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Praise for the novels of
Curtiss Ann Matlock

“This is a delicious read for a lazy summer day. It’s not overly sweet, and it has enough zing to satisfy readers thirsting for an uplifting read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cold Tea on a Hot Day

“Ms. Matlock masterfully takes readers into a world full of quirky characters and small-town simplicity where they will wish they can stay.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Cold Tea on a Hot Day

“A wonderful cast and a perfect setting make for a gentle and reassuring story.”

—Booklist on Sweet Dreams at the Goodnight Motel

“Matlock’s down-to-earth characters and comforting plot will please many.”

—Booklist on Recipes for Easy Living

“Once again, Matlock delivers a gentle, glowing tale that is as sweet and sunny as its small-town setting. Readers will be delighted by this deft mix of romance and…slice-of-life drama.”

—Publishers Weekly on At the Corner of Love and Heartache

“With realistic characters and absorbing dialogue, Matlock crafts a moving story about a woman’s road to self-discovery.”

—Publishers Weekly on Driving Lessons

“This is simply a great read.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Driving Lessons

“This one will warm you.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Lost Highways

Curtiss Ann Matlock
Cold Tea on a Hot Day

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to many people who sustain me

each day, in my writing and in my life:

Leslie Wainger, Dianne Moggy and Kathleen Adler,

who have encouraged me and brought my books

to the bookshelves.

Writer friend Cait London, who has taught me

“Life moves on,” whether we’re ready or not.

Dear friends Lou and Barb, and my long-lost sister,

Sue, most especially on those days I would rather

have stayed in bed and covered up my head.

And the readers whose kind letters embolden me

to keep writing.

Thank you all.

One never knew about the deep secrets of ordinary lives.

—Tate Holloway

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

One

Another Day in Paradise

In the hazy glow of first morning light, a gleaming red Mercedes, a Roadster with its top up, sat on the side of the blacktopped county road. The engine idled gently, and headlights shone on the patchy grass and weeds.

The driver was slumped in the seat, comfortably, as if taking a nap. He was dead.

A dog lay with his head upon the man’s thigh. He had lain there for some time, out of loyal respect to a friend.

In a nearby tree, a meadowlark gave out a shrill morning call.

The dog, perking his ears, sat up and then went over to poke his wet nose out the window, fully open because the man had been driving along in the cool spring night with the passenger window down so that the dog could enjoy putting his face in the wind.

Fairly certain the man would no longer notice being abandoned, the dog hopped through the window with graceful ease and landed on the dewy wet grass.

After a moment of the sniffing the damp, pungent air, the dog trotted off in the easterly direction that the car had been heading. It was pleasant in the cool first light. A little way along he came to a fresh armadillo run over in the road. He sniffed it, but he was yet far above the depths of eating roadkill. An owl perched on a fence post was kind enough to tell the dog that a town, where likely he could find breakfast, was just over the hill.

Sure enough, when he topped the hill, a town lay before him. The dog sat and looked at it. The morning sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and cast its pink glow upon this world of humans. Where families of buffalo once wallowed and great herds of cattle once crossed on their way to the rowdy markets in Kansas, there now existed a place springing out of the prairie with tree-lined streets and brick buildings and clapboard houses.

The dog had come to the town in the same manner that he went everywhere and to each of his humans, following the direction led by his heart. The day he had come to the large concrete parking lot and to the man with the glasses, he had known that was the place for him and the human for his dog’s loyal work of companionship.

Now, looking down on the town, he knew this was a new place for him and a new human awaited his ministrations.

The dog started down the hill, taking in the lay of the land and ready for any opportunity that presented itself.

The garbage trucks were starting on their first runs, and early risers all over began tuning kitchen radios to the morning weather report and going out on front porches to hang up flags in support of the campaign to keep Valentine’s distinction as the Flag Town of America.

Fayrene Gardner, who had come into the Main Street Café a half an hour early because she had been unable to sleep due to the excitement of expecting a visit from her first ex-husband, came out the café door and set the United States flag in its holder.

A few yards down the sidewalk, at the doors of The Valentine Voice, Charlotte Nation was doing likewise. Charlotte, who was a little dismayed to see Fayrene had beat her to it, thought it important for the Voice to get their flag out first, as they were a leader in the community.

Setting the pole in the slot with some haste, she hurried back inside to get a cup of coffee for Leo, Sr. before he got off on his deliveries. Since their circulation manager quit three weeks earlier, Leo had been handling the job. Charlotte was thrilled, as now Leo was there early each morning, like herself. He got all the other deliverers off, and then was the last to leave on a route of his own.

“Thanks, Charlotte,” Leo said, taking the cup she handed him and sipping. “Well, I gotta get goin’ now.”

“Yes…you do.” She followed him to the doorway and stood there as he slipped into the delivery van and drove off down the alley, watching with the eyes of a woman in love with a man she could never have.

Up on Church Street, Winston Valentine was glad to be able to manage the job of getting out the front door of his house with the aid of a cane, while carrying two folded flags under his arm. One of his lady boarders, a piece of toast jammed in her mouth, came after him.

He told her with poorly tempered impatience, “I’m all right, Mildred…you cain’t help me and eat toast at the same time!”

