Praise for the work of USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Greene

“A book by Jennifer Greene hums with an unbeatable combination of sexual chemistry and heartwarming emotion.”

—New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips

“Jennifer Greene’s writing possesses a modern sensibility and frankness that is vivid, fresh, and often funny.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Woman Most Likely To

“Combining expertly crafted characters with lovely prose flavored with sassy wit, Greene constructs a superb tale of love lost and found, dreams discarded and rediscovered, and the importance of family and friendship.”

—Booklist on Where is He Now?

“A spellbinding storyteller of uncommon brilliance, the fabulous Jennifer Greene is one of the romance genre’s greatest gifts to the world of popular fiction.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Ms. Greene lavishes her talents on every book she writes.”

—Rendezvous

Jennifer Greene

Jennifer Greene sold her fist novel when she had two babies in diapers. Since then, she’s become the award-winning, bestselling author of more than seventy novels. She’s known for warm, natural characters and humor that comes from the heart. Reviewers call her love stories “unforgettable.”

You can write Jennifer through her Web site at www. jennifergreene.com.

Sparkle
Jennifer Greene

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

When we’re kids, we dream of being all kinds of things when we grow up—from president of the United States to the scientist who cures cancer, from being an Oscar-winning actress to being a major trendsetter.

Then we grow up. We don’t stop dreaming, but we learn some realism, and give up the dreams that we know are just too impossible.

I’m a believer that good people should get what’s coming to them. Maybe the meek and gentle don’t always inherit the earth, but darn it, there should be some payback for all the people who wake up every morning just trying to be good people, good lovers, good parents, good friends.

It ticks me off mightily when this doesn’t happen.

So I created this story…about two women who’d put on their realistic grown-up lives and never gave their old dreams another thought. About two women who keep getting put down for having extraordinarily good hearts. About two women who deserve a lot more than jewels and gems.

But after I gave them the jewels, I tried to give them something else. Something that mattered a lot more.

I hope you like this story!

All my best,

Jennifer Greene

To Jennifer—

I keep trying, but no heroine I’ve ever created comes close to you. I want to be you when I grow up.

Love, Mom

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Just as Maude Rose glanced at the kitchen clock, she felt a sudden fierce tightening in her chest. She ignored it. She wasn’t a woman to cater to pain, never had been. More to the point, it was finally past eleven. The bars wouldn’t serve liquor until noon, but by the time she got her old butt in gear, the time’d be close enough.

She was already wearing her favorite caftan—the purple with the gold and green threads. The slippers were an elegant satin green, not exactly perfect for walking in a September drizzle, but hell, she couldn’t fit any other shoes over her hammertoes anymore anyway.

She made up her face, patting a pretty circle of rouge on each cheek, then slathering on a bright, cheerful lavender lipstick. She just couldn’t seem to manage coloring her hair anymore—these last couple months, her arthritis had been a blinger—so her hair seemed to be two-tone these days. Half orange, half white. Truth to tell, she kind of liked it. She swept it up in an elegant style, give or take.

For a finishing touch, of course, she added jewelry. A good pound of gold and silver around her neck and then sparkles of all kinds on her wrists and fingers.

The only place to hide a secret, Maude thought, was in plain sight. Everybody knew that. The kicker in Righteous, Virginia, was that nobody realized that Maude Rose knew that, too.

On the other hand, there were only two women in this town worth sharing a secret with.

She grabbed her cane, let herself out the apartment front door and paused to light a cigar. That feeling of a sharp, tight fist in her chest came back to haunt her, but she determined to ignore it. The pain would go away. Or it wouldn’t. Same with all the other aches and pains that a girl her age was stuck with.

She set out. Predictable as taxes, heads showed up in windows as she passed. Lots of people in Righteous took daily pleasure in sniffing their noses at her. Maude Rose didn’t make friends, didn’t have friends. Truth was that nobody had been in her corner since Bobby Ray died, and that was better than twenty years ago. He’d stood up for her, taken her out of The Life.

Once he’d died, that was that. It was back to loneliness again. Just as well, since anybody she’d ever needed had let her down anyway. There always seemed somebody dying to judge her. It had taken her years to figure out that the way of handling the judgers was to let them. Flaunt what they thought they knew right in their faces.

She passed by Righteous Elementary School—which was right next to Righteous Academy. Kids scrambled all over the playground in spite of the steady drizzle coming down. Both schools had turned her down when she’d offered to volunteer. A teacher looked protectively at her clutch of kids when Maude passed. The little twit.

Past the schools, she eased her cane over the curb, flicked her cigar ash, took another long pull and then headed upstream. The newspaper, Our Way, was housed on the next block. She didn’t glance at the newspaper office, hadn’t ever since they’d refused to print any more of her letters to the editor. This wasn’t exactly a town that was pro-choice or tolerant of gays—or, for that matter, appreciated hearing that the mayor needed the shit kicked out of him. Righteous was a place that wrapped its personality around its name.

A dozen times Maude Rose had considered leaving, but now it was too late. And anyhow, it was home. She passed by Marcella’s Expert Hair Salon—another place she used to go all the time. Now she did her own. When she got around to it, anyway. She hadn’t stepped foot in there again, not since Marcella told her she looked like a cheap tramp, wearing all that gaudy jewelry all the time.

Past Marcella’s was another curb. She had to wait for a red light. Finally, though, she could see Manny’s Bar—it was still a ways yet, several long blocks’ distance, but the trek was all downhill now. Not like she had anything better to do, even if it was a long hike, and she couldn’t very well drive when she didn’t have a car. Or a license, for that matter.

Halfway across the road, she felt that clenching pain in her chest again—this time sharp enough to steal her breath. In that instant when she couldn’t seem to move, stood there frozen, she noticed the drizzle was letting up. A peek of sun was even showing through the clouds. A car horn beeped at her impatiently. Another scandalized face looked out a window and shook a prissy finger at her.

That sun seemed to gently beam down on her wrinkled face, though, and made her smile. The sun felt so…kind.

Kindness was vastly underrated in this world, but not by Maude Rose. The way she saw it, she was tough. She hadn’t let anyone hurt her in a long time. Since yesterday at least.

She just wanted to get to Manny’s, get that first drink put in front of her. She didn’t need or want revenge against all the people who’d been mean to her. Once she got a few belts in her, she stopped feeling needy altogether. Lately, though, she’d gotten a little obsessed with wanting to pay back the few people in this life who’d been decent to her.

There were only three, and since Bobby Ray was long dead, that left a short list of two women Maude Rose felt she owed a thanks.

The really funny thing was that the two girls likely had no idea how much they’d meant to her.

But they would.

Oh, yes. They surely would.

CHAPTER 1

“Now look, sweetheart. I totally understand why you don’t want a stranger washing your balls. But we’re not strangers, now, are we? I love you. You love me.”

Georgina Loretta Thompson—Poppy—tried to breathe, but it was difficult with a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight lying on her chest. Something dripped on her nose. She was pretty sure it was drool. Drool was the most logical assumption, when the big black oaf sprawled on her in a snoozing heap was a Newfoundland.

“I don’t want to have to get tough about this,” she crooned affectionately. “I know you’re tired and you’ve been good forever. More than any human has a right to expect. But honestly, love bug, you’re wet and heavy and we have to finish up. Your owner’s going to be here in another hour.”

Beast seemed to realize she was unhappy with him. He reached down with a tongue longer than Poppy’s whole face and, eyes closed, slathered a slow, wet kiss down her cheek.

“I love you, too. Really. But remember how we talked about this? I’m the alpha dog in the pack. That means you’re supposed to obey me. In fact, you’re supposed to cower in my presence. You don’t just get to flop down on top of me whenever you want your own way.”

“That’s it, Poppy, you tell that dog who’s boss.”

Poppy winced. Naturally she recognized the gruff, humored voice in the doorway. She was too old to be humiliated this way. Or so she’d been telling herself ever since she’d taken the job with Webster O’Brien four years ago.

“I suppose you think I can’t get this dog off me,” she said darkly.

“It wouldn’t be the first dog who had you buffaloed.”

“Beast does not have me buffaloed. I’m letting him take a little break. He’s been good as an angel for hours. You saw him when he came in. He was a mess. Naturally he got tired of being groomed and cut and shampooed and fussed with all day.”

“Uh-huh. So he lay on top of you to take a nap. And to drool on your face. But that’s totally your choice, right?”

“There was a reason I permanently gave up men and took up dogs,” she told Beast. And then to her boss she said, “Did you come in here just to pour grief on my head or did you have another purpose?”

“I did. A serious purpose, actually. And I promise I’ll tell you in a minute, but honest to Pete, I have to do this first.” Her vision was blocked by Beast’s big, heavy head, but she heard the click-click-click of a camera. “There now. That should be blackmail power for at least three months—”

“Did I mention recently that I think you’re low-down pond scum?”

“I don’t think it came up…since yesterday anyway.” He snapped his fingers. “Now I remember why I first came in. You had a phone call.”

Poppy normally had more patience than Job, but Beast’s heavy, damp weight was starting to get a wee bit claustrophobic. She tried a tactful shove. It had the same effect as dust moving a mountain. “Since when would you interrupt your day to tell me I had a phone call?”

“Well, Tommy had homework, so I told him he could go home, and Lola Mae left a half hour ago. And King Tut’s owner finally came in to pick him up, so I was getting ready to leave myself when the phone rang. I knew you were tied up with Beast here, but your caller didn’t want to leave a voice mail. He was real urgent about wanting you to call him back, still today or tonight if you can.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, that’s how it sounded. And it was a lawyer, besides.”

“The only lawyer I know has a pit bull,” she started to say, and Web obviously couldn’t let that go.

“The only lawyer I know is a pit bull.” He laughed at his own joke and then peered over her head with that big, shaggy St. Bernard head of his. “Would you like some help?”

“Have you ever seen me need help with an animal? I’m completely in control of the situation.” Damn it. She was forty-two years old. Her clothes were soaked. Her hair and skin were damp and smelled like dog. Her back hurt. Her knees hurt. She’d never given a hoot about her appearance—what was the point when she was homelier than a coyote? But right now she’d be downright embarrassed to be seen in public—even if the only public around was Web.

“I could get him off you,” the vet said mildly.

“I’ll get him off when I’m good and ready. Exactly what did this lawyer say he wanted?”

“Just for you to call him back. It was Cal Asher. You know, next to the newspaper office?”

“Sure.” Everyone knew Cal. He looked like a reincarnated version of Mark Twain because of the white hair and moustache. And because Cal was an institution in Righteous, people tolerated his little problem with alcohol. He was a bright man. A good guy. People just knew to make an appointment with him before noon—and to get off the road if they saw his car. “That was the whole message? For me to call him? I can’t imagine what he’d want from me.”

