The Heart Doesn't Ask

<p>Cash Ratliff has loved three different women for three different reasons. Cash's alcohol habit didn't mix well with Julie. Scarred by a fragmented childhood a reckless youth spent in and out of trouble and a tour in the Marine Corps Cash has become a man shaped more by shadows than by light. Now confined within the walls of Angola State Prison-a place whispered about even among the hardened-Cash wears the label of felon like a second skin and his past is sealed behind bars and secrets.</p><p>Against expectation the court grants him a sliver of freedom: while still incarcerated but within a work release center he is granted outside employment with Sophia Blessing a reclusive widow whose quiet life belies a discerning spirit. Something about the old woman both unsettles and steadies Cash at the same time. She peers beyond his rough edges offering not pity but a kind of truth he's never encountered-a truth wrapped not in judgment but in something eerily close to grace.</p><p>Everything shifts with the arrival of Abigail-Sophia's granddaughter luminous and out of reach betrothed to a man whose charm masks something far darker. As tragedy coils through their lives like smoke Cash is thrust into unfamiliar depths. A question begins to haunt him: when fate offers a final fork in the road can a man outrun the pull of his own past? Or is redemption always a step too far?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>