She had already dropped jelly on her ample bosom; Winston didn’t want her to get jelly all over his flags. He felt guilty for having the thought that she could in that minute drop dead and he would gladly step over her. He was relieved when she got more concerned about her toast and jelly than about helping him.

He got himself down the front steps and over to the flag pole in the front yard, where he raised the Confederate flag, followed by the Stars and Bars. He could still raise his flags, and once more all by himself, thank God, and he wasn’t yet pissing in his pants, so the day looked good.

Across the street, his neighbor Everett Northrupt, younger by better than ten years, was raising his flags, too, only the Stars and Bars of the U.S. of A. was on top and a lot bigger. Everett was from up North.

Both men stood at attention as music, a mingling of “Dixie” and “The Star Spangled Banner,” blared out from speakers from each man’s home. Winston, not wanting Everett to have anything on him, stood as straight as he could and saluted the flags and the day.

Then, as most days, he saw Parker Lindsey jogging down the street. Parker, a single fellow who no doubt had plenty of pent-up energy, would jog from his veterinary clinic at the edge of town, cut through the school yard and behind houses along a path that came out east of the Blaine’s house, then go down Church Street to Porter and make several jogs to get to the highway and back east to his own place. It was a distance of five miles. Winston played a game of judging the younger man’s state of sexual energy by how hard he was running when he went past.

“G’mornin’, Doc,” Winston called to him, remembering what it was like to be a virile man in his prime. He admired Parker Lindsey, who was going at a pretty good clip this morning.

“’Mornin’.” Puffing, Parker raised a hand in a wave and kept on going.

From the opposite direction came Leo, Jr., pedaling past with his teenage legs on his Mountain Flier. “’lo, Mr. Winston!” he said and sent a rolled newspaper flying into the yard and landing two feet away.

“Bingo!” Winston called back with a wave.

He bent carefully to get the paper, considering it exercise. When he came up, he saw a woman in bright pink on a purple bicycle pumping along toward town. It was his niece, Leanne, who sometimes jogged and sometimes rode a bicycle. A professional barrel racer, Leanne worked to keep her legs strong.

“’lo, Uncle Winston!”

Winston waved back, while averting his gaze from the sight of her. Leanne wore the skimpy attire so popular with women these days, and being her uncle, Winston did not consider it polite to stare. Leanne was a fine specimen of a woman. It was a little too bad she liked to display that around a lot. Winston felt women today had forgotten mystique. He liked to watch women on exercise shows on television, though.

Walking stiffly, but grateful to be walking, he went around the side of the house, where he clipped blossoms from his dead wife’s rosebushes. I’m keepin’ on, Coweta. He would miss his wife until his dying day.

Further up Church Street, Vella Blaine, wearing a lilac flowered apron and a big straw hat over her greying hair, was out in her backyard, snipping fresh blooms from her own rosebushes. She held each to her nose to inhale the delicious, soothing scent. Her very favorite were the yellow Graham-Thomas blossoms. She was so proud of her roses this spring.

Hearing a car, she looked up to see her husband behind the wheel of his big black 80s Lincoln as it chugged away, carrying him onward to his twelve-hour day at his drugstore.

Perry had not bothered to tell her goodbye. Again.

Gripping the stems of the cut roses so tightly that the thorns pricked her hands, Vella walked purposefully up the back steps and went inside to prepare a fresh pot of coffee for herself and Winston, who had, with the arrival of balmy spring, begun once more to join her for an early-morning chat. She got out the blue pottery mug Winston seemed to favor. In the mirror hung on the inside of the cabinet door, she paused to put on lipstick.

Down on Porter Street, the sun had risen high enough to shine its first golden rays on the roof of a small house dating from the forties that Realtors called a bungalow. In bed in the back bedroom, Marilee James, who was definitely not a morning person, was awakened by her eight-year-old son.

“Maa-ma…”

Marilee managed to crack an eyelid.

“Maa-ma…” He peered into her face, his blue eyes large behind his thick glasses.

Marilee tried to focus enough to see the clock. Willie Lee simply had no sense of time at all. He woke up when he woke, and slept when he slept, never minding the rest of the world…or his mother, who had not had a decent night’s sleep since Miss Porter had suddenly and fantastically thrown the newspaper management into her hands and run off with a husband.

Was that red numeral a five or a six? She was going to have to get a bigger clock. The thought caused her to close her eyes.

“Ma-ma, can I have a dog?” Willie Lee spoke in a whisper and slowly, carefully pronouncing each word, as was his habit.

“Not right this minute,” Marilee managed to get out with as hoarse a voice as she used to have when she smoked a pack and a half a day of Virginia Slims.

She gathered courage and stretched herself toward the clock. The red numerals came in more clearly. It was 6:10. Giving a groan, she rolled over and thought that she could not get up. That was all there was to it. She would not get up.

“I want this dog in this pic-ture.” Willie Lee shoved a book in her face.

Marilee, who could not respond in any way, shape or form, stared with fuzzy vision at a picture of a spotted dog in one of her son’s picture books.

Willie Lee, not at all bothered by not being answered, sat back on folded legs and said, “I will ask God for this dog.”