“Beats me,” Web said peaceably. “Anyone suing you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You suing anyone?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You smack any men around lately?”

“No one who didn’t deserve it.”

Web threw up his hands. “Guess you’ll have to call him back yourself to figure it out, then. I’m going home. So this is your last chance to beg for help.”

“I don’t need help.” She added quickly, “You’re coming in early tomorrow to check on Lucky and Devil’s Spawn, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. So the longest you could be trapped here is until seven in the morning.” But then Web, just because he had an evil sense of humor, suddenly whistled.

Beast immediately lifted his huge black head and bounded to his feet. Everybody loved the vet. Canine, feline, human, didn’t make any difference. Poppy loved him, too—the damn man was the best vet she’d ever known—but sometimes he was so aggravating she could smack him.

It hadn’t been her best day. Beast had come in with a tangled mess of swamp spurs. Her two younger brothers had called to insist on her participation at a family party. Her laptop was sick. Her favorite jeans had blown out a knee.

The call from the lawyer was a bright spot, though. Why a lawyer, any lawyer, could conceivably want to get in touch with her was unguessable.

But Poppy had always loved a mystery.

Bren Price was polishing the altar candlesticks when the church door opened, letting in a sudden burst of late-September sunshine. Late Thursday afternoons, she often cleaned the altar, because invariably no one was using the church at that time. Right off, though, Bren guessed the reason for the interruption. A miserably distraught Martha Almond spotted her and all but ran up the aisle.

Bren met her at the base of the pews, her arms already opened wide. “So…it’s bad, is it?” she asked softly.

Bren already knew the story. Martha’s sixteen-year-old son had been in a car accident. It looked as if he was going to lose his leg. On top of that, the teenager was to blame for the accident because he’d been drinking and partying with a group of friends.

“Everyone’s blaming me,” Martha wailed. “Thing is, I’m blaming me, too. I just don’t know how I could have stopped him. No matter what I ever said or did, he was just determined…”

Bren let her pour. It was the typical mom-of-a-teenager list of complaints, but the typical teenager usually managed to slip around fate. Martha’s son hadn’t. In time, things would get better, but right now Martha couldn’t see a ray of sunshine anywhere. She was exhausted and scared and shaken.

Bren came through with tissues, a listening ear, the warmth of someone holding her. Martha wasn’t the best mom or the worst. Like everybody, she tried her best, and yet sometimes her best wasn’t good enough. Finally Martha’s tears eased up and she sank limply against Bren’s shoulder, as if just needing to gather up some strength before letting go.

At least, until the door to the chancellery opened and Charles shot through the doorway with an impatient scowl. “Bren, I’ve been looking all over for you—” His expression changed from night to day. He turned back into the pastor his parishioners loved, his eyes kind and his voice a gentle, easy baritone. “Why, Martha, I didn’t realize you were here.”

Two hours later, Bren was just putting a bubbling crock of Brunswick stew on the table when Charles walked in. One look at his face and she could feel a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Lately that sick feeling seemed to be there more often than not.

“Don’t you think it’s a little hot for a heavy meal like this?” he demanded.

“Yes, actually,” she admitted wryly. “But I knew I had a full afternoon, so I was trying to put something on that we could just come in and eat whenever we were both free.”

He said nothing then, just sat down and snapped his napkin open. She served iced tea, then took the salad from the refrigerator and sat down across from him. He neither looked at her nor acted as if she were in the same room. The yellow overhead revealed the sharp lines on his normally handsome face. His posture was unrelentingly stiff, his mouth forbidding.

“Now, Charles, I can see you’re annoyed with me,” she said carefully. “But honestly I have no idea why if you don’t tell me.”

“You know perfectly well what’s wrong, so don’t try that game.”

Okay. So it wasn’t going to be one of those times when she could coax him into a better humor. “Tell me anyway, all right?”

He slammed down his iced tea glass, making the liquid splash and spatter. “I’ve told you before. When a parishioner comes in with a problem, you’re to call me. I’m the minister, not you, Bren. I’m the one they’re here to see. Not you.”

She felt slapped but tried not to show it. “You’re angry because I was talking to Martha Almond?” she said, confused. “Charles, she was crying. I just offered another woman’s shoulder—”

“You drew attention to yourself, that’s what you did. You make yourself important.” The chair clattered back when he stood up, his face turning pale as ice. “You’ve always got an excuse. I’m tired of excuses. You know what we’re dealing with. The Baptists have no end of funds. The Methodist church just added a wing. We’re struggling to survive, and here when I need you on my side, I find you doing things to sabotage me. You’ve let me down, Bren. Again.”

He stalked off in the direction of his study, with Bren still sitting at the table. The steam from the Brunswick stew gradually disappeared. Both his plate and hers stayed untouched. The dusk outside slowly turned pitchy black, somehow making the old, worn kitchen look shabbier.

Finally Bren stood and started carting dishes. The enamel sink was chipped, the counter scarred from decades of different pastors’ families over the years. The olive-green color would never have been her choice, nor the mismatched giveaway dishes, but as Charles always said, they shouldn’t be focusing on material goods. Whatever they had should be given to those with real needs.

Bren agreed completely. The hunger for nice things shamed her, made her feel selfish and small.

When the dishes were done, the kitchen scoured within an inch of its life, she stood in the sink window nuzzling two small fists at the ache in the small of her back. She knew her flaws. Her secret wish for pretty clothes, for dishes she’d chosen herself, for living room furniture that didn’t sag and poke. She wasn’t as patient as she should be. And sometimes she stretched the truth.

She didn’t used to, but lately she seemed to be truth-stretching with her husband all the time. It was the only way she could find to keep the peace. Charles was going through a terrible time. He was wonderful, as always, to the parishioners. It was her. She couldn’t seem to breathe right, do right, think right. Everything about her seemed to annoy him, no matter how hard she tried.

The stress of struggling to keep the church afloat was the core problem, she thought. But there was also the childless issue. They’d both wanted children, but at thirty-nine, Bren had quietly given up on the possibility. So had Charles, she’d believed, until he’d had some tests a couple years back and discovered he was sterile. It was those test results that seemed to turn on an angry switch inside him. No one ever saw it but her. No one would believe it if she tried to tell them—which, of course, she wouldn’t.

Lately, though, she’d realized that nothing she’d done had pleased him for years. Everyone in town thought Charles was the gentlest, kindest man in Righteous.

So had she. Once upon a time.

Now it seemed as if she woke up scared and went to bed scared. Some days she felt as if she were a stranger in her own life. She even…

The phone rang on the far kitchen wall—the line that connected to the rectory office, as well. Immediately she leaped to answer it before Charles could be interrupted.

“Church of Peace,” she answered swiftly.

“This is Cal Asher. I need to speak with Mrs. Price.”

“That’s me.” She frowned curiously. She knew the name Cal Asher. Not personally—she’d never had a reason to seek out a lawyer for anything—but he cut a colorful reputation in Righteous, both for his drinking and his lawyering. He’d never stepped foot in Charles’s church that she knew of, though. “Are you certain you don’t want my husband, Mr. Asher—”

“No, no, it’s you I’m looking for. I wondered if there was a convenient time you could come in to my office.”

“What is this about?” she asked, confused.

“It’s a legal matter, Mrs. Price. I’m representing a client. You’re mentioned in her will on an issue that she wanted to be kept private. It won’t take me long to give you the information, but I’d prefer to do it in the privacy of my office, unless that’s impossible for you.”

“No, no, of course it’s not impossible,” she said, but a fresh knot was already tying tight in the pit of her stomach. “It’s a little difficult for me to pin down my husband right now. He’s just so busy—”

“No, no, you’re misunderstanding. It was expressly my client’s wishes that I see you alone. Later, whatever you choose to tell your husband or anyone else is up to you, not my business. But for my part in this, I need a short one-on-one meeting with you to convey the issue in my client’s will.”

Bren started to say that that was impossible. The whole thing sounded hokey. Nothing secret was ever legitimate, now, was it? And more to the point, she never did things—serious things—without consulting Charles. She didn’t have that kind of marriage.

“Mrs. Price?”

“Yes, I’m here.” She clapped the receiver tighter to her ear.

“So…can you meet sometime next week? Say Monday morning, ten o’clock?”

“Yes,” she said.

When she hung up the phone, she was still bewildered how or why she could possibly have agreed.

Of course, she could go right in and tell Charles about the call this very minute.

She decided to do just that. She even took a brisk step forward—and then suddenly leaned back against the counter. She stood there without moving for a good long minute. Some instinct held her back. Maybe it was as simple as not wanting to interrupt Charles when he was already in an ornery mood.

Maybe it was something else.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t explain this silly, inexplicably strong intuition that she keep this information to herself…at least for now.

CHAPTER 2

When Poppy clomped up the steps to Cal Asher’s office, it was five minutes to ten. She was crabby at having her Monday workday interrupted and she’d forgotten her thermos. No one—at least no one who knew her—could possibly expect her to be civil without her caffeine quota, and she’d been too darn busy this morning to guzzle it.

She charged in the gloomy vestibule and promptly found another reason to scowl. She wasn’t alone. Someone else had obviously arrived ahead of her and was waiting to see Cal.

More annoying yet, the lone woman sitting there was…well, Poppy couldn’t immediately remember her full name, but she was pretty sure the last name was Price and that she was a minister’s wife.

Poppy liked to think of herself as tolerant, but in her heart she knew perfectly well she was allergic to churches. She had no problem with religion. Hell, she even had some herself, even if she tended to be quiet about it. But something seemed to happen to a lot of people when they attended church. They started turning into serial sinners, tended to claim their beliefs were the only right ones and then felt obligated—for God knows what reason—to push those beliefs on everybody else. Poppy knew everybody else hadn’t noticed it, but as far as she could tell, something about chronic church attenders turned normal people mean, besides. They took cuts in line. Shoved in the grocery store. Demanded to be taken care of first at the vet, the doctor, the dentist, as if their problems were more important than everybody else’s.

In principle, Poppy didn’t care what anybody did as long as they treated their pets well. But wasting a good work morning in a lawyer’s office with no one to talk to but a pastor’s wife…well, it sucked.

She plunked down on a hard-back chair and glanced at her Swiss Army watch, willing the minute dial to hustle along. She’d always been very good at doing, very bad at waiting. She hadn’t dressed up for this shindig because she was going straight back to work, but her one pride and joy—her mane of thick russet hair—was freshly washed. And she’d taken the trouble to throw on a sweatshirt without holes and jeans more reputable than most. Naturally she hadn’t bothered with makeup because she didn’t own any.

