Picket Fence Promises
Kathryn Springer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is affectionately dedicated to

Indiana Jones and the “Thursday Girls.”

For five years, we’ve broken bread together

and shared our hearts and our lives. I can’t

imagine being on this journey with anyone

else—but then, God does have a sense

of humor! Looking forward to our next

adventure down the narrow road…

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Chapter One

There is an old saying that a person’s past will eventually catch up to them. Mine was a bit slow because it didn’t find me until I was forty-five years old. When it did, it didn’t tiptoe up and give me a discreet tap on the shoulder, either. A gentle, Remember me? Of course not. My past rolled down Prichett’s Main Street in broad daylight. In a black stretch limo.

It was a good thing that my two best friends, Elise Penny and Annie Carpenter, were with me or I probably would have hijacked the next pickup truck lumbering down the street and ended up somewhere in Canada.

Annie, who’d been catching snowflakes on her tongue, grabbed my hand and held on. Annie may be twenty years younger than me but what she lacks in age she makes up for in wisdom. She’s the kind of person who always seems to have one ear tilted toward the sky, as if she’s expecting at any moment God is going to whisper something in it. And I’m convinced that He does on a regular basis.

I tried to work up enough saliva so that I could talk, but my mouth had gone as dry as the fields in the middle of July. If you live in Prichett long enough you begin to think in farm metaphors. It started happening to me about three years after I’d moved here, and I look at it as a permanent condition—like crow’s feet…or cellulite.

“It can’t be him.” There it was. My voice. Well, a reasonable facsimile anyway. It must have come out at a slightly higher pitch than normal because a flock of blackbirds in the tree over our heads began to rustle around and protest. “Someone must have rented the limo for an anniversary or something.”

There was no other reason that a limo could be stopping…right in front of the Cut and Curl. Which happened to be the beauty salon that I owned.

“If there was an anniversary, it would have made the marquee,” Elise said. She grabbed my other hand and leaned forward, staring intently at the sleek black vehicle that was now purring alongside the curb.

This was wishful thinking on Elise’s part. Her name had been on the marquee for three months now. The marquee was a sacred relic and it hung off the old theater on Main Street like an arm with a compound fracture, announcing all the news that Mayor Candy Lane decided was noteworthy.

Elise had been a contestant in the Proverbs 31 Pageant and had recently won the state title. So far, she’d set a record for having had her name on the marquee the longest. Because she didn’t like the attention, I knew she was secretly hoping that someone else would have something happen to them that was noteworthy enough for the sign to be changed.

“Not possible,” I muttered, staring at the ground. I was beginning to have memory flashes. You know, those little things buried so deep inside that only a reality explosion will bring them to the surface.

And right now I was remembering that Phoebe Caine, a former acquaintance in my life D.A.—During Alex—would spill Everest-size amounts of delicate information when bribed with Godiva chocolates. And this was the woman I’d spoken to on the telephone a month before, making her promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone that I’d called.

But this had nothing to do with the limousine. Did it?

“You better go talk to him. He’s looking this way,” Elise murmured.

“Who’s looking this way?” Denial. It’s a pitiful thing. You’d think after this many years, I would have figured that out. But no. It had become my first weapon of defense.

“Alex Scott.” Annie said the name so matter-of-factly that she could have been talking about Mr. Bender at the hardware store instead of one of the biggest names at the box office.

There was no way he could recognize me at this distance. I’m a hairstylist. I see my reflection in the mirror all day and it’s nowhere close to the one that looked back at me when I was in my early twenties. More wrinkles. Not to mention the rest of me. There was more of that, too.

I had the weird, surreal feeling that I was watching one of his movies. The driver, who looked like he was moonlighting from his other job as an NFL linebacker, got out and started unloading luggage from the trunk. Luggage. People were starting to pause in midstep and stare. Limousines in Prichett just weren’t that common. Now if someone had parked a combine in front of my shop, no one would have blinked an eye.

I swallowed to dislodge my heart, which had wiggled its way into my throat and was beating ten times faster than usual.

God, can You explain this? I mean, what is this!

Talking to God is something new in my life and it is getting easier and easier for me, thanks to Annie’s influence. I’m trying to settle into listening, too, but somehow that isn’t as easy. I frequently remind myself that God gave me two ears and one mouth and there must have been a good reason for that divine design. But just because I was spending time with God and starting to make peace with my past didn’t mean that I wanted to work things out—face-to-face—with it. I hadn’t let myself think about Alex for…oh, all right, at least twenty-four hours, which is ridiculous because the last time I’d seen him was ten years ago. I was hit with the sudden urge to escape into a quart of Ben and Jerry’s, and never come out. Hiding. I’d turned it into an art form. Esther Crandall, a friend of mine at the Golden Oaks Nursing Home who practically oozes wisdom from every pore, told me that one of God’s favorite words is surprise and I am now a card-carrying believer that it’s true.

The proof was standing next to a black limo. Alex Scott was in Prichett.

Surprise!

He was staring in our direction, his shoulders slightly hunched against the chill in the air. That might have had something to do with the fact that he was dressed for California in late October, not for Wisconsin. We knew better. My winter coat was already on red alert, hanging on a hook beside the door with my wool gloves tucked into the pockets.

I could feel Elise and Annie looking at me. My toes suddenly curled inside my shoes as if they’d formed their own survivalist agenda. My brain picked up the signal. Make a break for it. Unfortunately, Annie’s fingers were still woven into mine. I couldn’t run without dragging her along with me and she’d just found out a month ago that she was pregnant with twins. It probably wouldn’t be fair to the little newbies to get them involved in my mad dash out of Prichett.

I could tell the second he recognized me. His hand lifted in a hesitant wave and he started walking toward the park, which up until five minutes ago had been a quiet retreat from a stressful morning in which I had to use scissors and half a jar of peanut butter to get a package of bubble gum—chewed—out of a four-year-old girl’s hair while her mother watched in an almost catatonic state.

“We’ll talk to you later,” Elise said, peeling my hand away from hers.

“You can’t leave me alone with him.” Breathe, Bernice. In. Out. In. Out.

“You’ll be okay,” Annie said, but there was a shadow of a frown between her eyebrows.

“You called him,” Elise reminded me.

I had called him. Right before I’d chickened out and told Phoebe, his publicist, not to tell him that I’d called.

“I called him but I didn’t expect he’d show up here! Where am I going to put him?” I demanded. “There is nowhere in this town that I can hide him. Candy probably has a five-pound sack of birdseed with his name engraved on it already.”

As I’d said before, Candy Lane was Prichett’s mayor. Somewhere in the fine print that outlined her mayoral duties, it must have said something about hunting down unsuspecting tourists and gifting them with a bag of birdseed—she also owns the feed store—or sending them to Sally’s Café for a piece of pie. On the house. They had to pay fifty cents if they wanted it à la mode.

My breath stalled again because Alex was a hundred feet away and closing in fast. It isn’t fair that some men are hurt-your-eyes good-looking. And it wasn’t fair that the years had carefully chiseled character into the lines on his face while they’d used a jackhammer on mine. His hair was shorter than I remembered, but still as dark as espresso. His skin was evenly and disgustingly tanned. And his eyes didn’t need tinted contact lenses to make them any bluer. He looked the same…but different.

There were too many years separating us. And every one of them disappeared the second he smiled. “Hi, Bernice.”

Alex Scott was one of those things that happen to other people. Beautiful people. People who are ushered to the head of the line and accept that it’s their right. People who own houses scattered all over the world.

But somehow he became something that happened to me. Our paths crossed when I worked in Los Angeles as a hairstylist for the rich and infamous. Nell, my boss, had been called to a movie set for a hair emergency and as her stylist-in-training—I handed her the curling irons, combs and scissors—she’d made me come along. It turned out the hair emergency belonged to an actress who had tried to trim her own bangs. She’d cut it when it was wet and hadn’t allowed for proper shrinkage, so when her hair dried it had climbed up to the top of her forehead.

She was crying and carrying on, and I watched for about ten minutes as everyone tried to alternately encourage, sympathize and cheer her up. Even Nell, who was used to this sort of thing, looked as though she was about to cry.

The whole situation was ridiculous and if no one else was going to point that out, then I figured it was my civic duty. “Oh, please! It’s not your arm or your leg you cut off, it’s just hair!”

There was complete silence as everyone in the room gawked at me. Then, someone clapped. Loudly. Deliberately.

It was Alex Scott. I recognized him the minute he’d stood up, unrolling his six-foot-two frame from a chair in the corner. He gave me a mischievous wink. “She’s right. Let’s speed this up a little, okay? I have a dinner date tonight.”

The actress harpooned me with an evil look and then pouted up at him. “A date? You didn’t mention that before.”

He’d shrugged and I’d tried not to stare. Alex Scott’s career was just starting to take off and it occurred to me that the set we’d been called to was for his latest movie.

I shot a nervous glance at Nell. I’d only been working for her for six months and I knew I was dispensable. There were only a few hundred people willing to thank me for my stupidity and jump into my shoes.

The actress was still fuming but at least it was a silent tantrum now. Nell was smiling.

I wondered if she smiled right before she fired her assistants.

“Go ahead and see what you can do,” she told me.

Instead of firing me, she handed me her scissors.

