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  PRAISE FOR BETTE LEE CROSBY’S NOVELS

  A Year of Extraordinary Moments

  “One of those rare books that makes you believe in the power of love. Filled with memorable characters and important life lessons, a southern treat to the last page.”

  —Anita Hughes, author of California Summer

  “Throughout this book, the author beautifully explores the theme of letting go of the past while preserving its best parts . . .”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  The Summer of New Beginnings

  “This women’s fiction novel is full of romance, the power of friendship, and the bond of sisters.”

  —The Charlotte Observer

  “A heartwarming story about family, forgiveness, and the magic of new beginnings.”

  —Christine Nolfi, bestselling author of Sweet Lake

  “A heartwarming, captivating, and intriguing story about the importance of family . . . The colorful cast of characters are flawed, quirky, mostly loyal, determined, and mostly likable.”

  —Linda’s Book Obsession

  “Crosby’s southern voice comes through in all of her books and lends a believable element to everything she writes. The Summer of New Beginnings is no exception.”

  —Book Chat

  Spare Change

  “Skillfully written, Spare Change clearly demonstrates Crosby’s ability to engage her readers’ rapt attention from beginning to end. A thoroughly entertaining work of immense literary merit.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Love, loss, and unexpected gifts . . . Told from multiple points of view, this tale seeped from the pages and wrapped itself around my heart.”

  —Caffeinated Reviewer

  “More than anything, Spare Change is a heartwarming book, which is simultaneously intriguing and just plain fun.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  Passing Through Perfect

  “Well-written and engaging.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This is southern fiction at its best: spiritually infused, warm, and family-oriented.”

  —Midwest Book Reviews

  “Crosby’s characters take on heartbreak and oppression with dignity, courage, and a shaken but still strong faith in a better tomorrow.”

  —IndieReader

  The Twelfth Child

  “Crosby’s unique style of writing is timeless and her character building is inspirational.”

  —Layered Pages

  “Crosby draws her characters with an emotional depth that compels the reader to care about their challenges, to root for their success, and to appreciate their bravery.”

  —Gayle Swift, author of ABC, Adoption & Me

  “Crosby’s talent lies in not only telling a good, compelling story, but telling it from a unique perspective . . . Characters stay with you because they are simply too endearing to go away.”

  —Reader Views

  Baby Girl

  “Crosby weaves this story together in a manner that feels like a huge patchwork quilt. All the pieces and tears come together to make something beautiful.”

  —Michele Randall, Readers’ Favorite

  “Crosby is a true storyteller, delving into the emotions, relationships, and human dynamics—the cracks which break us, and ultimately make us stronger.”

  —J. D. Collins, Top 1000 reviewer

  Silver Threads

  “Silver Threads is an amazing story of love, loss, family, and second chances that will simply stir your soul.”

  —Jersey Girl Book Reviews

  “Crosby’s books are filled with love of family and carry the theme of a sweetness for life . . . You are pulled in by the story line and the characters.”

  —Silver’s Reviews

  “In Silver Threads, Crosby flawlessly merges the element of fantasy without interrupting the beauty of a solid love story . . . Sure to stay with you beyond the last page.”

  —Lisa McCombs, Readers’ Favorite

  Cracks in the Sidewalk

  “Crosby has penned a multidimensional scenario that should be read not only for entertainment but also to see how much love, gentleness, and humanity matter.”

  —Gisela Hausmann, Readers’ Favorite

  ALSO BY BETTE LEE CROSBY

  MAGNOLIA GROVE SERIES

  The Summer of New Beginnings

  A Year of Extraordinary Moments

  WYATTSVILLE SERIES

  Spare Change

  Jubilee’s Journey

  Passing Through Perfect

  The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd

  Beyond the Carousel

  MEMORY HOUSE SERIES

  Memory House

  The Loft

  What the Heart Remembers

  Baby Girl

  Silver Threads

  SERENDIPITY SERIES

  The Twelfth Child

  Previously Loved Treasures

  STAND-ALONE TITLES

  Cracks in the Sidewalk

  What Matters Most

  Wishing for Wonderful

  Blueberry Hill

  Life in the Land of IS: The Amazing True Story of Lani Deauville

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Bette Lee Crosby

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542044929

  ISBN-10: 1542044928

  Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson

  For Mom . . .

