Leaving Carolina (39 page)

Ah! I
bowdlerized
. I sit straighter. Though my Daily Word calendar defines the word in terms of written work, with a little bending, it fits. And with its high-flying pronunciation—long
o
and all that—it lends an air of legitimacy to my attempt to spare my daughter the truth.

“Here’s the article,” she says.

“Hmm?”

She nods at the picture that features colorful brain scans. I should have known my earlier attempt to change the subject would come back to bite me. Boring, boring, boring.

“It says here that there are decided differences between the brain of a person who is not experiencing major strife and the brain of a person who is under great stress—”

That would be me.

“—and has been diagnosed as depressed.”

No diagnosis yet. Hopefully it won’t come to that. I point to the scan on the right. “That one’s kind of pretty.”

“It’s also kind of depressed.”

Figures.

“You want yours to look like this.” She taps the left scan.

Does my brain look like that? If so, for how much longer?
Be proactive
. Right, as in find a way to get Reece Thorpe out of town. And out of my life. Again.

L
EAVING
C
AROLINA
P
UBLISHED BY
M
ULTNOMAH
B
OOKS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®.
NIV
®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Tammy Schmanski

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920,
www.alivecommunications.com
.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

M
ULTNOMAH
and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leigh, Tamara.
  Leaving Carolina : a novel / Tamara Leigh. — 1st ed.
    p. cm. — (The Southern discomfort series ; bk. 1)
  eISBN: 978-1-60142-236-1
1. Women public relations personnel—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. North Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.
  PS3612.E3575L43 2009
  813′.6—dc22

      2009014681

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