LITMIR.BIZ

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locks were conservatively trimmed and his fierce blue eyes didn’t miss a thing. The man was well put together, handsome and heartless.

      The last time Emma had seen Will was four years ago. He’d been waiting for Tracy outside their apartment. She and Tracy had just returned from a hot road trip to Tijuana for a friend’s bachelorette party. Hot being the operative word since Tracy’s air conditioner had died in Bakersfield, and the California valley was having a record heat wave. Despite short shorts, a tank top and cornrowed hair courtesy of a beach vendor, Emma’s deodorant had given out hours before and she was sweltering. She didn’t look, smell or feel like entertaining a man who was far from being her biggest fan.

      Will had taken Emma in with one quick, disapproving glance, then ignored her, preferring to ream out Tracy for taking off without letting him know where she was. They’d been twenty-two, for crying out loud.

      Emma understood that Will probably hated her for causing the accident, but what she’d never been able to understand was why Will had seemed to hate her in the first place. It didn’t help that she’d been a mess when he came to the door today. Since she was a teen, he’d treated her like she had the Congo Cooties.

      Emma fingered the bandage beneath her bangs and sighed.

      And now, according to Granny Rose, Will wanted to remake Harmony Valley. He probably planned to cancel everything that gave the small town its character, like the annual Beer Belly Serenade and pumpkin bowling for the Harvest Queen crown.

      Emma sagged uncomfortably on her grandmother’s thinly padded, red-velvet settee as the strains of South Pacific’s chorus built. Even Granny Rose’s pot roast at dinner hadn’t cheered her up. There were too many unanswered questions banging about in her head: whether Granny Rose’s long-johns performance was anything to worry about; how much of a threat Will posed to Harmony Valley’s cherished way of life; if she’d ever be able to paint or sketch again; whether or not Tracy could forgive Emma for the accident.

      Granny Rose sat in her rocking chair by the window, moving in time to one of her favorite musical numbers. She didn’t own a television. And she didn’t look as if she was up to answering questions. Her lids were heavy and her lined features slack.

      “I bet Tracy’s happy to be home. There’s no place like Harmony Valley,” Granny Rose mused.

      “No, there isn’t.”

      “I hope Will didn’t fill your head with nonsense about his winery while I was changing. We adopted a no-growth policy for a reason. We don’t want change. After the grain-escalator explosion, we wanted peace and quiet.” Her grandmother spoke slowly, as if stringing together a sentence tired her.

      Was this malaise a sign that she was finally slowing down? Or was something more serious affecting Granny Rose’s ability to think?

      Glass-half-empty pessimism had never been Emma’s style. She preferred to look on the bright side. Maybe her grandmother was tired after a busy day. Maybe Emma was misreading Rose’s mental state. Emma used to get fuzzy after a long day of painting. If Granny Rose was worried about Harmony Valley, it might account for her being distracted. “When was the last time you went to the doctor?”

      Her grandmother replied in the same measured cadence. “Didn’t I tell you? Dr. Mayhew died last winter. His replacement is in Cloverdale and wetter behind the ears than a baby duck in a rain shower. He told me I needed to slow down and take up yoga.” Granny Rose harrumphed. “I was a highflier in the circus, not a contortionist.”

      Her grandmother had been many things before settling down, including a brief stint as a Rockette and a transatlantic-cruise-ship cocktail waitress, where she’d met the man of her dreams.

      “You sound worn out, Granny.”

      “Worry will do that to you.” She stopped rocking. “When I first came here, I thought this town was a cultural wasteland, a place with blinders on as to what was happening in the rest of the world. It had never hosted a speech from a candidate for president or governor. There was no opera or a cultural museum. But do you know...” Rose leaned forward, eyes suddenly bright. “My attitude changed. The mix of people here is unlike anyplace else on earth. And I learned to love it.” She pointed at Emma with one slender finger. “We like Harmony Valley the way it is.”

      Here was the familiar, determined Granny Rose. Emma sat up with a roll of her shoulders. “I like it, too.”

      Granny Rose laughed. “Kathryn, you hated growing up here. We didn’t have television and there weren’t enough boys. You couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

      Emma’s breath hitched. Kathryn was her mother. For the second time that day Emma reintroduced herself. “Granny, it’s me. Emma.”

      Rose blinked. “Emma?” She smoothed her white hair back with fingers that trembled. Emma didn’t know if the shaking came from age, illness or stress. “Emma. You’ve always loved Harmony Valley.” And just like that, Granny Rose was herself again.

      It was like losing the car-radio signal when you went beneath an overpass. Only this tuner required a doctor to fix it.

      “I do love it here.” Emma loved it so much that more than half of her freelance portfolio and some of her bestselling works were based on the unspoiled views. Not that she couldn’t sketch or paint elsewhere. She had. Sedona, Yosemite, Yellowstone. But Harmony Valley was different. Not as grand. Not as colorful. But infinitely more peaceful.

      If... When Emma painted again, it would be in this place. With all of Granny Rose’s love and support. And hopefully Tracy’s, too.

      “Well, I have a busy day tomorrow. I like to be fresh in the morning.” Rose stood, wobbling a smidge. If Emma hadn’t been watching, she would have missed it.

      Emma rushed to her grandmother’s side, offering an arm to lean on. She’d call her mother in the morning and tell her she was getting in touch with Granny’s doctor. “Let me walk you back.”

      “My room is just down the hall, not across the continent,” her grandmother snapped with all the pepper Emma knew so well.

      Emma chuckled, breathing in the familiar scent of rose water. “Humor me. I’ve missed you.”

      After a moment’s hesitation, Granny Rose accepted Emma’s support with a wry laugh. “Isn’t it lovely to have someone to lean on?”

      “You miss Grandpa, don’t you?”

      “Every day. But he’s going to be waiting for me when my time comes, the same as he waited for me under the oak tree in the town square when we were courting.”

      Emma loved to hear how much her grandparents had loved each other, probably because her lawyer parents had barely survived a messy divorce when she was a toddler. That was when she and her mother had come to live with Granny Rose.

      The floorboards creaked more than usual, almost as much as her grandmother’s knees. “You know he wants to cut down the oak tree in the town square. He doesn’t care that half the town received marriage proposals under that tree.”

      “Who doesn’t care?” Emma turned on the hall light. It flickered, then burned bright.

      “That computer nerd. He’s a pain in my tuckus.”

      “Mine, too.”

      Emma bid Granny Rose good-night, and then lugged her bags upstairs, depositing the shoebox full of Carina Career dolls next to her bed. Her room at Granny’s was small with a single bed covered in a green-and-gold star quilt and an old walnut dresser that didn’t take up much floor space. Emma loved the room. The southern exposure let in the most wonderful natural light.

      When Emma was ten, she and Granny Rose had painted the walls the palest of blues and taken all the permanent pictures down so Emma could hang her works. She’d filled the walls last summer, but sold all those paintings to contribute to the cost of Tracy’s care.

      Tonight, the empty walls spurned her.

      Tomorrow

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