The Sheriff Of Wickham Falls. Rochelle Alers

demurely lowered her eyes. “Thank you.”

      Cradling her elbow, he led her down off the porch and over to his driveway where he’d parked the Dodge Charger. Seth opened the passenger-side door and waited until Natalia was seated and belted in before he rounded the car to sit behind the wheel. He didn’t get to drive the powerful muscle car as often as he liked. He had driven it to Savannah and back, but most times he drove his late father’s Ram Pickup to and from the station house to keep it from sitting too long. Even though the sixteen-year-old vehicle had more than a hundred thousand miles on the odometer it still handled like new. His father had claimed the great loves in his life were his wife and children, and then his pickup, which he worked on tirelessly to keep it in tip-top condition.

      “How far is the Wolf Den from here?” Natalia asked when they stopped at the railroad crossing. The gates were down, bells were ringing and red lights were flashing indicating an oncoming train.

      Seth shifted into Park, and then stared at Natalia’s delicate profile as she looked out the windshield. “It’s on the edge of town between The Falls and Mineral Springs.”

      She turned to meet his eyes. “Why isn’t it located downtown like the other businesses?”

      “During Prohibition, the Gibson brothers decided they’d had enough of being miners and pooled their meager savings to buy some land off the beaten track to set up a still to sell moonshine. And to stay one step ahead of the revenuers they built the restaurant as a front for their illegal activities.”

      “Were they ever caught and prosecuted?”

      Seth smiled. “No. There was no way folks were going to snitch on them because it would cut off their supply of some of the best hooch in the county. Once Prohibition was repealed, the Gibsons wanted to move the restaurant into town, but several town council members retaliated and passed a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol within the business district. They’d assumed it was their way of punishing them for breaking the law, but it backfired. The Den became even more popular among those folks because they had a place where they could drink openly and eat some of the best barbecue food in Johnson County.”

      “What about Ruthie’s?”

      “Ruthie’s is a family style, all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. Their busiest times are weekends when kids are out of school and also when families gather there following church services.”

      A slight frown furrowed Natalia’s smooth forehead. “Are you saying Sunday dinners are passé?”

      “It is with some families.”

      “When I grew up we had a tradition that the first Sunday in each month the extended family would get together. We’d rotate homes. One Sunday it would be our house, and then it would be one of my aunts. My grandmothers would compete with each other as to who could come up with the best desserts. Most times it was a draw because whatever they made was spectacular.”

      Seth chuckled. “Everyone brags about their grandmother’s cooking. You’ll discover that during our Fourth of July bake-off competition. Around here, holidays are cause for the entire town to turn out and celebrate. We have the upcoming Memorial Day parade and picnic.”

      “Mr. Grand at the hardware store was bending my ear about the parade,” Natalia said, smiling.

      “It’s a big deal in The Falls because of so many active military and former veterans.”

      “Like you?”

      Seth nodded. “Yes, like me. I suppose you noticed the American and US Marine Corps flags attached to the porch.”

      “That and the Semper Fidelis decal on the bumper of this car,” she said, laughing softly. “Is it true once a marine, always a marine?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “What other holidays do you celebrate big-time?”

      “The Fourth of July. We combine that with three nights of carnival rides, games and food contests. Labor Day is a little low-key with family cookouts. Then the whole town also turns out to celebrate Halloween. There are games and a photo gallery where parents can pose in costume with their children. After sunset, there are tailgate parties, hayrides and bonfires with folks taking turns reading ghost stories. It’s the perfect segue to our Fall Frolic, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Once most of the mines closed and kids were leaving to join the military or find employment elsewhere, those who couldn’t or didn’t want to leave The Falls look forward to the town-wide get-togethers.”

      “It must have been fun growing up here with all of the holiday celebrations.”

      “It was and still is,” Seth confirmed. “The adults have as much fun as their children.”

      * * *

      Natalia stared at the passing cars of the freight train, some of them carrying hazardous materials, and remembered the excitement in Johnnie Lee Grand’s voice when he talked nonstop about the upcoming parade and wondered if Seth would become a participant.

      “How many people leave and come back?” she asked.

      She realized she was asking way too many questions, but it served as a foil not to think about the man sitting inches from her. There was something about Seth that made it impossible for her to ignore him. She found his overall virility, soothing drawling voice and smiling light brown eyes fascinating.

      Resting an arm over the back of her seat, Seth exhaled an audible sigh. “Not too many. There was a time when my father was drafted to serve in Vietnam that most of the boys who survived came back to work in the mines like their fathers, grandfathers and generations of men before them. Then after the mines closed, most of those who went into the military didn’t bother to come back because there were no jobs for them. The members of the town council have repeatedly voted down allowing chains to set up here because although it would provide employment opportunities, the downside is it would also put local shopkeepers out of business.”

      Natalia turned slightly to give Seth a long, penetrating stare. “What made your dad come back?”

      “A pretty girl who was in college studying to become a schoolteacher caught his eye. My father had just begun dating my mother when his number came up. He wanted to marry her before being shipped out, but she refused, saying she didn’t want to be a young war widow. She told him if and when he came back she would marry him. He made it through the war physically unscathed except for occasional flashbacks which plagued him for years. He married my mother and because he was good at fixing things, he started up a home repair business. Dad could glance at a diagram of something and put it together without looking at it again.”

      “So, your father was never a coal miner?”

      “No. But my grandfather and his father before him were. Grandpa used to say all of us were different colors when we went down in the mines, but at the end of the day when we came out, we were all the same color from the coal dust.”

      “And it was the same when they were diagnosed with black lung,” Natalia whispered.

      “You’re right about that. Mining was both a blessing and a curse. It provided men with money to take care of their wives and children, but it also destroyed entire families when fathers, grandfathers, sons, brothers and uncles were killed or injured because of unsafe conditions. If you travel throughout the state you’ll see memorials erected to honor those who lost their lives in mine disasters.”

      Natalia remembered television coverage of a mining disaster in West Virginia when she was in her last year of medical school. Experts reported it was preventable because the owners had neglected to install safety systems. The mines may have closed in and around Wickham Falls, but mining for coal, copper, silver, iron, lead, diamonds, gemstones and other minerals was still in operation in the States and all over the world.

      “Why did you come back?”

      “Initially I’d planned to make the military my career, but after eighteen years, I came back to be with my mother after my father passed away.