As a young teenager, she remembered believing all the advertisements zealously pushed on girls to make them think that makeup had the power to change their looks. Eventually she’d recognized that scam for what it was. Nothing was going to make her pretty. Makeup made her more vulnerable instead of less, because it drew attention to her potatoes-plain face. Better for people to think she didn’t give a damn about her looks than to reveal she was sensitive about them.

Poppy glanced at her watch again, discovered less than forty seconds had passed and jumped to her feet. Might as well look around, since she couldn’t sit still.

Cal Asher still practiced law in the old family home on Main Street. Everybody knew the story about how he’d been the sole holdout when the town council fought to renovate the rest of Righteous. The tall, skinny brick home was tucked between Our Way—the town newspaper—and various other commercial ventures, from Silver Dream to Marcella’s Expert Hair Salon.

Cal’s house stood out like the eccentric he was, inside and out. The parlor/waiting area may have seen an update in the ’80s, but that would have been the l880s, as far as Poppy could tell. All the furnishings would have looked elegant—in another century. Doubtful it had been dusted since. The big room was crowded with character—lots of furniture with feet, lots of cracked crown molding and blistered woodwork, lamps with fringe and dangling crystals. She accidentally caught a glimpse of a funny-looking woman with a disheveled mane of reddish hair—realized it had to be her in that wavy, gilt-framed mirror on the far wall and swiftly turned away.

She wasn’t ignoring the pastor’s wife. Just couldn’t see a point in starting a conversation with someone she had nothing in common with. And she kept fretting who Cal was going to see first—yeah, the woman had arrived before her, but Poppy was the one who had a ten o’clock appointment. For which she’d been early. And for which Cal was now two minutes late.

The far double doors were opened by a scrawny little guy wearing a bow tie. “Miss Thompson and Mrs. Price, come this way, please.”

Poppy tossed a startled look at the pastor’s wife. The woman shot an equally startled look back at her—then smiled. “I didn’t expect we would be called in together,” the woman said.

“Neither did I. I don’t understand anything about this,” Poppy admitted.

“Me either. I have no idea what I’m even doing here.”

Okay, Poppy thought. So the Price woman wasn’t the stiff-as-dried-mud preachy type she’d instantly assumed. But they were still from alien planets. Price was wearing a mid-calf-length dress, a print with little flowers and a tidy belt. Her wheat-pale hair swayed just to her shoulders, curling under, a style that suited her perfectly. Her posture was perfect. In fact, she could have aced the course in modesty and decorum—which Poppy couldn’t do if her life depended on it—and most aggravating of all, the damn woman was beautiful.

Their ages were similar; she had to be late 30s, early 40s. But she was one of those classic beauties, great bones, striking blue eyes, a tall, reed-slim figure. No hips. How could Poppy ever relate to someone who didn’t know what a hip was? And the darn woman looked that good without any makeup or artifice in sight. It was enough to make Poppy want to smack her upside the head, just on general principle.

Once ushered into Cal Asher’s office, Poppy quickly took the far leather chair and stretched out her legs, work boots and all. Ms. Prissy Price took the chair next to her and sat as if she were happy with a ruler up her spine.

Cal was just putting something out of sight in a side desk drawer. Poppy wasn’t born yesterday; she saw him rub an arm across his mouth, clearly wiping the last traces of liquor from the swig he’d just stolen. He smiled at both of them, looking much like a genial Mark Twain from a century bygone—give or take the rheumy eyes. “Ladies, if you don’t know each other, Poppy, meet Bren, and vice versa.”

They did a mutual obligatory nod, then quickly ignored each other. “I hope this won’t take too long, Cal, I’ve got a ton of work waiting,” Poppy said briskly.

“Ah, yes. Don’t we all.” With a dramatic flair, Cal slowly stood, shifted a bad print of hunting dogs to the side and turned the dials on a large wall safe. Eventually he pulled out two boxes—they looked like plain old children’s shoe boxes—and set them on his desk. “Do you ladies know an old woman named Maude Rose?”

“This is about Maude?” Bren said bewilderedly. “But she died several weeks ago.”

“Exactly. I was her attorney. Her estate was somewhat complicated because, well, Maude Rose tended to be a little on the complicated side herself. Certain situations had to be ascertained and resolved before I could contact either of you, even though you were both directly mentioned in her will.” Cal settled back in his old leather desk chair. “The state has always had the peculiar idea that a person’s bills should be paid and that no lien should remain on property or belongings before any legacies can be given away. Also, no one thought Maude Rose had any relatives, partly because she mentioned none in her will and no one ever saw anybody visit her. But that had to be verified, as well, before I could contact either of you. As you might suspect, when there’s money involved, it’s amazing how many shirt-tail relatives can suddenly show up out of the woodwork just in time to make claims.”

“Mr. Asher,” Bren said quietly, “if Maude Rose mentioned me in any way in her will, you can just give it to charity. I’m certainly not entitled to anything.”

Poppy rolled her eyes. How sanctimonious could you get? Not that she wanted anything of Maude Rose’s either. The town had treated the poor old woman like dirt. It had always infuriated her.

And Poppy was quickly guessing what this meeting was really about. Rose had no one, so obviously someone had to clean up her place and dispose of all her junk.

Hell. She’d roll up her sleeves if she had to. Better than have strangers—or people who’d been mean to her—paw through Maude Rose’s private things.

“Did you hear me, Poppy?” Cal asked.

“Nope. Sorry, I drifted off there for a second.” She straightened up, determined to pay more attention. The last thing she wanted was to cause this meeting to drag out any longer than it had to.

“Well now…Maude Rose felt folks treated her like a pariah. Of course, she was quite a liberal for these parts, marching for women and homosexuals and abortion and atheists and what all.”

Poppy didn’t want to interrupt, but damn, she could hardly let that go. “Uh, Cal? Being a supporter of women doesn’t exactly label one as a wild-eyed liberal these days.”

“Maybe not for you, Poppy. Your family has only been in this area for three or four generations,” he said with utter gravity. “But the point I was trying to make was, you know what people thought when they saw Maude Rose. It wasn’t just her politics. It was her walking down the public street in her bedroom slippers, wearing all kinds of gaudy jewelry, hanging out hours in Manny’s Bar. And though most weren’t aware, she’d been losing her sight for some time. Truth to tell, that might have contributed to how flagrantly she dressed sometimes and why folks were so sure she’d lost her noodles.”

“If she’d lost her mind—or her sight—that was even less excuse for how some treated her,” Bren said gently.

Cal Asher nodded. “Believe me, I know. Several times, the town council tried to have her put away. Had her tested to see if they could institutionalize her against her will. And then she was arrested twice last year for disturbing the peace. The mayor didn’t take it too kindly when she chose to burn her underwear in his front yard.” Cal scratched his chin. “I seem to have forgotten exactly what that was all about, but it sure got this town buzzing. Anyway…let me read you the paragraph in the will that Maude wrote specifically to you two.”

Cal opened his desk drawer, fumbled for his glasses and eventually found a pair to prop on his nose. Poppy doubted anyone could see through the lenses, they were so smudged up, but Cal was clearly into drama and he seemed determined to draw this out.

“‘People liked thinking the worst of me from the day I was born,’” Cal read. “‘Just like everybody else, I’d have lived decent if I’d had the chance or the choice. But I never did. My mom died too young and my daddy was a crook. I was selling my body before I was twelve to put food in my mouth, and I’ll be damned if I should feel guilty for fighting to survive. One person loved me for all I was, all I wanted to be, but Bobby Ray died a long time ago. Since then, I stopped caring. But sometimes it scraped hard when people were so mean. They didn’t know me. They didn’t try to know me. They were just in an all-fired hurry to decide who I was without ever even knocking on my door.’”

Cal glanced up to make sure they were paying attention, then read on. “‘But there was an exception. Two women in Righteous.’” Cal whispered, “She spelled exception wrong and quite a number of other words, too, but—”

“Just go on, Cal,” Poppy said. “We already know she wasn’t a Rhodes scholar.”

“I am, I am.” Cal cleared his throat and put on his speech voice again.

“‘The same two women stood up for me more than once. And for all the choices I never had, I’d like to give them each a choice or two. It isn’t payback, because kindness never pays back in real life. But I’m dead now, so I don’t have to worry about real life. And I like the idea of giving you two something for no other reason than that you was both good to me.’”

Cal glanced up again. He looked as if he’d like to spin this out a while longer, but it seemed he only had one more thing to say. “Short and sweet, she left you her jewelry, ladies.”

“Her jewelry?” Poppy’s jaw almost fell to the floor. She well remembered all the gaudy stones Maude Rose had piled on from her neck to her wrists to her ears and fingers. If there was a cheap rhinestone ever made, Maude Rose seemed to own it.

“Her jewelry?” Bren echoed and then abruptly chuckled. “I’m sure she meant well, Mr. Asher, but of all the people in the universe who have no use for costume jewelry—”

“It’s not costume.” And suddenly Cal stopped smiling. “There’s a story behind Maude Rose. Years ago, she had one of her regular johns pay her in bank stock. Seemed that bank stock belonged to his grandpa and it was for a bank that he thought folded during the Depression. Anyhoo…that’s what Maude Rose thought—that the stock was worthless—and she just put it in a box and forgot about it. But later, when her Bobby Ray died, she needed to clean up things, so she brought me this whole grocery bag worth of papers to sort through. It seems that bank had long revived, got a new name, been building interest for years. So it was at that point she knew she had some decent money. She wasn’t going to have to worry about her future anymore.”

“But I don’t understand,” Poppy interrupted. “I know she had that one-room apartment, but she always looked like a bag lady. No car. We’ve all seen her pay for groceries with change she’d count out one dime at a time. If she had money—”

“She was afraid.” Cal answered the question that no one had directly asked. “Once her lover died, she was afraid she’d be prey to thieves and gold diggers. So she chose to live in a way that would protect her from anyone knowing how much she had.”

He pushed one box toward Bren, the other toward Poppy, but then cautioned them both. “We’re not talking millions here, so don’t be getting your hopes up too high. All those baubles aren’t real. But even so, I think you’ll be plum surprised at what she left you. But…”

Before either could open their boxes, he waggled a finger at them. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I’m telling you this. Maude wanted you two to keep this quiet. She didn’t want your spouses or friends or family or anyone else to know about this. That’s why she insisted I set up this meeting with you two alone. Maude trusted no one. You can understand. People always used her roughly. And that was exactly why she wanted you two to hear about this in the privacy of this office with no one else here—so you’d have something you didn’t have to share. That no one knew about, so they couldn’t take it away from you. Something you could use for a little nest egg or to protect yourself or for something you never dreamed you could have otherwise. I can’t tell you how strongly she felt about this. She didn’t want anyone to try to influence you as to how you used your legacy from her.”

