Hannah answered for both of us. "I want Liberty to make friends with Miss Marva's pit bulls, but she's scared."

"I'm not," I said, which was not at all true, but I didn't want Hardy thinking I was a coward.

"You were just telling me all the stuff that could happen if you get bitten," Hannah pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I'm scared," I said defensively. "It means I'm well informed."

Hardy gave his sister a warning glance. "Hannah, you can't push someone to do something like that before they're ready. You let Liberty deal with it in her own time."

"I want to," I insisted, abandoning all common sense in favor of pride.

Hardy went to turn off the hose, pulled a white T-shirt from a nearby umbrella-shaped laundry rack, and tugged it over his lean torso. "I'll come with you. Miss Marva has been after me to carry some of her paintings to the art gallery."

"She's an artist?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," Hannah said. "Miss Marva does bluebonnet paintings. Her stuff is real pretty. isn't it, Hardy?"

"It is," he said, coming to tug gently on one of his sister's braids.

As I watched Hardy, I felt the same puzzling yearning I had before. I wanted to draw closer to him, to investigate the scent of his skin beneath the layer of bleached cotton.

Hardy's voice seemed to change a little when he spoke to me. "How your knees doing, Liberty? Are they still sore?"

I shook my head mutely, nearly quivering like a plucked guitar string at his interest.

He began to reach out to me, hesitated, then gently pulled the brown-framed glasses from my upturned face. As usual, the lenses were covered with smears and fingerprints.

"How do you see out of these?" he asked.

I shrugged and smiled at the intriguing blur of his face above mine.

Hardy polished the glasses on the hem of his shirt and viewed them critically before handing them back. "Come on, you two, I'll walk you to Miss Marva's. I'll be interested to see what she makes of Liberty."

"Is she nice?" I fell into step by his right side, while Hannah walked on his left.

"She's nice if she likes you." he said.

"Is she old?" I asked, recalling the crotchety lady in our Houston neighborhood who had chased me with a stick if I ever stepped on her carefully cultivated front yard. I didn't especially like old people. The few I had been acquainted with had been either cranky, sluggish, or interested in detailed discussions of bodily discomforts.

The question made Hardy laugh. "I'm not exactly sure. She's been fifty-nine ever since I was born."

A quarter mile down the road, we approached Miss Marva's trailer, which I could have identified even without the help of my companions. The barking of the two hell spawn behind the chain-link fence in the back yard gave it away. They could tell I was coming. I felt instantly sick, my skin covered with chills and sweat, my heart pounding until I could feel its beat even in my scabby knees.

I stopped in my tracks, and Hardy paused to smile quizzically. "Liberty, what is it about you that gets those dogs so riled?"

"They can smell fear," I said, my gaze glued to the corner of the fenced-in yard, where I could see the pit bulls lunging and frothing.

"You said you weren't scared of dogs," Hannah said.

"Not the regular kind. But I draw the line at vicious, rabies-infested pit bulls."

Hardy laughed. He fitted a warm hand around the nape of my neck and squeezed comfortingly. "Let's go on in to meet Miss Marva. You'll like her." Taking his sunglasses off, he stared down at me with smiling blue eyes. "I promise."

The trailer smelled strongly of cigarettes and bluebonnet water, and something good baking in the oven. It seemed every square inch of the place was covered in art and handicrafts. Hand-painted birdhouses, tissue box covers made of acrylic yarn, Christmas ornaments, crocheted place mats, and unframed bluebonnet canvases of every size and shape.

In the middle of the chaos sat a plump little woman with hair that had been moussed and teased into a perfect hive. It was dyed a shade of red I had never seen duplicated in nature. Her skin was webbed and furrowed, constantly shifting to accommodate her animated expressions. Her gaze was as alert as a hawk's. Although Miss Marva might have been old, she wasn't the least bit sluggish.

"Hardy Gates," she rasped in a nicotine-stained voice, "I expected you to pick up my paintings two days ago."

"Yes, ma'am," he said humbly.

"Well, boy, what's your excuse?"

"I got too busy."

"If you show up late, Hardy, it's only decent to come up with a colorful excuse." Her attention turned to Hannah and me. "Hannah, who is that girl with you?"

"This is Liberty Jones, Miss Marva. She and her mama just moved into the new trailer on the loop."

"Just you and your mama?" Miss Marva asked, her mouth pursing like she'd just eaten

a handful of fried pickles.

"No, ma'am. Mama's boyfriend lives with us too." Prodded by Miss Marva's interrogation, I proceeded to explain all about Flip and his channel-changing, and how Mama was a widow and answered the phone at the local title company, and how I was here to make peace with the pit bulls after they'd run up and scared me.

"Those rascals," Miss Marva exclaimed without heat. "More trouble than they're worth most of the time. But I need 'em for company."