A Bride Before Dawn. Sandra Steffen

at her friend. “You and Jay have webcam sex?”

      “Never until after the twins are in bed, but we’re talking about you.”

      Smiling at April’s one-of-a-kind sense of humor, Lacey wandered to the metal trash can lying on its side under the stairway. She set the can upright and put the lid on with a loud clank. Next, she unlocked the tavern’s back door and the two of them went inside.

      April’s in-laws owned the busiest realty company in Orchard Hill. She’d been working in the office and pursuing her real estate license since her husband, a guardsman, had been called to active duty eight months ago. She was here this afternoon as Lacey’s friend but also to offer her professional opinion regarding a selling strategy for the tavern. It would be her first solo listing.

      While April poked her head into the empty storage room that had once housed kegs of beer and crates of liquor, Lacey went to the front door and propped that open, too. Standing in the slight cross breeze, she tried to see the place through a Realtor’s eyes.

      When it came to bars in Orchard Hill, Bell’s Tavern had been near the bottom of the food chain. Lacey had always gotten the impression that her dad had liked it that way. Originally, the building had been a mercantile exchange. It had passed hands several times before being converted into a tavern eighty years ago. The ceilings were low, the sidewalls were exposed brick and the hardwood floors desperately needed refinishing. The tavern’s most redeeming features were the old speakeasy door from Prohibition days, now leaning against the wall in the storeroom, and the ornate hand-carved mahogany bar and matching shelves behind it. The mirror had been cracked when her dad bought the place, so she couldn’t blame that for her run of bad luck this past year.

      She thought about the itemized hospital bill tucked inside her suitcase upstairs. Before her phone had been shut off, bill collectors had called at all hours of the day and night. The wolves were at her door.

      “Do you think Avery Realty will be able to find a buyer for this place?” she asked.

      “Is that really what you want?” April countered.

      Sliding her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs where all the money she had to her name crinkled reassuringly, she said, “I have to sell, April.”

      April gave one of the barstools a good spin. “Don’t mind me. I’ve been having serious separation issues ever since Jay left for Afghanistan. It’s selfish of me, but I want you to stay. Don’t worry, we’ll find a buyer for this place, although in this economy it could take a little while. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the hidden treasure your dad mentioned before he died.”

      “I’ve searched everywhere,” Lacey insisted, putting one of the cameras from her mother’s collection back on the high shelf where she’d found it. “There’s nothing here. Even this old Brownie has more sentimental value than monetary worth.”

      “Maybe the hidden treasure isn’t a tangible object,” April said. “I think that’s what your father was trying to tell you.”

      “What do you mean?” Lacey asked.

      April stopped testing every barstool and looked back at her. “You’re in Orchard Hill and Noah is in Orchard Hill. Maybe the hidden treasure is the lodestar that keeps bringing you two together. You know, Fate.”

      “Oh, man, I hope that wasn’t what he was talking about,” Lacey declared. “I’m not even on speaking terms with Fate anymore.”

      Lacey was relieved when April let the subject drop, because she couldn’t have argued about the unreliability of Fate with someone whose husband was dodging land mines and shrapnel on the other side of the world. Leaving her friend to get the measurements she would use in the real-estate listing, Lacey took stock of her situation.

      She’d taken a leap of faith when she’d moved to Chicago more than two years ago. It was never easy to start over in a new place, but she’d made a few friends there, and although her job as an administrative assistant had been mundane much of the time, it had paid the bills. She’d taken night classes and dared to believe that her future had potential.

      Then her dad died and the company she’d worked for downsized and she was let go. A few months later she’d wound up in the emergency room, and what was supposed to have been a simple surgery sprouted complications. Not long after that, she’d received an eviction notice. Her last temp job had barely left her with enough money to cover the bus ticket back to Orchard Hill. She didn’t know how she would ever repay the hospital unless she sold the tavern. So, no, she didn’t care to place her faith in something as flighty as Fate.

      When April had all the information and measurements she needed to pull some comparables and start working on a selling strategy, Lacey saw her to the front door. After promising to come by later to see April’s three-year-old twin daughters, Lacey flipped the dead bolt. She was on her way to turn out the light in the storeroom when she noticed a cue stick lying on the pool table in the corner. She headed over to take care of it, the quiet slap of her flip-flops the only sound in the room.

      There was a nagging in the back of her mind because she didn’t recall seeing the cue stick lying out when she’d been down here yesterday. Wondering if she simply hadn’t noticed, she went around to the other side of the pool table to put the stick away. She hadn’t gotten far when she saw something on the floor beneath the pool table.

      She bent down for a closer look and found a sleeping bag carefully tucked under the wood skirting of the pool table. Her breath caught and a shiver ran up her spine.

      She might have overlooked the cue stick, but she’d swept these floors yesterday and was positive the bedroll hadn’t been here then. That meant somebody had been here between last night and today.

      How could anyone have gotten in? The doors and windows had been locked, the whole place battened down tight.

      She searched her mind for a possible explanation. If Orchard Hill were a larger city, she might suspect that a homeless person was camping out in the empty tavern. She was more inclined to think a teenager or a college student might have done it. That didn’t explain how someone could have gotten in. And since when did teenagers or college students fold things up neatly? It didn’t make sense to leave the sleeping bag here.

      Lacey went perfectly still. Maybe the intruder hadn’t left.

      Was someone here now?

      Her heart raced and goose bumps scurried across her shoulders. Shattering beer bottles and loud voices didn’t frighten her, but this eerie quiet had her imagination running wild.

      There was a light on over the bar and another one over the pool table. The windows on the east wall faced the brick building next door, allowing very little natural light inside. Suddenly, every corner in the room seemed too dark and every doorway a potential hiding place for someone lurking menacingly in the shadows.

      From behind her came a soft thud. Her hand flew to her mouth and her breath lodged in her throat.

      The sound came again. It was a footstep—she was sure of it—followed by the creak of a floorboard. She spun around. And saw Noah pause just inside the back door.

      “Oh! It’s you,” she said on a gasp.

      Noah came closer, one thumb hitched in the front pocket of low-slung jeans. The fingers of his other hand were curled around the handle of an infant carrier.

      His eyes were in shadow, but one corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless grin. “The door was open so I didn’t knock. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I came here to tell you I’m sorry. I guess I should apologize for scaring the daylights out of you while I’m at it.”

      Prying the cue stick out of her clenched hands, she laid it on the table where she’d found it. She carefully wound her way around small tables with mismatched chairs, and arrived at the bar shortly after him. She was glad when he started talking, because she would have had a hard time getting anything past the knot in her vocal cords.

      “There’s