He might be winning her heart before she even knows who he is…
Welcome to Blessings, Georgia, the small town with a big heart! Anyone from a small town can tell you that gossip never stays quiet for long. The biggest news lately is Ruby Dye: she's been receiving gifts from a secret admirer. But Ruby isn't sure she can trust this newfound happiness. Nobody knows the dark secrets she keeps about her life before she arrived in Blessings. Is this the beginning of a would-be romance, or is she the target of something more sinister?
Everyone admires Ruby and her determination to do the right thing, especially local lawyer "Peanut" Butterman. He's finally ready to tell her how he feels. But when trouble arrives on Ruby's doorstep and their little town is threatened, Peanut may have to prove himself in ways he never imagined.
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Chief
Pittman drove through town with lights flashing, then pulled into the alley
behind the bar to the small, clapboard house.
There was no smoke
coming out of the fireplace, no lights on anywhere inside, and when he saw the
front door open and a tall, gangly boy and a huge bloodhound emerging, he
jumped out to open the back door of his cruiser.
As he did, a woman
followed them out. She was blue from cold and shivering. She coughed, then
couldn’t stop. Then the boy approached and held out his hand.
“I’m Charlie Conroy,
Sir. Thank you for calling.”
Lon wondered how
desperate they were and then decided to deal with that later.
“You can put your dog
in the back and ride up front with me.”
“Yes sir,” Charlie
said, loaded up Booger, then got into the front seat.
Lon turned around.
“Mrs. Conroy, I’m Chief
Pittman. Thank you for allowing your boy to help us. I’ll have him back as soon
as possible, okay?”
“Yes, it’s okay,” she
said.
And then another little
voice piped up, and Lon saw a tiny little girl standing in the doorway, also
wearing her coat over her clothes. She was crying.
“Mommy, Mommy, I’m
cold.”
“I have to go,” Alice
said, and ran back to the doorway, picked up the little girl and disappeared
into the house, shutting the door behind her as she went.
Lon got in. The boy was
already buckled up.
“We’re going straight
to the nursing home.”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie
said, his heartbeat jumping as the Chief drove away.
“So what’s going on at
your house? Don’t you have any heat?”
“We don’t have any
utilities, sir. We got cut off.”
“When was this?” Lon
asked.
“Oh, a few days ago,
but I’ll get the money earned to get them back on.”
“Is this why you put
out the fliers?” Lon asked.
Charlie nodded.
“That was very
industrious. How old are you?” Lon said.
“I’m twelve, but I am
the man of the family now,” Charlie said, and then turned his head as they
passed the school, looking at it with a mixture of longing and despair.
Another two blocks and
he pulled up in front of the nursing home. One of his deputies was already
there gathering info, while the other one on duty was back at the station.
People were gathering here as the news had spread, ready to help search.
“Here we go,” Lon said,
as he pulled up and parked. “You get your hound and follow me.”
“Yes sir,” Charlie
said, and leaped out, grabbed Booger’s leash, and took off after the Chief.
Nathan Rose, the
nursing home administrator, was trying not to panic as he explained what he
knew to the Deputy, Ralph Herman.
“We’ve never had this
happen before,” Nathan said. “We lock the doors at night and everything. Wanda
is the one who discovered her absence.”
Ralph eyed the aide in
purple scrubs. She looked to be in her late twenties, and she also looked
scared to death, like someone was going to lay the blame of this on her.
“So, Wanda, how did you
know she was missing?” Ralph asked.
“She wasn’t in her bed
when I came on duty at six a.m., so I went looking for her, assuming she’d just
fallen asleep somewhere else inside the building. They do that sometimes, but I
couldn’t find her. That’s when we all began to search. She’s not here.”
“Were there any
unlocked doors?” Ralph asked.
Willa’s shoulders
slumped.
“The one from the
kitchen leading out into the back alley. There’s an extra lock up high. She’s
so little, I don’t know how she reached to open it.”
“Either someone helped
her, or it was unintentionally left unlocked,” Nathan said. “It’s the only
explanation.”
“Have you notified her
next of kin?” the deputy asked.
“She doesn’t have any,”
Nathan said. “She brought herself here three years back and hasn’t had a
visitor from outside Blessings, since.”
At that point, the
Chief walked up and didn’t waste time explaining.
“Nathan, I need
something that belongs to Gertie...something that would have her scent on
it...like her shoes... of a piece of her clothing...something that hasn’t yet
been washed.”
Nathan saw the boy and
the bloodhound and didn’t ask questions.
“Wanda, you heard him.
Bring something that will have Gertie’s scent on it.”
Wanda turned and ran
into the building as the deputy recognized the boy.
“Hey, that’s the kid
from the flyer,” he said, then glanced at Lon. “Good call, Chief.”
“If it works, we can
all thank Peanut Butterman. It was his suggestion.”
Charlie had outgrown
his coat months ago, and had been wearing his Daddy’s clothes all winter, but
he didn’t have a coat. It had burned up in the explosion. He shivered slightly
as he waited, thinking nothing of the discomfort because it had become the
norm, but Lon saw it.
“Be right back,” he
said, and jogged toward his cruiser, popped the trunk and then came back with a
heavy, fleece-lined flannel jacket. “Put this on,” he said, as he handed it to
Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes widened.
“I might get it dirty.”
“Son, it’ll wash,” Lon
said. “Put it on.”
Charlie didn’t argue.
The warmth that enveloped him was so welcome it brought tears to his eyes.
“I thank you,” Charlie
whispered.
Lon patted the boy’s
shoulder as Wanda came running back holding a pair of cotton socks.
“Gertie wore these
yesterday. They were still in her shoes. Will this work?”
Lon glanced at Charlie,
who nodded.
“They’ll do just fine,”
Charlie said, then glanced at Lon. “Are you ready, Chief?”
Lon glanced around at
the small crowd of people who’d gathered to help search.
“We’re going to try
this first before we send everyone out in differing directions. If some of you
want to go home, you’re welcome. But if there are any who want to follow us and
the hound, then fan out in a grid behind him and do your best to keep up.”
A few waved and headed
back to their cars, but a good dozen of them stayed.
Lon heard one searcher
call out.
“That hound won’t
track. I reckon the rain has washed out her tracks and scent.”
“We’ll see,” Lon said,
and watched as Charlie Conroy got down on one knee and shoved the socks up
under Booger’s nose.
As he did, the hound
began to whine, as if sensing he’d just be given a task.
“Hunt, Booger! Hunt!”
Charlie said.
The massive bloodhound
lifted his head, sniffing the air, then put nose to ground and moved toward the
back of the building with Charlie hanging onto the leash. The moment they
reached the back door, Booger bayed.
“He’s on the scent,”
Charlie cried, and off they went, through two blocks of housing, across the
baseball field and then up into the woods, with the cops and the searchers
behind them.
Born on a small southeastern island in Alaska and raised in southern Oregon, Alexandria Bishop is a PNW girl at heart. By day, she goes to battle with a tiny dictator aka her toddler and by night, she can be found typing ALL the words of her contemporary romance novels accompanied by a glass of wine or two ;)
When she’s not in mommy or author mode, she can be found drinking copious amounts of cold brew coffee, bingeing her latest obsession on Netflix, or attending concerts of her favorite pop-punk bands. 
