Palmetto Moon Read Online Free

trying to make two ends meet.” She closes my hand over the pouch and shakes her head. “Lord, I’m going to worry myself to death, so you take this money. I wish it was more, but it’s all I’ve got, and you gonna need it.”
    I try to give the pouch back again, but she won’t hear of it. “You fit in, you hear? You make whatever you do work to your good,” she says through tears, “and if you don’t need this, I want you to have it anyways. You’re my child. Always gonna be my child.”
    Another soft knock at the door makes me freeze. “Rosa Lee?” She opens the door and pulls Desmond into my room. He looks at me and smiles. “Well, looks like we’re going someplace after all.”
    I hug them both. My heart is racing like a hummingbird as Desmond picks up the suitcase. “Wait
.
” They both look at me, afraid that I’ve lost my nerve. I grab a blue A-line dress out of my closet and dash behind the antique screen. I slip out of my gown and into the dress I bought before I graduated.
    Rosa Lee zips me up and unhooks my grandmother’s necklace. “Take this for sure, but keep it hid. You hear?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” I drop the necklace into the small satin pouch the garters for my wedding came in.
    “Don’t you keep that necklace anywhere but in your bosom. And nobody better be getting it there.” She straightens my Peter Pan collar and tucks in my tag. “Sears. I knew you had the gumption all along.” She turns me around to face her and is trying to look stern, but the tears and her quivering chin give her away. “Please, child, I beg you, promise me you’ll watch for the signs like I taught you. Make them work to your good.”
    “I promise.” I hug her close one last time.
    She holds me at arm’s length. “You’ll be fine. You hear? I love you, child. I love you.” My heart breaks as she sputters out the words. “Desmond, y’all best go. And hurry.”
    Going down the stairs, Desmond bumps the suitcase, and I freeze. “This house is so big, they won’t hear a thing,” he says and bumps it again to prove it.
    We walk around to the back gate to the old truck Desmond sometimes borrows from his brother. He throws my suitcase into the back, and I’m in the truck before he can open the door for me. “Know where you’re going?”
    “The bus station.”
    “No, ma’am, you’re not.” He shakes his head at me. “Besides that and the train station is probably the first place they’ll look.”
    “Please, Desmond, I’ll take the first bus out.”
    “I’m not saying the man behind the desk is going to recognize you, but he’ll remember your pretty face. Your daddy will track you down for sure if you leave by bus or train.”
    “I’m not going to get you in trouble. What if Mother or Father needs you to drive them and you’re not there?”
    “Middle of the night?” His hands knead the steering wheel, and he stares straight ahead. “That hasn’t happened since the night you were born. You came so fast into the world, right as we were pulling in to the hospital. If Rosa Lee hadn’t caught you, you would have plopped right onto the floorboard.” He looks at me. “You stole our hearts that night, and if you think I’m gonna drop you off at some bus station, you got another thing coming.”
    “But there’s an even greater risk—” He shakes his head. If something happens, if the wrong people see me with Desmond, it could cost him more than his job. It could cost him his life. I grab my purse and open the truck door. “I’ll drive myself.”
    “Your shiny red Cadillac will for sure get everybody’s attention. Now I’m gonna drive you and that’s that.” He puts his hand on my arm. “And don’t you worry about me. No risk is too great. Now you close that door this minute and tell me where to.”
    “Round O.”
    He gives me an incredulous look but starts up the truck, and we escape past the Sword Gates into the palmetto moon night.
    A little over an hour later, we roll into