora asked. It was unusual for Stella and Buck not to join them at the farmhouse on a Sunday afternoon.

He left this morning. Stella did not look up.

She did not need to. Stella could picture her fifty-something aunt clearly. Fading red hair, wavy and streaked silver-blonde, pulled back in a loose bun, wearing clean worn jeans and an embroidered sweatshirt—one Stella had decorated for her—over a cotton turtle neck, unstylish glasses with thick lenses that had slipped part way down her nose. Stella was sure if she looked up, she would find disapproval in her aunt’s serious brown eyes.

Checked in and checked out, huh? Flora’s question sounded like Stella’s mother until she punctuated it with an irritated snort. Crystal Bell never snorted.

There was nothing Flora could say about her niece’s love life that had not been said many times before. Long ago, the woman had realized that Stella was going to live her life her own way. Flora likened Stella’s life to one of her sheets on the wind moving steadily one way and then snap changing direction, drifting randomly but tethered to the line. That was Stella.

Where’s he gone off to now?

He said he was going to Denver to see his daughter, Stella told her, finally looking up.

Now Flora Strayhorne understood. Buck was gone for good. She studied her niece’s face trying to figure out what she should say. Exactly how did Stella feel about this? The youngest of Crystal’s girls was usually an open book; normally everything Stella felt was expressed in her eyes, her body’s movements and her face. Or she told you. With Stella, you never had to guess. She had never been secretive or manipulative like Dee-Dee.

Finally unable to read anything in Stella’s calm features, her steady hands or her matter-of-fact words, Flora asked the question bluntly. Didn’t he ask you to go with him?

Sure, he even had a diamond ring, Stella answered. I don’t know where he got the idea I would want one of them.

Buck McCann asked you to marry him and you said no? Flora could not believe what she was hearing and found herself taking Buck’s side. She was not unhappy that he was gone but she hated that Stella thought marriage was such a bad idea. It was Flora’s greatest desire that Stella settled down with a good man and have a bunch of babies, babies Flora could help raise. Sweetie, you know, it’s not that terrible. I like being married to Wil.

No more than he likes being married to you. Stella smiled. Her aunt and uncle had a true love. Even though they had never been able to have children, or maybe because children had not come between them, they were as much in love at fifty-seven as they had been at nineteen. But you are one of the lucky few. Look at Mama and Dee-Dee.

Stella thought of her sister and mother’s marriages. From her perspective, the women were totally dependent on their husbands for everything they had and were the poorer for it. At least Ronnie loved her mother but she did not think Randy loved Dee the way he should, he acted more like he owned her.

You got it right about Dee. She coulda had a better life staying with Len, Flora agreed. But your mama’s doing alright, better than I had ever expected her to do. Your daddy was a big mistake—‘cept for having you and Dee of course—and I don’t even need to say a word about the second. But Crystal done alright the third time around. Ronnie loves her and he needs her. You see how that man is. Ronnie Bell is so shy. Sure, those TV people make him out to be some kind of NASCAR cowboy. All gruff and rough edged, a man of few words but he is just plain shy. Crystal is his connection to livin’. You know your mama, everyone loves her. She just attracts a party. You inherited that sassy mouth of yours from her, you know.

Wilber and Flora had raised Crystal Strayhorne after her mother died. Flora had been forced into parenthood when she had just turned twenty, less than a year after marrying Wilber. Ten-year-old Crystal Strayhorne proved to be a handful for the young couple. Wilber could not bring himself to discipline his sister like his father and mother would have. He felt sorry for her. To make up for his lack of resolve, Flora tried to be lovingly strict, an iron hand in a velvet glove and Crystal fought her every step of the way.

At sixteen, she was a tiny gray-eyed blonde beauty running wild with several boys, particularly the spectacularly handsome Bobby Reese. Wilber did not approve of Bobby Reese. The boy drank too much, drove too fast and had had several encounters with the law before he turned eighteen but when Crystal ended up pregnant Wilber grudgingly paid for their wedding.

Eleven months after Deidra Denise Reese was born Crystal gave birth to her second daughter, Stella Louise. She and Bobby moved the two girls to Florence, South Carolina where Bobby had started working around stock cars. He figured that he might as well get paid for what he had done best, driving fast and living recklessly. Bobby did well for a few years until the other things he did better started getting in the way. Drinking and gambling got him into trouble, eventually losing everything. Unable to pick himself up and move forward Bobby Reese moved on. Crystal and her daughters never saw him again.

