LITMIR.BIZ

      Seest thou how faith wrought with his works,

       and by works was faith made perfect?

      —James 2:22

      For Daniele Seidner; critique partner, proofreader

       and most of all, friend—I would have never made it through this book without you.

      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

      ONE

      This was the sort of morning that scrubbed the shadows from Megan Burke’s heart. The sun peeked over Grand Mesa’s ramparts east of town, golden rays spearing between houses and trees, leaves fluttering in the crisp breeze.

      Definitely a TGIF kind of day.

      Two of the patients on her schedule for today lived out of town, so she was looking forward to a long, beautiful drive through the autumn day under a brilliant turquoise sky.

      Automatically giving thanks for the day the Lord had made, Megan locked her front door behind her and skipped down the steps, heading for the driveway, which hugged the boundary line of her small yard.

      She set her bag of patient charts in the back seat of her car then went to the gate next to her garage. After she rolled her trash can out to the curb, she went back for the recyclables.

      Her neighbor Helen Russell waved to her from her kitchen window where she kept an eye on the comings and goings of the neighborhood. Megan waved back, hoping Helen wasn’t as stressed as she’d been yesterday. As usual, Helen’s cat sat on the windowsill, its gaze fixed unblinkingly on something in one of the trees whose large branches draped over the garage and driveway. Probably the regularly visiting raccoons that Megan had heard pulling over the garbage cans earlier. If they had, there would be a mess to clean up.

      Helen disappeared, then opened the back door a second later. “Good morning, sweetie,” she said. Deep smile lines creased the corners of her eyes. “It’s sure a gorgeous morning.” The cat rubbed against her legs, purring loudly.

      “It is,” Megan replied, thinking Helen sounded better today. She was glad for that. Her neighbor was the closest thing to family that Megan had, something she hadn’t anticipated finding when she had moved here three years ago.

      Helen’s only living relative, her grandson, Robby, had returned to Natchez from Denver three weeks ago after losing his job. He had moved into Helen’s basement bedroom and was trading heavily on his old reputation. He hadn’t lived in Natchez in ten years, but was still regarded as one of the town’s own, a status Megan doubted she’d achieve even if she lived here twenty years. Megan’s concern was that Robby worried Helen with his late-night comings and goings, his loud music and his apparent lack of job prospects.

      “How are the heads for our apple dolls looking this morning?” Along with several other people, Megan and Helen had peeled and carved over a hundred apples last night in Helen’s inviting kitchen. To raise funds for the seniors’ center, the dolls were going to be sold at the Apple Festival coming up at the end of the month.

      “You should come see,” Helen said with a smile. “Personality is beginning to pop out all over the place.”

      “Tonight,” Megan promised, with a glance at her watch.

      “Glenna Adams told me you were coming to see her today. She lived across the street, you know, until her husband retired. Poor thing. He died less than a year later,” Helen said. “Does she still live with her daughter out in Granger Gulch?”

      “She does.” Megan responded as though this was the first time they’d had this identical conversation. Helen’s lapses of memory had seemed worse over the past month, which had coincided with Robby’s unexpected arrival. “And I’ll be late if I get sidetracked.”

      “You don’t need to worry about taking my trash out,” Helen said. “Robby told me he’d do it when he left a little while ago.”

      Though Megan knew the trash barrel wasn’t out by the curb, she looked back toward it anyway. “It’s not there. It will just take me a minute to grab yours.”

      “That boy.” Helen shook her head as though he really was a boy instead of a grown man in his midthirties.

      “His car is still here,” Megan added, “so he’s probably still around somewhere.”

      Personally, she hoped he’d find someplace else to stay soon, since she was nearly positive he had been stealing from Helen. She had vast collections that included expensive jewelry, Italian ceramic figurines, hundreds of colorful, hand-painted pitchers from all over the world and a plastic washtub filled with old coins, some predating the Civil War. Every time she had been in Helen’s house since Robby’s arrival, he was asking his grandmother about her things and how much they were worth. Megan suspected his interest wasn’t just a simple matter of curiosity.

      “He

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