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E this bracelet in her life

And then she frowned and looked again at that old faaze focused on her mother, Nadine Peck McBride Specifically, she studied Nadine’s right arm, which rapped protectively around the baby in her lap

Eers clenched convulsively around the piece of jewelry

Hertiotten into this box when Emily knew for certain that she hadn’t put it there?

1

“SO I SAID to Arthur, ‘Why don’t we ask Emily? I’m sure she would be happy to help us out’ And Arthur said, ‘Of course Ask Elass and sht at her own cleverness

Ask Eia, the little town in which Emily McBride had been born and raised The town she’d rarely left in her entire twenty-six years

Need a baby-sitter? Ask Emily

Someone to pick up your mail and newspaper while you’re on vacation? Ask Emily

A ride to the doctor’s office or the grocery store? Ask Emily

Need a dress heo door-to-door collecting charity donations? Someone to substitute in the three-year-olds’ Sunday-school class? Just ask Emily

With her fixed shts—or so she hoped—Eenially “Of course, Martha I’d be happy to take care of Oliver while you and Arthur are away on your cruise”

Martha nodded in satisfaction “I knew you’d help us out You’re such a sweet girl, Emily I don’t knoe’d do without you around here”

Well, you’re going to find out, E Then you and the rest of Honoria will have to find someone else to do your “little favors”

But all she said was, “When did you say you’re leaving?”

“Monday And, gracious, I have so much to do in only three short days! You have no idea howcruise”

Of course she didn’t Emily had never taken a cruise She’d never flown on an airplane or ridden a train or traveled outside the borders of her own country But that was all going to change

Fiveher to this town And she’d given herself until the end of the year to settle his affairs Then, finally, she was going to find a life for herself So to find out once and for all who she was and what she wanted out of life She was going to see all those places she’d only read about in books during those long nights sitting by her father’s sickbed