For a few years, determined not to go back to the farm or ask her brother for help, Crystal dragged her daughters across three states and through many more failed relationships and jobs until finally ending up back in Florence. Crystal Strayhorne Reese, like her soon to be ex-husband, finally found steady work around the stock car track, taking tickets, modeling with the cars for a calendar –she had been Miss June—and pushing cocktails at hotel bars, doing anything and everything that came her way. It was on one of the promotional photo shoots that she met Ronnie Bell, driver, owner and star of Team Liberty Bell and the hottest thing on the NASCAR circuit.

Ronnie was just getting out of a stagnant marriage that had produced three sons who hated him. The former Mrs. Bell had worried frantically about the dangers of racing. When her concern fell on deaf ears, the worry turned to anger. Finally finding solace in her Baptist religion, she refused to participate in the social life of NASCAR and isolated herself and her boys from the track and their father.

Ronnie was a quiet man, not one to instigate a good time but that did not mean he was against having one. Crystal Reese’s presence insured a good time. Crystal had married him in a hurry and despite the teasing she had gotten from Wilber and her daughters, she declared that she liked the name Crystal Bell. To prove it she even started collecting glass bells, displaying them in a large china cabinet in the formal dining room of the couple’s new and very big house just outside Charlotte. Stella often wondered if her mother was in love with Ronnie or just in it for security in exchange for being his companion and hostess. With Crystal, it was hard to tell. She had a poker face just like Dee.

Mama needs his money more than he needs his little June-Bug, Stella scoffed as she used the endearment that Ronnie had given Crystal in reference to her calendar photo. I’m sure she could be replaced in a heartbeat. I’ve seen the women that hang around the track. Hell, I’ve hung around the track. Stella disagreed with her aunt’s take on her mother’s marriage.

Stella was really thinking about how the union had affected her life. Shortly before marrying Ronnie, Crystal made the decision to leave her daughters on the farm. It was the only way she could travel to every single race with her new husband and the team. That was what Ronnie wanted and she had made an unspoken bargain when she agreed to marry him. Years later, it did not matter to Stella that she had fallen in love with the farm and Stillwater or that she had been happy living with her aunt and uncle. It never occurred to Stella that when Crystal left her and Dee-Dee in Stillwater she had given them their first stable home. It was unimportant how well Crystal’s bad decision had turned out. It had been a bad decision and Stella had never forgiven her mother for it.

Wilber and Flora had also disapproved of Crystal’s irresponsible choice but they were happy to get the girls. The childless couple loved the noise and liveliness that young people brought into the old farmhouse. After a short bout of sulky pouting, the twelve-year-old Stella fit right in. Flora taught her to sew on her grandmother’s old Singer and gave her a part of the truck garden to plant flowers. Stella had an instinct when it came to growing her flowers, understanding their needs as if they could talk to her. Her care resulted in a magnificent flower garden and the beautiful blossoms were sold along with the eggs, jams, vegetables and fruit at the local Farmer’s Market every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flora had a good side business going. Stella got to keep the cash she earned and was able to buy a better sewing machine by the end of the first summer.

The thirteen-year-old Dee-Dee had hated the farm. She wanted the parties, the high-speed races, everything she imagined her new stepfather’s money might have bought her and she rebelled with a determination that surprised her aunt and her mother. Dee had not been the bolder of the two sisters and the women had each privately assumed Stella would be the troublemaker. By sixteen Dee was the one following in Crystal’s footsteps, running around with wild boys, getting in trouble at school—on the days she bothered to go—and causing a general uproar in her wake.

Like her mother, Dee-Dee graduated from Stillwater High School pregnant by a local man four years her senior. A long haul trucker named Leonard Alvin Suggs who adored Deirdre Denise Reese and was secretly thrilled that he had been the lucky one to get her pregnant. That was the only way she would have married him.

Len considered himself a bit of a rebel, too. His family owned a prosperous local furniture and appliance store and he could have gotten a college education before taking over operations after his father retired, but Len wanted to see the world and find his own calling. He thought trucking offered that opportunity. He did not realize a wife and child would take it away.

Wilber had already been through the shotgun wedding scene once and based on the outcome of Crystal’s first marriage, he should have been more wary before pulling out his figurative weapon, but this time the groom was a good man from a good family with a good job. It was all good and Wilber assumed Len would have a calming influence on his wild niece. Happily, he threw the couple a big wedding and gave them a few acres on the edge of the farm, a narrow strip between the main road and the lake for them to build a house on.

At first Wilber seemed to have been right. Dee-Dee seemed content decorating the small modular home that Len had bought. The sisters spent hours decorating the baby’s room. Stella sewed curtains and made her first quilt, a small square crib blanket of embroidered flowers and appliquéd farm animals. Dee had always made fun of her younger sister’s domestic talents but she had to admit that the baby quilt was pretty.

Unlike her brother, Crystal did not see an upside to her oldest daughter’s predicament.