The actress began to fuss and fidget, obviously as doubtful about this sudden turn of events as I was.

“You aren’t queasy at the sight of blood, are you?” I asked her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t sit still, I might accidentally cut your earlobe off or something. I’m new at this.”

She sat still.

Working with Nell, I never ceased to be amazed at what constituted a crisis. An extra two pounds from a weekend of pasta overload. A blemish erupting on a forehead. These were the things that normal women lived with every day and they had to pluck their own eyebrows besides. I started to wonder if I had the patience to deal with this kind of thing on a regular basis the way Nell did.

“You see, with the shape of your face you could be bald and still look beautiful,” I told her, hearing the frustration creep into my voice. Yup, that tone will win friends and influence people, Bernice. As far as I was concerned, she had no right to complain about her looks, shrunken bangs or not. Not when some people—present company included—had features that were put together like a human Picasso. “You don’t need the bangs anyway. Watch this.”

A half hour later there was a crowd of people in the trailer and a very happy actress admiring her reflection in the mirror.

I turned to give Nell her scissors back. She shook her head.

“You keep them, sweetie. I have a feeling that you’re going to need them.” Laughing, she walked out the door.

“Yeah, famous people love to get yelled at,” I muttered under my breath.

“So, how about dinner?”

I heard the question but continued to pack away my toolbox full of supplies.

“You do eat, don’t you?”

I looked up and there was Alex Scott, standing two feet away. And he was looking right at me. “You’re kidding, right?” I said the first words that came into my mind. “Does it look like I pass up that last piece of cheesecake?”

“Happens to be my favorite, too. So what do you say?”

What do I say? What do I say to Alex Scott—Alex Scott— asking me out for dinner? I say that I somehow got sucked into an alternate universe, that’s what I say.

But even in an alternate universe, I’m sure that the beautiful people only ask other beautiful people out for dinner. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been forgetting some things that maybe you can help me remember.”

“Um, Bernice?”

With that first date flashing before my eyes, I was only dimly aware of Elise squeezing my hand to bring me back to reality.

And the reality was that Alex had found me. Again.

“Annie, you did need some help with those curtains this afternoon, didn’t you? We better scoot.” Elise had to use one hand to peel the other one away from the death grip I had on it.

“I do need help.” Annie was trying really hard not to grin.

Everyone looked at me, waiting expectantly. Introductions. I could do those.

“Alex, these are my friends, Elise Penny and Annie Carpenter,” I said, squeezing every drop of polite etiquette into my voice instead of screaming at him. What are you doing here?

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Alex Scott.”

Honestly, was it even necessary to say it? Thanks to cable, everyone with a television set knew who he was.

“I thought we were going to pick out fabric together,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Elise and Annie. Subliminal message coming through. Don’t you dare leave me!

“You two probably have a lot of catching up to do,” Elise said.

“You’ve got that right,” Alex said cheerfully.

As if on a silent cue, we all fell into step together. Bless their hearts, Annie and Elise could sense that I was still poised to bolt and they positioned themselves protectively on either side of me as we walked toward the salon. I was on my lunch break and my next appointment was in forty-five minutes. I calculated the time it would take to push Alex and his luggage back into the limo and finish what was left of my tuna sandwich. I’d probably even have a few extra minutes to clean out my comb drawer.

“I’ll call you two later.” As soon as I get rid of him.

“Sounds great.” Annie linked her arm through Elise’s and she did a funny hop-skip step as they walked away that reminded me of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Lions and tigers and movie stars. Oh, my!

Now we were alone. But not. Alex was oblivious to the attention we were getting as he looked up and down Prichett’s Main Street, absorbing his surroundings. I tried to see it through his eyes and wondered if he’d be able to appreciate it. For the past ten years, this was the view I saw out my window every day, both from the salon and my upstairs apartment. It wasn’t perfect but I loved it. Maybe that’s why I loved it.

Prichett is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it towns. At one point in time, it had been a thriving little farming community but now it was gasping for air, its respirator a farm-implement factory that employed half the town in some capacity. Even though at least one business a year closed its doors and took a piece out of the town’s heart, I never got the feeling that it affected the town’s soul. There was a sameness to Prichett that gave me a sense of stability.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding.” Alex shook his head.

Hiding? That was the trouble with Alex. He always seemed to know things about me that I hadn’t quite figured out for myself.

“I know what you’re thinking…” At least I thought I could make a pretty good guess. “You’re thinking I could have picked a better spot.”

“Are you kidding? I’m thinking that I’m insanely jealous.”

My palms were clammy and I shoved them into the pockets of my jacket. This was not good. Increased heart rate. Sweaty palms. Alex was having that curious effect on me again. The one that should have short-circuited and died about twenty years ago but instead was looking more like it was outfitted with the same batteries as a certain pink, drum-banging bunny. It just keeps going.

Lord, Mayday! Mayday!

We were still the objects of everyone’s attention. People were pretending not to stare, which just made it more obvious that they were pretending not to stare.

“So, what’s it going to be, boss?” the limo driver growled at us. I’d forgotten he was there.

“I’ll catch up with you later, Digger.”

Digger? Some parents have a lot to answer for, that’s all I can say.

The driver’s gaze did a swift once-over down Prichett’s Main Street, just as Alex’s had a few minutes ago. “Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully.

“I’m sure.”

With a disdainful snort that should have gotten his fancy hat taken away, the driver jumped into the front seat and the limo cruised away. Leaving the luggage on the sidewalk. Leaving Alex on the sidewalk.

“Wait a second. Where is he going?”

“I assume back to Chicago.”

“But you’re still here.” All right, I have a genius for pointing out the obvious.

“I’m due for a vacation.” Alex’s eyes had a funny glow in them. For a split second, the glow settled over me. Warmed me. Then I shook it away so I could think straight.

“In Prichett?” I squawked. “Why?”

“Because you called and wanted to know how I was doing.”

“So?” Another squawk. I should have been cast in a pirate movie. The part of the green-and-blue macaw will be played by Bernice Strum….

“So I came to tell you.”

Chapter Two

Without thinking, I snagged Alex’s hand and pulled him into the salon.

“This is crazy—”

“You own this place?” Alex immediately began to prowl around, forcing me to follow him. His movements were easy and relaxed, while I did the jitterbug in his footsteps.

“Don’t change the subject—”

“How many people work for you?”

“Three. Me, myself and I,” I said, exasperated. “Now will you just pinch me and wake me up from this dream I’m having so I can go back to my ordinary life, minus the handsome celebrity?”

“Mmm, a dream. That’s promising. You could have said nightmare. And where would you like me to pinch you?” He grinned.

Shields up!

“Aggha.” That’s all I could manage and I know that the spell check on my computer could never have found that particular word.

He grinned. “You look a little shocked, Bern.”

“That’s because, number one, Phoebe said you were in Australia, and number two, she told me she wouldn’t mention that I called. I can’t believe she hasn’t retired yet, by the way. She was ancient when…”

When we met. I didn’t want to revisit the past. Denial, remember? It works for me.

“Phoebe is retired, but she house-sits for me when I’m on location. What a coincidence, huh? That she was there when you called?”

I felt a sudden urge to visit Esther at the nursing home. Maybe she could make sense of this. For the past few months I’d been visiting her at the Golden Oaks and she’d been helping me sort through and discard things in my past that were weighing me down. I knew now that there was no such thing as good luck or bad luck or coincidence. But this was just too…I don’t know what. Terrifying, that’s what it was. Had I missed something? Wasn’t the Christian life supposed to be about tranquility and peace? The twenty-third Psalm, right? “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.”

I need my green pastures and quiet waters right about now, Lord.

“No coincidence. I just called because I wondered how you were doing,” I said defensively.

“After you ran out on me twenty years ago. Wait, that would have been the first time you ran out on me. The second time was ten years ago in Chicago, wasn’t it? This must be like a ten-year-class-reunion type of thing for you, Bern. It got me curious. Why you called out of the blue like that.”

I knew why I’d called him. It would have been hard enough to talk to him over the phone with a few thousand miles separating us, but with him right here in front of me, it was next to impossible. How was I supposed to tell Alex he’d fathered a child that I’d given up for adoption? And that she was now part of my life and might eventually ask about her birth father?

“So you decided to travel from L.A. to Wisconsin to find out.” The sudden urge to launch myself into his arms was overwhelming. I knew if I closed my eyes, I’d remember how they felt around me. I was on dangerous ground, that was sure, scrambling for a toehold.

I grabbed on to God. What had I done without Him all my life? With all the times over the past few months that I’d clung to Him like a baby opossum, I wondered if He was getting a little tired of it. Annie would probably say no. Well, that was good, because if He was going to continue to tip my life upside down, He had to know that I was going to hang on to Him for dear life, right?

“I told you, I’m on vacation. Where did you find these hair dryers? They look like they belong in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Is this decaf?”

“No, it’s regular,” I said through gritted teeth as he shrugged and drank it anyway.

“I haven’t eaten since five o’clock this morning.”

“Really.”

“I saw a café down the street.”

“Absolutely not.” He couldn’t go to Sally’s. I’d seen what the town did to Elise when she was a contestant for the pageant. Parades. Billboards. What on earth would they do with someone like Alex? They’d probably empty the town bank account and bronze the entire sidewalk where he’d walked.