Enough speeches. Poppy couldn’t wait any longer to push the lid off her box. Hearing the whole story had almost made her believe the contents would be gorgeous…but no.

She’d seen all this cheap-looking crap on Maude Rose a zillion times. There were a couple of rings as big as her knuckle, earrings so heavy they’d tear out an earlobe. One bracelet looked like a cuff worn by a prisoner in a state pen, and a whole bunch of sparkly, glittery pins shaped like bugs and reptiles.

If it would save a puppy’s life, Poppy would happily walk down a street naked. It wasn’t as if she had any reason to be invested in appearance issues, with her looks. But man, it would have to be Halloween—and she’d need a snootful of Jack Daniel’s—before she’d ever wear any of this stuff.

“You’re sure this isn’t junk?” she insisted. “It’s hard to believe any of this is worth last year’s newspaper.”

“Some of it is definitely worthless. But not all.”

“But…” Poppy glanced at Bren, who finally couldn’t resist opening her box either. The jewelry was all different, but the array of dazzling sparklers in Bren’s box looked as if it came off the same Cracker Jack assembly line. Tasteless, bulky, big stones in an array of eccentric and crazy-shaped bracelets and brooches and rings.

Although Poppy normally couldn’t imagine having anything in common with the pastor’s wife, the two women shared a mirrored look of helplessness and humor.

“I think,” Bren confessed, “that I’m just too stunned to say much of anything.”

“If I might offer some advice,” Cal said, “I suggest that both of you take these things immediately to a jeweler to have them appraised. And then take them straight to a lockbox until you’re certain what you wish to do with them.”

“For my part,” Bren said, “I want to give them to a charity—”

“And of course you can do whatever you like,” Cal said. “That’s not my business. But I’d ask you to remember Maude Rose’s wishes. Most of her life, she felt trapped. She had to do things she never wanted to do. Because you were good to her, she wanted you to think about something you really wanted in your life that you never thought you could have. And to use the value of the jewelry for something that you really, really wanted.”

Poppy stood. She felt odd, as if she’d been slapped by a kiss. Not that there was anything bad about this unexpected windfall, but it was still a shock. She needed some time to wrap her mind around this whole goofy thing. Bren Price looked as if she couldn’t come up with anything more to say either.

Cal had a few more lawyer things to rant about before they could leave. “I need you both to sign some papers before you take the boxes. And I want to give you both a key to her apartment. The rent’s paid through the end of the month, and then—unless one of you wants the place—I’ll get a Realtor to do something with it. Until then, though, ladies, don’t be foolish. Get yourselves to a reputable jeweler as soon as you have a chance. And keep this to yourselves until you do.”

The women walked through the vestibule and out the front door at the same time. Once in the fresh air, Poppy took a healthy gulp of oxygen. Bren, quiet as the breeze, took a long second to catch her breath, as well.

“I just can’t seem to believe this,” Poppy said bluntly.

“Me either.”

“I can’t possibly go to a jeweler right now. I’ve got a whole day of work scheduled.”

“So do I. My husband doesn’t even know where I am. I can’t just disappear for another couple hours, not right now.” Bren added, “I keep thinking this is some kind of joke. That in another minute or two someone’s going to tell me the real punch line.”

“I have no use or interest in her apartment. But I’ll check it out as soon as I can get some free time. I don’t know if there are things to be cleaned up or if she has any personal, private belongings still in the place.”

“The same problem occurred to me,” Bren agreed. “I don’t like the idea of going through her personal things. But it just seems…respectful…to have someone who cared about her do the job. Assuming it hasn’t already been done.”

Poppy wouldn’t have used the word respectful, but she felt the same. “I don’t care if you do it or I do.”

“Same here.”

Neither seemed willing to push the other to a decision. They stood on the porch for a while longer until the awkward silence between them stretched like a too-taut rubber band. Poppy couldn’t think of anything to say to the other woman. It just felt weird leaving her, almost as weird as the impossibly strange last hour they’d just spent together.

Craziest of all—even kind of funny—was that Maude Rose must have thought the two were similar if she’d chosen them out of the whole population in Righteous to give her special legacy to. Poppy felt as much in common with Bren as a can of peas and had no doubt the other woman felt the same way.

“Well,” Bren said finally, “I have to get going. I’m sure you do, too, Poppy. Good luck to you.”

“Same back.”

And that was that, Poppy thought. She stashed the infamous box on the passenger seat of her mint-green VW and headed out of town—which only took a couple of minutes. Righteous was built in the curl of a hillside, with three main streets curved in a semicircle. Past Cal Asher’s office and the short sweep of stores, came the Baptist church, then Righteous Academy—a parochial high school—and then zip. Open road.

Two miles out of town, tucked in a nest of curly maples, was the sign for Critter Care. Web’s house stood a few hundred yards beyond the clinic. He could have walked to town, but the nature of the property made the place look secluded and protected.

Conscience nagged at her—the attorney was probably right about her needing to see a jeweler or at least to put the jewelry in some kind of protective place. But when Poppy climbed out of the car, she just felt stubborn about the whole thing. You couldn’t drop a bomb on a woman’s head and expect it to gently sink in. At least, nothing ever sank into her head that easily. She needed a few minutes to take it in, think about what it all meant. Besides which, she was already twenty minutes late for an appointment with Bubba.

An extraordinary number of dogs in Virginia were named Bubba. This one happened to be a thirteen-year-old black and tan with a really mean case of arthritis.

Heaven knew where the receptionist was—Lola Mae seemed to need a cigarette break every fifteen minutes—but Web was bent over the front desk when she charged in. Typically he looked as if he’d just wakened from a tryst with a lover—his jacket was wrinkled, his shock of dark hair rumpled, his chin haphazardly shaved. He shot her one of those God’s-gift-to-women grins. Poppy didn’t waste time taking offense, because Web couldn’t help looking like a George Clooney clone.

“It’s been hell on wheels around here since you left, Poppy. So what was the deal with the lawyer?”

“I can’t wait to tell you. It was just unbelievable.” But she could see at a glance there was a crying cat and a bluetick hound waiting for him, and her plate was just as full. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

She headed straight in, past the reception desk. Her two rooms were off the left, with an outside entrance. Four years ago—after his second divorce—Web had plucked her from a life of misery behind a desk in an insurance office and conned her into being a part-time groomer for him. He’d kept adding hours as the clinic grew and her skills with it. Heaven knew, she had no formal education or training the way he did, but she’d long felt secure that she was a valued part of the clinic team. Primarily she focused on grooming, training and rehab—and jumping in whenever they had a difficult critter to handle. She loved the tough ones. And Web kept raising her salary, until she didn’t have time to spend the salary she had.

Truth was, Poppy had realized for some time that she loved animals more than people. More than herself, when it came down to it. And Web gave her a ton of freedom and encouragement to try things that worked. In this case, what worked for Bubba was a treadmill under water.

The contraption looked like a bathtub set below floor level—because she couldn’t very well lift the heavier animals. Bubba was a love. This was his third time, and initially he’d liked standing in the lukewarm water. Getting him to walk on the underwater treadmill was a way of giving him exercise without putting any pressure or weight on his old hips. It worked like a dream to limber him up.

The only slight problem was that most dogs couldn’t be coaxed into doing it until she got in the water with them. She didn’t exactly mind. But ten minutes into the session with Bubba, she was wetter and stinkier than he was—and that wasn’t too complimentary, considering how much stinky hound was in Bubba’s genetic heritage.

Web stopped by a few minutes later but just to chortle in the doorway. “Tell me again—who’s that exercise pool for, you or the dog?”

She ignored the insult. She was used to it. “Look how good he’s doing!”

Web stepped in then and hunkered down at the dog’s level to watch how Bubba moved in the water. “I never thought this was going to work when you made me build the damn thing,” he admitted.

“I don’t know why you keep doubting me. I’ve told you and told you that I’m always right.” Though she easily teased him back, Web wasn’t on her mind. The dog was. Damn, but the old love was able to move with so much more ease in the water. Bubba was even wagging his tail—which contributed mightily to Poppy and the floor being extra wet, but it wasn’t as if she gave a damn about irrelevant stuff like that anyway.

“You have a helluva gift, Poppy,” Web murmured seriously.

Sometimes she thought she did. Animals made so much more sense to her than people. A critter never stood you up and rejected you or made you feel like dirt. Give an animal love, they gave back.

When she glanced up, Web had gone back to his other patients. She did the same, finishing with Bubba, then taking on a Jack Russell named Sergeant. Sergeant’s owner had been bringing him in weekly for grooming. The dog didn’t need grooming, he needed training. But since his owner couldn’t face up to admitting failure, Poppy called it “grooming” and just did the job.

Sergeant was smarter than most men—not that that was any exceptional accomplishment—and he took pleasure in testing all the humans in his realm to the far reaches of their patience whenever possible.

Poppy could outpatience him with no sweat, but she was whipped when her hour with him was over. By then it was two o’clock, and she was close to death from starvation.

If anyone had asked, she’d have claimed that the box locked in her car trunk hadn’t given her a moment’s worry. But it had. She yanked on a clean long-sleeved T-shirt, because she was too disreputable to be seen in public—even by her own loose standards.

Then she drove back into town, taking Willow Street, past all the blue-and-silver banners at the high school, past Pete’s Pharmacy and Clunkers Shoe Store and Baby Buttercup Clothes for Tots. Link’s was next, one of her favorite takeouts because it had great fresh deli.

She was still munching on a pastrami-on-rye when she pulled into the parking lot next door, behind Ruby’s Rubies. The name was hokey, but the owner’s last name was actually Ruby, so it wasn’t his fault. And of the three jewelry stores in town, everyone seemed to inherently know that Ruby’s was the best.

That wasn’t why she’d chosen the place, though. Anonymity was. One of her younger brothers was a sheriff deputy and the other volunteered with the fire department—which meant they heard all the Righteous gossip almost before a juicy story could even happen. When Poppy wanted to do something on the Q.T., she had to be sneaky enough to slip under their radar.

She was already known here, although heaven knew, not because she’d ever purchased any jewelry.

She popped in the front door, the box under her arm. The bells jangled over the door, but initially she saw no one and called out, “Hey, Ruby!”

Ruby was a one of a kind. Agewise, he had to be somewhere between forty and a hundred. He had a nose so hooked it could have caught fish, hair that streamed down his back in wiry strings and quiet gray eyes. He’d never cracked a smile that Poppy had ever seen, but he had a framed photograph over his door. It said Nature’s Most Savage Predator and showed a five-week-old orange-striped kitten peeking fearlessly over the side of a wicker basket.