Marilee’s sleepy gaze came to rest upon her son, upon his head bent once more to study the picture book. His short white-blond hair stood on end in all directions, as was usual.

Her Willie Lee, who had put up a mighty struggle to enter the world and ended up with brain damage that cast doubt still upon his future ability to lead anything resembling a normal life without someone to watch over him.

Her heart seemed to swell and her heartbeats to grow louder…thump…thump…thump…echoing in her ears, broken only by the clink of dishes from the kitchen, where Corrine was no doubt readying the table for breakfast, as she had each morning since coming to stay with them.

With the aroma of coffee floating in to reach her, Marilee pictured the slight figure of her young niece at the counter. Likely she had to pull a chair over and stand on it in order to fill the coffeemaker.

Two of them, two little souls, depending upon only her, Marilee, a mere woman alone.

The idea so frightened her that in an instant she had flung back the covers and gotten to her feet, moving in the manner of generations of women before her who had struggled with the overwhelming urge to run screaming out of the house to throw themselves in front of the early-morning garbage truck. The saving answer to that urge was to propel herself headlong into the day of taking care of those who needed her.

“Let’s get you dressed, buster,” she said to her son, scooping him up, causing him to giggle.

“Time to get go-ing,” he said, mimicking her usual refrain.

“Yes…time to get going.”

When focusing on the needs of those around her, she did not have to face the needs clamoring inside herself.

“Here they are,” Corrine said and brought Marilee the car keys she had been searching for, as the child did each morning at seven-thirty—or any other time, really.

“Thank you, hon…now, let’s get goin’….”

The children trooped before her out the front door, and they all piled into the Jeep Cherokee for the five-minute drive to school, where Marilee let them out on the wide sidewalk in front of the long, low brick building.

The two, taller and very thin Corrine and shorter, slight Willie Lee, did not run off with the other screaming and laughing children but stood there side by side, forlornly watching her drive away.

Marilee, who caught sight of them in the rearview mirror, felt like a traitor abandoning her delicate charges.

Pressing firmly on the accelerator, she focused on the road and reminded herself that she was a working mother, just like a million other working mothers, trying to keep a roof over all their heads, and that her children needed to learn to deal with real life.

As she whipped the Cherokee into its accustomed place in the narrow lot behind the brick building that housed The Valentine Voice, she realized that she had been doing the same thing for most of seven years. Where did the years go? When had twenty-one turned into forty?

It was Miss Porter running off into a new life who had caused this unrest, Marilee thought with annoyance, hiking her heavy leather tote up on her shoulder. The next instant, having the disconcerting impression that she was beginning to resemble Miss Porter, she dropped the bag to her hand.

“My computer is down,” Tammy Crawford said immediately when Marilee came down the large aisle of the main room.

“Call the repairman.” Marilee threw her bag on her already full desk and picked up the day’s edition of the Voice. She had not had time to read it at home. She had not had time for weeks.

“Mrs. Oklahoma is going to visit the high school this mornin’,” Reggie said. “Principal forgot to call us…I’m goin’ right over there.”

“’kay.” Marilee didn’t think everyone really needed to report to her.

Charlotte strode forward with a handful of notes. “Here’s the first morning complaints of late papers…and Roger, that new guy they’ve hired up at the printer, wants you to call him…and here’s a note from the mayor for tomorrow’s ‘About Town’ column. City hall has lost those flags they thought they had left.”

Marilee took the notes and sank into her chair.

June, who was now working on their ad layouts since their top ad layout person had quit last week, came over and said, “I can’t read this note Jewel put on this ad. Do you think that is supposed to be a two or a five?”

“Call the Ford dealer and ask. I don’t think they would appreciate us guessing.”

“Okay. I can do that.” June generally needed to convince herself of action.

Marilee, giving a large sigh, fell into her chair and flopped open the paper to see how it had come out, and if she would need to be making any retractions and groveling apologies. She thought she was learning to grovel quite well.

“Another day in paradise,” she said to no one in particular.

The Valentine Voice

About Town

by Marilee James

For the one or two people in town who have not heard by now, Ms. Muriel Porter, former publisher of The Valentine Voice, and Mr. Dwight Abercrombie, who met last year on a Carribean cruise, were married yesterday afternoon in a small ceremony at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Immediately afterward the two left on a world tour they estimate will take them upward of eighteen months. Following their world tour, the couple plan to settle in either Daytona Beach or possibly Majorca, Spain. Ms. Porter-Abercrombie wanted everyone to know she will always remain a Valentinian, however far she may roam.

“Valentine will always be my home,” Ms. Porter stated. “My ties there are as necessary to my life as cold tea on a hot day.”

The new publisher and editor in chief of The Valentine Voice, Tate Holloway, will be arriving this weekend to officially take over the paper. Mr. Holloway is Ms. Porter-Abercrombie’s cousin and a veteran newspaper journalist with thirty years experience on a number of the nation’s leading newspapers.

An open house will be held in honor of Mr. Holloway on Monday at the Voice offices. Cake and coffee will be served courtesy of Sweetie Cakes of Main Street. Come by and welcome Mr. Holloway, or address to him your complaints.