“I’ll be back.”

Wait, wasn’t that Schwarzenegger’s line? Stick to your own movies, buddy.

I hurried to catch up with him as he headed out the door and almost tripped over the suitcases still on the sidewalk. “You can’t leave these here.”

“They’ll be fine. This looks like a town filled with honest people.”

Honest, yes. Desperate in their need for something that would lift them out of obscurity, absolutely. I couldn’t guarantee that Alex’s possessions wouldn’t end up on eBay by the end of the day. Just to generate some attention.

Like a beagle on the trail of a bunny, Alex lifted his nose and started down the street. Every Tuesday morning, Sally makes homemade cinnamon rolls and sells them for fifty cents apiece. It sounds reasonable, but she also raises the price of coffee seventy-five cents. The whole town smells like a bakery and we respond like Pavlov’s dogs and eagerly pay the difference. Donald Trump could learn a few things from Sally Rapinski.

I pushed the luggage out of the way with my foot as I jogged to keep up with him. Just the sight of that luggage—and not one overnight bag but a whole matched set—added another reason why Alex Scott could not vacation in Prichett.

“There isn’t a motel in town. Where are you planning to stay on this alleged vacation?” I panted. My lungs were reminding me that they weren’t used to this. Exercise always ranks either one or two on my list of New Year’s resolutions every year, sliding dismally to the bottom by mid-February, only to disappear completely by Easter. Too many chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks to compete with. Why even try?

He didn’t break stride. “No motel? Really?”

He chuckled and my palms started to sweat again.

I had a sudden epiphany. “There is a bed-and-breakfast. Not four-star or anything like you’re used to, though.” Desperate times called for desperate measures so I squashed a twinge of guilt for mentioning the only place open for guests in Prichett during the off-season.

Everyone in town referred to it as the Lightning Strike Inn. Charity O’Malley owned it and she had to be as old as the Victorian itself. Prichett’s houses were mostly modest one-and two-story structures but the Lightning Strike was on the historical register because it was a true painted lady from eons ago. The first banker had built it for his new bride, when everyone thought that Prichett would someday be the capital of Wisconsin. Delusion rears its ugly head!

Charity’s husband had passed away before I moved to town but from what I’ve been told, instead of selling the house and buying a condo in Florida, she had the upstairs remodeled with two guest rooms and a bathroom, hammered a sign next to the mailbox by the road and started advertising it as a bed-and-breakfast in the Prichett Press. The Weeping Willow Inn was what she’d named it, although there was no weeping willow in sight. There was a twisted-looking crab apple by the front steps.

The bed-and-breakfast may have been a good idea except for two things. The first thing was a rumor that Charity had adopted a noisy bird that allowed the guests to get as much sleep as Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. The second thing was that the house kept getting struck by lightning. So far, it had happened three years in a row. The farmers that lined the counter at Sally’s Café tried to guess which storm was going to produce the next strike that would singe Charity’s steepled roof.

“Bed-and-breakfast?” Alex’s hand reached toward the door to Sally’s. “Sounds good to me.”

I summoned the adrenaline that I knew was lounging around somewhere inside me and pushed in front of him. “Are you sure you want to do this? It isn’t a vacation if you have hundreds of people clamoring for your autograph or picture, is it? I have half a tuna sandwich in my shop. I’ll share.”

“Hundreds of people? In a café the size of my living room?” Alex’s eyebrow lifted. “Right. And you should have offered the tuna fish ten minutes ago. I would have taken you up on it.”

We took our first step together and got wedged in the doorway. I rotated one hip and let him through, sure that my face was as red as my jacket.

Sally was standing behind the counter with a pot of coffee in hand. Lined up in front of her like canned goods in a pantry were the retired farmers that made the café their second home. She didn’t even glance our way.

Neither did the farmers.

Neither did the other people sitting in the café, absorbed in their newspapers and cinnamon rolls.

“I hope I have enough ink in my pen,” Alex whispered.

There was something wrong with this picture. Sally should already have Alex’s picture on the Prichett’s Pride and Joy Wall by the coffeepot, ready and waiting for his autograph. Mayor Candy should be standing nearby, ready to greet us with a bag of sunflower seeds tucked under her arm. Maybe they were planning an ambush. As we were sitting down, someone was probably organizing a parade and an ice cream social….

“What can I getcha, Bernice?”

Sally was like me, a control freak who not only owned her own business but made sure she was there from the time it opened until the last customer left in the evening. She grudgingly employed waitresses only because arthritis was slowing her down and she couldn’t move as fast as she used to. There was a time when she’d operated the café completely on her own, just as I did the salon.

“I’ll have a BLT and a chocolate shake.”

“Sounds great. Make mine on wheat, please.” Alex smiled and Sally finally looked at him. Like he was a bug who’d turned up in the oatmeal.

“Wheat.” She repeated the word.

“Or whole grain.”

Alex, Alex, Alex. Why don’t you just ask for a veggie burger and a smoothie made with organic bananas and tofu?

He had no way of knowing that Sally still put a pat of real butter on every hamburger that landed on the griddle in the kitchen. This is the dairy state, after all. Judging from the expression on Sally’s face, I knew he was going to get a BLT on white. And he was going to like it.

What was going on? My town wasn’t acting like my town. Sally’s life centered around the café but I know she went to an occasional movie. She had to recognize Alex. She pivoted sharply and did her own interpretation of stomping back to the kitchen. And I was officially in an alternate reality.

“Friendly little town,” Alex murmured.

I saw the sparkle in his eyes but refused to get caught up in a humor-fest with him. That’s exactly what had launched our relationship the first time and now I could recognize the signs. Honestly, Alex Scott should have a Surgeon General’s warning tattooed on his arm.

This man may be dangerous. Any contact with him could have long-term effects on a woman’s heart…including but not limited to sweaty palms, rapid pulse and the loss of her ability to think straight.

The door to Sally’s opened and ushered in a gust of cold air. I glanced up and bearing down on us like a torpedo in plaid flannel and denim was Prichett’s mayor.

Sally may have acted strange but I could count on Candy to pull me back into reality. Funny, though, no bag of birdseed tucked under her arm…

“Are those your suitcases cluttering the sidewalk by the Cut and Curl?” She stopped right next to our table and glared down at Alex.

“I thought they’d be safe there while we grabbed some lunch,” Alex said, smiling up at her.

“Alex, this is Candy Lane, Prichett’s mayor—” I tried to interject.

“Of course they’re safe there.” Candy looked thoroughly offended. “But they’re a hazard to pedestrians. If you don’t get rid of them, I’m going to have to cite you for violating ordinance number B31, section eighteen.”

Alex laughed. Candy didn’t.

“Candy, you can’t be serious.” I tried again but Candy shifted her weight and didn’t crack a smile.

“I’ll give you fifteen minutes to remove them or they’ll be confiscated.” With a short nod at me, she swept out. Do not pass go. Do not collect your bag of birdseed.

The temperature in Prichett may have been chilly but now it was downright arctic. Not exactly a warm place to vacation. And I had no idea why. As far as I knew, no ordinance B31, section eighteen even existed. Maybe Candy had written it on the way to the café.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” I muttered, feeling strangely embarrassed. Maybe a tad more embarrassed than I would have felt if the whole town had been waving paper and pens in his face.

“I do. They’re protecting you.”

“Protecting me? Don’t be silly. Everyone knows that I don’t need to be protected.” I’d been living on my own for…well, a long time. And only in Prichett for the past ten years. My roots weren’t nearly as deep as most of the people who lived in the area. For the first five years I’d lived here, I was regarded cautiously, like a strange weed that had popped up unexpectedly in their little garden. I guess at some point they got used to me.

Alex stood up and for a second I thought he was going to leave.

“Um, could I have everyone’s attention, please?” he said. Loudly.

The stools at the counter swiveled on cue as the farmers swung around to face him. The rest of the people sitting at the tables all looked in our direction.

“I just want to know right now how many guys I’m going to have to arm wrestle to take Bernice Strum out for dinner tonight?”

Hands shot up around the room. I stopped counting at eight. Closing my eyes, I prayed once again for those green pastures and quiet waters that God had promised me!

“Now do you believe me?” He sat down just as Sally marched back with our food. I dared a look at the plate she dropped in front of Alex. BLT on white.

“That’s the palest-looking wheat bread I’ve ever seen,” he said, winking at me.

His milk shake was a bit on the anemic side, too. In fact, it looked suspiciously like vanilla. Sally was giving a whole new meaning to the term food fight.

“Okay, what have you been doing? Using a poster of my face as a dartboard? Why is everyone circling you like a wagon train under attack?”

The sip of shake I’d just taken took a quick detour from my esophagus into my lungs. Nothing had prepared me for this. A phone call was one thing, but to be sitting two feet away from Alex with only our BLTs separating us, was a whole different story.

Alex was right. Incredibly, annoyingly, unbelievably right. And suddenly, as if someone yanked the curtain in my brain to the side, I knew what was happening. I knew why Sally was probably in the alley, stirring a barrel of hot tar and why everyone would gladly part with some of their ruffled feathers to roll Alex in before he was chased out of town.

The only thing that made sense out of the way people were reacting to Alex’s arrival was that they’d taken one look at him and connected the DNA dots. Heather. She looked like him. She may have inherited my green eyes, but his genetic code had waged war with mine and fortunately his had won. Heather was beautiful. Not only on the outside, but on the inside, too.