Poppy had met Ruby when he’d brought the kitten in to the vet for the first time. She’d seen how he acted with the baby. Didn’t have to know him better than that to know he was a trustworthy kind of guy.

His store, though, was an alien planet. Two rows of counters gleamed with baubles and glitter. Lots of watches. Lots of wedding rings. Lots of rainbow-colored junk to dazzle the eye. Poppy heard a woman’s voice in the back room and realized Ruby must have a customer back there—but before she could duck out the door, he suddenly showed up in the workroom doorway.

She opened her mouth to say what she needed, when he simply said, “Come on back,” as if he already knew.

He couldn’t, but she really didn’t want to display the contents in the public front of the store anyway, so she trailed him into the back room. And then lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

Bren Price was already there. Her jewelry goodies were spilled out on a velvet scarf, where Ruby had obviously been studying her pieces.

“I had to know, too,” Bren said as if they’d been carrying on a conversation.

“I can do this via separate appointments if you want,” Ruby said in his deep, quiet baritone. “But I’m guessing you both have similar kinds of questions. I can do a short, cursory appraisal for you both right now—at least, if we’re not interrupted by customers.”

“I don’t know what questions either of us have. But I’m okay with your handling us together, if that’s all right with Bren,” Poppy said frankly.

“It’s all right with me,” Bren affirmed.

After that, neither woman spoke for quite a while. Poppy figured she wasn’t that surprised to find Bren there. They were both women, after all.

No female alive could survive a major dose of curiosity indefinitely. Although Poppy couldn’t believe this could possibly be a serious financial legacy—and probably neither did Bren—she just plain had to know what all that gaudy jewelry was worth so she could put her curiosity at ease.

Clearly Ruby had been working for some time on Bren’s cache of sparklers, because there was stuff all around him—paper, pencil, a monocle, some kind of fancy microscope. Once he went back to concentrating, Poppy could see a pattern emerge. He kept looking at the jewelry, then his instruments, then Bren. “Jesus,” he said.

And then, “Jesus,” he repeated.

By the time he spun his stool to Poppy’s stash and dived into her mother lode, he seemed to have that mantra down pat. The only variance in his vocabulary seemed to be an occasional, “Jesus, Mother and Mary.”

Poppy asked once, “How’s the Lion, Ruby?” referring to Ruby’s kitten, but he completely ignored her. Truth to tell, he didn’t seem to give a particular hoot if either woman was in the room.

That didn’t bother Poppy, but even for an irreverent antichurch person like herself, his choice of words started to get to her. Eventually she had to interrupt. “Look, I couldn’t care less if you use four-letter words until the cows come home, but you know Bren’s a minister’s wife, right? I mean, I realize she isn’t objecting, but I’d think…”

He just whispered, “Jesus,” again in an awe-filled tone, as if the two women weren’t even there.

A customer came in—all of them heard the bell—but Ruby jogged out to the storefront, said something, ushered the customer out and hung up his Closed sign.

In Righteous, no one turned down customers. Business was never that good.

“All right,” Poppy said finally, “you’re scaring me, assuming you aren’t scaring Bren. I sure as hell don’t want to interrupt your concentration. The sooner this gets done the better. But if you could just give us some idea what’s going on here…?”

He couldn’t be rushed. Poppy kept looking at her watch. Bren kept looking at hers.

Finally Ruby lurched off his stool and stood up, knuckling the ache at the small of his back as he gave them the bad news. He started with Bren, going through the handfuls of jewelry piece by piece. “Now all these beads here, they likely came from a five-and-dime at best. But then you see the yellow one? This one? That’s a blond diamond.”

“I never heard of a blond diamond.”

“That’s because most folks in these parts don’t tend to shop on Fifth Avenue. And you see this brooch?”

“The one with all those rhinestones and the strange peach stone shaped like a tongue?”

The brooch in question was Bren’s, but Poppy leaned closer to get a look, too. It was almost as ugly as the stuff in her hoard. The weird pink stone really did look like an animal’s tongue hanging out.

“That ain’t a tongue,” Ruby said. “It’s a conch pearl. And those rhinestones are diamonds. I need some time, but at first guess I believe that brooch is worth somewhere near a hundred grand.”

“Excuse me?” Bren’s voice was as faint as a mile-away whisper.

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“Excuse me?”

“Then there are these long earrings here. The ones with the pink tourmaline and black gold and peridots and diamonds and all…” He held up the trashy, flashy things. “I can’t give you an exact price until I’ve studied ’em more, but off the cuff I’d say they’re worth in the ballpark of fifty grand.”

“Excuse me?”

Ruby said to Poppy, “You best get her a chair before she falls over.”

Poppy went chasing after another stool. As an afterthought, she rolled a third stool over from the back of the store for herself.

Bren plunked down on hers, looking as pale as if she’d been stung by a wasp and was experiencing the first waves of shock.

“We’ll give her a minute to breathe,” Ruby said to Poppy and then started playing with her stash. “I can’t say I care for this particular pin. It’s as big as a padlock, for Pete’s sake. Just don’t know where a woman could wear it. But the platinum and diamonds are something else. I never seen anything like her. I’m not committing it to paper until I’ve studied it more, but don’t think there’s any question we’re talking around a hundred and fifty grand.”

“Say what?” Poppy said.

“And this cuff bracelet. Lots of those little stones are just chips, nothing that’s gonna save the farm, so to speak, but those two big stones at the end are kunzite. Good kunzite. Don’t know much about the stone, but anybody can see they’re really good quality. I’d throw out twenty-five thousand for an initial guess.”

“Say what?”

“The tanzanite beaded necklace, now, isn’t quite as good as you’d think—”

“Trust me, Ruby, I’m not thinking.”

“I’m just saying. People know of tanzanite being rare, so they generally assume it’s more valuable than it is, when tanzanite is too soft a stone for a lot of applications. This one’s in a protected setting, though. It’s all right. Good stones. An interesting piece, but I still have to say I don’t think it’ll be worth more than ten K.”

“Say what?”

“Look, ladies. I need time with pieces like this to give you a true appraisal. And I’m not too proud to admit, I may have to consult with some other jewelers, check the market. Not like I’m regularly exposed to pieces like this. But offhand I’m guessing you each have jewelry valued somewhere in the two-hundred-thousand-dollar price range.”

CHAPTER 3

Two hundred thousand dollars. Bren stood at the gas pump, filling the church van before she headed home. Typically almost everyone stopping for gas was a face she knew, so she waved and smiled and did some chitchat. But her mind was still roller coastering up and down the mental hills of two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred thou. Two hundred K. Two hundred grand.

Anyway you said it, it was beyond anything she’d imagined.

As a child, she’d grown up safe financially. But that was the last time she remembered not worrying about every dime and every bill.

“Hey, Mrs. Price, how you doing?” Joey greeted her when she plucked a few bills from her cracked wallet. He’d galloped out of the station to clean her windows the instant he’d seen the church van. She had to give him something.

“Doing just fine, Joey. How’s your mom? Her foot any better?”

There was no way to escape the conversation. She knew Joey and his sister, knew their mom, knew what a rough road the family had had ever since the mom had been laid up with foot surgery. She’d carted over dinners herself the first week. Charles had added prayers for them in his church sermon. People mattered more than money, so darn it, caring just couldn’t be rushed. But when Bren finally climbed back into the church van, she hoped God would forgive her—and the Virginia cops, too—because she sped out of town as fast as the old engine would let her.

Giddy euphoria danced in her pulse. She couldn’t wait to tell Charles about their good fortune. She could picture the relief on his face. Picture them sharing a moment of joy together. Picture that harsh look of stress ease on his face for the first time in months.

She wheeled through yellow lights at Willow, then Main, then wheeled left on Baker Road. She supposed it didn’t make too much sense to speed past the courthouse, then past the police and fire stations, as well. But there wasn’t a policeman in town who didn’t know her, so if one was going to do something wrong, Bren figured she might as well do it in plain sight. Past all that busy part of town, of course, was their Church of Peace.

A little neighborhood of houses clustered around their church. Maybe someone thought the area would become a bedroom community of D.C. back in the fifties, but that kind of prosperity never discovered the area. People were hanging on, raising their kids, but this side of Righteous was visibly struggling.

Their church looked as wilted as the rest of the structures. She was just a white frame building, long and narrow, with their house—the parsonage—just beyond the parking lot. Charles often used their home for different gatherings; so did she. The church basement was also huge, ample for events like bible readings and meals and craft sales and all that kind of thing. Even had an old, spotless kitchen down there. Bren had planted bushes and flowers when they could afford them, taken care that the church was always polished and spotlessly clean. So maybe it didn’t look like much on the outside, but inside it was safe and peaceful and had that warm-glow welcoming feeling.

Or it used to. Before things got so tight.

She parked at the house but hightailed it immediately toward the office at the back of the church, assuming she’d find Charles there. But no. She found nothing but dust motes dancing silently in the sunlight. The message light blinked on the answering machine. Charles’s jacket still hung on the old pine tree. A sermon in progress sat half-finished on the desk.

He must have taken off for some reason, and she wanted to head straight for the house, to check there. But first she grabbed a pen and paper and took the messages. Whenever Charles came back, he’d want to know who had called and why, and often enough, she could field questions on her own, without bothering him.

That done, she hustled toward the house, realizing with a half laugh that she was out of breath, had been probably since she’d left the jeweler’s. “Charles!” she called as she pushed open the screen door to the kitchen and then stopped abruptly.

Charles had his white shirt rolled up, hands on his hips. He swiveled around abruptly when he heard the door open. She had the impression he’d been pacing. Her heart sank fifty-seven feet—and fast—when she saw the straight-lipped, tight-jawed expression on his face.

“Where were you?” He asked it in that certain tone. The tone that claimed he had tons and tons and tons of patience and now was completely out.

She tried to calm her panicky pulse, but that particular tone always rub-burned her nerves. She couldn’t think when he was irritated with her. And though she’d always valued honesty, she heard a half-truth babble from her mouth. “I was just talking to a woman in town—”

“What woman?” he demanded, again his tone sharper than ice.

She couldn’t explain why she hedged telling him the whole truth. It’s not that she wanted to lie to him—ever, ever—but when she felt that anger coming at her, some instinct took over. She wasn’t thinking about lies or truth. She was just thinking about doing whatever she could to mollify him. “No one from the church, Charles. No one you would have felt you needed to talk to yourself. Just a woman who stopped to chat with me. I didn’t think there was a problem. I had no idea you were waiting for me—”

He yanked out a chair from the kitchen table, making a scraping noise that made her jump. She understood he wanted her to sit down, which seemed a fair idea, for them to try sitting and talking together—only Charles didn’t sit.