Until Monday, I will continue as managing editor. All news stories should be reported to me, and you can call me at my home number, 555-4743, afternoons and until 8:00 p.m. Please save all complaints for Mr. Holloway on Monday.

Other important bits of note:

The first meeting of the Valentine Rose Club will be held tonight, 7:00 p.m., at the Methodist Church Fellowship Hall. Vella Blaine will head the meeting and wants it stressed that all denominations are welcome and there will be no passing of a collection plate.

Jaydee Mayhall has formally declared his candidacy for city council. Thus far he is the first candidate to declare intentions of running for the seat being vacated by long-time member Wesley Fitz-water, who says he is tired of the thankless job. Mayhall invites anyone who would like to talk to him about the town’s needs to stop by to visit with him at his office on Main Street.

Mayor Upchurch has ten Valentine town flags left at city hall, for anyone who wants to fly one outside their home or shop. The flags are free; the only requirement is a proper pole high enough that the flag does not brush the ground.

Two

Looking in the Wrong Direction

“How long has he been missing?” Principal Blankenship demanded of the teacher standing before her.

“Since lunch recess,” Imogene Reeves answered, wringing her hands. “I don’t care if he is retarded and looks like an angel. He knows how to slip away. He is not just wanderin’ off.”

The principal winced at the word retarded spoken out loud. There were so many unacceptable words and phrases these days that she couldn’t keep up, but she was fairly certain the term retarded fell in the unacceptable category. She checked her watch and saw it was going on one o’clock.

She headed at a good clip out of her office, asking as she went, “Has anyone spoken to Mr. Starr…checked the storerooms?”

It could very well be a repeat of that first time, she thought, calming herself. It had been Mr. Starr, the custodian, who had found Willie Lee the first time. That time the boy had been all along playing with a mouse in the janitor’s storeroom. This had been upsetting—a little fright that the mouse might bite and the boy get an infection—but it was better than the second time, when the boy had gotten off the school grounds and all the way down to the veterinarian’s place a half-mile away. That time Principal Blankenship had been forced to call the boy’s mother, because the veterinarian was a friend of the boy’s mother.

Oh, she did not want to have to tell the mother again. Marilee James wrote for the newspaper. This would get everywhere.

Imagining what her father, a principal before her, would have said, would have yelled, Principal Blankenship just about wet her pants.

The storeroom had been searched and the custodian Mr. Starr consulted; involved with changing out hot water heaters, he had not seen Willie Lee since the beginning of the school day. The closets were searched, and the storerooms a second time, and the boys’ bathrooms.

At last the principal resorted to telephoning down to the veterinarian’s office.

“I haven’t seen Willie Lee,” the young receptionist at the veterinarian’s told her. “And Doc Lindsey has been out inoculatin’ cattle since before noon.”

The principal, with a sinking feeling, went along the corridors of her small school, peeking into each classroom, searching faces, hoping, praying with hands clasping and unclasping, for Willie Lee to appear.

In her heart she knew that Willie Lee had escaped the school grounds a second time, but she did not want to think of such a failure on the part of one of her teachers. Or herself. And truly, she didn’t want anything to happen to the child.

She did wish he could go to another school.

At last, with pointy shoulders slumping, she broke down and spoke over the school intercom: “Attention, teachers and students. Anyone who has seen Willie Lee James since lunch recess, please come to the office.”

In Ms. Norwood’s fourth-grade class, Corrine Pendley heard the announcement of her cousin’s name. Face jerking upward, she stared at the speaker above the classroom door. Then she saw all eyes turn to her.

Her face burned. Bending her head over her notebook, she focused her eyes on the lined paper in front of her and concentrated on being invisible.

The teacher had called her name several times before Corrine was jolted into hearing by Christy Grace poking her in the back with a pencil. “She’s callin’ you.”

Corrine looked up at the teacher, who asked if Corrine had seen Willie Lee. Corrine said, “No, ma’am.” She wondered at the question. Maybe the teacher thought she was a little deaf. Or else she thought Corrine would lie.

Why didn’t everybody mind their own business and quit looking at her?

Bending her head over her math problems, she made the numbers carefully, trying to concentrate on them, but thinking about her cousin. Willie Lee was only eight, and little for his age.

He was slow, but this did not mean he didn’t know about some things. One thing he seemed to know was how to get away when he wanted to. Corrine wished she had gone with him.

Her anxiety increased. She felt responsible. She should have been looking out for him. She was older, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, just like she didn’t.

All manner of dark fantasies paraded through her mind. She hoped he didn’t get run over. Or fall in a muddy creek and drown. Or get picked up by a stranger.

Her pencil point broke, startling her.

Carefully, she laid the pencil down, got up and walked as quietly as possible, so as not to become too visible, to the teacher’s desk to ask in a hurried whisper to go to the rest room.

In the tiled room that smelled strongly of bleach, she used the toilet and then she washed her hands. She kept thinking about the front doors. When she came out of the rest room, she turned left instead of right and walked down the hall and right out the double doors. She did this without thinking at all, just following an urge inside.

All the way down the front walk, she felt certain a yell was going to hit her in the back. But it didn’t. Then she was running free, running from school and then running from herself, scared to death to have done something that was very wrong and would make everyone mad at her.