And just this past summer, Heather had used all the brand-new Internet technology at her disposal to find her birth mother. Me.

Chapter Three

But I couldn’t tell him that. Not yet. After so many years, how did a person drop that bombshell into a conversation? By the way, remember when I left twenty years ago? I didn’t realize I was pregnant. I decided not to tell you and I gave the baby up for adoption. I didn’t think you were serious about me…about us…and I was too scared to take the risk.

“Alex, why are you here? Really?” The tangled threads of the past, the ones that God and I had been painstakingly snipping over the past few months, were starting to wrap themselves around my feet again, threatening to trip me up.

“I told you—”

“You’re on vacation,” I finished, rolling my eyes. “Well, those of us who aren’t on vacation need to go back to work. I have an appointment in five minutes.”

How could I get rid of him? Maybe a case of frostbite from Prichett’s cold shoulder would discourage him from staying.

“I’ll tag along. I have some suitcases to move before they get confiscated. Ordinance B31, section eighteen.”

It wasn’t fair that he had a sense of humor about all this. I searched for mine and realized it had probably left at the same time the limo did.

Alex paid the bill and left a generous tip for Sally. The skittering up my spine told me that everyone was watching us as we walked to the door. Alex thought that everyone was protecting me, but I realized that I was protecting him, making sure that he was in front of me on the way out. One never knew when a rogue dinner roll could fly out of nowhere and hit someone in the back of the head. I wasn’t going to take any chances.

“So where is this bed-and-breakfast you were telling me about?”

“The Lightning—um, the Weeping Willow? It’s three blocks down, turn right and it’s the last house at the end of the street.” Another twinge of guilt but I rationalized it away, reminding myself that it was too late in the season for thunderstorms. At least if he wasn’t safe from Charity’s bird, he was safe from another lightning strike. I could live with that.

“So, how about dinner?”

Why was it that I couldn’t remember where I’d left my car keys or why I’d walked into the kitchen, but I could remember that those had been the exact words Alex had said to me the day we met? Another question to ask God when we finally met face-to-face. I’d started a list.

“I can’t.”

“You have a date.”

I almost laughed. A date. Oh, those gross brown fruit things that look like crayfish with no legs? Because that’s the only kind of date Bernice Strum is familiar with….

“No, just plans I can’t change.”

“Where do you live? Maybe I can stop by later this evening.”

“Look up.”

“What?”

“Up.” I repeated the word patiently, even though my heart had just shifted into high gear. I didn’t want him to stop by later. Stopping by meant conversation. Conversation would lead to questions like, What’s been happening in your life? Which would lead to answers like, Our daughter found me after twenty years and she’s smart and beautiful and she has your smile….

Alex was looking around, trying to figure out if I was nesting in one of the oak trees in the park or maybe on the roof of the post office.

“Do you see those windows? I live there. Above the salon.”

“I thought you always wanted a house with a picket fence.”

Something snagged in my throat. It took a minute before I could squeeze some words out around it. “It made sense to be close to where I work.”

“This town is the size of a nine-hole golf course,” Alex pointed out helpfully. “I can’t imagine that anywhere you lived would be that far from work.”

The house I’d had my eye on for years wasn’t for sale but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I couldn’t pay rent on the building plus make a house payment. Even with some creative stretching, my budget couldn’t perform those kinds of fiscal gymnastics. When I’d moved to Prichett and opened the salon, I told myself the apartment would be temporary but somehow it had become my “temporary” home for the past ten years.

“Well, your suitcases are still here. All five—” how long was he planning to stay? “—of them.” Again, stating the obvious is a gift of mine but I hoped Alex would take the hint.

“There probably isn’t a taxi service here, is there?”

“Munroe has one but it’s half an hour away. By the time they got here…”

Alex’s hand lifted. “I get the picture. Small town. No extras.”

“Prichett has plenty of extras.” I had to correct him because the snowflakes returned as if on cue. Tiny white parachutes that drifted down and got caught in Alex’s hair. “Just not the kind that you expect.”

“Intriguing.” Alex’s box-office smile surfaced for a moment and he gathered up his luggage. “I’ll see you later.”

I had just enough time to unlock the door and turn the lights on when the bells jingled and Mindy came in.

“How are you today, Bernice?”

For Mindy Lewis, this was not a polite greeting. She wasn’t inquiring about my overall emotional well-being, either. Thank goodness. No, Mindy wanted specifics. Do I have an upset stomach? A low-grade fever? The sniffles? In other words, do I have anything wrong with me that has the potential to jump track via the germ train and get her sick?

“I’m fine. Have a seat, Mindy.” I smiled and patted the chair by the sink. Snapping the cape around her neck, I fought the irresistible urge to cough.

Be a grown-up, Bernice.

“I saw a man dragging a bunch of suitcases down the street,” Mindy said. “But I didn’t get a good look at him. From the direction he was headed, it looked like he was going to the Lightning Strike.”

If grapevines had taproots, Prichett’s would be Mindy.

I tried to postpone the inevitable by changing the subject. I wasn’t about to tell Mindy that Alex Scott had chosen Prichett over the French Riviera for his vacation. “How’s Greta doing these days?”

Greta is Mindy’s niece, her brother’s youngest daughter. There aren’t many teenagers like Greta in Prichett. She dresses in black from head to toe, but that’s just to throw people off. She designed Elise’s dress for the pageant and I know she has a colorful soul.

“Tired lately. Senior year, you know. She’s supposed to find out any day now if she’s been accepted by that college in New York.”

The door opened and Jim Briggs stepped inside. Mindy began to bounce up and down so much that I was tempted to make her sit in the elephant chair. It came equipped with a seat belt for rambunctious toddlers but there were many times I was tempted to stuff fidgety adults into it, too.

If there were an eligible bachelor in Prichett, it would be Jim. He’d sold the family farm and started an excavating business, which must have been successful because a few years ago he built a brand-new, two-story house just outside the city limits. I tried really hard not to drool over the picket fence.

Jim and I had met shortly after I’d moved to town. He’d shocked me by stopping in at the salon even though the majority of the men in Prichett seem to regard personal grooming the same way a stray dog would. When they got too shaggy, they’d go to the barbershop, which had the macho name of the Buzz and Blade. I never confessed to anyone that that was the reason, in a moment of attempted wit, that I named my salon the Cut and Curl. The trouble was, no one got it. So much for being witty.

For reasons that I didn’t want to question, Jim had passed the Buzz and Blade that day and stopped in to see if I had time to cut his hair. His reason became obvious while he was in the shampoo chair. His warm, chocolate-brown eyes stared up at me as he’d tried to woo the new girl in town. I may have been flattered, except that his unique brand of romance was telling me that since we were both over twenty-one and single—and because I had a past the town could only guess at—maybe we should get together. As an afterthought, he mentioned pizza.

So I dyed his hair green.

He ran all the way to the Buzz and Blade and I don’t quite know what happened after that. All I know is that Jim has avoided me ever since and no one else—the cowards—had asked me out on a date since.

And now here he was, shaking snow out of his hair and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“That’s regular,” I told him.

He made a face. “Is there anything else?”

I’d seen Jim in church just this past Sunday. Elise told me he’d been attending for a few years now but I wouldn’t have known that because I just started to go to church a few months ago myself.

“Is there something I can do for you?” I asked cautiously. Wax your eyebrows? Dye your hair green?

He smiled. “Two things.”

Uh-oh. For his sake, one of those things better not be pizza. I could tell by the way that Mindy’s body had gone completely still that her brain was already set on Record.

“I just joined the PAC and Candy told me I should talk to you about what subcommittee to serve on.”

PAC was the Prichett Advancement Council. Candy had started it shortly after she was elected mayor. Most of the businesses on Main Street were represented, the Cut and Curl included. Candy had finagled me into serving as vice chairman right at the beginning and ten years later I was still the vice chairman. Not because I was such a great vice chairman but because no one else wanted the job. The other committee members had the responsibility of bringing brownies or making sure there were disposable coffee cups for the meeting. I had to convince everyone that change was a good thing. Brownies were definitely easier.

“We don’t have subcommittees.” What was Candy thinking? “We all just kind of pitch in and do whatever needs to be done.”

“She mentioned there was a new committee forming because of the grant the city received last week. Something about the arts?”

“We got that grant?” I couldn’t believe it. Prichett was barely a dot on the Wisconsin map and we’d actually received the grant that Candy had applied for two years ago?

“So she says. She’s pretty excited about it.”

I could only imagine.

“A grant for what?” Mindy interrupted.

Sorry, were we talking too fast for you to take mental notes?

“Candy applied for a special state grant that pays for something in the area of the arts. If we got the grant, we decided to put a sculpture in the park.”

“That’s a good idea.” Mindy’s head bobbed enthusiastically, almost dislodging the clips I’d put in her hair. “Especially since we’re getting new playground equipment in the spring.”

The new playground equipment was compliments of Elise. When she won the pageant, she received a check to donate to her favorite cause. Since the playground equipment had been in the park before the invention of a neat little thing called plastic, it definitely needed replacing.

