“I told him we need half down, which more than covers the cost of the flowers.”

He gave me a tight smile. “That’s my girl.”

I rested my cheek against his chest, the dull thud of his heartbeat in my ear. I soaked in his presence, trying not to think about the dangers he was going to face over the next few weeks. Instead, I had to trust that he’d do everything in his power to come back to me.

I walked Joe to his car and gave him one last kiss goodbye.

“I love you, Rose. Don’t ever doubt that.”

I forced myself to be strong and not break down. “I love you too, Joe. If anything happens to you, I’ll make you regret it.”

He chuckled and ducked into the car. “I’ll keep that in mind. Stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”

“It’s not like I go lookin’ for it.”

He shook his head with a grimace. “That’s the part that worries me the most.”

I watched him drive away, my heart leaving with him. At least getting the store up and running would fill up my time and keep me from missing him too much.

We had a steady stream of customers for the next several hours. We’d hoped to sell plants for fall beds, and we were doing better than we’d expected. But then again, the only other places to get bedding plants in Henryetta were Walmart and the hardware store.

Around two o’clock, things died down so I could get away to measure the New Living Hope Revival Church beds. Neither Violet nor I had thought to bring a measuring tape to the nursery. I had one in my kitchen junk drawer, so I decided to swing by and pick it up on the way there.

As soon as I pulled onto my street, I knew something was wrong. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk in front of Miss Opal’s house, Miss Mildred’s next-door neighbor. A police car and an ambulance were parked at the end of the street, their flashing lights swirling. Over the last few months, anytime there was a vehicle with flashing lights in our neighborhood, it always stopped in front of my house. The ladies of the Busybody Club—a.k.a. the neighborhood watch—had to be confused.

After I parked in my driveway, I walked across the street to find out what was going on. I lived in an older neighborhood, and the bungalow homes on my street were mostly occupied by elderly women. The only residents under retirement age were me, the neighbors in Joe’s old house, and the house on the corner, the one belonging to Thomas’s family.

The elderly women huddled in a tight pack, all of them staring at Miss Dorothy’s front door. The front of her house was filled with several emergency personnel. She lived between Opal and Thomas’s family. Mildred stood in the middle of the pack, not surprisingly in the position of ringleader. She lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. “I knew something was wrong when I didn’t see Dorothy at Violet’s nursery this morning. She’d been planning on going to that grand opening since she found out what Violet was up to. She always loved that girl.”

My next door neighbor Heidi Joy waddled up to me, her right hand on her back, supporting the weight of her pregnant belly. Her nine-month-old baby was perched on her left hip. “What’s all the commotion about?”

“It’s Dorothy,” Opal answered from the ranks. “Mildred found her.”

Heidi Joy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean found her?”

“She was lying on her living room floor.” Mildred’s voice shook. “Dead as a doornail.”

Gasping, Heidi Joy covered her mouth and wobbled.

I grabbed her elbow to help steady her. “Do you want to sit down?”

She shook her head, but her face had paled. I lifted the baby from her arms and set him on my own hip. He grabbed a handful of my hair and promptly stuffed it in his mouth.

“What happened to her?” I asked.

Mildred’s face was almost as pale as Heidi Joy’s. “I don’t know. I just found her lying there.”

A dark sedan pulled up to the curb behind the police car. The driver’s door opened, and Mason got out, surveying the crowd. His eyes landed on me for several seconds, but he was wearing his no-nonsense face.

Mason was here as the Fenton County assistant DA.

“Who’s that?” one of my neighbors asked.

“Mason Deveraux III, the assistant district attorney,” Mildred answered before I could. “He’s from a good Little Rock family.”

I nearly groaned. I didn’t know much about Mason’s upbringing, other than he came from money. But in this part of southern Arkansas, it wasn’t necessarily whether you had money or not. It was where you were born, as well as where your parents and grandparents were born. The further back in the Arkansas state birth records your family went, the more social status you achieved. My family went back pretty far if I didn’t take my birth mother’s Louisiana heritage into account. But then again, only a handful of people knew about my birth mother. I’d only found out about her back in June, and I hadn’t told anyone other than Violet and Joe. My aunt and uncle had known all along.

Mason disappeared into the house as we kept our vigil. I considered leaving since I had plenty of work to do, but I was curious about what was going on. Besides, Heidi Joy still looked peaked, and I wasn’t sure she should be holding a twenty-pound baby. As I shifted him to the other hip, I wasn’t sure I should be holding a twenty-pound baby. I had no idea how Heidi Joy did it, pregnant to boot. Then I remembered that this was her sixth pregnancy. She’d had plenty of practice.