I swallow. “He’ll hate me.”
“No, he’ll be mad enough to chew nails and spit horseshoes. Different thing.”
“He trusted me.”
“He gave you a choice.”
“And I used it to leave.”
Lottie glances at me. “You used it.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all and everything.”
I press my forehead against the cool window. “I slept with him.”
“I assumed.”
My head jerks toward her. “What?”
“Oh, please. You walked out looking like guilt had bite marks.”
Heat rushes up my neck. “Lottie.”
“I’m not blind.”
I cover my face with one hand.
She laughs, not unkindly. “Honey, women have been having goodbye sex since Eve packed fig leaves and thought about leaving Adam to deal with his own damn apple issues.”
“It wasn’t goodbye sex.”
The lie is automatic.
Bad.
Thin.
Lottie’s silence says she knows it.
I lower my hand. “It wasn’t only goodbye.”
“That I believe.”
I blink hard.
The road stretches ahead, long and flat for a while, nothing like the hills of Kentucky. The farther we get, the more unreal everything feels. Derby’s house becomes a memory with warm sheets and a cracked door. Jeremy becomes a shadow thatmight still be stretching after us. Hot Mama becomes a voice on the phone, rough and certain, calling me Caroline’s girl.
“Tell me about her,” I say.
Lottie knows who I mean.
“Hot Mama?”
“My mother.”
Lottie’s hands tighten slightly on the wheel. “I didn’t know Caroline. My ol’ man Holler say he met her once when he was out west years back. Before I got my crown. Before I knew what crowns were good for.”