“What’s the sculpture going to look like?” Jim poured himself another cup of coffee. I was tempted to tell him that I hoped he had a good book handy, because with that much caffeine speeding through his system, he wasn’t going to fall asleep until Saturday.

“We haven’t decided yet.” Honestly, the chances of receiving the grant had been so small we hadn’t even discussed it. “I suppose that’s why Candy wants a separate committee.”

In a way that was good because our PAC meetings lasted three or four hours as it was. It may have had something to do with the fact that Prichett’s idea of advancement was one step forward and three steps back. As vice chairman, it was up to me to nudge them into taking the one step forward. Sometimes the nudging took months.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll put myself on that committee, then,” Jim said. “It sounds like fun.”

Fun? The words “PAC” and “fun” just couldn’t exist in the same sentence as far as I was concerned.

“I will, too,” Mindy chimed in.

“You have to be a business owner to be in PAC,” I reminded her. I took out the blow dryer and glanced at Jim before I turned it on. “You said there were two things?”

“Yeah, I also need a trim. Do you have a few minutes between appointments?”

I could tell Mindy wanted to linger and find out if there was something going on between me and Jim by the way she counted out my tip in change instead of parting with the five-dollar bill I saw peeking out of her purse.

“Oh, Greta needs an appointment to get her hair done for the Senior Tea,” Mindy remembered. I may have denial down to an art, but Mindy has perfected delay tactics.

I checked my appointment book. The Senior Tea was one of the highlights of the year and my schedule was always tight that day. According to legend, The Tea started years ago as the final exam for a chapter on etiquette in the home economics class. Somewhere along the way, finger sandwiches and punch served in foam cups evolved into its present-day extravaganza—a rite of passage for the senior girls that gave them the chance to wear formal dresses, have their hair done and sip tea out of bone china cups in Charity O’Malley’s music room.

It had gotten so popular that I had the girls calling me over the summer to book their hair appointments but I knew I would squeeze Greta in.

“I’ll schedule her at seven-thirty before my first appointment. It’s on the early side but otherwise I’m booked solid,” I said.

“I’ll tell her.” Reluctantly, Mindy took a slow, measured step away from the counter. Jim was already in the shampoo chair. A trim, huh? Where was the hair dye? Maybe orange this time, to coordinate with the Thanksgiving napkins…

The bells jingled mournfully as she left and I walked over to Jim.

“Okay, spill it. What’s going on?”

“On?” He frowned up at me, his expression way too innocent.

That was it. Two attractive, overly confident men in one day were plenty. More than plenty. “Take your pick—green or orange?”

Panic flared briefly in his eyes. “I just want you to be careful. That’s all.”

“Careful?” I was confused. “About what kind of sculpture we should have for the park?”

“About that guy you were with at Sally’s.”

Alex. He was warning me about Alex?

“And this would be your business…why?”

“I can put two and two together.”

And come up with eight.

“Or should I say one and one?”

Under normal circumstances, if someone would have shouldered their way into my life and given me advice that I didn’t want, I would have spun the chair around so many times that he would have experienced a g-force. Now I felt a familiar nudge inside and I knew Jesus wouldn’t approve.

I sighed. “You’re talking about Heather.”

“I saw you in church with her a while back. She looks like you. And him. Listen, Bernice, I know you’re right and that this is none of my business, but I always thought somewhere down the line someone broke your heart.”

“So, the little pizza party you invited me to when I moved to town was supposed to be a Band-Aid?” I asked, surprised that that little wound still hurt.

“I’m sorry about that.” Now Jim sighed. “I was just being stupid. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve regretted that. But…just be careful. Now, go ahead and dye my hair green if it makes you feel better.”

He was being protective of me. Just like Candy and Sally and the retired farmers in the café, who all went to the Buzz and Blade but knew who I was. There was a warm and fuzzy chenille feeling inside of me at the thought.

“How about a nice trim? We’ll skip the dye for the next time you ignore my No Trespassing sign, okay?”

After he left, I still had one more appointment and then I had to drive over to the Golden Oaks Nursing Home. Once a month I donated a few hours and cut the residents’ hair and then ate dinner with them. It also gave me a chance to spend more time with Esther and her husband, John.

Should I check on Alex? I chewed on my bottom lip as my brain and my heart tried to come up with an acceptable compromise. The irony of Jim’s warning came back to mock me. He’d assumed that Alex had broken my heart. Assumed that for someone like Alex to have fallen for someone like me would have been impossible. I’d assumed the same thing, which was why I’d left him. Knowing my heart was going to get broken, I’d simply saved him the trouble and done it myself.

Chapter Four

I sat in my car for fifteen minutes trying to decide if I should stop by Charity’s. Hard to believe that when I woke up this morning, I thought the most challenging part of my day was going to be Mindy’s one o’clock appointment.

I put the car in Drive and inched my way down Main Street, pretty sure that I saw a kid on a tricycle pass me on the sidewalk.

“Fine.” I huffed the word out loud and made a quick right turn at the last second onto Lily Road.

Charity’s house was a bright spot of color, even surrounded as it was by the faded colors of fall. It was painted a cheerful buttery yellow, its gingerbread trim accented with a soothing ivory coupled with soft shades of sage and ochre. What gave it an unexpected touch of whimsy was the crimson front door that greeted her guests where the cobbled walkway ended.

Weirdly enough, right before I pressed the doorbell, I heard it ringing inside the house.

“Bernice!” Charity opened the door and greeted me like a long-lost relative. She was small and birdlike, her entire body enveloped in a lavender tasseled shawl that hung past her knees. She wore blue eye shadow and there was a brush of peach face powder on her cheeks, like a fine layer of dust on a piano. Pulling me down to her level, she brushed her face against mine. I caught the unmistakable scent of rose water.

“Bernice?” Alex suddenly darted into view farther down the hallway. He looked slightly rumpled and extremely glad to see me. And extremely handsome. Once again awe struggled with irritation. I mean, think about this. Does a woman really want to be with a man who’s better-looking than she is?

“I just stopped by to make sure you were settled.” Yes, I was defensive. Call it self-preservation against the pair of gorgeous blue eyes locked on me.

Charity chuckled. “Of course he’s settled, dear. I gave him my best room. The one with the fireplace. He’s from California, you know.”

At least Charity seemed to be treating him well. Maybe the grapevine hadn’t sent out runners to the side streets yet. Somehow, though, I sensed that it wouldn’t make a difference to Charity. She didn’t have many honest-to-goodness guests at the Lightning Strike—oops, the Weeping Willow and…

“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”

The words blared out of nowhere and I jumped. Charity put a calming hand on my arm.

“Come in and sit down. Murphy and I were just having tea with Mr. Scott.” I glanced at my watch as Charity shuffled past me.

Alex was at my side in a heartbeat. “You have time for tea, right, Bernice?” he whispered in my ear, his fingers wrapping around my elbow.

“Enjoying your vacation?” I whispered.

“Mrs. O’Malley is fine,” he whispered back. “It’s Murphy that I’m not too sure about. But then, he’s probably the reason why you sent me here instead of the Super 8, right?”

“There is no Super 8,” I reminded him under my breath.

“You’re looking very pretty today!” The words were chortled loudly just as we reached the doorway to the old-fashioned sitting room.

“Is he talking to you or me?” I murmured.

Alex’s response was to lightly pinch my arm. I yipped in surprise.

“Murphy, you’re such a charmer,” Charity chuckled.

I looked around the room for Charity’s other guest but all I saw was a grouping of empty watered-silk furniture swathed in plastic.

“‘Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting,’” the invisible Murphy shouted disapprovingly.

“And my beauty fled years ago!” Charity laughed agreeably.

I headed toward an oversize chair by the fireplace but just as I was about to sit down there was a flash of white and a rush of air several inches from my face.

“Blessed is the man who does not sit in the seat of mockers.”

I froze in place and blinked. There was an enormous white cockatoo sitting in the exact spot that I was just about to claim. His feathers lifted to create a huge ruffle around his face and he clicked his enormous gray beak.

“You’re paraphrasing again, Murphy,” Charity said with a disappointed shake of her head. “You’re supposed to be working on the Beatitudes now, not the Psalms. Please concentrate.”

Charity’s noisy bird was apparently not a rumor, after all. I’d imagined something…smaller. Like one of those little blue-and-white parakeets. Something in a cage.

“You can sit over here, Bernice.” Charity patted the cushion next to her. Alex, I noticed, had picked the chair farthest from Murphy.

“I only have a few minutes,” I said, watching out of the corner of my eye as Murphy took little marching steps up the arm of the chair. A bird who had more Scripture memorized than I did. It wasn’t fair. I loved reading the Bible and I valiantly tried to memorize verses—there were three-by-five cards taped to practically every surface in my apartment—but so far all I had down was a whopping three. Annie cautioned me not to make memorization something to beat myself up over—did she know me, or what?—and said to think of them as “grace graffiti.”

“Are you going over to the Golden Oaks, dear?” Charity asked.

How did she know that? Was my daily schedule posted somewhere in town? It was definitely worth looking into.

She lifted a beautiful china teapot and poured hot tea into a cup for me, then carefully refilled the other two on the tray. I’d never been a tea drinker—I drink coffee out of a mug that could double as a thermos—but there was something so quaint and sweet about a dainty cup decorated with tiny violets that I was momentarily swayed.