She would have to find Willie Lee, she thought. If she found him, no one would be mad at her. The sun felt warm on her head and the breeze cool to her face.

At that very instant, when finding her cousin and being a hero seemed totally possible, she looked down the street and saw her Aunt Marilee’s brilliant white Jeep Cherokee coming.

The Jeep’s chrome shone so brightly, Corrine had to squint. Still, she saw Aunt Marilee behind the wheel. Corrine stopped in her tracks, and her life seemed to drain right out her toes.

Likely she was going to get it now. And she deserved it. She never could seem to do things right.

The vehicle pulled up beside her, and the tinted window slid down. Aunt Marilee said, “Where are you goin’?”

Corrine, who could not read her aunt’s even tone or blank expression, said slowly, “They announced ‘bout Willie Lee being missin’. I was goin’ to find him.”

Her aunt said, “Well, that makes two of us. Get in. I have to go see the principal first.”

Corrine opened the door and slipped into the seat in a manner as if to disappear. Carefully, she closed the door beside her. In the short drive to the school parking lot, she tried to read her aunt’s attitude but could not. She had never seen her aunt look like this. She thought desperately of what her aunt might be thinking, in order to be ready for what to say or do.

But all Aunt Marilee said to her when they got to the school was, “Come on back in with me. You’ll need to get your stuff from class.”

Aunt Marilee went to Corrine’s class with her and told Ms. Norwood that she was taking Corrine home early. Corrine, who was used to moving from an entire apartment in just a few minutes and therefore was not in the habit of accumulating needless trifles, stuffed all her books and notebooks from her desk into her backpack in scarcely a minute. As she lugged it to the classroom door, she could feel everyone looking at her, but it didn’t matter. She was leaving, at least for today.

The heels of Aunt Marilee’s Western boots echoed sharply on the corridor floor all the way back to the principal’s office, where Aunt Marilee said to her, “Sit right here. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

Without a word, Corrine sat. Aunt Marilee disappeared into the principal’s office.

The secretary, who had bleached blond hair teased up to amazing heights, looked at her. Corrine looked around the room and swung her feet that only brushed the floor.

Aunt Marilee had not fully closed the door, but even if she had, the voices would probably have been heard. Aunt Marilee had the furious tone she used when she and Corrine’s mother got into their fights. Corrine imagined her aunt was standing how she did when she meant business: feet slightly apart and eyes like laser rays.

Aunt Marilee wanted to know how people supposedly educated in child development could not manage to keep track of one little boy who was diagnosed as learning disabled and not able to think above five years old. The principal answered that the school was not a prison and did not have guards.

“We are trying to mainstream Willie Lee to the best of our ability,” the principal said. “We do not lose normal children, who are taught to participate.”

Corrine held her breath, afraid that her Aunt Marilee was going to reveal finding Corrine halfway down the block. And maybe, since she had gotten away—since she had even attempted to leave—maybe she was not quite normal.

“We are doing the best we can with your children, Mrs. James,” the principal said in a low tone.

Corrine saw the big-haired secretary’s eyes cut to her, as if thinking, You’re one of those troublemakers. Corrine swung her feet and looked at the wall, feeling the empty hole in her chest grow until it seemed to swallow her.

“Arguing will not find Willie Lee. I apologize. Now, tell me when and where my son was last seen.” Aunt Marilee’s voice, sounding so very calm and firm, enabled Corrine to draw a breath.

“I’ll tell you,” Aunt Marilee said when they got back in the Cherokee, Aunt Marilee slamming the door so hard the entire vehicle rattled. “Willie Lee knew exactly what he was doin’. I don’t care how dumb people think he is.”

“He is only dumb in some things,” Corrine said.

Aunt Marilee didn’t seem to hear her. She started off fast, gazing hard out the window. “Oh, Willie Lee,” she said under her breath, and for an instant Corrine thought her aunt might cry. This was very unnerving to Corrine, who instantly turned her eyes out the window, looking hard, thinking that she just had to find Willie Lee. She had to make everything all right again for her aunt.

They drove slowly down to the veterinary clinic, looking into yards as they went. They went into the veterinarian’s office, where two people waited with their dogs, a yippy little terrier and a trembling Labrador.

The girl behind the counter told them that Doc Lindsey had been out most of the day, was at that moment tending a sick horse at some ranch but was expected back any moment.

Dr. Lindsey was Aunt Marilee’s boyfriend. Parker Lindsey, which Corrine thought was a lovely name. He was so handsome, too. Clean and neat, and he smiled at her and Willie Lee. He smiled at just about everyone, and had very white, even teeth. Sometimes, although she never would have told anyone on this earth, Corrine imagined having a boyfriend just like Parker Lindsey.

Aunt Marilee did not want to take the office girl’s word that Willie Lee wasn’t there. Corrine, who never took anyone’s word for anything, was glad to accompany her aunt and search along the outside dog runs and look into the cattle chutes and pens. Corrine even called Willie Lee’s name softly. He might come to her first, she thought, because Aunt Marilee was getting pretty mad now.