  Who inspired my love of southern storytelling

  and taught me that the most important

  things in life are not really things.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  HESTERVILLE, GEORGIA

  A TROUBLED TOWN

  BAKER’S FIELD

  THE DIXON HOUSE

  ON THE ROAD

  THE HIDEAWAY

  AS THE NEWS SPREAD

  THE INVESTIGATION

  A SEARCH FOR THE STORY

  MURPHY’S PLAN

  AS TIME MOVED ON

  A FORCED MOVE

  MARSHALL COUNTY, KENTUCKY

  THE SEARCH CONTINUES

  WYNNE BLUFFS

  FINDING ANGELA

  A CHILD REMEMBERED

  THE LONG DRIVE

  FUTURE PLANS

  SISTERS

  FINDING MINNIE

  UNEXPECTED BETRAYAL

  FAIRLAWN, KENTUCKY

  A TIME TO MOURN

  THE HARD TRUTH

  LARA’S FIRST BIRTHDAY

  EMILY’S FIRST BIRTHDAY

  RETURN TO SENDER

  ANGELA’S CHILD

  GOOD DAYS, BAD DAYS

  THE JOY OF MOTHERHOOD

  THE THING ABOUT LOVE

  COMES THE FALL

  A PROMISE MADE

  FINDING THE LETTER

  A NEW BEGINNING

  BECOMING A FAMILY

  STARTING OVER

  SCHOOL DAYS

  LIFE ON PECAN STREET

  SEARCHING FOR THE PAST

  MURPHY’S MUSIC

  CHANGING TIMES

  PECAN STREET TRAGEDY

  ANOTHER SEARCH

  THE SMALL ROOM

  A N
EW DIRECTION

  MOVING AHEAD

  A NIGHT OF MOVIES

  PECAN STREET REVELATION

  ROAD TRIP

  THE NEW GUESTS

  HOPE’S DISCOVERY

  THE QUESTION

  REMEMBERING VICKI

  THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

  CREATING A FAMILY

  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  THE MISSING YEARS

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”

  —Honore de Balzac

  HESTERVILLE, GEORGIA

  It’s been forty-seven years since the music festival took place out at Harold Baker’s farm, but everyone in Hesterville remembers that weekend. Not because of the music, which was so loud you could hear it clear over in Weston, and not even because of the nineteen people arrested—twelve for shoplifting, six for parading down Main Street naked, and one for breaking the front window of Brian’s Pet Shop. No, the reason the people of Hesterville remember that weekend is because of what happened to the Dixon family.

  None of the locals was in favor of the music festival being there; it was as if they sensed trouble before it even started. And just as suspected, trouble showed its face in the ugliest way possible. It began two days before the festival was to start and continued throughout that last miserable night.

  You might think that on the final night, when the heat wave broke and a drenching rain turned the field into a giant mud hole, the partiers would have lost interest and left, but they didn’t. They stayed. By then most of them were higher than a kite and didn’t give a damn about anything but the thunderous sound of that music. A few people huddled under plastic tarps or cardboard boxes, but most didn’t even bother. They just sat with their skimpy halters and T-shirts soaked through and beads of water cascading off their noses as they listened to the scream of electric guitars.

  The festival was supposed to begin on Friday, but on Wednesday afternoon a van painted with peace signs and swirls of psychedelic colors turned onto Main Street. That was the start of it. George Dixon was standing out in front of his hardware store when the van slowed and a bare-chested man stuck his head out the window.

  “This the way to Baker’s Field?” he asked.

  It was blistering hot that day, and a dozen or more people were packed into the van. With the windows rolled down, it was impossible not to catch the pungent smell of marijuana mixed with beer and sweat.

  With a look of chagrin stretched across his face, George raised his arm, motioned toward the far end of Main Street, and said, “Yellowwood Road, twelve miles out.”

  The merchants along Main Street were already feeling uneasy about the festival, but George Dixon worried more than most. He had good reason; Yellowwood Road ran right by his house. If you were driving, the Baker turnoff was five miles past George’s place. But traveling as the crow flies, the Dixon house was less than a mile from Baker’s old cotton field.

  As he stood there watching the van disappear, George flirted with the idea of having Rachel and the baby spend a few days at his mama’s. It was a fleeting idea, quickly dismissed because the two women had no fondness for each other. Later he would recall having such a thought, but by then it was too late to do anything.

  That van was the first, but it certainly wasn’t the last. Throughout the day a steady stream of cars, trucks, and vans turned off the highway and rumbled down Main Street, their stereos and transistor radios blaring. Before the sky darkened and faded to shades of purple, thousands of partiers were camped out in that plowed-under cotton field.

  The month of August was always sweltering in Georgia, but that particular year was worse than ever. On Thursday morning the sun came up looking like a fireball. Out there, where the land was flat and the shade trees few and far between, the heat was merciless. In a single afternoon it could scorch a person’s scalp and cause their shoulders to blister.

  After having caroused long into the night, the partiers woke with parched throats and empty stomachs. The concession trucks had not yet arrived and wouldn’t until Friday evening. Left with no other option, most of them headed back to town in search of food and drink.

  At first Mayor Walter Bruno claimed such an influx of customers would be good for the town’s economy, and for a short time it looked as if he were right. As the day progressed though, bigger and bigger crowds made their way into town. By noon there wasn’t a single seat available at a lunch counter or any of the three restaurants along Main Street.