“What is the Golden Oaks?” Alex accepted the cup she offered and snagged a sugar cookie off the tray on the coffee table to go with it.

“The nursing home outside of town.” Charity answered Alex’s question before I could. “Bernice goes there a few times a month and gives free haircuts.”

“Really.” Alex smiled slightly.

I could read his mind. Future ammunition.

“So how long have you been Bernice’s beau, Mr. Scott?” Charity asked.

“Bernice’s beau!” Murphy repeated, and then made a noise that sounded like he was choking on a cracker.

“He’s not—” Without thinking, I took a quick, very undainty swallow of tea, which burned a path all the way down my throat.

Charity’s eyes were as bright and unnerving as her cockatoo’s as they searched my face. She smiled benignly. “You make a lovely couple.”

Alex lifted his cup and waved at me with his pinkie finger.

I had to run away. But this time, I knew I couldn’t go very far. My roots in Prichett weren’t as deep as some, but like it or not, they were anchored there by my responsibilities and I couldn’t just pull them up, shake them off and relocate to an Alex-less place. But at the very least, I could leave Charity’s.

“I really should go. They’re expecting me by five.” Probably breaking several unwritten laws about proper tea etiquette, I downed what was left in my cup and stood up, smoothing wrinkles out of my skirt that weren’t there. I still hadn’t called Elise and Annie, and I knew they’d be beside themselves with curiosity about Alex.

“‘The Lord bless you and keep you,’” Murphy intoned, then cackled delightedly and belted out, “Bye-bye, baby!”

“I’m going with you,” Alex decided.

“Take your time, Mr. Scott. I’ll leave the door unlocked until ten, then you’ll have to climb through the basement window around back.”

“‘Enter by the narrow gate…’” Murphy began.

I didn’t hear the rest because Alex practically pushed me out of the room.

“You can’t come with me,” I grumbled as he towed me toward the escape door at the end of the hallway. I discovered that digging my heels in on a polished hardwood floor was an exercise in futility.

“I can tell that bird doesn’t like me. Animals never like me.”

I stopped so quickly that Alex bumped into me. He smelled a bit like lemon furniture polish and rose water. “Oh, please. Don’t give me that,” I said, annoyed with him. “Everyone loves you. Babies. Second-graders. Elderly women. You can charm the birds out of the trees.”

“Not all birds,” Alex said darkly. “I won’t get in your way. Scout’s honor.”

“Don’t try to tell me you were a Boy Scout.” I rolled my eyes.

“I played one on TV?”

I wasn’t going to laugh. Laughter led to…Well, in our case it had led to like…and like had skipped right to love. At least it had for me and I had the scars to prove it. Alex was in Prichett on a mission to…to what? Tell me how he was doing? That could be taken care of with eight simple words. I’m fine, Bernice. See you in ten years. No, he obviously had a more sinister agenda.

I slid into the front seat of my car and before I could put it into gear, Alex was buckling himself in next to me.

My car decided to add to my torment. The engine gargled too much gas and quit. There was a ritual that I had to perform whenever this happened and it wasn’t pretty.

“It died,” Alex pointed out helpfully.

I turned on the brights and the radio and the windshield wipers, pumped the gas pedal several times and then turned the key in the ignition again.

Alex leaned across me. “You have over a hundred and fifty thousand miles on this vehicle.”

“And she’s still going strong.” I patted the dash as the engine hiccupped and then settled into a rough purr as I eased the car into the street.

Just as I saw the long row of lights from the nursing home, my cell phone rang from the depths of my quilted purse. Which happened to be in a heap at Alex’s feet.

“It’s probably Elise or Annie,” I muttered. “Can you just pick it up and say hello and tell whoever it is that I’ll call them back? My voice mail is messed up.”

Alex dug deep and found it on the third ring. “Hello? This is Alex Scott, playing Bernice Strum’s answering service. Bernice is unavailable at the moment but she loves to hear from her fans. Leave a message and she’ll call you back.”

Cute. I mouthed the word at him and yanked the phone out of his hand. Now I had some serious explaining to do with whoever was on the other end. “Hello, I’m sorry about that…”

“Bernice? You have the funniest messages on your phone. I just called to find out what’s new.”

Heather. And she thought that Alex’s voice was a recording! A hysterical giggle formed in the acid churning in my stomach. I sucked in some fresh air to diffuse it. “Ah, not much new happening here.”

Ruthlessly, I stuffed all my emotions into the vault in my heart that I’d let Jesus clean out. I didn’t know what else to do with them at the moment. Heather was the new that was happening in my life and I didn’t take a breath during the day without thanking God that she’d found me after twenty years. But, Alex…he was the something old. He’d been the main ingredient in a stew of insecurities that I’d kept warm for years. What was I supposed to do with him?

He started to hum the song “Unforgettable.” Even in the gloomy interior of my car, I could see that his eyes were closed and he was smiling.

Chapter Five

“I’m just pulling up to the Golden Oaks,” I said, pressing my chin against the phone so Heather wouldn’t hear Alex in the background. “It’s my night to cut hair.”

“I won’t keep you then, I just want you to start thinking about the holidays. What are your plans?”

I never made special plans for the holidays. They just kind of…happened. Elise and Sam always invited me for Thanksgiving and after dinner, Elise and I would waddle into the living room with our second piece of pumpkin pie to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s one of Elise’s favorite movies and that’s the only reason I pretended all these years to enjoy a movie about a man who was given a second chance—even though I knew that never happened in real life. Now, since Heather had reappeared in my life, I was beginning to believe.

“I’m not sure just yet.” I answered her question cautiously and glanced at Alex.

“I’ll call you tomorrow and we can figure something out. Mom and Dad know I want to spend some time with you and they said they’re flexible.”

“Sure. That would be great.” Make room, stuffing more emotions!

“Is something wrong?” There was a touch of uncertainty in Heather’s voice and I glared at Alex. Which was wasted because his eyes were still closed.

“No, not at all. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I scraped up some cheerfulness and injected it into my voice.

“Bye…Mama B.”

Mama B. My throat tightened and I blinked away the tears that scratched the backs of my eyes. Where had that come from? Not that I minded…I just felt totally humbled by the honorary title. I certainly didn’t deserve it.

Alex followed me into the Golden Oaks and I was relieved to see that Audrey Cooke, the receptionist, wasn’t sitting behind the desk to greet people. Maybe it was possible to smuggle a celebrity into a group of senior citizens without any fallout.

“I always stop by to say hi to Esther and John first,” I murmured.

“Relatives?”

“Friends.”

I navigated Alex through the corridors until we came to a room near the end of the hallway. “I should mention something, although you’d probably figure it out soon enough by yourself. John is blind.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t act weird around him, though, because he has a sense of humor about it.”

“How can someone have a sense of humor about being blind?”

“You’ll see.” I rapped lightly on the door. “Esther?”

“It’s Bernice,” I heard Esther say just before the door opened.

She and John must have set a record for the oldest pair of newlyweds. Their summer wedding was held right at the nursing home and I’d even fixed Esther’s hair for the occasion. It was a day I’d never forget because it was the day I took a deep breath and faced the past. Although, it had been a little easier when part of it wasn’t warming the air beside me.

“Hi, Esther.” She put out her arms and I hugged her, resisting the urge to lift her off her feet and swing her around the room. She is so petite she could get lost in a group of fifth-graders and I feel like a giant next to her.

“Come in, come in.” Esther linked her arm through mine and noticed Alex hovering in the hall. “Is he with you?”

No. Yes. Argh. Complications. How was I supposed to introduce Alex?

“I’m Alex.”

I exhaled. Problem solved.

“One of Bernice’s old flames.”

I was going to kill him. Wait a second, there was a commandment about murder, wasn’t there? Maybe I could dye his hair green…And what was this about being one of Bernice’s old flames? Like I’d had a buffet to choose from?

John, sitting in his wheelchair by the window, laughed. “Both of you, come in. Alex, let me take a look at you.”

Alex glanced at me, clearly puzzled.

“I warned you,” I whispered.

“Do you live nearby?” John asked.

“California.”

A sudden thought hit me like shrapnel. Esther always asked about Heather when I visited her. That was because in a sunny window one afternoon I’d spilled out my life story to her. But I wasn’t ready to tell Alex about Heather yet. It wasn’t a good time. Not that there was any empty space in my appointment book that I could fill in to make that announcement.

“Bernice?” She looked at me and the compassion in her eyes broke straight through to my heart. She knew who Alex was. Was there anyone in Prichett who hadn’t figured out who Alex was? Still, relief cut a sweet path through the panic.

“I lived there for a few years. Near Monterey,” John was saying as he reached out and took Esther’s hand. “I can’t compare it to living here, though. I’m spoiled by the changing seasons. We know we’re going to get winter, but what kind of winter? The kind that yanks your breath out and steals it away or a mild one that dumps huge drifts of snow outside the windows? And spring, is it going to be warm and green or gray and muddy? If I lived anywhere else, I’d miss the variety, that’s the truth. Even when I was in New York, I’d remember this area and it pulled me back like high tide. Now I know why.”

Esther blushed an adorable pink. “Sounds like it’s the seasons you love, not this old lady,” she teased.

“I love you both.” John winked. “How long are you staying in Prichett, Alex?”