Once she was parked, he loomed over her and started talking in that tone again. The acid tone. The acid-angry scary-quiet tone. “I took you in when you were an orphan. You had nothing and no one, remember that? Just your dad in a hospital bed and no way to take care of him or yourself. You didn’t have a roof over your head. I still remember how beautiful you were. How lost. Seventeen, and so crippled on the inside to lose your mother and sister in the same accident. But I came through for you, didn’t I, Bren? Didn’t I?”

“Yes. I know you did. And I’ve always been grateful—”

“This is how you show me how grateful you are?” He yanked out another chair, just to make the squeaky noise again, just to vent more of that rage. Maybe just to make her jump again. “By disappearing for hours at a time?”

“But, Charles, I had no idea you needed me for anything this afternoon—”

“Right. How could you know when you didn’t even bother to ask?” He switched subjects faster than an eye blink. “I had the pastor breakfast this morning—assuming you could bother remembering. Everyone’s doing a fund-raiser for the hurricane in the south. We need to put on a fund-raiser, too. A bigger one. A lot bigger and better one than the Baptists are putting on.”

“All right.” She was thrilled to change the subject. Even though she knew that part of his anger was nerves and stress and not necessarily about her, somehow he made her feel…small. When he started ranting like that, she just wanted to sit tight with her knees together and her arms pressed at her sides and her head tucked, so that she took up the tiniest amount of space possible. It was kind of a goofy sensation. Just wanting to make herself as close to invisible as she could get.

She should be listening to her husband and working on the problem, working on and with him, instead of hiding out in some goofy mental corner. It shamed her that she wanted to disappear like a child instead of handling the real problems between them. But right then, God help her, she just wanted him to calm down and lose that icy look.

“Whatever you’ve been spending your time on, it isn’t as important as this. I want you to spearhead this fund-raiser. I need ideas for something different. Something that will really grab the community’s attention and interest. Not the same old bake sale or craft sale. Something good.”

She’d put on the last bake sales and yard sales and craft sales. All of them had brought in hefty donations, she’d thought. Just not enough to satisfy her husband. But it wasn’t his fault that times were so hard.

“Okay, I’ll be glad to,” she said.

“I want some kind of plan to discuss by dinner tonight.”

She didn’t look at her watch, didn’t dare, but thought it had to be already past three. Charles was still circling the table, finding things to thump around, but at least he’d stopped looming over her.

“Then I’ll include information about it in the sermon this Sunday, put it all together, start to get our parishioners excited about it. We need to look proactive.”

She lifted her head, feeling a spark of enthusiasm catch her now, too. “I couldn’t agree more. We should be proactive in times of trouble like this. And maybe you could put just a little less fire and brimstone in your sermon. Concentrate more on themes about coming together, on—”

God. She’d blown it again. He surged around the table faster than the lash of a whip. “Excuse me? Were your criticizing my sermons?”

“No. No, of course not, Charles. I just—”

“You think I don’t know how to write a good sermon? That I need advice how to do my job?”

“Charles…” She couldn’t maintain this razor-sharp level of anxiety. It was just too crazy. “Charles, come on. For heaven’s sake. Lately you’re angry at me for anything I say. I was just trying to make a suggestion—”

The next seconds passed in a blur. She doubted he’d heard her. He wasn’t listening; he was charging around the table toward her like an angry bull.

She saw him lift his hand. Saw his hand was folded in a fist. Saw the dark, livid color shooting up his neck.

As crazy and ridiculous as the thought was, for that second she actually believed he was going to hit her.

Her heart stopped. Not just her heart, the physical organ, but the core of her emotions suddenly seemed to go still, deep down. She felt as if something died, some feeling, some hope, nothing she could name…yet the sense of loss was as real as her own pulse.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Charles said abruptly. He lowered his arm, dropped that fist. Then said nothing else, just stormed out the back door. The screen door slapped behind him.

Bren sat statue-still for a few more minutes…until the oddest thing happened. She saw a vague silhouette of a reflection in the kitchen window. It had to be a stranger, that cringing woman with the submissive bent head. It couldn’t be her. How could it possibly be her?

For that brief second she felt like a stranger in her own life.

But then, of course, she got a grip. Stood. Started dinner, started brainstorming fund-raising events.

Charles was going to be terribly upset and apologetic when he came to his senses, realized how mean he’d been to her. She was sure of it.

Three evenings later, it was pouring buckets when Bren turned the key on Maude Rose’s apartment. The place was on Willow, with a private set of stairs over Ms. Lady Lingerie and Clunkers. Everyone knew there were apartments above the retail shops, but who ever thought about them? Until she’d known Maude Rose, she’d never considered what those apartments looked like or who lived in them.

A naked lightbulb illuminated the dingy stairs—not enough to make the lock easy to see. Once inside Maude’s door, she fumbled around the wall for a switch. Lightning crackled just as she located the overhead. Slowly she slipped off her damp jacket, startled at her first look at the place.

Charles often spent one night a month in Charlestown with elders of the church, a prayer retreat sort of thing with a dozen other pastors. It never crossed Bren’s mind to check out the apartment until he’d been on the road. Then the impulse hit. There was no one to question or argue with her if she chose to come here tonight.

For the first time since she could remember, she had a completely private spot to think. Maybe that was part of what had spurred the impulse to come here. More than that, though, she really wanted to know more about the woman who’d given her such a generous legacy—especially because Bren had no idea Maude Rose even knew she’d stood up for her now and then.

And now, as she glanced around, the first shock was discovering the pale pink living room walls. Not red, not neon, not splashy or vulgar. But a quiet, clean pastel, recently painted. As far as Bren could tell, the apartment only had a bedroom, a bathroom and then this one big L-shaped room.

The fat part of the L had windows overlooking the street below. The skinny part of the L was the kitchen and eating area. Or it had been.

Bren heard the clomp of footsteps on the noisy stairs and spun around. Hard to tell who was more surprised, her or Poppy.

“I’ll be damned. Who’d have thought we’d have the same idea on the same night?” Poppy asked wryly, but her grin was wary. “Hey, if you want the place to yourself, go for it. I can come back another time—”

“I think it’s great you’re here. It’ll give us a chance to put our heads together and figure out what to do with the place at the same time.”

Poppy nodded. “I don’t even know why I came tonight. The curiosity bug just keeps getting to me. Who Maude Rose really was. How and why she picked us to give that stuff to, when I don’t remember her even speaking to me. In fact, I didn’t know she realized I’d defended her now and then. And I just…those jewels, you know? That whole thing’s still bowling me over.”

“I know. Me, too.” Bren, all her life, had felt easy around people, loved people in all their facets and colors and rainbow choices of personalities. But Poppy was a puzzle.

She’d looked nervous as a newborn colt when she’d first stepped in. Shed a dripping rain jacket at the door, dropped it. She was such a character, Bren thought. A full-grown ragamuffin. Gorgeous hair, all red and gold and blond, thick and glossy—but she wore it shaggy and rumpled, washed and dried as if it were polyester. The clothes appeared to be rejects from a rag bag—the jeans were too tight in the behind, dirty in the knees, thready at the hems; the flannel shirt was twice too big for her frame.

Poppy’s face fascinated her the most, though. Her dark eyes were bright with intelligence and sassy humor. She had a long, wide mouth, skin softer than a baby’s. The nose took up too much space. So did the chin. But there were so many contradictions in that face, so much character. Poppy seemed shamelessly irreverent, hopelessly blunt…so much her own woman, the way Bren had always wanted to be herself. Everything about Poppy seemed to capitalize a strong woman, unafraid to fight for whatever mattered to her…yet that essential gutsiness was shadowed by something else. Anger, Bren was almost sure.

Somewhere inside that brash, artsy package was a lot of anger at something. The way she walked, the way she moved, Poppy always seemed braced for someone to cut her or hurt her—and ready to lash out when and if anyone tried.

“Pink? You gotta be kidding me,” Poppy said when she saw the walls. She pushed out of her wet shoes, tromped around barefoot.

Bren hadn’t felt comfortable at baldly opening cupboards and drawers, but sheesh, as long as Poppy was doing it, she indulged in her curiosity, too. “Apparently it was rented furnished.”

“You guessing that by the crappy furniture?” Poppy said wryly. “Yeah, I’d guess the same thing. Thinking about an old lady trying to ease her tired bones on a cheap futon kind of makes me sick.” She spun around. “Did you see this?”

Bren nodded. She’d already noticed the picture on the far wall. It wasn’t a good print or even a poster. Just a picture cut out from a magazine of a stone hearth with a blazing fire. It put a lump in Bren’s throat. “Maude Rose never had the warmth of a real fireplace, I’m guessing.”

“Everything around this damn place makes me think she was so damn lonely that I’d like to hit someone. Pardon my French.” Poppy opened a kitchen cupboard. Bren came up behind her to view the contents. The two women exchanged glances.

The shelf held two plates, two cups, two saucers—all cheap, chipped pottery. But also on the shelf sat a half-used candle, rose-scented.

“Damn it,” Poppy said again.

Bren didn’t say it, but she felt the same way. The candle still had a whiff of that soft, vulnerable scent. Again she hurt for the old woman’s loneliness. For something inside Maude Rose that so few had ever seen. A softness. A yearning for something pretty, something gentle, something feminine.

“I’ve got to quit saying damn it around you,” Poppy grumped. “I think it’s because I know you’re a pastor’s wife. I mean, I swear. But not every two seconds.”

“It’s all right.”

Poppy started spinning around again. “Pretty obvious the furniture comes with the place. But I don’t think we should rent this place out—or let anyone else see it—until we’ve taken out some things. Like the candle. And the picture. And whatever else we find that belonged to Maude Rose that’s…”

“Personal.” Bren nodded. She shuffled through a handful of books on the stand by the TV. Dilbert. Garfield. Not reading books, just cartoons. On a wall shelf, she found records. Not CDs or tapes but old records—the kind that had to be played on a turntable. Only there was no turntable. Just the big, black disks. She read the labels to Poppy. “Night and Day, Frank Sinatra. Who’s Montavani?”

“Don’t know.”

“Cal Tjader. Ella Fitzgerald. Miles Davis. Wes Montgomery.” Bren recognized some of the names, not all. “I’d hate to think she loved this music and then had no way to play it.”

“Bren?”

“What?”

Poppy stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “I think we need a glass of wine. Or beer.”

