After the Storm: Midseason Episode 1 (Rising Storm) Read Online Free Page A

morning.
    The girl had the good sense to not look her in the eyes. “Yes. I didn’t want you to have to pack them when I can do it. There’s not much here so it won’t take too long. I really don’t want to cause you any more trouble.”
    “I’ll help her.” Lacey stepped up, her precious daughter getting between her and the interloper. “She’ll be out of here in a few minutes. No more.”
    “I wasn’t going to pack anything,” Celeste heard herself saying. “I was going to throw it all on a fire and watch it burn. Light a match to it the same way you did my family’s reputation.”
    Now the girl looked up. “Your reputation is intact. None of this was your fault. Not yours or Lacey’s or your husband’s. All you ever were was kind and thoughtful toward me. Everyone knows that. You’re the victims in all of this.”
    How very naïve. She might have been brazen enough to pull the con she had, but she was still a child when it came to some things. That was obvious if she truly thought this scandal would play out and leave the Salt family intact. “But that’s not what they’ll say now, is it? They all know that Travis and I knew Jacob couldn’t father a baby. That medical report Dakota stole proved it.”
    Ginny paled. “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Lacey said with a shake of her head.
    But it did. All of it mattered. She’d spent decades building a reputation, building a family, and this one girl had brought all of it down. A little voice in the back of her head said she wasn’t rational and this wasn’t fair, but in that moment she hated Ginny Moreno. “They’ll say crazy Celeste knew all along and she was so desperate for a grandchild that she would take any whore’s kid.”
    “Mother!” Lacey’s eyes had widened.
    Ginny shook her head. “It’s all right. I understand that she needs to say these things. I also know that she doesn’t really mean them. And people will understand that you had no reason to doubt me. Why would you? Why would you think I lied? So you thought it had to be a miracle. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it still might be. We don’t know anything yet and I…I have hope.”
    “You have hope?”
    Ginny’s hands came together as if in prayer. “It doesn’t excuse anything I did, but I still hope and pray that this baby is Jacob’s. I won’t love it less, but I hope for your sake that it is.”
    Celeste laughed, a nasty sound even to her own ears. Little Ginny should pray for an altogether different outcome. “You better hope for your sake that kid comes out of your womb looking exactly like my brother-in-law. Because if it doesn’t, I will take that child. I will sue you and get my grandchild and you won’t ever see him again. I’ll make sure of it. I won’t have him growing up with a lying, cheating slut for a mother.”
    “Momma, how can you talk like that? You taught me never to say that word.” It was easy to see she’d shaken Lacey up.
    “Let me amend my rules for ladylike behavior, Lacey. It’s only important when there are actual ladies present.” Her gut rolled with bile. “Tell me something, Ginny. Did you distract my son that day? Was this your plan all along?”
    “What are you talking about?” Ginny asked.
    She’d thought up every scenario possible the previous night. After crying until her eyes had nearly swollen shut, she’d lain awake all night while Travis slept and she’d thought this through. A plan like Ginny’s didn’t just come together in the heat of the moment. It required careful thought. Ginny had no problem using her family for her own gain. Now she wanted to know exactly how far the little liar would have gone.
    “I’m talking about what happened the day of the accident and before the accident. Tell me something. Did you actually sleep with my son? Or was that all a lie, too? If it hadn’t been Jacob, would it have been some other poor boy?”
    Ginny shook her