An Honorable Man: Surviving Daniel

An Honorable Man: Surviving Daniel, (Peggy’s 12th novel, General fiction) 96,500 words, 346 pages (paperback)
After twenty-four years of abuse, Carrie Jane decides to leave her husband. She slips off to start anew.

Excerpt from Chapter 2:
He stopped in his parking lot and got out, but he couldn’t go inside just yet. He went to the trees where she had hid after leaving the moving van. He kicked the disturbed ground and brought up long strands of hair. He didn’t know why he picked them up, shook off dirt and leaves, and then stuffed those dark curls in his pocket, but he did.
When he did go into the diner, his daughter, Sally, was there. “Did you find her?” she asked as she took in the expression on his troubled face.
“Find who?”
“Dad, don’t try to fool me. I’ve been your daughter too long for that to work. But if you want me to ask it plainer, did you find the psychedelic haired woman?”
“Jane,” he said. “Jane Jenkins.”
Sally looked at him with impatient blue eyes filled with curiosity. He normally had a derogatory attitude toward psychedelic hair and women that weren’t modest and lady like. “Well, did you find Jane Jenkins?”
“No. I didn’t find her.”
“Did she catch the bus?”
“How would I know?”
Sally almost smiled at his tone, but managed to keep a straight face as she questioned further. “Didn’t you stop at the hardware and ask?”
Now why hadn’t he thought of doing that? He didn’t even know what time the bus came through other than it was around midday.
“No, I didn’t stop there, besides she didn’t have time to walk to town. She must have hitched a ride.”
Sally turned and stared at his face. “You are more interested in this stray than any other woman in the ten years since mother died. Could it be you are attracted to her?”
Marvin scratched at his gray hair again before he spoke. “Merely curious,” he said. “Something wasn’t exactly right about her. A teenage girl might run away for any number of reasons, but a woman her age doesn’t. She was . . . well, I kinda pitied her. There has to be a mighty powerful reason for a woman her age to hitch a ride in a moving van.”
“A moving van?”
“About daylight this morning, I saw her sneak out the back of a moving van and hide in that grove of oak trees. She had long, dark hair when she got out and, as Jillie said, psychedelic hair when she came into the diner. Obviously, she was trying to make herself hard to recognize.”