They got back inside the Cherokee and drove around a couple of streets surrounding the school. Aunt Marilee said that they should be able to spot Willie Lee’s blond hair, because it shone in the sun. They stopped and asked a couple of people they saw in yards if they had seen Willie Lee. At one falling-down house, a man sat in his undershirt on the front step, drinking a beer. Aunt Marilee got right out of the car and went up to ask him about Willie Lee, but Corrine stayed rooted in the seat, watching sharply. She made it a point not to talk to men with beers in their hands.

Then Aunt Marilee headed in the direction of home, saying out loud, “Maybe he’s on his way home.”

Corrine, who was beginning to get really scared for her cousin and for her aunt and for her whole life, scooted up until she was sitting on the edge of the seat, looking as hard as she was able.

It was a long walk to home, but only about a five-minute drive. Maybe Willie Lee knew the way, and he wouldn’t have to cross the highway or anything. Still, no telling where he might go, and again all sorts of fearful images began to race across her mind, such as cars running over her cousin’s little body, and snakes slithering out to bite him, or maybe a black widow spider like in the movies, or maybe a bad man would get him, or a bunch of big, mean boys.

At one point she said, “Willie Lee doesn’t like school. Some of the kids tease him and call him dumb and stupid, and it’s hard for him to sit still all day.” She didn’t want her aunt to make Willie Lee go back to school.

Aunt Marilee said, “I know.”

“I don’t like school, either,” Corrine said, quietly, in the manner a child uses when she has to speak her feelings but does so in a way and time that she believes the adult might not hear. Then her throat got all thick, and she hated herself for being so stupid as to risk making Aunt Marilee mad. She would die if Aunt Marilee got mad at her.

Aunt Marilee, her gaze focused out the windshield, said, “We’ll talk about it later.” And a moment later, she whispered, “God, help us find Willie Lee.”

They searched the streets on the way home, following the route Aunt Marilee took when driving them to and from school. Again Aunt Marilee questioned several people who were outside.

A man who was roofing a house said, “Yeah, Marilee, I saw him over there on the corner. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize him as your boy. And I didn’t see what direction he went.”

At least when the man had seen him, Willie Lee hadn’t been dead yet, Corrine thought.

Aunt Marilee drove the rest of the way home, where she went immediately to the backyard and checked to see if Willie Lee might be there with his rabbits or up in his tree fort. Corrine climbed the ladder to look in the fort, even though no one answered when they called. “He’s not here,” she called back to her aunt.

Aunt Marilee went to the front yard and hollered, “Willie Lee! Willie Lee!”

There was no answer.

Aunt Marilee unlocked the front door and went inside and straight to the answering machine on her desk in the corner of the living room. There were no messages. Aunt Marilee immediately picked up the telephone and called the school, asking if Willie Lee had been found there. He had not. Next Aunt Marilee telephoned the sheriff’s office to ask for help.

Afterward, she snapped the receiver back on the hook and looked at Corrine. “He’s all right. God watches over all of us, and most especially little ones like Willie Lee.”

Corrine, who had reason to doubt God watched over her, thought her Aunt Marilee was speaking to calm herself. She felt guilty for the thought.

“Well, we’ve done all we can,” Aunt Marilee said, rising straight up. “We’ll wait here and let God handle it.”

Aunt Marilee let God handle it for about the length of time it took to make a pot of tea and fix a cup with lots of sugar for Corrine, and search for a pack of cigarettes, which she didn’t find, and then she went to telephoning people.

From the chair at the table, where she could look clear through the house to the front and watch her aunt hold the phone to her ear while pacing in long strides that pushed out her brown skirt, Corrine felt helpless and desperate.

Three

Your Life Is Now

Tate Holloway drove into Valentine from the east along small, bumpy roads because he had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. He never had been very good at directions. A couple of his city desk editors used to say they hated to send him out to an emergency, because he might miss it by ending up in a different state.

He slowed his yellow BMW convertible when he came into the edge of town. He passed the feed and grain with its tall elevator, and the car wash, and the IGA grocery. Anticipation tightened in his chest. Right there on the IGA was a sign that proclaimed it the Hometown Grocery Store.

This was going to be his own hometown.

Driving on, he entered the Main Street area and spied The Valentine Voice building. He allowed it only a glance and drove slowly, taking in everything on the left side of the street, turned around at the far edge of town and took in everything on the opposite side of the street.

He had seen the town as a child of nine, and surprisingly, it looked almost as he remembered. There were the cars parked head-in on the wide street. There was the bank, modernized nicely with new windows and a thorough sandblasting job. There was the theater—it had become something called The Little Opry. There was the florist…and the drugstore, with the air conditioner that dripped. The air conditioner was still there, although he could not tell if it dripped, as it was too cool in April to need it. He imagined it still dripped, though.

There were various flags flying outside the storefronts: the U.S. flags, the state flag of Oklahoma, what appeared to be the Valentine City flag, and a couple of Confederate flags, which surprised him a bit and reminded him that people in the west tended to be truly individualistic. There was a flag with flowers on it at the florist, and at least one person was a Texan, because there was a Texas flag flying proudly.

Tate thought the flags gave a friendly touch. He noted the benches placed at intervals. One thing the town needed, he thought, was trees. He liked a town with trees along the sidewalks to give shade when a person walked along.

