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didn’t stop until she was outside in the coolness of the garden. For a while she stood there, trying to still her pounding heart, making all her usual promises to herself. She swore she’d try in the future to control her eating, she swore she’d try to lose weight. She promised herself all the things she’d promised her father during the many talks they’d had in his study.
    “Why do you have to be an embarrassment to both me and your sister?” he’d said a hundred times. “Why can’t you be someone we’d be proud of? We’re afraid to go anywhere with you. We’re afraid you’ll have one of your attacks and eat half a dozen pies in front of everybody. We’re—”
    “Hello.”
    Nellie jumped at the sound of a voice. “Oh, Mr. Montgomery. I didn’t see you. Are you looking for Terel?”
    “No, I was looking for you. Actually, your family doesn’t know I’m here. I told them I had to leave. I went out the front door and came through the back gate.”
    She couldn’t bear to look at him in the moonlight. He was so tall and handsome, and she’d never felt so dirty and fat before in her life.
    “It was a delicious dinner,” he said.
    “Thank you,” she managed to mutter. “I must go in now. Would you like to see Terel?”
    “No, I don’t want to see your sister. Wait! Don’t go. Please, Nellie, would you sit with me a while?”
    She glanced up at him when he used her first name. “All right, Mr. Montgomery, I’ll sit with you.” She sat in the swing where they’d sat so companionably earlier in the day, but Nellie didn’t say a word.
    “What’s there to do in Chandler?” he asked.
    “Church socials, the park, riding, not much. We’re a boring little town. Terel knows everyone, though, and she can introduce you.”
    “Will you go with me to the Harvest Ball at the Taggerts’ in two weeks?”
    She looked at him sharply. “Which Taggert?” she asked, stalling for time.
    “Kane and his wife, Houston,” he said, as though no other Taggerts were in town.
    Nellie just sat there blinking. Kane Taggert was one of the richest men in America, and he lived in a magnificent house on a hill overlooking the town. His beautiful wife, Houston, gave elegant parties for their friends, and once a year they gave a magnificent ball. Last year she and Terel had been invited, Terel had gone while Nellie stayed home, but something had happened—she wasn’t sure what—and this year they’d not received an invitation, much to Terel’s horror.
    “Terel would love to go,” Nellie said. “She would love to—”
    “I’m inviting you, not your sister.”
    Nellie had no idea what to say to the man. When she was twenty and much slimmer than she was now she’d had a few invitations from men, but she’d rarely been able to accept. At twenty she had had the responsibility of caring for her father and a twelve-year-old sister—and her father did not like his dinner late.
    “Mr. Montgomery, I—”
    “Jace.”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “My name is Jace.”
    “I couldn’t possibly call you by your Christian name, Mr. Montgomery. I have just met you.”
    “If you go with me to the ball, you’ll get to know me better.”
    “I couldn’t possibly. I must…” She couldn’t think of a single reason why she couldn’t go, but she knew it was an impossibility.
    “I’ll take the job your father is offering if you’ll go with me. And if you’ll call me Jace.”
    Nellie knew that her father wanted this man to take the job, knew that he needed someone to help run his freight company, but none of this made sense. Why was he trying to persuade her to go somewhere with him? “I…I don’t know, Mr. Montgomery. I don’t know if my father can spare me. And Terel needs—”
    “What that young lady needs is…” He didn’t finish his sentence. “I won’t take the job unless you agree to go with me. One evening, that’s all I ask.”
    Nellie imagined entering the big white house on the hill on the arm