“There’s men out there who wouldn’t mind eating takeout.” Mary stuck a whisk into the bowl of eggs and began to whip them into a froth.

“Not when I was interested in marriage.” Novalene sat down in a chair and propped her feet up in a second one. “Speaking of guys, I saw Elijah on your porch last night.”

“Yep, he stopped by.” Jayden used a glass to cut the rolled-out dough into perfect circles. “We each had a beer, but don’t tattle on us.” She’d learned years ago to own up to whatever she did, even if it made the devil blush, as her grandfather used to say.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Novalene said. “So how did yesterday go for you? My girls were tattling about yours threatening to throw them in the hog lot.”

“Horseflies, horses, and hair,” Jayden told her, and then explained briefly what she meant by the statement. She told Novalene and Mary about the lock of pink hair and all the rest, including the part about the girls being sexually active.

“Sometimes I wish I’d lived in this era.” Novalene sighed. “In my day if we did it, we damn sure didn’t talk about it. I like that journal idea. Next time Elijah goes into town, I’m going to ask him to pick up some for me. Do you mind if I see if Diana wants to do the same? After all, it is your idea.”

“Not a bit,” Jayden said. “I just thought it would be good for them, and it is something they can take home. Sometimes if I’ve got a kid who needs help but can’t seem to tell me the problem, I have them write it down in a journal. I’ve started keeping one while I’m here, too. How about your day?”

“Let’s see if I can be as clever as you.” Novalene took a sip of coffee. “Cigarettes and . . .” She frowned. “Oh, hell, I can’t think of anything to go with that. I caught Lauren smoking. She’s got another demerit.”

“How did she get cigarettes past us?” Mary asked.

“Slipped a pack out of her bra and right into the new one without us catching her. She’s a sneaky little thing,” Novalene answered. “I took a page out of your playbook, Jayden. If it’s all right with you, she will be taking the slop out to the hogs every day for a week when Tiffany’s time is up.”

Jayden slid a big pan of biscuits into the commercial-size oven. “Maybe that should be the ultimate punishment for anyone who gets a demerit. Seems like they hate it worse than anything, except maybe catching horseflies right off the top of a pile of crap.”

Diana yawned as she came into the dining hall and headed straight for the coffeepot. She poured herself a cup and carried it to the table where Novalene was seated. “Good mornin’ to all y’all. I’m not fit to be around until I have my first sip, but now I can talk. How are things going in your cabins?”

“Our girls are fighting,” Novalene said.

“That may be a good thing if it makes them bond together and work as a team.” Diana blew on the top of her mug and then took a sip. “Ahhh, nothing better than the first cup in the morning.”

“So, who’s your alpha girl this year?” Novalene asked.

“Rita,” Diana answered. “She’s the one who set fire to her house because her stepfather beat on her.”

“Mine is Lauren,” Novalene said. “Hands down. But I do believe that she’s a little afraid of Tiffany over in Jayden’s Daydream cabin. She wouldn’t say a word in group counseling. Keelan admitted to having a drug business, and even bragged that she probably made more money in a week than I did in a month teaching school. Bailey is following Lauren’s example and refusing to talk about the meth business she had going.”

“All of mine,” Jayden answered, “have bossy personalities, so I think it’ll depend on the day.”

“Bless your heart,” Diana said. “And I mean that in a good way. You’re going to have your hands full if they’re all smart-asses.”

“Maybe they’ll have their hands full.” Jayden cocked her head to one side. “There’s only three of them. At my regular job, I have twenty-five to thirty just like them in each class every day. I’ve just seen it all—from assault to drugs—and abuse and stealing are as common as breathing.”

“Touché.” Diana raised her cup to Jayden.

Chapter Nine

A ping on Jayden’s phone woke her before the alarm went off that Sunday morning. She sat up in bed so fast that it made her dizzy. She grabbed the phone, punched in her code, and saw that it was a text from Skyler, complete with a selfie of Skyler with Big Ben in the background. The message said that the group was on the way to the airport to fly to Rome.

Jayden’s heart stopped pounding after a couple of minutes. “Dammit, Skyler,” she muttered. “It’s too early for your bragging.”

She turned off the alarm, got out of bed, and padded across the floor to turn on the overhead light. Then she sat down on the bed and enlarged Skyler’s picture on the phone. She looked happy, but then she always did when she got what she wanted. Jayden remembered the shoebox full of photographs she’d brought to her apartment after her mother died. They could be divided into two categories. The first one was when Skyler was posing with a smile on her face. The other stack would be those that were taken when she had to have her picture taken with Jayden, and she glared at the camera.

“Family is a complicated thing,” she said as she laid the phone to the side. She wished she could snap her fingers and go back to the days when she lived with her mother and grandfather in the house on Elm Street in Boyd. Even with Skyler’s vanity, things were simpler then.

She dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then went straight to the dining hall. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee met her at the door, but she bypassed that and headed to the small half bath. One perk of helping cook was that she didn’t have to traipse out across the yard to the bathhouse.

“Good mornin’,” Mary singsonged.

“Mornin’,” Jayden called out.

When she finished, she washed her hands, poured a cup of coffee, and carried it to the kitchen. “I had a text and a picture from Skyler this morning. They’ve been in London.”

“Are you jealous?” Mary stirred up a batch of buttercream frosting.

“No, ma’am.” Jayden flipped a bibbed apron over her head and tied the strings. “I’m just surprised that she even thought about sending me a picture. I usually don’t hear from her except at Christmas.”

“Maybe it’s her way of saying thank you for taking her place here,” Mary said.

“Maybe so.” Jayden nodded, but she didn’t believe a word of it.

They put together oven omelets and biscuits for breakfast that morning and baked three pans of cinnamon rolls that had been rising in the refrigerator all night. Mary spread the buttercream frosting on top of the rolls while they were still hot and set them out at the end of the buffet line.

“That’s my Sunday treat for the girls.” She smiled.

A vision of her grandmother, who also liked bibbed aprons, flashed through Jayden’s mind. “Chocolate chip pancakes are my Sunday treat for your grandpa. He’s got a sweet tooth, and he does love chocolate,” Granny had told her. Jayden turned away from Mary and wiped a tear from her cheek. Granny and Gramps had accepted her just like she was—tall, gangly, awkward—and never compared her to her sister. But then after she was a teenager and got her own car, Skyler only came around them when she wanted something.