Back once again to The Valentine Voice building, he turned and parked the BMW head-in to the curb. Slowly he removed his sunglasses and sat there looking at the building for some minutes. It sat like a grand cornerstone of the town, two-story red brick, with grey stone-cased windows and The Valentine Voice etched in a granite slab beside the double doors.

Emotion rose in his chest. Tears even burned in his eyes.

There it was—his own newspaper.

It was the dream of many a big-city news desk editor to become publisher of his own paper, and Tate had held this dream a long time. A place where he could express his own ideas, unencumbered by the hesitancies and prejudices of others less inclined to personal responsibility and more concerned with being politically correct and watching the bottom line dollar. Newspaper publishing as it once was, with editors who spoke their fire and light, drank whiskey from pint bottles in their desk drawers and smoked big stogies, with no thought of the fate of their jobs or pensions, only the single-minded intent to speak the truth.

The good parts of the old days were what Tate intended to resurrect. Here, in this small place in the world, he would pursue his mission to speak his mind and spread courage, and to enjoy on occasion the damn straight wildness for the sake of being wild.

Yes, sir, by golly, he was on his way.

Tate alighted from the BMW, slammed the door and took the sidewalk in one long stride. A bell tinkled above as he opened the heavy glass front door and strode through, removing his hat and taking in the interior with one eager glance: brick wall down the left side, desks, high ceiling with lights and fans suspended. Old, dim, deteriorating…but promising. A city room, by golly.

“Can I help you?”

It was a woman at the front reception desk, bathed in the daylight from the wide windows. A no-nonsense sort of woman, with deep-brown hair in a Buster Brown cut and steady black eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. Cheyenne, he thought.

“Hello, there. I’m Tate Holloway.” He sent her his most charming grin.

“You’re not.”

That response set him back.

“Why, yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” He chuckled and tapped his hat against his thigh.

She was standing now. She had unfolded from her chair, and Tate, who was five foot eleven, saw with a bit of surprise that he was eye to eye with her.

“You aren’t supposed to be here until Saturday.”

“Well, that’s true.” He tugged at his ear. He had expected to be welcomed. He had expected there to be people here, too, and the big room was empty.

“But here I am.” He stuck out his hand. “And who might you be, ma’am?” he drawled in an intimate manner. It had been said that Tate Holloway could charm the spots off a bobcat.

This long, tall woman was made of stern stuff. She looked at his hand for a full three heartbeats before offering her own, which was thin but sturdy. “Charlotte Nation.”

“Well, now…nice to meet you, Miss Charlotte.”

She blinked. “Yes…a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holloway.” She wet her lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t say that right away. It’s just that Marilee said you weren’t coming until Saturday.” There again was the note of accusation in her voice. “We aren’t prepared. We are…” She looked around behind her at the room and seemed to search for words. “Well, everyone is busy working for the paper, just not here.”

“I’m glad to see that,” Tate said. “I didn’t expect a welcoming committee.”

A spark of suspicion about that statement shone in her eyes, before she blinked and said, “I’m assuming you know that Chet Harmon, Harlan Buckles and Jewel Luttrell have all quit in the last month. June Redman has taken on the layout, and she’s out gettin’ her mammogram this afternoon. She used to just work part-time, anyway. Imperia is out on some sales calls. Leo and Reggie and Tammy are on stories, and Marilee’s had to go find her little boy.” She paused, then added, “Zona’s here, of course.”

“Marilee James? Her little boy is missing?” He recalled the woman’s voice on the phone, deep and soft, like warm butter. He had been anticipating seeing her and felt a bit of disappointment that she wasn’t here. Actually, saying that he didn’t want a welcoming committee was a fib, as this woman recognized. Tate had anticipated being greatly welcomed…at least, he had expected to be received with some enthusiasm.

The woman nodded. “Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again. He’s eight years old but learning disabled.”

“I see.”

“He is sweet as the day is long, but he tends to drift away. And he is not afraid of anybody in this world. That’s the worry…so many strangers come down here these days from the city.”

He felt vaguely guilty, since he had just driven in from a city. “Well, I’ll just have a look around.”

The woman blinked, as if surprised.

Just then a door from an office down on the left opened. A person—a small woman—appeared, saw Tate, and stepped back and shut the door. It happened so quickly that the only impression Tate had was of a small, grey-haired mouse of a woman. The office had window glass, but dark shades were drawn.

Tate looked at the brown-haired woman, who said, “That is Zona Porter—no relation—our comptroller.”

Tate waited several seconds to hear more, to possibly be introduced to this woman, but just then the phone on the desk rang, and the brown-haired woman immediately snatched it up.

“Valentine Voice, Charlotte speaking.” She gripped the telephone receiver. After several seconds, she told whoever was on the other end, “I’ll have Marilee call you back about that. She’s had to go out after Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again.” Her eyes lit on Tate. “Oh, wait! Mr. Holloway, the new publisher, is here. You can talk to him. Hold on a minute while I switch you over to another line…yes, he’s the new owner, Ms. Porter’s cousin…. I know it isn’t Saturday, he came early. Now I’m switching.”

She said to Tate, “It’s the mayor. They’ve landed the detention center after all, and he wants to give you the story.”

He stood there staring at her, and she stared back. Then a ringing sounded from a room behind Ms. Nation.

