Forty Thousand Dollars and the Deed to Maple Avenue Bakery

it was a quiet warmth in my chest.

“At the diner,” he said, “or perhaps somewhere quieter, out of town.”

“The diner is fine,” I said. “We have nothing to hide from Oakhaven anymore.”

He smiled, a small, genuine crease at the corners of his eyes that I had not seen in months.

By four o’clock, Diana, my niece, was sitting on a low stool continue reading …