She wasn’t going to let them make her cry. She’d cried enough self-pitying tears in her life to drown a goat, and all it had gotten her was a big fat nothing. She made herself take a deep breath, but it didn’t help break the traffic jam in her throat. Might as well call a spade a spade. That traffic jam came from shame. There was a big difference between knowing people still hated your guts and seeing it in their faces.