  Hesterville was small and ill prepared for such an invasion. With the restaurants jammed, the partiers swept through Piggly Wiggly, buying up what they could and pocketing any number of things they didn’t bother to pay for. In what seemed the blink of an eye, the streets went from bustling to overcrowded. In a single day the population of Hesterville had more than doubled.

  The wild-eyed and often shirtless crowd took over, and the locals, not anxious to get caught up in the melee, remained at home. Before nightfall the grocery shelves were nearly stripped bare; things like canned vegetables, boxes of laundry detergent, and wax paper were the few exceptions. Once the racks of Twinkies, chocolate bars, and beer were standing empty, a current of agitation took over. Cardboard signs got yanked down, a Coca-Cola display rack knocked on its side, and in the dark of night a rock shattered the liquor store window.

  On Friday morning Herb Gallagher boarded up the broken window, tacked up a sign saying the liquor store was closed until Monday, and went home. Several other shopkeepers did the same, claiming there was nothing but trouble to be had.

  Later on, when the investigation began, Big Sound, the organizers of the event, claimed they sold only five thousand tickets, but Sheriff Wilson estimated the crowd to be well in excess of fifteen thousand—more people than actually resided in Hesterville. Harold Baker swore the shops closing their doors on folks in need of food and water was to blame for what happened, but not one of the townspeople agreed with him. Least of all Rachel Dixon.

  Of course, that was forty-seven years ago. To understand the truth of what happened, you would have had to be there.

  A TROUBLED TOWN

  Summer 1971

  Big Sound kept the exact location of the music festival under wraps until four weeks before it was to take place; then the posters went up. Sadie Jenkins was just leaving the post office when she spotted one tacked to the telephone pole. She stood there for a full minute, studying the sign with her eyes narrowed and her shoulders squared back. Then she snatched the poster off the pole and stormed across the street to Sheriff Wilson’s office.

  “How dare you allow such a thing in Hesterville?” she screamed, then continued her tirade without giving him time for an answer.

  The sheriff stood there unflinching, his chin jutted out and eyes steely as roller balls. He waited until Sadie stopped for a breath.

  “Talk to the county commissioner,” he finally said. “There’s nothing I can do about it. The Baker farm is in an unincorporated area that’s not part of the city. It’s beyond my jurisdiction.”

  Not willing to accept what she called “a flimsy excuse,” Sadie stood nose to nose with him and argued for a good half hour. Then she stomped out of the building, red-faced and looking as if she were ready to kill.

  “Just you wait,” she hollered back. “Come next election, I’ll see you ousted or die trying.”

  As a founding member of the Hesterville Women’s League and chairwoman of several committees, Sadie’s threat wasn’t without weight. Before the week was out, she’d organized a protest march. The group, numbering almost two hundred, was mostly women armed with cardboard signs and banners made from painted bedsheets. They marched along Main Street, came to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office, and stood chanting, “Stop the music! Send the hippies home!”

  Sheriff Wilson’s desk was directly across from the front window, so there was no way
he could miss seeing the women. With his brows hooded and his mouth stretched into an angry-looking line, he pulled a stack of county bulletins from his inbox and started shuffling through them. As the noise of the shouts and catcalls got louder, reading became all but impossible.

  “These damn women are trying my patience,” he grumbled, but he kept his head ducked. He allowed the demonstration to go on for almost an hour. Then one of the women splattered a tomato against the front window.

  “That’s it,” he snarled. Pulling the gun from his desk drawer, he slid it into his holster and stepped outside.

  “Okay, ladies, I’ve been patient long enough,” he announced. “It’s time for you to stop this nonsense and go home.”

  Claire Madison, who stood two rows back, yelled, “We want that music festival canceled, and we’re not leaving until you do something about it!”

  The sheriff again tried to explain that Harold Baker’s farm was outside the city limits and beyond his jurisdiction, but before he could finish several of the women began hooting, and someone too far back to identify yelled, “We’re not buying that hogwash!”

  Sheriff Wilson gave a flat-eyed grimace, making an obvious show of his irritation.

  “Enough!” he shouted. “I want this crowd disbanded and out of here right now. Anyone still here in fifteen minutes will be spending the night in jail.”

  “You can’t intimidate us!” Sadie Jenkins yelled, then pumped a defiant fist in the air and turned to the crowd. “Right, ladies?”

  Standing in the center of the row, Claire gave an affirmative nod and echoed Sadie’s cry. Not backing down, the sheriff folded his arms across his chest and fixed his eyes on Claire’s face.

  “You might want to rethink that, Mrs. Madison. That tomato attack is considered assaulting an officer of the law. With Edward being the principal at the high school, I doubt he’d want the school board to know his wife’s been arrested.”

  His eyes scanned the crowd and came to rest on Bernice Turner.

  “And, Mrs. Turner, what about Joe’s job at the bank?” he said. “Do you think a banker wants to be seen visiting his wife in jail?”

  As he called out the wives of businessmen and respected citizens one by one, a low murmur began to drift through the throng. Claire reached across and tapped Sadie on the shoulder.