LITMIR.BIZ

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deposited everything except four months’ mortgage payments so that she could be one month ahead, a bonus for Dan Bertram, her cook, and several thousand dollars to “play with.” The very thought gave her goose bumps. Money to play with. After the hardworking, frugal life her parents led, the words sounded like sacrilege.

      When Shelly left the bank, the mayor and his assistant and self-appointed shadow, Paula Pratt, were on the sidewalk, being interviewed by the press. Bobby was wearing the earnest face he used in public.

      He was in his late forties, a big, broad-shouldered man with light brown hair graying at the temples. He might have had a look of sophistication, except that he seemed always to be trying to project that and the effort seemed to negate the impression. Many of the townspeople considered him an opportunistic good old boy, but Shelly thought he was more complicated than that.

      Randolph Larson, Bobby’s father, had also been mayor twenty years earlier. He’d been a wildcatter with a nose for oil. Though the family had been wealthy, he’d been a humble man with a sense of family and civic duty. And he’d given Bobby everything he wanted.

      Now Bobby, who’d played away his years at college and married a beautiful young girl who’d become a sour, childless, middle-aged woman always longing for Seattle society, was trying to fit into his father’s shoes. But he was prideful rather than humble, and it was obvious to everyone, certainly even to him, that the shoes were just too big.

      Consequently, hungry for the love and respect his father enjoyed, he took every opportunity for publicity, and fooled around on his wife, Regina.

      Shelly suspected that, at the moment, he was doing it with Paula Pratt.

      Paula was blond and shapely with a bra size higher than her IQ. She wore sheer blouses and lycra skirts and followed Bobby everywhere, calling him “Robert.” She carried a clipboard with her, and everyone speculated at Jester Merchants’ Association meetings about what was on it. Some thought it was the cartoon section from the morning’s Plain Talker. Other less trustful souls were sure she was taking down information to use against them later.

      “…town’s always been a wonderful place to live,” Bobby was saying to Marina Andrews from the television station in Great Falls. “And someday all the excitement will die down and it’ll just be us again, but until then—” he smiled with boyish charm for the camera “—please come to Jester and spend your money.” He laughed at his own clever patter.

      As Shelly tried to sneak by them unnoticed, Bobby reached an arm out for her and drew her in front of the camera. “And when you come, be sure to have pie at The Brimming Cup coffee shop owned by Shelly Dupree, here, one of our Main Street Millionaires. It’s an experience you won’t forget.”

      “Okay.” Marina made a throat-cutting gesture to her photographer. “Got it. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.”

      As Bobby and Paula moved on in search of another camera, Marina rolled her eyes at Shelly. “Someone who won’t stop talking on camera is almost as bad and someone who answers your questions with yes and no.” She offered Shelly her hand. “I’m Marina Andrews with…”

      Shelly nodded. “I recognized you. Isn’t there something more important going on somewhere else in the world?”

      Marina shrugged. “Well, there probably is, but this is the most interesting thing happening in Montana at the moment. I don’t suppose you’d like to round out my interview by telling me what you think of Jester and how you think it’ll be affected by twelve millionaires?”

      “I think Jester’s a wonderful place to live,” Shelly replied, backing away. “And I think once all of you leave, it’ll just be the same old Jester, and we’ll be the same old people.”

      Marina looked her in the eye. “Now, you don’t really believe that. You look different already.”

      Surprised, Shelly stopped where she stood. “But…we haven’t met.”

      Marina nodded. “Yes, we have. I was here when that windstorm two years ago ripped the roof off your place and the movie theater and we could see right inside from our helicopter.”

      Shelly frowned. “I don’t remember talking to you.” Though she remembered that her photo had appeared in the paper. A friend in Great Falls had sent it to her.

      “Well, you didn’t. I got the story from the barber. You were busy trying to get tarps pulled over everything to protect it until the roofer could come from Billings. It was a tough time for you, I know. And you didn’t look defeated, but you looked resigned, as if your life would never be any different and you knew it.” Marina shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “But, you don’t look that way today. You look…eager. Like maybe you could handle some things changing.”

      “Some things,” she agreed. “Just not everything.”

      “The right things.”

      “Yes.”

      Marina laughed with a journalist’s cynicism. “When you figure out a way to guarantee that, let me know.”

      Marina’s photographer pointed out Dean Kenning, closing up the barbershop, and they both hurried to waylay him.

      Shelly went back to The Brimming Cup. She pushed her way inside and caught a whiff of the beef barley soup she’d made after the lunch rush was over and left on to simmer. It smelled wonderful. She’d read somewhere that many people associated the days of the week with a color—Monday was red, tough and trying. Tuesday was yellow, quieter but still a challenge. And so on.

      But to her the days of the week were an aroma. Monday, garden vegetable; Tuesday, chicken noodle; Wednesday, beef barley; Thursday, ham and split pea; Friday, clam chowder.

      She’d wiped off tables before she left, and apparently they hadn’t been disturbed since. The chrome and blue vinyl of the tables and chairs in the middle of the room sparkled in the glaring winter sunlight. The blue vinyl booths up against the large plate-glass window with its blue-and-white-check valance were a slightly richer shade than the blue of the chairs. She’d been able to move the tables and chairs out of harm’s way during the storm, but had had to replace the upholstery on the booths after tree branches and other debris ripped holes in the vinyl when the roof blew off.

      She’d changed so few things in the shop since her parents had died that she sometimes walked in expecting to hear her father in the kitchen or her mother behind the counter, filling napkin holders or setting up. She looked around now, sensing something different, some disturbance of the familiar space.

      She could hear Dan on the other side of the shelves that separated the counter from the kitchen. He’d put a Garth Brooks song on the jukebox as he always did when the place emptied and she walked toward the counter, humming.

      That was when she caught sight of the baby carrier on the corner of the counter. It had been behind her line of vision when she walked in the door.

      Something else for the lost-and-found closet, she thought, wondering how someone could have walked out without their carrier and not noticed.

      “Dan!” she shouted, as she walked toward it. “Who left the baby carrier?”

      There was a moment’s silence, then his gruff voice came from the kitchen. “What carrier?” He came through the break in the shelving between the pie case and the coffee setup. He was tall and rough looking with a beaky nose and an attitude to match. He wore a paper hat, an apron over his kitchen whites and a scowl. He was a grump, but, like the Brower brothers, he was pure gold wrapped in a deceptive package. His wife had died ten years before, he’d raised a boy and a girl by himself, and now that they were in college in Texas, he worked as many hours as Shelly did. “There hasn’t been a soul in here since you left.”

      “Maybe someone came in,” she speculated, “took the baby out of the carrier, and when no one appeared to wait on them…”

      Dan had turned toward the counter and interrupted her with a gasping, “Oh, God!”

      “What?”

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