“Go on and get it in Ms. Porter’s office,” the woman ordered, shooing him with her hand. “I have to keep this phone clear in case anyone calls about Willie Lee.”

Tate turned and strode down the wide reception area to the opened doorway, the office he remembered as his uncle’s. Two long strides and he reached the enormous old walnut desk. Almost in a single motion, he tossed aside his hat and answered the phone, at the same time pulling a pad and pen from the breast pocket of his brown denim sport coat.

His journalist’s instincts had kicked in. He was a newspaper owner, by golly.

The mayor, a meek but earnest man with extremely thin fingers and hair, drove Tate out to see the site for the new detention center that would employ a hundred people right off the bat.

There was a lot of controversy over the center, the mayor admitted. He stuttered over the word controversy. Tate listened to the man’s explanations and read a bit between the diplomatic lines. Many people didn’t want what they thought of as a prison in their midst.

The mayor drove him all around, giving him a guided tour of the town and surrounding area. He took him into the Main Street Café and introduced him around, and then over to Blaine’s Drugstore and introduced him to Mr. Blaine, the only person in the store at the time and who seemed reticent to break away from his television. His only comment on the detention center was, “They’ll need a pharmacy, those boys.”

After that Tate walked with the mayor, who shyly requested being called Walter, up and down both sides of the street, the mayor introducing him to various shop owners, who all said more or less, “Hey, Walter,” and slapped the mayor’s back fondly and got a warm backslapping in return. The mayor was generally beloved, Tate saw.

When he finally begged off from a supper invitation by the mayor and returned to the newspaper offices, Miss Charlotte was on her feet.

“I’m glad you are back. It’s after five o’clock, and time for me to go home. Leo took the disks for the mornin’ edition up to the printer. We didn’t think we could wait for you,” she added in the faintly critical tone Tate was beginning to recognize. “Harlan used to handle it. Since he quit, we’re all just sort of filling in for the time being.” There was an air of expectancy in that comment, too.

“That’s just fine. I didn’t realize it was after five. I’m sorry to hold you up.”

“I waited because I wasn’t sure you had keys. I didn’t want to lock you out.” She pulled a purse as big as a suitcase from beneath the desk.

Tate felt a little embarrassed to tell her that he didn’t have any keys. She strode out from behind her desk, and he stepped out of her way, having a sense she might walk right over him. She continued on into his cousin’s—his—office, reached into the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out keys that she handed over to him.

She was through the front door when he thought to ask, “Did they find Marilee James’s little boy?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “No. I’m going over to her house now and take some fried chicken.”

The door closed behind her, and Tate watched through the big plate glass window as she walked away down the sidewalk and turned the corner. Miss Charlotte wore an amazingly short skirt and high heels for a prim-and-proper woman. And she didn’t walk; she marched.

He went out to the BMW that he’d left right there with the top down, his computer in full sight. He had figured a person could do that in Valentine.

Making a number of trips, he carted the computer, monitor and then a few boxes into his new office. After he’d set the things down, he stood smoothing the back of his hair. That he ought to be doing something to help in the search for little Willie Lee James tugged at him. He felt helpless on that score. There didn’t seem anything he, not knowing either the child or the town, could do.

He left the boxes in a stack and started to connect up his computer, but then decided he was too impatient to see his new home. He wanted to get a look around while the light was still good. He locked the front doors and was one step away when he stopped, remembering the small grey woman he had earlier seen appear. Was she still in there?

He didn’t think she could be, since Miss Charlotte hadn’t said anything about her. Still, the thought caused him to go back inside to check.

On the door glass of the office was printed: Zona Porter, No Relation, Comptroller. He did not hear sound from beyond the walls. He knocked. No answer. Very carefully he turned the knob and stuck his head in the door. The office, very small and neat, even stark, was empty.

Well, good. He felt better to have made certain.

Back at the front door again, he locked the door of his newspaper, wondering if one even needed to bother in such a town. Whistling, he strode to his BMW, where he jumped over the door and slid down into the seat. He backed the BMW out of its place and had to drive the length of town and turn around and come back to the intersection of Main and Church Streets. His cousin Muriel’s house, which he had bought sight unseen since he was nine years old, was on the second block up Church Street, on the corner. He heard Muriel’s clipped tone of voice giving him the directions.

The town was pretty as a church calendar picture in the late-afternoon sunlight that shone golden on the buildings and flags, houses and big trees. Forsythia blooms had mostly died away, but purple wisteria and white bridal wreath were in full bloom.

It struck him how he knew the names of the bushes. He had learned a few things from his ex-wife, he supposed. He experienced a sharp but brief stab of regret for what he had let pass him by. He had not cared about houses and yards during his married years; he had not valued building a home and a family.

Then he immediately remembered all that he had experienced in place of domesticity, and he figured his life and times had been correct for him. In fact, that was what Lucille had told him: “You need to be a newspaperman, Tate, not a married man.”

Funny, he hadn’t thought of Lucille in a long time. Her image was fuzzy, and her voice came only in a faint whisper from deep in memory. She had been a rare woman, but neither of them had fit together in a marriage. Set free, she had blossomed as a psychologist, mother, political activist.