Waking Up in Charleston Read Free Page A

objections. Friends she’d grown up with had accepted the invitations. Most of her father’s friends had not.
    Filled with her own stubborn Maxwell pride, even though her heart was aching, Amanda had gone to the church alone, walked down the aisle alone with her chin held high and her eyes glistening with tears. In front of the minister, she had clung to Bobby’s hand as if it were a lifeline.
    Bobby knew her heart was broken, not just on her wedding day, but every day thereafter, and he’d done everything he could to mend it. He’d even gone to her father after their first child was born, taken pictures ofMax’s new grandson, but her father’s heart hadn’t softened. He tore the pictures up in front of Bobby’s eyes and uttered words no grandfather should ever say about his own kin.
    Looking back, Amanda realized that was when Bobby had started going overboard. He’d begun buying her things to make up for Big Max’s intractable attitude. It had become his obsession to see that she and the children wanted for nothing.
    Since Bobby took care of their finances, Amanda hadn’t had any idea of the amount of debt they were accumulating. She should have paid attention to the mounting bills, questioned him more about their finances, but she hadn’t wanted to indicate in any way that she didn’t have total confidence in him. Maybe she should have reassured him more often that he and the kids were enough for her, that she didn’t need more things as proof of his ability as a provider, but she’d assumed he knew that. She took for granted that he knew how to manage money. He’d been smart enough to expand his business; surely he could balance their personal checkbook. And basically he had, but only by mortgaging their lives to the hilt.
    If only Bobby had known what fate had in store, he might have made better choices. Instead, they’d lost it all. Worst of all, she’d lost Bobby.
    Now, though, she and the children had a second chance, Amanda thought, feeling at peace for the first time since Bobby’s death. With the soft afternoon sunlight spilling over her, she smiled. This room would fit into the pantry at Big Max’s house. She had little doubt what he would think of it. He would treat it with thesame disdain he had shown when she’d made a desperate attempt to reach out to him after Bobby’s death had left her virtually penniless. She’d made that attempt only for the sake of her children, but being rebuffed once more had convinced her that the father she’d once adored was now only a bitter old man incapable of compassion.
    “Doesn’t matter what he thinks or what he does,” she told herself fiercely. “My kids are healthy and this house is mine. We’re getting back on our feet and that’s what counts.”
    And if Big Max couldn’t see that all his wealth, all his power didn’t amount to a hill of beans without love, so what? Amanda had long since stopped caring what her father thought or how empty his life had become. She’d stopped because he’d given her no choice. If she hadn’t, she might never have stopped crying.
     
    “They’ve moved in?” Big Max asked Caleb when the minister finally turned up for their regular game of cards. For once Max didn’t waste his breath complaining. He was too anxious to hear how things had gone with Amanda and the kids when she’d moved into her new house the day before.
    Max and Caleb were an odd pair—the heathen and the man of the Lord, as Max liked to say. Maybe he was more worried about his immortal soul than he’d ever realized. He couldn’t see any other reason for having gravitated to this man whose unwavering faith Max couldn’t share. He’d lost his belief in God when he’d lost his wife, leaving him all alone to raise Amanda. Fora man who’d never understood a thing about women, it had been a terrifying burden.
    Yet, from the moment he’d gazed down into Amanda’s trusting blue eyes, felt her tiny fist close around his finger, he’d