“I have some vacation time.”

“A week?” Esther asked the question that I had been afraid to.

I could deal with a week if he really insisted on staying in Prichett. I worked every day except Sunday and could avoid him on several evenings when I had other commitments. He’d be long gone before Thanksgiving.

Alex smiled. “Actually…I have three months.”

I lost sight of Alex an hour after I started cutting hair for the residents. The last I’d seen him, he’d been talking to a woman named Althea, who thought that he was her son, Henry, who’d finally come for a visit. No one had said anything about having a celebrity in their midst. In fact, half the people in the family lounge probably thought that Alex was Althea’s neglectful son. Once in a while, I saw one of the nurses give Alex a speculative glance but no one approached him.

“Three months,” I muttered under my breath.

“That’s if I decide to go back,” a voice said behind me.

I’d lost sight of Alex but apparently he hadn’t lost sight of me. If he decided to go back? What did he mean by that? “You can’t just step out of your life.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re Alex Scott. People like you can’t just decide one day that they’re not going to be famous. You picked your life and now you’re stuck with it. If you wanted this—” I poked a comb in the air “—you would have chosen it a long time ago. After what you’ve gotten used to, you’d go insane in a small town like Prichett.”

“You seem pretty sane.”

Ha. The fact that he thinks so only shows how good an actress I can be. The truth is, I’m only coasting next to normal and like every good daughter, I blame my mother.

“Henry?”

Althea wandered up to us and I saw Alex’s expression change. His face softened and he put his hand on Althea’s arm to steady her. “I thought the nurse told you it was time to go back to your room now,” he reminded her, his voice so low and warm that it brought another dormant memory to life. Alex was a good man. I’d assumed that by now he’d be cynical and self-absorbed, and knew it would be easier on me if he was. I didn’t want to see him being kind to little old ladies who thought he was their long-lost son.

Althea looked at me, and then her gaze shifted back to Alex. “I just wanted to be sure you’ll come back to visit me. Don’t be gone so long next time.”

“I won’t.”

“Henry is my son,” she told me, her voice faltering slightly. “I’m lucky to have a boy like Henry.”

“Good night, Althea.” I watched as the nurse came to take her to her room and then I glanced at Alex. “I’m almost done here. I can give you a ride back to Charity’s.”

“Just give me five minutes. I’ll meet you by the reception desk.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to call Henry.”

I took advantage of the few minutes I had to duck back into Esther and John’s room. John was already asleep but Esther was sitting in a chair by the bed, knitting.

“I’m starting early. I’m going to have to make two, you know.”

“You’re making blankets for Annie’s babies?” I reached out and touched the whisper-soft skein of mint-green yarn. Twins might not be such a big deal anymore when women all over the place were having triplets or quintuplets, but these were Annie’s twins.

Esther nodded, the knitting needles gently clicking together as the blanket grew in her lap. One of the things I loved about Esther was the way she didn’t feel the need to crowd the air with words. She knew I had something to say and she gave me the time and space I needed to say it.

“Thank you for not mentioning Heather. I’ll tell him. I’m just not sure when. Soon.” The thought suddenly occurred to me that if I wanted him to leave, revealing that particular bit of news just might do it. But why? I felt a ripple of unease. Over the years I’d convinced myself that I’d done him a favor by removing the baby and me from his equation, leaving him a famous, wealthy entity while saving myself from the rejection that I knew would eventually happen. I couldn’t let myself imagine that Alex and I might be celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in a few years if I’d made another decision.

“And are you going to tell Heather?”

“I don’t know yet.” That was something else that I didn’t want to face. I felt the urge to run away again. God, could we just rewind the last twenty-four hours and start over with a new script?

“God is bigger than this,” Esther said quietly. “Don’t forget that.”

“I thought the Christian life was supposed to be peaceful,” I said, hearing the faint whine creep into my voice. I never whine. I blamed Alex. “You know, like a nice scenic riverboat ride.”

“A riverboat ride.” Esther tipped her head thoughtfully and the knitting needles fell silent. “I think it’s more like…oh…bungee jumping off a bridge? Skydiving…?”

“I get the picture! Why didn’t someone tell me that?” Bungee jumping? She had to be kidding. I got dizzy if I ran up the stairs to my apartment too fast.

“This is what you have to remember, Bernice. Peace isn’t necessarily a warm, fuzzy feeling. It isn’t even something we can grab and hold on to. Peace is Him. It’s God Himself. So when you hit the rapids on your nice, scenic boat ride, you don’t run away, you run to.” The needles began to click again. She gave me a wide smile and a wink. “It’s an adventure, but you can trust Him.”

“You aren’t really going to leave me here, are you?”

When I pulled up in front of Charity’s B and B I didn’t even put the car into Park, I just put my foot on the brake to hold it steady for the two seconds Alex would need to open the door and get out. “Yup.”

“You don’t have to sound so cheerful about it.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine…with Murphy for company.” I couldn’t resist.

“You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“I’m not very good at it.”

Alex twisted around in the seat. “You were,” he said. “But you aren’t going to get away this time. You aren’t just passing through Prichett, you live here. I’ve got you cornered. See you tomorrow.”

He started humming again when he got out of the car and strolled up to the door, which Charity was holding open for him.

I slapped my hands against the steering wheel and howled silently. Why was he doing this? Being funny and charming and kind? It was killing me.

I had forgotten to leave a light on so I had to blindly bump my way up the outside staircase behind the Cut and Curl in the dark. When I flipped the light on, the first thing I felt was absolute, total relief that I hadn’t let Alex come up.

My apartment gave the term “shabby chic” a whole new meaning. I have a weakness for tag sales and it shows. I’ve convinced myself that one day I’m going to convince Lester Lee to sell me the little place he owns a few miles out of town. I will then take up my hobby of choice and refinish furniture in my spare time, which is why, over the past ten years, I’ve collected a staggering number of old wooden chairs, interesting side tables and an antique buffet that stretches the width of my living room. And happens to be covered with my collection of snow globes—another weakness. I tried to see my apartment through Alex’s eyes and what I saw was an odd assortment of furnishings that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me. And then I caught sight of my reflection in the antique mirror. It wasn’t even centered on the wall—I’d hung it on the only nail large enough to support it while it waited patiently for its true home. The one with the picket fence.

Then I tried to see me through Alex’s eyes. I leaned closer to the glass and peered at the lines fanning out from my eyes. Anchoring two fingers on each side of my cheekbones and my thumbs against my chin, I pulled back on the skin that had loosened over the years, like I was retucking a fitted sheet that was beginning to lose its shape. It didn’t help. Now I looked like I had at the age of six, when my mother braided my hair too tight. I let go and gravity prevailed once again. For a few seconds I wished I was aging as beautifully as Elise. But then, Elise had started out beautiful, so maybe that was the secret.

And though my parents had done their best to shake me off our branch of the family tree, there was no denying that I was their child. A mixed-up concoction of Strums and Corbins that ended up with me looking like the final product of a potluck casserole. My insecurities saw an opportunity and came rushing back but at the moment I was too tired to fight them off. I collapsed onto the sofa and felt something crinkle underneath me. One of my three-by-five cards.

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

My God is my rock in whom I take refuge.

My strength. My fortress. I wasn’t in this alone. The thought bloomed inside of me. Esther was right. He was the one I needed to run to. And Alex was wrong. He thought I was backed into a corner, but actually I’d taken refuge in the one who’d created me. Ha.

Chapter Six

“You don’t look like you slept much.”

I shot Elise what I thought was an evil look, but I must have failed because she laughed instead of fleeing for her life. “I watched one of those home-shopping channels until three in the morning. I think I may have ordered something, although I can’t remember what.”

Elise settled into one of the chairs by the window and shrugged out of her coat. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Is he still in town?”

“He’s at Charity’s. At least he was last night when I dropped him off. He wanted to have dinner with me, I told him no because I was cutting hair at the Golden Oaks. He met Esther and John, and Esther told me that being a Christian is like bungee jumping—thanks so much for warning me about that—and unless Charity’s bird perched on Alex’s poster bed last night and recited the Ten Commandments, he’s probably lurking around somewhere, ready to pounce on my unsuspecting self. Oh, and Heather called and he answered the phone…”

“Okay, stop right there. My brain can’t take your version of shorthand. Heather talked to him?”

“Sort of. He pretended he was my voice mail. It wasn’t a real conversation. He said he has me cornered. I went back home and decided I’m never going to let him see my apartment.”

“I like your apartment. It’s unique, like you.”

Best friends. Their loyalty is deep but strange.

“I don’t think I’m going to get out of dinner, unless he has to arm wrestle Jim Briggs, then there’s a chance. Alex could probably beat the farmers but Jim has arms like wooden posts, have you noticed that?”

“Why would he arm wrestle Jim Briggs? Never mind. How long is he staying? And why is he here?”

“Answer to both questions—no idea.” I glanced at my appointment book and saw Jill Cabott’s name scrawled between the black lines. Jill always ran a few minutes late. “I’m not even sure how he found me. He said he wanted to tell me how he’s doing.”

“So he came in person. From California.”

“I guess.” Seeing Elise’s expression, I shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

“Does he want a relationship with you?”

Elise’s words may have been soft but they hit hard. “No!”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“He didn’t ever want a relationship with me.”

