The Secrets of Rosa Lee. Jodi Thomas

spoke. “You came back after your husband took you for a ride.”

      Lora shrugged, not surprised even the town’s under-belly knew of her troubles. Keeping up with everyone was more popular than sports in this place. But she did resent his comment that made her sound as if she had been no more than a horse Dan had saddled up one day and then turned out to starve when he had gotten where he wanted to go. Which, in retrospect, was accurate.

      She straightened, leveling the kid with her gaze. “That’s right. He took me for everything, and I had to come back here to work for my father.” She had no idea why she was telling this thug her life story. Maybe she just wanted to get the gossip straight for a change. “I was on my way to being an advertising executive with one of Dallas’s big five, and now I’m fighting to keep the salesmen from putting their kids in every commercial we shoot at the car lot.”

      The youth surprised her by saying, “Well, at least you got an old man to run home to. And don’t knock those ads. Some folks like seeing the kids. I remember seeing you in a few of your daddy’s ads when you were little.”

      She studied him more closely. “Do I know you?”

      “Billy Hatcher.” Thankfully, he didn’t offer his hand. “I was in middle school when you were a cheerleader your senior year. I liked to watch you jump.”

      Lora fought the urge to slap him. She tried to picture him as a half-grown boy watching her but had no memory of him. “I don’t jump anymore,” she snapped.

      “Too bad.”

      He grinned, and she controlled the longing to slug him this time. Much more conversation and she’d be a killer by noon. “Great!” she mumbled, “I’m on a committee with a sex-starved bully.” This might prove no different from her marriage.

      “Hello?”

      They both turned as a middle-aged woman wearing what looked like a Navajo blanket stepped through the door. “Are you both here for the meeting?”

      Billy shrugged, but Lora offered her hand. “Yes,” she said, thankful to have someone, anyone, else in the room. “I’m Lora Whitman.”

      The woman’s smile lit her makeup-free face. Her eyes sparkled with excitement behind thick glasses. “I’m Sidney Dickerson, history professor from the college. Isn’t this the most exciting thing in the world?” She pulled off the poncho and tossed it over the banister. “I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the adventure we’re embarking upon.”

      Lora caught Billy Hatcher’s gaze and realized they had something in common after all. Neither of them agreed with the professor.

      As Sidney moved into what appeared to have been the dining room to set up, three more people entered. Lora knew the Rogers sisters and greeted them warmly. They spoke to her as if she were still their student in grade school. Between the two sisters, she’d bet they knew everyone in town. There hadn’t been a wedding or a funeral in forty years the old maids hadn’t attended. She wasn’t surprised when Miss Ada May Rogers took over the introductions.

      “Lora, dear, do you know the new Methodist minister?” Ada May motioned with her hand for him to move closer. “This is Reverend Parker.”

      Lora nodded, knowing anyone not born in Clifton Creek might be referred to as “new.” The minister had sandy-blond hair and a lean body beneath his slightly wrinkled suit. She’d guess him ten years older than she, but the sadness in his eyes made him seem ancient. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered hearing he was a widower with a small kid to raise.

      Micah Parker offered his hand, reminding her they’d met before at the Labor Day pancake breakfast. Then, to her surprise, he greeted Billy Hatcher warmly before Ada May finished the introductions.

      Billy smiled and slapped the preacher’s shoulder as Parker complimented the kid on some work he’d done at the church.

      Lora tried not to appear to be listening to the men as Ada May chatted with the professor. Glancing at the ceiling, Lora searched for cracks. It would be just her luck that the first day in years someone walked into the house the roof would collapse. The whole town would probably turn out to dig through the rubble for bodies. First, they’d uncover her hand (the one without a wedding band on it) or maybe one leg, all dusty and bloody. One of the Rogers sisters might survive. Of course she would die soon after of loneliness. The town might erect a statue on this very spot to honor the civic-minded heroes willing to serve and die on a committee.

      “Are you all right, dear?” Ada May pulled Lora back to reality.

      “Yes,” she mumbled. “I was just thinking how my clothes are going to get dirty in this old place.”

      “That’s my fault,” Dr. Dickerson confessed from the doorway of the room she’d entered. “I only wanted the door unlocked, the boards removed from the windows and little else disturbed.” She motioned with her notebook. “Please, would everyone step into the dining room. I did have folding chairs and a table brought in and set up near the bay window so we’d have plenty of light. If we’re going to decide the fate of this house today, it’s only fitting we do it on the property.”

      Everyone followed Sidney Dickerson’s lead. As Billy Hatcher passed Lora, he whispered, “Take off your clothes and leave them at the door if you’re so worried about the dirt.”

      Lora flashed him her best “drop dead” look and rushed ahead. This was going to be a fine committee, she thought. Two old maids, a preacher, a sex-starved thug and a professor. And me, she thought, the total failure.

      There were definitely levels in hell, even in Clifton Creek.

      Four

      A few minutes past ten, Sidney Dickerson had all the members of her committee sitting around a card table. Light shone through the newly unboarded bay window that stretched as high as the twelve-foot ceiling. The wide, planked floor reflected the sun even beneath years of dust. She wanted to close her eyes and spread her hands wide like she’d seen worshippers do on television. Feel the power! she thought of saying. Feel the history. In her calm, lonely life she’d known only a few times when she’d been so excited.

      Judging from the group before her, if she dared do something so foolish, they would turn and run. In fact, none of them looked all that interested in being on the committee.

      Billy Hatcher crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair between Lora Whitman and Reverend Parker, who wore a smile that could have been painted on a cigar-store Indian.

      Lora Whitman stared out the window looking at nothing.

      One of the Rogers sisters had already taken up her crochet, while the other paused with pen and paper, waiting to write down every word spoken.

      “Welcome to you all,” Sidney began. “Thank you for agreeing to serve on this committee. We’re here to study the history of a house that represents the very heart of Clifton Creek. We’ve been asked to make a few decisions about the future of this building and the surrounding land…decisions that will affect not only us but generations to come. We alone will decide if the legend of the fine man who founded this town lives or dies.”

      Billy yawned.

      Beth Ann counted stitches under her breath.

      Sidney fought back tears. This house—that was so important to her—mattered to no one else. No one. Maybe they should agree to take the oil company’s money and forget even talking about trying to save an old house.

      The preacher checked his watch.

      “According to my research—” Sidney knew she had to speed up “—this home was one of the first, if not the first, big ranch house built north of Dallas.” She glanced at her notes and lectured on. “Henry W. Altman must have been little more than a boy when he rode in and claimed this land. We know he paid cash for the wagon train of supplies and workers needed to build this place, but no one seems to know where his money came from. Probably an inheritance, since