“Oh, I can’t sta—” Bren clipped off her knee-jerk response. It must be the stranger living in her life that said, “Actually, I can stay for a while. And I think a little drink’s a good idea. Hmm, I’m trying to think of the closest place that might sell a bottle of wine—”

“Manny’s Bar. Maude Rose’s hangout. Which seems fitting. I’ll spring for it.”

By the time Poppy returned, she was soaked all over again, laughing at what a rotten, blustery night the storm had turned into. By then, Bren had filled a couple of grocery bags with things of Maude Rose’s. She wasn’t sure what to do with them but left them for Poppy to see so they could decide together.

“I guess I should have asked if you’d rather have a soda instead of something alcoholic,” Poppy said.

“You know,” Bren said mildly, “just because I’m married to a minister doesn’t mean that I don’t drink, don’t swear or can’t have a bitchy mood just like anyone else.”

“You just said bitchy.”

“Yes.” Bren glanced out the window. “And I see quite a bit of lightning, but none of the lightning bolts seemed to have shot me down, so I guess God must be in a forgiving mood today.”

Poppy squinted at her. “Was that a joke?”

“Oh, no. I never joke about God shooting me down with lightning bolts.”

Apparently that kind of teasing was what it took for Poppy to relax around her. Contrary to Bren’s claim, she really didn’t drink—at least, not normally. But when she started to sip that first glass, it seemed the right thing to do. It wasn’t that easy for her to relax around Poppy any more than the other way around. Slowly, though, they seemed to be finding their way around each other.

“So you left your jewels with Ruby,” Poppy said. “Mine, now, they’re still in my fridge.”

“Your refrigerator! You can’t be serious.”

“Can you imagine a thief opening the fridge for anything to steal? Besides which, I’ve just been so darn busy. I’ll do something serious as soon as I can catch some free time. Anyway, the point is, do you know what you’re going to do with your side of the loot?”

“No. Not yet.” She took another sip of wine, let the dry taste swirl on her tongue. “How about you? When you get that free time…do you have some ideas what you’re going to do with the money?”

Poppy was still opening and closing things as she drank, and so far she’d finished three glasses compared to Bren’s first three sips. “You know, my first thought on this place is just to find someone who needs a place. A kid graduating from high school, first job kind of thing. Someone wanting to live independent. Or needing to. But someone needing something cheap.”

“A girl, not a guy,” Bren said.

Poppy nodded immediately. “Yeah. I know we shouldn’t discriminate, but…”

“But it’d feel good to do something for a girl who needed help,” Bren added thoughtfully. “From what Cal Asher said, Maude had enough funds in the kitty to pay for several more months’ rent. So it wouldn’t cost us to hold on to the place for a while. Give us the time to find the right person.”

“I’m not sure how to guess who Maude Rose might have wanted here. Except…a girl who needs a safety net.”

“Yeah. And a girl who needs a little kindness passed along.” Bren found it astounding how easily they were talking about this. But she’d definitely noticed how Poppy had initially ducked the question of her inheritance. Before she could ask her again, though, Poppy motioned her closer.

“Bren! Look what I found!” Poppy had just topped her third glass—again—when she sloshed it on the scarred plastic table. Apparently she’d spotted something under an upholstered chair, because suddenly she knelt down and reached deep under there. She emerged with an old wrinkle-edged cigar box.

“Um, doesn’t look like much of a treasure. Maybe if you smoked,” Bren said doubtfully.

Poppy rolled her eyes. “It’s not about smoking, you silly. Cigar boxes are for hiding treasures.”

“This is a rule where?” Bren asked wryly, but they both bent over the box to view the contents. Neither touched. They just looked. There was a dried-up daisy. A newspaper with its name cut off, just a scrap of yellowed paper with the cutout date of November 7, 1984. A beach shell, broken. A photo of a couple from the ’40s, judging from their clothes, but it was so faded and crackled it was hard to tell. Another photo of a young man—skinny, scrawny, standing by a motorcycle, looking cockily as if he owned the world.

Slowly Bren said, “You’re right. They are treasures.”

“Impossible to guess what they meant to her.”

“No way to know,” Bren agreed.

“I guess we should throw it all away.”

“I guess we should. What else could we do with it anyway?” Yet Bren looked at Poppy’s face, sighed and said, “Okay, let’s just put it back under the chair for now. We’ll throw it away. Eventually.”

“I know we will.” Poppy put on her tough, defensive face. “Hell, how stupid to be sentimental about stuff like that. What difference could it possibly make now?”

“You’re so right,” Bren murmured. She tried to look away from Poppy, but for that instant—whether Poppy knew it or not—her eyes glistened when she saw that cheap dried flower. So had Bren’s. But then, Bren had no illusions about herself that she was tough. “Hey, Poppy…I didn’t mean to pry before. You don’t have to tell me what you plan to do with your jewels. I was just making conversation.”

“Hey, I wasn’t ducking it.”

She was, but Bren wasn’t about to call her on it. She watched Poppy toss back the rest of her wine. The Ms. Tough expression was back in place.

“I want to have my face fixed,” she said bluntly.

“Your face? What’s wrong with your face?”

Poppy rolled her eyes again. “Come on. It’s obvious. My whole life, I’ve been butt-ugly. But I always thought I just had to live with it. Now suddenly I don’t have to. And it’s not as if I need the money for anything else.” She scowled at Bren. “You don’t approve.”

“It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove.”

“But you think it’s vain. Frivolous. A dumb thing to do with the money.”

“I never said that,” Bren defended herself.

“You didn’t have to. It’s all over your expression. But you never had to live with a face like this. You don’t have my history. You don’t even know me—”

Bren said quickly, “Poppy, I’m sorry if I offended you. Or if you felt I was judging you. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I had no idea what you were going to say.”

But Poppy closed down tighter than a threatened clam. She corked the wine, put attitude in her shoulders, carted her glass to the sink. She was obviously making moves toward leaving. “So what about you, anyway? What’d your husband say when you told him about your windfall?”

Now it was Bren’s turn to fall silent. Poppy turned. “Bren?”

Bren punched out cheerfully, “I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.” It was her turn to leap to her feet. She aimed for the sink, figuring she’d wash both glasses. Oh, and check the contents of the refrigerator. Neither of them had looked inside to see if there was food that needed throwing out.

Poppy hadn’t moved. Was still staring at her. “Well, hell. I didn’t mean to ask some heavy, loaded question.”

“It isn’t a loaded question. It’s just a little different circumstance. It’s hard to explain.”

“No need to strain yourself. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m going to tell him. He’ll be really happy. I mean, who wouldn’t at such an extraordinary surprise—”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you didn’t tell him immediately, right? Because he’d be so happy.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Bren repeated uncomfortably.

They both left at the same time. Both had keys, lifted a hand to lock the door at the same moment. Went to take the stairs down at the same moment. Hesitated at the same moment before taking off in the pouring rain in opposite directions.

Bren couldn’t stop thinking how nice it had been between them for a while. Just talking together, more easily than either could ever have expected. It was as if the bond of Maude Rose had somehow paved the way for a friendship between them. They shared a secret. A secret that seemed to open the doors to communicating, talking about things they wouldn’t or couldn’t normally.

But that door had sure slammed shut fast.

Bren was still shaking her head—who could ever, would ever, guess that a woman who dressed as ragamuffinlike as Poppy would want plastic surgery? That vanity or looks was even a thought in her head?

And for herself…well, obviously she couldn’t just tell Poppy about her marriage. You couldn’t explain something like that in a single sentence or a couple of seconds.

Heckapeck. Bren had been trying for days, weeks and now months to explain to herself what the Sam Hill was going wrong between her and Charles. If she couldn’t figure it out herself, how on earth could she tell a stranger?

CHAPTER 4

A week from Thursday, Poppy came to work with her internal engine on rev. She’d been to a plastic surgeon in D.C. Actually, she’d seen a second one in Arlington, as well. And as soon as she’d poured a mug of sludge from the community caffeine pot, she tracked down Web.

She knew he’d be busy, just wanted to pin him down to a quick conversation later. It wasn’t as if they didn’t pass each other a zillion times during the average workday, but she didn’t want to discuss arrangements in public.

She heard his voice in exam room one and jogged there—yet ended up standing in the doorway without saying a word. Web was with a gorgeous golden retriever—and the retriever’s owner.

Pauline was thirty-something, buxom and brunette, pretty enough if you went for the poured-in-jeans type, and was batting her eyelashes at Web as if they were lethal weapons. Poppy had all she could do not to laugh.

All the women went for Web. He couldn’t help looking like a hunk, but it was still fun to watch an unwitting Roman being circled by a determined lioness. All Web had to do was smile at a female—any age, zero or ninety, and pretty words seemed to promptly spew from the woman’s mouth like bubbly sea foam.

Web, turning to examine the retriever’s ears, caught sight of her in the doorway and shot her a please-God-save-me! look. Poppy just heartlessly grinned. Maybe he could get the golden retriever to rescue him, assuming the dog wasn’t female and didn’t fall head over heels, too.

She finally caught up with him at lunch, more by chance than plan. Web usually took off at noon, but he had a patient coming out of surgery. Mrs. Bartholomew’s cat. The cat would have been just fine in the recovery cage, but Web was Web. Took better care of people’s pets than they did.

More to the point, about the same second Poppy remembered there was cold pizza in the lab fridge, so did he. Seeing him gave her the excuse to grouch about her last customer. A cocker. The owner only came to her because no one else in a three-county radius would handle the spoiled little snapper.

“But it’s not that,” Poppy groused. “The dog has every right to snarl and growl when it’s miserable. It’s just that I don’t get why they insist on owning a cocker when both of them like to tromp through the woods. It’s just not fair. She always comes back full of prickers and burrs, and you know how cocker fur is to brush…”

Web pretended to listen to this rant—he’d heard it all before—as he helped himself to his share of the cold pizza, the part with the mushrooms. Both dived for the stash of Dr. Pepper. Rain started dribbling down the windows. A serious storm was coming in fast, judging by the darkening sky. Poppy reached up behind her to flick on the overhead.

The so-called break room was really the lab. Blood tests and X-rays and other tests were isolated in one section, but the sink and dishwasher functioned for both. A microwave made it easier to eat inside on bad-weather days, and the cot-bed was used for anyone who didn’t feel good—or for Web when he was spending the night for a favorite patient, which, of course, he’d never admit to on his deathbed. The closet had lab coats and at least one change of clothes for anybody who needed them—primarily Web and her. A critical drawer to the left of the sink was reserved for life essentials: Heath bars, jelly beans, butterscotch buttons.

“So did you survive the soccer mom this morning with your virtue intact?”

“The soccer mom?”

