At Every Turn Read Online Free PDF

would I ever face my church again if I didn’t?
    The swinging door creaked open.
    “You can come in now, Clarissa.” I slumped a bit toward the table, my chin resting in my upturned hands like Mother’s had not long ago.
    Clarissa bustled into the room, shaking her head and tsk ing under her breath. “You barely ate a thing.” She whisked my plate from the table and set it atop my father’s empty one.
    “I’ll work up an appetite for lunch. I promise. Maybe Grandmother will even feel up to coming to the table with me.”
    Silverware clinked against china. “Don’t you worry, Miss Alyce. The Lord will provide, especially once your grandmother gets wind to pray.” A broad grin lit Clarissa’s freckled face as she pushed her backside against the door into the pantry, hands piled high with dirty dishes.
    Grandmother’s prayers. Normally a comforting thought. But even Grandmother didn’t have the faith to believe the Lord would change my father’s heart this time.

 4 
    M y shoes clicked across the stone path leading through the back garden and around the small gazebo in its center. The varied blooms didn’t catch my eye, though their scents trailed after me. Questions zipped through my head like cars racing around a track, demanding my attention. But I couldn’t think. Not here. I needed the wind knotting my curls, fields and trees whizzing past in a blur. Then my mind could relax. Then I’d hear the voice of the Lord explaining where I’d gone wrong.
    The trunks of waving green-leafed tulip poplar trees stood guard around the end of the red carriage house—Father’s long-ago concession to Mother’s insistence that the building’s presence, however necessary, ruined the ambiance of her garden. Leaving the path, I traipsed across the grass, dew wetting the ankles of my stockings.
    One of the large double doors angled open. I slipped into the dim interior, shivering in air still tinged with cool from the darkness of night. In my girlhood, the pungent smell of horseflesh hovered over this place. Now the perfume of gasoline and oil filled my nose. Instead of a pony, my Packard Runabout sat in the shadows. A kitten of a car. This morning I needed a tiger.
    “Webster?” My eyes searched the shadows. An empty spot told me Father had left for work. And there, huddled next to the far wall, sat an unpainted auto body covering a powerful engine. I drew in a deep breath. Father’s racing car. He’d hired Webster to build it and to maintain our other autos, as well as to repair broken machinery at the plant.
    I ran my hand over one of the leather straps holding the engine’s cover secure, stroking it like the back of a well-loved cat.
    “A beauty, ain’t she?” Webster Little wiped the grease from his fingers before shoving the dirty rag into the back pocket of his overalls. He pushed up the flat brim of his cloth driving cap. A lock of dark hair escaped, sweeping across his broad forehead, above his dusky eyes. His wide mouth split into a grin, coaxing one from me, as well.
    I wondered how many hearts that grin had broken. Not intentionally, of course. Webster didn’t seem to be that type. But for a man I suspected to be near my age and unmarried, it wasn’t hard to fathom.
    My fingers curled around the steering wheel and then slid onto the crude seat. “You got the body on her.”
    “I did. Once we hit a hundred miles an hour up that hill, I knew it was time.”
    I frowned. “I wish you’d have let me drive it that day.”
    “With just the engine on a frame and a crate wired to it for a seat? I don’t think so. Your father would have killed me with his bare hands if he’d found out.”
    I ran a hand around the circle that would steer the powerful car. When I looked up, he stared down at me, his visage open and honest. Would he be willing to risk Father’s ire now? “I could drive her today.”
    Webster’s head swayed like a disapproving schoolteacher’s. “Ally, I told you. Your father’s