ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I am grateful to many people who sustain me

       each day, in my writing and in my life:

      Leslie Wainger, Dianne Moggy and Kathleen Adler,

       who have encouraged me and brought my books to the bookshelves.

      Writer friend Cait London, who has taught me

       “Life moves on,” whether we’re ready or not.

      Dear friends Lou and Barb, and my long-lost sister,

       Sue, most especially on those days I would rather have stayed in bed and covered up my head.

      And the readers whose kind letters embolden me

       to keep writing.

      Thank you all.

      One never knew about the deep secrets of ordinary lives.

      —Tate Holloway

      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

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      One

      Another Day in Paradise

      In the hazy glow of first morning light, a gleaming red Mercedes, a Roadster with its top up, sat on the side of the blacktopped county road. The engine idled gently, and headlights shone on the patchy grass and weeds.

      The driver was slumped in the seat, comfortably, as if taking a nap. He was dead.

      A dog lay with his head upon the man’s thigh. He had lain there for some time, out of loyal respect to a friend.

      In a nearby tree, a meadowlark gave out a shrill morning call.

      The dog, perking his ears, sat up and then went over to poke his wet nose out the window, fully open because the man had been driving along in the cool spring night with the passenger window down so that the dog could enjoy putting his face in the wind.

      Fairly certain the man would no longer notice being abandoned, the dog hopped through the window with graceful ease and landed on the dewy wet grass.

      After a moment of the sniffing the damp, pungent air, the dog trotted off in the easterly direction that the car had been heading. It was pleasant in the cool first light. A little way along he came to a fresh armadillo run over in the road. He sniffed it, but he was yet far above the depths of eating roadkill. An owl perched on a fence post was kind enough to tell the dog that a town, where likely he could find breakfast, was just over the hill.

      Sure enough, when he topped the hill, a town lay before him. The dog sat and looked at it. The morning sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and cast its pink glow upon this world of humans. Where families of buffalo once wallowed and great herds of cattle once crossed on their way to the rowdy markets in Kansas, there now existed a place springing out of the prairie with tree-lined streets and brick buildings and clapboard houses.

      The dog had come to the town in the same manner that he went everywhere and to each of his humans, following the direction led by his heart. The day he had come to the large concrete parking lot and to the man with the glasses, he had known that was the place for him and the human for his dog’s loyal work of companionship.

      Now, looking down on the town, he knew this was a new place for him and a new human awaited his ministrations.

      The dog started down the hill, taking in the lay of the land and ready for any opportunity that presented itself.

      The garbage trucks were starting on their first runs, and early risers all over began tuning kitchen radios to the morning weather report and going out on front porches to hang up flags in support of the campaign to keep Valentine’s distinction as the Flag Town of America.

      Fayrene Gardner, who had come into the Main Street Café a half an hour early because she had been unable to sleep due to the excitement of expecting a visit from her first ex-husband, came out the café door and set the United States flag in its holder.

      A few yards down the sidewalk, at the doors of The Valentine Voice, Charlotte Nation was doing likewise. Charlotte, who was a little dismayed to see Fayrene had beat her to it, thought it important for the Voice to get their flag out first, as they were a leader in the community.

      Setting the pole in the slot with some haste, she hurried back inside to get a cup of coffee for Leo, Sr. before he got off on his deliveries. Since their circulation manager quit three weeks earlier, Leo had been handling the job. Charlotte was thrilled, as now Leo was there early each morning, like herself.