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Chapter One

To steal or not to steal, that was the question

Ginger Peet conte love seat before returning her attention to the gaping purse full of cash in the woel/devil tag tea advice

Nothing happened And didn’t that just figure?

Instead, her conscience wiggled out of her chest, iant, unused stereo systeed as if to say, “Union break You understand”

Ginger cocked an eyebrow It appeared her i for the absence of her conscience

She plopped down on the dingy carpet, pulled her knees up to her chest, and inhaled a shaky breath Her night shift at Bobby’s Hideaway had been crazy as usual, ith the dueling bachelorette parties and frat guys fro drink orders at her until 4:00 aht in don Nashville

Most nights, she screa at jokes she couldn’t even hear above the honky-tonk ot Was it pure coincidence that tonight, when she’d been unable to ulars, she ca for her?

Furthermore, their mother hadn’t darkened their door in hts to stop by and catch a nap The last ti to - and alcohol-induced haze living At least she’d er’s seventeen-year-old sister, Willa, in the process Willa tried valiantly to hide her depression over their er knew it cut her deeply

Ginger didn’t take kindly to anyone hurting her sister Mother or not

She narrowed her gaze once more at the cash-filled purse No way had Valerie pulled in this ing rolls of hundred-dollar bills held together by rubber bands What she wouldn’t give to have this much money The pile of cash in front of her represented freedo drinks to support herself and Willa

Willa

This could be Ginger’s one and only chance to get her sister away froer of the strange ht ho up passed out on a thrift-store couch while your twenty-three-year-old daughter debated ripping you off

And Yet Ginger kneith absolute certainty that if she took this money, just walked out the door with it, it would come back to take a chunk out of her ass Moreover, it occurred to her that this one poor decision est fear

Beco her mother

Ginger had to believe the pile of skin and bones on the couch had once possessed dreauided choice landed her in a G-string and pasties shaking it for sohties anthem

If Ginger could just be a good enough person for long enough, she could flip the script for Willa, though Willa, who’d skipped the sixth grade, swore like a sailor, and took photographs that couldSomeone

She glanced around at the peeling paint, stained carpet, and twice-pawned television set Without the responsibility of playing parent to her sister, Ginger would have lit out a long tiht of falling asleep in her squeaky twin bed in the room she shared with Willa, only to wake up to the bus into town to work a double shift, then still struggle to put dinner on the table andout for her sister—made her feel nauseated

I can’t see past toood

As her idol Dolly Parton once said, “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one” Hell, she was going to need a fleet of cement mixers

And for that, she’d need some cash