Chapter 1

 

Springtime in New Mexico is a tricky season. There are beautiful, warm days that fool the trees into blooming, followed by hard freezes that knock your socks off and mean death to those tiny apple blossoms and potential peaches. You never really know it’s arrived until, oftentimes, it’s gone and summer has sneaked right up on you. But this spring I knew there had been damage when I walked out the back door on April eleventh and heard a curse word from my ninety-something neighbor, the sweet little lady who somehow raised me through my teen years without resorting to sailor language even once.

“Gram?” I called through the hedge that separates our properties. “Everything okay?”

A wide-brimmed cotton hat, topping her fluffy white hair, appeared at the break in the hedge. “My cherry tree is toast. The plums don’t look a whole lot better.”

It didn’t take a glance at the thermometer to know it was freezing out here. I’d come out with only a flannel shirt and jeans and I was already shivering. By noon it would be seventy degrees, but that didn’t much matter now.

“I should have put the fans out last night,” she lamented. “I knew it.”

“So sorry,” I said. “You know, Drake and I would have been happy to come over and help.”

Elsa Higgins is a sweetie but she has the hardest time being dependent on anyone. Even when it’s a simple fifteen-minute chore, she won’t ask. Of course, the forlorn look over the lost fruit crop gave me a case of the guilts. If I’d not been at the office until midnight, working on tax returns, I might have thought to bring up the subject of figuring out how to warm her trees.

“Hey, I was about to put some blueberry muffins in the oven …” Providing I still had that mix on the shelf. “Want to come over in about fifteen minutes and have some?”

Freckles, our brown and white mixed breed dog, heard the phrase ‘have some’ and she raced from the far corner of the yard in response. Elsa and I both laughed.

“I’d say that’s a yes. Come on, any time. The coffee’s already made.” I shivered and opened the door into my kitchen.

“Freezing?” Drake asked, holding a steaming mug out to me.

“Yeah. I had this silly notion because it’s sunny this morning I would put the cushions on the chairs under the gazebo and we could have coffee out there. No way—it’s barely forty.”

He set the mug on the counter and wrapped his arms around me. “Maybe by happy hour this afternoon.”

We were both eager to use the new gazebo, his Valentine gift to me, which he’d built during the two weeks of unseasonably warm weather in February when he had no pressing jobs for his helicopter business. I loved the turned balusters and white gingerbread trim. In an effort to rush spring into existence we’d purchased wicker furniture and were ready to spend hours out there. Late February turned cold again, March was way too windy and now April—the unpredictable month.

“Oh, I promised Elsa blueberry muffins. Do we still have that box?” I opened a cupboard door.

He handed me my coffee and steered me toward the kitchen table. “Let me handle it.”

How on earth did I ever find this fantastic husband? He builds and he cooks, and he’s still so good-looking it makes my heart beat faster.

Freckles followed Drake around the kitchen as he found the mix, got eggs from the fridge and stirred it all together, actually remembering to turn the oven on first so it preheated. He amazes me. I’m good with boiling water for pasta, microwaving a frozen dinner for myself when he’s working out of town, and not much else unless it comes from packages or jars. I’m an accountant, a partner with my brother in his private investigation firm, and frequent helpmate to Drake, who trained me and turned me into a decent helicopter pilot. As a kid I was always outside, rough and tumbling with my brothers, happy to let my mother—and later Gram—handle everything in the kitchen.

As if thinking her name summoned our neighbor, a tap at the back door meant Elsa had arrived. She carried a small jar of cherry preserves, a legacy of last year’s crop which had not frozen. It’s another thing I never think to do—show up at someone’s house with a little gift. I think of it, really I do. Usually it hits me when I’m standing at the door, having pressed the bell. New resolution: start observing the social graces.

She patted Drake on the shoulder, having come from a not-huggy generation. “It smells so good in here.” She was looking at him when she said it. She knows who’s the cook around our house.

Plates, forks, the butter dish and a bowl of strawberries had somehow appeared on the table while I wasn’t noticing. Okay, at this point I’m going to use the excuse that it’s tax season and I’ve had nothing but numbers on my mind for a couple of weeks. Returns were done for the businesses. Somehow between now and the fifteenth I would put it all together, wrap up our personal tax return and get the whole batch in the mail.

Elsa hung her jacket over the back of a chair and Drake took the muffin pan from the oven. I remembered napkins—see? I can handle a few things.

“… at the Delaney house,” Elsa was saying.

I made the mental shift. The Delaneys were neighbors three houses south and across the street from Elsa’s. Since I normally come and go from the north end of the street, I had no clue what she was talking about. It didn’t matter—with Elsa you just wait a minute and you’ll get the rest of the story.

“The twins,” she said, “I’ve only seen one of them around.”

I gave a shrug and passed her the basket Drake had set on the table.

“Those girls are always together and now it’s been months and months, and I’ve only seen one.”

“Which one?”

She giggled. “How should I know? They’re identical twins.”

“Maybe the other girl has left home. They must be out of school by now. Maybe she’s moved away.”

Elsa gave a tiny shake of her head. “Something tells me that’s not it. I’m worried about her.”

A flash from the past shot through my mind—two little blond girls that Gram sometimes babysat. During the three years I lived with her I’d spent a fair amount of time with those kids. Maybe it was a case of sometimes you know someone so well you don’t see them at all. I’ve lived in the same neighborhood my whole life. Could it be that I’ve become blind to what’s going on around me?