about time something did,” Joe Sheridan said, gulping audibly.
“So long as it works,” Dale Eversleigh intoned.
“Please, God,” Coraline breathed.
“Speaking of work,” Mayor Langston said, reaching for a pen from the utensil cup on Coraline’s desk, “I have some ideas about those grant parameters...”
Tate hung back as the others bent over the principal’s desk, eagerly following the mayor’s line of thought as he sketched it out with notes. Though he was by far the youngest member of this ad hoc committee, his thoughts had gone back in time.
No one could have asked for a better place to grow up than Bygones, Kansas. No one could ask for a better place to raise their daughter. No one grieved the calamities that had befallen their hometown or feared its demise more than Tate. But anonymous benefactors and mysterious holding companies were almost as difficult for Tate to accept as a God who heard and answered the desperate prayers of His children. For no one knew better than Tate how little God truly cared.
Still, as an heir of the founding family—which was no doubt why Miss Coraline had chosen him for the SOS Committee—Tate would do all that he could to save the town. Never mind that he didn’t live within its city limits. A ranching and farming family, the Bronsons lived on a large acreage outside of town, but their forebears had platted the city’s streets, established its institutions, sent their children to its school, shopped in its stores, called its citizens their friends and neighbors—and buried their dead in its cemetery. This was his town, and like everyone else around here, he’d lost enough already. So, he made up his mind.
Anonymous benefactor or no anonymous benefactor, Bygones, Kansas, wasn’t going down without a fight. That meant Tate Bronson would do everything in his power to make this crazy scheme work. The others could pray all they wanted, but Tate would keep a clear head and make wise choices. They’d bring new blood and new businesses to town, and with them would come hope and, maybe, just maybe, new life.
Chapter One
The pavement outside the Kansas City Airport radiated heat even though the sun had already sunk below the horizon. Tate held his nearly eight-year-old daughter’s hand a little tighter and resisted the urge to shake out his long legs and hurry along as they crossed the traffic lane to the sidewalk. He pushed back the brim of his straw cowboy hat and squinted against the dying sunshine to read the signs hanging overhead.
“That’s it down there,” he said, pointing. “Baggage Claim A.”
They hurried in that direction, Isabella skipping ahead. The hem was coming down on the back side of her favorite purple T-shirt. He’d have to ask his mom to buy her a new one to match the embroidery on her favorite pair of jeans. Meanwhile Ms. Lily Farnsworth would just have to excuse his daughter’s attire, as well as his lateness. And the heat.
Lifting his hat, he mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. The first day of July had dawned hot and clear. He hoped that Ms. Farnsworth, being from Boston, was prepared for what she would find here in Kansas.
Lily Farnsworth was the last of six new business owners to arrive, each selected by the Save Our Streets Committee, dubbed the SOS, of the town of Bygones. As a member of the committee, Tate had been asked to meet her at the airport in Kansas City, transport her to Bygones and act as her official host and contact. With the Grand Opening just a week away, most of the shop owners had been at work preparing their stores for some time already, but Ms. Farnsworth had delayed until after her sister’s wedding, assuring the committee that a florist’s shop required less preparation than some retail businesses. Tate hoped she was right.
He still wasn’t convinced that this scheme, financed by a mysterious, anonymous donor, would work. But if something didn’t revive the financial fortunes of Bygones—and soon—their small town would become just another ghost town on the north central plains. Tate thought of the school where he had met his late wife and of the cemetery where he had buried her nearly eight years ago, and he ached to think of those places abandoned and forgotten, so he would do what he could to revive the community.
Isabella stopped before the automatic doors and waited for him to catch up. He did so quickly, and they entered the cool building together. A pair of gleaming luggage carousels occupied the open space, both vacant. A few people milled about. Some wore uniforms of one sort or another; most just seemed to be waiting. One, a tall, slender, pretty woman with long blond hair and round tortoiseshell glasses, perched atop a veritable mountain of luggage. She wore black ballet slippers and white knit leggings beneath a gossamery blue dress with fluttery sleeves and hems. Her very long hair parted in the middle and waved about her face and shoulders. As he watched, she gathered that pale gold hair in slim-fingered hands with tiny knuckles, twisted it into a long rope and pulled it over one shoulder. Her gaze touched his then skittered away. He felt the insane urge to look closer, behind the lenses of those glasses that gave her a calm, intelligent air, but of course, he would not.
For one thing, Tate Bronson did not interest himself in attractive women. For another, that could not be Lily Farnsworth. Lily Farnsworth was a florist from Boston, not a blonde—he glanced back at the woman seated on the baggage—with the air of a ballet dancer and librarian combined. He turned away, the better to resist the urge to stare, and scanned the building for anyone who might be his florist. Maybe he should have made a sign; but then, he wasn’t a limo driver. He was a rancher and farmer trying to help keep his town from dying a slow, certain death. He’d have felt like an idiot standing there with a hand-lettered sign.
One by one the possibilities faded away, greeted by others or disappearing on their own. Finally Isabella gave him that look that said Dad, you’re being a goof again. She slipped her little hand into his, and he sighed inwardly. Of course the pretty blonde was not a ballet dancer or librarian at all. And she’d packed up half of Boston to bring with her. Even with the long-bed pickup truck out there in the parking lot, a good number of those suitcases and boxes would have to go into the backseat with Isabella. So, an idiot with or without the sign. Great. Turning, he walked the few yards to the luggage mountain and swept off his straw cowboy hat.
“Are you Lily Farnsworth by any chance?”
A slender forefinger with a blunt tip and a knuckle so delicate it seemed made of paste came up to push those round glasses more firmly onto a nose as straight and fine as a blade. She nodded just once and rose, brushing at her filmy skirt, a clear blue like the darkly fringed eyes behind the lenses of her glasses. Her ivory-pink skin, completely devoid of cosmetics, showed a sprinkling of freckles across cheeks that bunched into pale apples when she smiled—and what a smile it was. She had perfect lips, wide and mobile, not too thin and not too thick, a luscious natural dusty pink against blindingly white, even teeth. A square-tipped chin on an oval face completed the picture.
“I’m Lily,” she said in a voice as gossamery as her skirts. “You must be Tate Bronson. What a pleasure it is to meet you. I was expecting a grizzled old rancher, not a handsome, young...well...”
She bowed her head, her blond hair flowing forward to hide her reddening face. Tate frowned, not at all liking the way his heart sped up. Yep, no sign needed. He was perfectly capable of behaving like an idiot without any props.
* * *
Looking down at her comfortable flat slippers, Lily willed away the color swamping her face. Honestly, she’d gotten over this awkwardness long ago. Hadn’t she? If only she hadn’t been staring at him all this time, she’d have had more control of her tongue. That and fatigue had gotten the better of her. To get the best price, she’d flown from Boston to Atlanta to Kansas City, which