Elise frowned. “But you told me that you left him.”

“I did.”

“So, doesn’t that mean you were the one who didn’t want a relationship?”

“I can’t have this conversation without coffee.”

Elise smiled. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“Get in line.”

In the ten minutes of privacy we had before my appointments started, I filled her in on what happened at Sally’s and how Candy threatened to confiscate his luggage and that Jim Briggs wanted me to be careful. By the time I finished, the normally unflappable Elise Penny was looking a bit dazed. I was glad—I’d hate to be the only one.

“So people aren’t falling all over him?”

“Maybe if they’re armed with pitchforks.”

“He’s not going to make the marquee then.” Elise looked disappointed.

“Maybe he will…only it’ll say Go Home Alex Scott.”

“You’re handling all this pretty well.”

I was? “I am?”

“You aren’t falling apart. You aren’t packing your suitcase. You aren’t eating handfuls of Tootsie Roll.”

I’ve learned to dispose of the wrappers. But she was right. “God reminded me of something last night. I don’t have to run away anymore. Now I can run to.”

Elise didn’t flinch or look surprised when I mentioned God. She was getting to know Him better, too. I came across a verse recently that said something about God-chosen lives and what splendid friends they make. Elise was that kind of friend. So were Annie and Esther and John.

There was a flash of color outside the window and the door swung open. “Good morning, ladies.”

Alex. And he looked like he got a decent night’s sleep, too. And he looked like he’d been…running? He was wearing black sweatpants and a gray T-shirt and tennis shoes that would have cost me a month’s rent. His hair was messy and his face flushed with color. And he still looked gorgeous. Honestly, could he be any more annoying?

“You remember my friend, Elise?”

Alex nodded and smiled. “Hi, Elise.”

The day before, I’d been so shocked when I’d seen him that I couldn’t even remember introducing him to Elise and Annie but now I watched him carefully to see his reaction. Usually when men see Elise for the first time, they get a little tongue-tied. Elise is truly beautiful. If God hadn’t planted her in Prichett, Elise could have been as famous as Alex.

The first time we met, I really wanted to hate her but Elise is totally un-hate-able. In the first place, she isn’t one of those beautiful women who flaunt their beauty. And she doesn’t pretend she isn’t beautiful, either, which can be just as irritating. She accepts it just like I accept the way my hair has a stubborn wave that can only be tamed with a curling iron the size of a rolling pin.

My favorite thing about Elise is that there’s more to her than pretty packaging. We’ve been friends for ten years but it wasn’t until Heather contacted me and I started to unravel that I realized that true friends are right there, winding you back up and tucking in the loose pieces of your heart.

Alex was polite but his eyes didn’t linger on Elise, like a tourist getting his first glimpse of the Mona Lisa. What on earth was wrong with him? He was looking at me.

“I almost woke you up to go running with me this morning.”

Elise was too polite to laugh but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shoulders jiggle. “Well, I better start my day. Sam and I are going over to Munroe to pick up some parts for the tractor.”

“How is Annie feeling?” Mindy would be thrilled that I’d tried out her delay tactics but I really did want to know. I’d been so wrapped up in my own troubles that I hadn’t even thought to ask until now.

“Anxious to start the nursery. With the holidays coming, she’s going to be busier at church.” Elise moved toward the door just as Jill Cabott pushed it open.

“Elise!”

Jill hugged her and Elise disappeared momentarily in the depths of Jill’s sheepskin coat. When she reappeared, she was smiling. Wonders never ceased. A few months ago I practically had to hide my scissors when the two of them were in the same room together. Elise had blamed Jill’s son, Riley, for her daughter Bree having second thoughts about going to college. But Bree and Riley were taking their romance slowly and she was in Madison—at least for the next four years—so Elise could breathe a little easier.

“Hi, Jill. All set?”

“Just let me hang up my coat.”

Elise gave me a little wave that promised we’d get together soon and slipped out the door. Alex was sitting on a chair, his hands clasped behind his head and his legs stretched out in front of him with a cup of coffee wedged between his knees. Right next to the coatrack.

I knew the second Jill realized who Alex was because her sudden gasp sounded like a blown-out tire.

I hustled her over to the chair and sat her down. “Now, what do you want me to do today?”

“The same as always. Trim a little off the sides. It’s getting a little shaggy. Better go shorter because with Thanksgiving coming, I know I won’t have time to come back before the middle of December.”

I tried to ignore Alex but it wasn’t easy. Especially when he jumped up and prowled over to the chair. Jill’s eyes got so wide I was afraid they were going to roll out of her head.

“Wait a second. You’re telling her what to do?” He leaned over until he was eye to eye with Jill, who shrunk farther into the chair.

“Alex!” I snapped out his name but he ignored me.

“Yes…” Jill obviously thought it was a trick question.

Alex looked at me and shook his head. “They have no idea, do they?” he muttered.

“You’re not helping,” I said through gritted teeth. “Have some more coffee.”

“Tell Bernice to cut your hair the way she sees it,” Alex said.

I stepped on his foot, wishing that I’d worn my one pair of stilettos, an impractical impulse buy that lurked in the back of my closet but I didn’t have the heart to part with. “Alex, Jill just wants a trim.”

“What do you mean, the way she sees it?” Jill was confused but willing to be enlightened.

“You aren’t supposed to tell her how to cut your hair—she’s supposed to tell you how your hair should be cut.”

“She is?” Jill glanced at me. “You are?”

“Jill, I’ll cut it any way you want me to.”

Alex said something under his breath that made Jill gasp again but she swallowed bravely. “Go ahead.”

“Jill…”

“I mean it, Bernice. Do whatever you think you should.”

Alex grinned and stalked back to the row of chairs. “My work here is done.”

The work of messing up my entire day? And he was willing to do it for free. How sweet.

An hour and a half later Jill was staring at her reflection in the mirror, touching the ends of her hair with shaky fingertips. Every four to six weeks for the past ten years I’d been trimming a conservative inch off Jill Cabott’s puddle-brown blunt cut, knowing that the style was hopelessly outdated and didn’t show off her features to their full advantage. I had to admit that I went a little crazy with the unexpected power I’d been given.

“I…Old Dan is going to faint when he sees me,” Jill whispered.

Old Dan is Jill’s husband and he isn’t that old. Unfortunately, his firstborn son was named after him and to differentiate between the two, they had to split into Old Dan and Young Dan. People should really think these things through in advance, if you ask me.

“He’s going to buy you roses and take you out for dinner,” Alex, the eavesdropper, said.

“I’m sending this bottle of gel home with you…” The tears in Jill’s eyes stopped me cold. “Jill, I’m sorry. What can I do? Do you want me to take the highlights out?”

“No, I love it. I look…like I always wanted to.” In a daze, she wrote me a check with a tip big enough to pay my monthly cable bill. She even gave Alex a timid smile as she walked out the door. Oh no, his first convert.

“Thanks a lot.” I grabbed the broom and started to sweep the floor, resisting the urge to use it to chase him down Main Street.

“Do these people know anything about you, Bernice?”

“They know what I want them to know.”

“I get it. You’d rather pretend that all you know how to do is follow directions. If they knew who you are, what you can do, it would wreck your whole small-town beautician persona, wouldn’t it? You might not feel like you fit in after all.”

Without knowing it, Alex ripped a Band-Aid off a wound I’d been trying to keep covered for years. I knew I didn’t fit in with Prichett. All the years I’d lived and worked here and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t blend in with the natives. But why did Alex have to see it? And why did he feel the need to point it out?

“Don’t even think you know me. That was twenty years ago. We were practically kids when we met. Don’t think for a minute I’m still the same person.”

“You haven’t changed that much.” He actually had the nerve to laugh. “You still aren’t afraid to tell me what you think.”

“Somebody has to. Honestly, just because people are gorgeous and have money doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get yelled at once in a while.” I absolutely wasn’t going to smile.

“Bern…why aren’t you married with ten kids?”

My heart stalled suddenly. Alex was still standing five feet away from me but suddenly he felt much closer. It astounded me that he could even ask the question—I mean, was his eyesight that bad? My looks were as plain as my name.

Since I couldn’t tell him the truth, I gave him the grim statistics instead.

“If you must know, Prichett has a population of less than two thousand people and out of that number there are only six eligible men. Out of those six eligible men, four of them are afraid of me and the other two are forty-year-old brothers who still live with their mama.”

“Afraid of you?”

“There are totally unfounded rumors that I’m…difficult.”

“No kidding?” Alex stretched and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. I immediately focused on the coffeepot instead of the expanse of tanned abdomen that he’d uncovered with that casual movement. Alex really was a health hazard. “Hard to imagine. So, are we on for dinner tonight?”

“I have a PAC meeting.” Yes. Finally a reason for its existence.

At Alex’s blank look, I filled him in. “The Prichett Advancement Council. Don’t laugh.”

“Not in a million years. But just to warn you, I’m not leaving town until you have dinner with me so the more excuses you come up with, the longer I’ll be here.”

My ten o’clock appointments—the Graley sisters—were crossing the street. I couldn’t take the risk that Alex would say the same thing to them that he’d said to Jill. As it was, I couldn’t imagine what kind of fallout there would be when people saw her new look. I figured I might have to beg for a job at the Buzz and Blade.

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