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long ago accepted that the only way she was going to find it was through her imagination.
      She had been born in this house twenty-eight years ago last March, and had never been out of the state of West Virginia Despite being born with a crippled foot that left her with a limp, she was the baby of the family and had been her mother's pride and joy. Still, her life hadn't seemed all that stifling until a month after her sixteenth birthday, when her mother had died. Within days of her mother's passing, it became apparent that her father, Gideon Monroe, expected her to step into the breach left by his wife's death. Without any thought for his daughter's grief or plans for the future, he left her responsible for every household task her mother had been doing. At that point, whatever dreams Ally might have had for herself died, too.
      With each passing year, burden after burden was added to her life until, twelve years later, she was still living at home, keeping house, doing laundry, and cooking for her father and two older brothers, Danny and Porter. Once in a while, she felt as if they were all caught in some time warp. Nothing changed in this house except the ages of its residents.
      But there were times, like now, when she let herself wish dream, when she imagined a tall stranger walking right out of those woods at the back of the house. He wouldn't know her name, but there would be this instant magical connection between them, and then he would take her in his arms and spirit her away.
      Water dripped from the faucet, landed in the dishwater with a plop and broke into her muse. She blinked, then looked back at the birdbath, trying to reconnect. It was no use. The sunlight had moved, taking the magic with it.
      Frowning, she looked down at the dishes yet to be washed, then turned away in quick frustration. Without giving herself time to think about what her father would say about her leaving a task undone, she yanked off her apron, tossed it on the dining table and walked out of the house.
      Her foot was dragging slightly as she came off the porch and walked onto the grass, but she was used to the gait, and compensated perfectly by swinging her hip just a bit more to pull the leg along.
      Her father's old hound, Buddy, raised his head as she passed on her way to a bench beneath the trees, then, when it became apparent that she hadn't brought a bone for him to chew, calmly resumed his afternoon nap.
      Ally plopped down in the glider, then pulled her hair over her shoulder, taking care not to sit on the honey-colored braid. She brushed a gnat from the front of her T-shirt, adjusted her blue jeans, then swung her legs up into the seat. Using the padded armrest for a pillow, she looked up briefly into the overhead branches, then closed her eyes.
      A passing breeze lifted the loose baby hairs away from her forehead as it pushed at the fabric of her shirt. She had no idea how seductive she appeared, nor would she have tried to foster the image. All she wanted was a place to dream. And so she lay, sheltered beneath the spreading branches of an ancient oak, and wondered how she could have been so gutless as to let her life get this off track.
      Single men in Blue Creek gave her a wide berth, though not because they thought she was ugly. She looked okay, and she knew it. But none of them wanted to take a chance on having a child with a cripple. What if she passed on the birth defect to her children? They didn't want sons or daughters with crooked feet and dragging steps. Life was hard enough on the mountain without adding a physical handicap to the mix.
      Frustrated with herself for dwelling on something she couldn't change, she pushed off with her toe and set the glider in motion. For a few solitary moments, she could almost believe she was being rocked in her mother's arms.
     
     
      Gideon Monroe's left hip was paining something fierce as he turned up his driveway. When he accidentally bounced through the