“Don’t waste your breath playing innocent with me. You know I mean the one with the size-eight jeans squeezed on a size-twelve ass. The one with the retriever.” Poppy rose up yet again to reach for napkins, which neither of them ever seemed to remember before they dived into food.

“Pauline. And, hey, you saw I needed help. How come you took off?”

“Because she’s cute. And God knows she worships the ground you walk on. I thought you could use a little hero worship this morning. And it’s been a while since you’ve succumbed…I thought maybe you needed to get laid.”

Web sighed. And chomped down on more pizza. “You know way, way too much about my private life. Or you think you do.”

“What, was that a rash assumption? You don’t need to get laid?” she asked innocently.

“Not to or by Pauline. No.” For an instant she caught the oddest glint of light in his eyes. But it was probably just a reflection. The window view of the Shenandoah Mountains in the distance suddenly showed a scissor of heavy-duty lightning. “I don’t need to be hooked up with any more divorcées—or nondivorcées, for that matter—who think I’ve got money.”

“I hate to tell you this, cookie, but it was never your money drawing the girls. It’s your adorable butt.”

Web wasn’t born yesterday. He put up with so much and then shoveled it back. “You have a cute butt, too, but I don’t see you running around getting either laid—or married—all the time.”

She laughed, thinking that was just the thing about Web—why they worked together so well, why they talked together so easily. She’d been hurt in her relationships. He’d been hurt in his. The reasons for their respective disastrous personal lives were entirely different, but the point was that they could easily tease each other without fear of it being taken the wrong way.

Web was too good-looking to notice a woman with her physical appearance, besides, making it even easier to banter from their respective sides of the gender fence. After two divorces, Web was so antimarriage he might as well wear a sign. And she’d had it with men who assumed it was okay to treat her ugly just because she physically was.

“Hey.” That second piece of pizza had taken the edge off. Web was still diving in. A good time for her to bring up more serious subjects. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure. Shoot.” Although he glanced at her warily. “You want me to haul in wood for your fireplace this winter, right?”

“No. Well, yes. But this is a little more serious. I need some time off.”

“You’re telling me this why? Your schedule is totally up to you. You sure don’t need my permission.”

“I know that, but…I need a little help.” Her tangle with the cocker had left her pale yellow sweatshirt fringed with cinnamon hair. Web’s theory was the same as hers, that a meal without animal hair would be like Thanksgiving without turkey—too unnatural to consider. But just once in a blue moon she’d like to stay clean for just a few hours. “I’m going to have a little surgery done. Nothing huge, but…I’m going to need a couple weeks off from work. And I’ll actually not be home for about three days. That’s the time when I’m worried about Edward—”

“That damned rabbit?”

“Edward is not a damned rabbit. He just has a little problem with anxiety attacks. You would, too, if a human had practically burned off your behind. But the problem is that no one can seem to feed him but me. And, I have to believe, you. And then there’s Snickers.”

“You don’t still have that cat,” Web said positively.

“Don’t you start on me, cookie. I couldn’t take him to the shelter. Who would ever adopt her? She’s blind in one eye and doesn’t have a nose. She’s almost beyond ugly.”

“When she first came in after the accident, you could have listened to me. We could have made the intelligent choice and put her to sleep.”

“You talk real big,” she said darkly, “but wasn’t it just last month you took in that scruffy, mangy, derelict-looking mutt—”

“Now wait a minute. That’s completely different. I’ll find a home for Blue. He just needs to be more recovered…” Web seemed to shake himself. They’d been down this conversational road dozens of times. Which she knew, and which was why she’d started it, to distract him. “Let’s backtrack five miles. You know I’ll take care of your godforsaken rejects, just like you’d take care of mine. So forget that. What’s this surgery about?”

“Just a minor procedure.” She glanced at the clock, then popped to her feet.

“Don’t give me that shit. What are you having the surgery for? You need someone to be there?”

“No, honestly. You know I have a dad and two brothers. They’d smother me with help if I needed it—and most of the time when I don’t.” She squished a little dish soap in the sink. There were only a handful of dishes to clean up, but too little for the dishwasher, and it was a sacred rule in the lab to leave no messes. “That’s why I asked you to help with the critters. I’d just as soon stay under my family’s radar. I don’t want them worried. Nothing to worry about.”

He scooped up the napkins and paper plates, suddenly quiet, as if he were making his mind up whether to change subjects. “You haven’t said anything about your crazy inheritance in a few days.”

“Well, I told you about meeting up with Bren Price. We’re night and day in personality, that’s for sure. But we’ll get along as far as figuring what to do with Maude Rose’s old place. And as far as the jewelry…”

Web was the only person she’d told about the legacy. Initially she thought she’d go with Maude Rose’s advice, enjoy the privacy of no one knowing about her nest egg. But Web was the exception. She trusted him. After working together for four years, she knew she could.

She trusted her brothers and dad, too, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Tell them anything, and for the next five hours she’d hear nothing but heated advice and orders and discussion. Web would just let her be. He was always good as a sounding block, but besides their mutual teasing, he never interfered in anything she did—any more than she would in his life.

“Ruby still hasn’t come up with a written appraisal, but he must have called a half dozen times. It’s kind of funny, really. I think he’s shook up about doing this right, wants to be sure he keeps us informed every inch of the way. He’s far more worried than either Bren or me.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s used to handling gems like that.”

“He isn’t. He keeps saying. But he’s honest. That’s all that really matters. Even if we don’t have the appraisals down in ink yet, he’s given us both clear pictures of what the pieces are worth. And Ruby being Ruby, I know what he’s told us is conservative.” She rinsed the last dishes and then grabbed a cloth to wipe off the table—then saw Web had beaten her to it. “It’s just still hard to believe this is real. That a total stranger would suddenly give me something out of the blue. Especially something as overwhelming as this.”

“Every once in a while the human race comes through and does something decent.”

“I know, I know. But I had no idea she knew who I was.” She shook her head, then spun around to glance at the clock again. Their hips bumped at the sink. He glanced at her, but she was no more concerned by the physical contact than he was. The time, she saw, was two minutes to one. She still had to pee and wash her hands before the next client came in.

Web, though, seemed to amble right in front of the door and then park himself. “Okay, so we’ve covered that waterfront. Now back to the main event. What’s the surgery for, Poppy?”

“I told you. Nothing serious.”

“Good. Then there’s no reason you can’t tell me what it is.”

Sheesh. It wasn’t like him to pry. “It’s just awkward, okay? A personal thing.”

“So it’s about girl parts? I know this’ll shock you, but I knew that your half of the planet had girl parts before this. I was even married. Twice.”

“It’s not about girl parts. At least, not exactly. Sheesh, sometimes you are so full of it!”

“Hey.” For a guy who was tall and lean, he sure could block a doorway. “If it’s cancer, a serious illness, damn it, you say. Right now. Quit messing with me.”

“I swear it’s nothing like that.” She almost blurted it out, but then stopped herself. She had no fear of Web judging her. It was just that mentioning plastic surgery would draw his attention to her face. Make him look at her.

Web had never looked at her before—not really. Not personally. And they had a darn good working and friendship relationship going. Why put an awkward pin in that haystack?

“Web, I’ve got a mama bluetick hound waiting.”

There. The magic words to make him move. He had critters waiting, too.

Poppy went on with her day and put the conversation out of her mind, although she had the oddest thought. Her last clip was at three, then she figured on a quick grocery run before heading home. But maybe after that she’d stop by Maude Rose’s apartment again.

There was no reason to. The idea just stuck in her mind and then itched there. There wasn’t much to still discover in Maude Rose’s place, but before they did a final cleanup and sublet and got rid of Maude’s last things…well, it just didn’t seem right to move so fast. It was like letting an old lady disappear as if she’d never existed and never mattered to anyone.

Poppy just figured she’d stop by if she had the chance, that’s all.

Even though Bren ran from the van, the rain managed to curl and whip around her. Her raincoat was soaked by the time she pushed open the door to the Righteous Senior Home, and she was gasping—mostly from laughter. On a rotten afternoon, what else could you do?

“How are you, Mrs. Price?” The receptionist smiled warmly at her. “Your dad will be so glad to see you.”

“I know. I felt bad that I wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Well, almost no one manages to come every single day. He’s fine. You know we love him and take good care of him.” The receptionist glanced at her face, then quickly away.

Bren hung up her coat, almost reached up to touch her bruised cheek and then quickly dropped her hand and charged down the hall.

There were only two rest homes in Righteous. One was Peaceful Valley, where you could smell the urine before you even opened the door. Patients wandered the halls at all hours of the day and night, and the food was worse than baby pap. No one, obviously, went there if they had a choice.

And Bren would have had no choice for her father if it hadn’t been for Charles. The bland title of Righteous Senior Home didn’t do it justice. The place was immaculate. There were crafts and card games and church services and ice cream socials—something to do every hour of the day, and someone to coax even the most recalcitrant senior to do it.

Bren paused in the doorway to her dad’s room. Two paraplegics roomed together. Their choice. It gave them someone to talk to who had the same kind of problems—and the same interests. Both were addicted to chess, played via a computer screen. Her dad, Vane, still had use of two fingers, so he could click on moves that way, where his crony, Mr. Albertson used a wand between his teeth. When they weren’t playing chess, they were usually arguing politics with each other—occasionally to the point when they didn’t speak—for an hour or two.

Her dad’s hair had disappeared over the last two years. His bald head glowed like a target for a daughter’s kisses. She blessed him with one now and loved seeing his eyes light up. “Nice weather for ducks out there?” he rasped.

“Aw, heck. We need the rain.” She walked over to Mr. Albertson’s bed and gave him a buss on the cheek. “Aren’t you handsome today?”

“Aw, go on with you. Talk to your father. Make him see some sense.”

“Ah. We’ve been talking Middle East politics again, have we?”

She listened to the two of them bristle and expound for a few minutes as she brought out some creams from her bag. They took great care of her dad here. Far better than she could ever afford on her own—far better than Charles could have afforded for her.

But Charles had managed to get her father in the facility when they were first getting to know each other—weeks after the accident that took her mom and sister. Vane was still in the hospital at that time. She’d been seventeen, the only one in the family who hadn’t been in the accident, and she’d been so overwhelmed with grief and panicky fear that she’d had no idea what to do for herself—much less her dad.

Charles had. At nine years older than her, he was still a young minister back then, but he’d known the unspoken code in Righteous—that hospitals and health care facilities tried to pull strings for those who did selfless jobs in the community, like the priests and pastors and their families. So Charles had managed to get him in, and Vane had some disability insurance on top of that, so between the two, he’d had a darn near good life here.

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