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      This book is dedicated to all my readers—to each one of you who has over the years bought and enjoyed the Valentine series of books. For those of you who have written me: your letters have touched me, inspired me, given me smiles. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing my Valentine people and their stories.

      I am grateful to my agent, Margaret Ruley, and to sisters-in-heart Dee Nash and Deborah Chester for their guidance and support.

      With this book, I say goodbye to writing my beloved Valentine. It has been a fine, adventuresome ride, but now it is time to change horses. It is, however, goodbye to the writing only. My characters are so real to me—Winston, Vella, Belinda, Corrine, Willie Lee and all the others—that I see them going on still in that small, sometimes dusty town somewhere in southwest Oklahoma. On quiet early mornings, I hear Winston’s voice over the radio…“Goood Mornin’, Valentinites!”

      CONTENTS

      PART ONE: EVERYBODY’S DREAMING BIG

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      PART TWO: IT TAKES FAITH, NOT EXPECTATIONS

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 13

      CHAPTER 14

      CHAPTER 15

      PART THREE: BETWEEN BIRTH AND HEAVEN

      CHAPTER 16

      CHAPTER 17

      CHAPTER 18

      CHAPTER 19

      CHAPTER 20

      CHAPTER 21

      CHAPTER 22

      CHAPTER 23

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER 1

      Winston Wakes Up the World

      IN THE EARLY DARK HOUR JUST BEFORE DAWN, a lone figure—a man in slacks and wool sport coat, lapels pulled against the cold, carrying a duffel bag—walked along the black-topped ribbon of highway toward a town with a water tower lit up like a beacon.

      Just then a sound brought him looking around behind him. Headlights approached.

      The man hurried into the tall weeds and brush of the ditch. Crouching, he gazed at the darkness where his loafers were planted and hoped he did not get bit by something. A delivery truck of some sort went blowing past. As the red taillights grew small, the man returned to the highway. He brushed himself off and headed on toward the town.

      Another fifteen minutes of walking and he could make out writing on the water tower: the word Valentine, with a bright red heart. Farther along, he came to a welcome sign, all neatly landscaped and also lit with lights. He stopped, staring at the sign for some minutes.

      Welcome to Valentine, a Darn Good Place to Live!

      Underneath this was:

      Flag Town, U.S.A., Population 5,510 Friendly People and One Old Grump, 1995 Girls State Softball Championship, and Home of Brother Winston’s Home Folks Show at 1550 on the Radio Dial

      Looking ahead, the man walked on with a bit of hope in his step.

      The man would not be disappointed. The welcome sign pretty much said it all. Like a thousand other small towns across the country, Valentine was a friendly town that was right proud of itself and had reason to be. It was a place where the red-white-and-blue flew on many a home all year through and not just on the Fourth of July (as well as lots of University of Oklahoma flags and Oklahoma State flags, the Confederate flag, the Oklahoma flag and various seasonal flags). Prayer continued to be offered up at the beginning of rodeos, high-school football games and commencements, and nobody had yet brought a lawsuit, nor feared one, either. Mail could still be delivered with simply a name, city and state on the envelope. It was a place where people knew one another, many since birth, and everyone helped his neighbor. Even most of those who might fuss and fight with one another could be counted on in an emergency. The few poor souls who could not be counted on eventually ended up moving away. It was safe to say that most of the real crime was committed by people passing through. This exempted crimes of passion, which did happen on a more or less infrequent basis and seemed connected with the hot-weather months.

      In the main, Valentine was the sort of small town about which a lot of sentimental stories are written and about which a lot of people who live in big cities dream, having the fantasy that once you moved there, all of your problems disappeared. This was not true, of course. As Winston Valentine, the self-appointed town oracle, often said, the problems of life—all the fear, greed, lust and jealousy, sickness and poverty—are connected to people, and are part of life on earth the world over.

      It was true, however, that in a place like Valentine getting through life’s problems often was a little easier.

      In Valentine, a person could walk most everywhere he needed to go, or find someone willing to drive him, or have things come to him. The IGA grocery, Blaine’s Drugstore, the Pizza Hut, the Main Street Café and even the Burger Barn provided delivery service, and for free to seniors or anyone with impaired health. Feeling blue could be counted as impaired health. When you needed to leave your car at the Texaco to have the oil changed or new tires put on, the manager, Larry Joe Darnell, or one of his helpers, would drive you home, or to work, and would even stop for you to pick up breakfast, lunch or your sister. When Margaret Wyatt’s husband ran off and left her the sole support of her teenage son, people made certain to go to her for alterations, whether they needed them or not, and for a number of years every bride in town had Miss Margaret make her wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses. It was a normal course of events in Valentine for neighbors to drop groceries on the front steps of those on hard times, and for extra to go into the church collection plates for certain families; small-town people knew about tax deductions. Yards got mowed, repairs made and overdue bills paid, often by that fellow Anonymous.

      And in Valentine, when an elderly man no longer had legs strong enough to walk the sidewalk, and got his driver’s license revoked and his car taken away because of impudent daughters and meddlesome friends, he could still drive a riding lawn mower to get where he wanted to go.

      This good idea came to Winston Valentine after a fitful night’s sleep in which he had dreamed of his long-dead wife, Coweta, and been left both yearning for her and relieved that her presence had only been a dream. Their marriage had been such a contrast, too.

      Now in his tenth decade, Winston was a man with enough experience to understand that life itself was constant contrasts. He lay with his head cradled in his hands on the pillow, studying this matter as he stared at the faint pattern caused by the shine of the streetlight on the wall, while from the other side of it came muffled sounds—creak of the bed, a laugh and then a moan.

      In the next room, the couple with whom he shared his house—Tate and Marilee Holloway—were doing what Winston had once enjoyed with his Coweta early of a morning.

      Remembering,