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  Cherry threw up her hands in exasperation. “Are you only interested in women who don’t want to marry you? If that’s your logic, then you should be madly in love with me.”

  “Ah,” Jason said with a smile. “I can guarantee you that that’s not the case.”

  Cherry threw a pillow at him. “Go get me something to drink. And put some ice in it. Lots of ice; then come back here and find the remote control. Oh, Lord, is this child never going to be born?”

  Jason practically ran out of the room to obey her.

  So now he’d been back in Abernathy for nearly a year, and it seemed to him that he’d been out to dinner with every female in the state of Kentucky, several from Tennessee, and a couple from Mississippi. But none of them interested him. He still thought of Amy, still thought of Max, at least twice an hour. Where were they? What did Max look like now?

  “Amy probably has six men fighting over her,” Mildred Thompkins had said just last month. “She has that endearing quality that makes men want to do things for her. I mean, look at you. You gave up everything to help her.”

  “I didn’t give up anything, I . . .” In the eyes of a great many people his efforts to save his hometown were great and noble, but to his relatives and almost-relatives in Abernathy, Kentucky, he was simply “moonin’ over a girl.”

  Whatever the truth was, it wasn’t an attractive picture, and many times he’d vowed to remove Max’s photos from his desk and do his best to get serious about one of the many females he’d dated. As his brother had pointed out, he wasn’t getting any younger and if he did want a family, he should get busy with it.

  But now he had other problems. In a very short time, the president of the United States was coming to Abernathy to see some Arabian Nights murals, and Jason didn’t so much as have a painter. Out of habit, he picked up the phone and started to tell Doreen to get Mildred on the line, but he knew where that would lead. Doreen would want to know which Mildred he wanted, as though he didn’t call Max’s grandmother three times a week.

  Jason dialed the number that he knew by heart, and when she answered, he didn’t bother identifying himself. “You know some local who can paint Arabian Nights murals in the library and do it real fast?”

  “Oh? You’re asking me? You’re asking someone from little old Abernathy? What happened to your fancy big city painter?”

  Jason gave a sigh. The rest of the world acted like he was a saint, but the people of his hometown thought that he was doing what he should have done a long time ago, and they thought he should be doing more of it. “You know that the man was considered the best in this country and one of the top painters in the world. I wanted the best for this town, and—” He paused to calm himself. “Look, I don’t need an argument this morning.”

  “So what’s Doreen done this time?”

  “Invited the president six months early and changed the murals from nursery rhymes to Arabian Nights.”

  Mildred gave a whistle. “Is this her best yet?”

  “No. She’ll never top the one where she had the food delivered on the day after the three hundred guests arrived. Or when she sent the new furniture to South America. Or when she—”

  “Cherry deliver yet?”

  “No,” Jason said, his jaw clenched. “The kid is eleven days late now, but David says maybe the dates are wrong, and—”

  “What’s this about the murals?” she asked, cutting him off.

  Quickly, he told her the problem. In the past year in Abernathy, Mildred had been invaluable to him. She knew everyone and everything. No one in the town could so much as bat an eyelash without Mildred knowing about it. “Don’t put those two men on the same committee,” she’d say. “Their wives are sleeping together and the men hate each other.”

  “Their wives . . . ?” Jason had said. “In Kentucky?”

  She just raised her eyebrows. “Don’t get uppity with me, city slicker.”

  “But wives?” Jason felt that he was losing his innocence.

  “You think that because we speak slowly that we’re some sort of living Pat Boone movie? But then, even ol’ Pat’s changed his image, hasn’t he?”

  So now when Jason had a problem, he knew to call Mildred. “Do you know someone or not?”

  “Maybe,” Mildred said finally. “Maybe I do, but I don’t know if this person will be . . . available.”

  “I’ll pay double,” Jason said quickly.

  “Jason, honey, when will you learn that money can’t solve every problem in the world?”

  “Then what does he want? Prestige? The president will view his work. And considering how often Abernathy changes things, two hundred years from now, the murals will still be there. Whatever he wants, I’ll pay it.”

  “I’ll try,” Mildred said softly. “I’ll give it my best shot and let you know as soon as I know.”

  After Mildred hung up the phone, she stood still for several minutes, thinking. Despite her retort about money, she knew in her heart that the Jason who had come home to Abernathy a year ago was not the same man he was today. He had returned to his hometown with the thought that he was going to play Santa Claus and everyone in town was going to fall down and kiss his feet in gratitude. But instead he had encountered one problem after another, and as a result, he had become involved. He’d started out wanting to remain aloof, distant, apart from the townspeople, but he hadn’t been allowed to, and she believed if the truth were told that now he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Now, still staring at the phone, she smiled in memory of all the women in Abernathy who had done their best to win his hand in marriage. Or just plain, old-fashioned, win him in bed. But as far as Mildred knew Jason hadn’t touched a hometown girl. What he did on his frequent trips back to New York, she had no idea, but he had been nothing but a gentleman to the women of Abernathy.

  Much to their fury, Mildred thought with amusement. There wasn’t a sewing circle, book club, or church meeting in three counties that didn’t discuss what was going to be the outcome of Mr. Jason Wilding’s moving back to Abernathy, Kentucky.

  But, Mildred thought, with a smile that was growing bigger by the minute, Jason still had the photos of Max on his desk and he still talked about Amy as though he’d seen her just last week.

  Mildred put her hand on the phone. Wasn’t it a coincidence that Jason desperately needed a mural painter and she just happened to know someone who could paint murals?

  “Humph!” she said, picking up the phone. About as much a coincidence as it was that she’d easily conned Doreen into giving her the mural painter’s address in Seattle; then Mildred had written him a note saying he was no longer needed. Then Mildred had sent a letter to Jason saying the painter had broken his arm. That Doreen had taken weeks to give the letter to Jason just added to Mildred’s beautifully planned scheme.

  She dialed a number that was burned into her memory, then held her breath before the phone was answered, her mind full of doubt. What if she didn’t need a job right now? What if she refused? What if she was still angry at Jason and David and everyone else in Abernathy for playing a trick on her? What if she had a boyfriend?

  When the phone was answered, Mildred took a deep breath, then said, “Amy?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AMY LEANED BACK AGAINST THE HIGH SEAT OF THE PLANE, pulled her cashmere coat tighter about her, and closed her eyes for a moment. Max had finally dozed off, and it was a rare time of quiet for her.

  But in spite of the quiet, or at least the roar of the plane, she couldn’t sleep. Inside she was excited and nervous and jumpy. She was going to see Jason again.

  Closing her eyes, she thought back to that horrible night when she’d “escaped.” How noble she’d been that night! How full of telling a man that she didn’t need him or his money. How full of romance she’d been, basing her life on the way she thought a movie should have ended—or would have if it had been real life.

  Amy pulled the blanket back over Max, since he’d squirmed about in th