LITMIR.BIZ

      One

      At the age of nineteen, Iris Smith Osburn lost her first husband to Desert Storm. A U.S. tank ran over Jake’s foxhole. Since the tank was one of ours, the government—with some earnest coaxing in court—paid up.

      There in San Antonio, TEXAS, the grieving Iris voluntarily split the award with her late husband’s hostile family. They thought she was selfish, but sourly they took the lawyer-settled half of the money. The attorney’s fees came from her half.

      Iris Smith Osburn Dallas’s second husband was her first husband’s best friend. He was a fine man, and like her first husband, he was very gentle and kind. Tom died of some strange Gulf disease that’s still being studied. He, too, had been in Desert Storm and there was government insurance. He had no family who wanted to share.

      Her third husband was a friend to the second. Peter Alden was charming. Iris was reluctant to try marriage again, but Peter was adamant, and he convinced her to become his wife. While a spectator at a rodeo, he was trampled by a nasty bull that had gotten loose between the fences. Peter’s death had been quick. It had been a shock that had shaken Iris to the core.

      The female mourners who were at Peter Alden’s funeral whispered that, each time, Iris’s grief had been quite practiced. They whispered that with her hands over her face that way, she was probably looking through her fingers to see who would be her next?

      Iris Smith Osburn Dallas Alden not only was awarded the life insurance of her third husband, but her brother-in-law was an attorney. He proved the rodeo proprietors were responsible. He gently refused his fee.

      Iris offered Peter’s family half of the compensation awarded by the Court’s judgment. The family declined. They discouraged their lawyer son’s attentions to the blond, blue-eyed Iris. Obviously, she was dangerous to men.

      She moved back home to Fuquay, about eighty miles north and west of San Antonio near Kerrville. Iris was, by then, twenty-four years old and three times a widow. All of her marriages had been brief. She felt she was a scourge and knew she would never marry again.

      It was February of that year when Iris was welcomed back among her relatives and friends with varying reactions. Her extended family was mostly compassionate. There were those who considered her a threat. There was just something about a young, good-looking, grieving widow that lured men. Then, too, she was financially well-off... another very strong lure to most men.

      Eldest of the children in her family, it was very strange for Iris to be back in Fuquay, TEXAS, to live at home again. But she could not deal with curiosity. She needed her family’s protection.

      The house was very familiar because it hadn’t changed much over the years. It was filled with family hand-me-down furniture and hand-crocheted curtains. Even to strangers, it was a comfortable house.

      Iris knew that her own room had not been used because there were so many unoccupied rooms. She could go into her old room, close the door and be alone. The house was

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