It wasn’t true what he’d said to Susan Byrd: that is wasn't important to find his people. Ever since Danville, his interest in his own people, not just the ones he met, had been growing.

Owning, building, acquiring—that was his life, his future, his present, and all the history he knew.

From the moment she looked into the mirror in the little pink compact she could not stop. It was as though she held her breath and could not let it go until the energy and busyness culminated in a beauty that would dazzle him.