Miss Mildred was standing in the kitchen. Fuck. He stood silent, but impatient as she made her slow way to him, stopped a foot away and tilted her head way back. Her shrewd eyes moved over his face. He let them and it was his mother’s deeply ingrained manners that kept him standing there rather than setting her aside and getting to Hanna. He watched her eyes close. When she opened them, she whispered, “Wash it away. God gives tools to His earth that He uses, son. He puts men here like you to love girls like her, to protect them.” She lifted her hand, rested it on his chest and her sharp eyes
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
