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The enormous hummingbird cake Vern had deposited on the kitchen counter was swaddled in cling wrap. She'd have to take the remnants of her own cake out of the ancient fridge to make room. Sliding it from the wire shelf, she studied the remaining holes in the chocolate frosting—Callie Jane had formed a 3 and an 8 with candles—and recalled her three wishes, the same ones she made on every eyelash, double rainbow, and white horse: to be loved by her daughter, to live in a mansion, and to one day call CJ her husband. One down, two to go.

She closed the refrigerator door and pressed her hand along its side to assess the throb of the motor, like a nurse checking a pulse. Steady. Damn it. No Foodarama fridge for her anytime soon.

Earlier that day at the Curly Q, Barbara Ricketts had been crowing about how she was headed to Nashville to buy a Foodarama, the most expensive refrigerator sold at Sears. With a dramatic flourish, Barbara had pulled out an ad from her purse depicting a beaming woman gesturing to an enormous refrigerator, doors wide open, laden with enough food to feed their whole town of Spark for a week. "Ring in 1966 with a New Kelvinator Foodarama," the ad blared. '"What color should I get, Queenie? Mike says he can't eat anything out of a pink refrigerator, so maybe yellow."'

Posey knew Barbara didn't want Queenie's opinion. That holier-than-thou heifer's only goal was to make Posey jealous. Barbara had never forgiven Posey for an incident their senior year of high school involving her then-fiancé and now-husband, Mike. If Mike had been dumb enough to pull her into the dark cloakroom with Barbara nearby, no matter how much Posey had been flirting with him, well, that wasn't her fault.

She began making dinner, glancing out the window as she worked. A white envelope resting on the ground by the mailbox caught her eye. In her haste to read the garden club news, she must have dropped it.

Hunching her shoulders against the biting wind, she hurried to the road and lifted the letter from a muddy puddle. It had her full name on it, Posey Burch Jarvis, with a return address of Dawkens, Smith, and Sievers, Attorneys at Law. What the hell? She clawed open the letter. Could she come to their office in Nashville in two weeks for a meeting? Why on earth would a lawyer need to speak with me?

Had someone seen her switch price tags at that estate sale? Even if they had, how would they know her name? She nibbled a nail. Had some sharp-eyed IRS employee realized her tax return proved she had shaved a few years off her real birthdate? Did it somehow involve Frances and that trip to New Zealand?

Her head cocked at a new thought. Was her father dead and had he finally acknowledged her in his will? Doubtful.

She pushed back the memory of the day she turned five, crying after she made her single wish on her birthday cake.

"There's still more I want," she'd sobbed.

Her mother appeased Posey by saying, "You were born on the third, so instead of one wish, you should get three."

"Light them again," Posey demanded. "I'm making two more wishes."

After blowing out the candles a second time, Posey dashed out the front door of their Stadler Court home, shouting, "Daddy's coming to get me!" She plopped herself on their cracked cement stoop, shivering in the January air.

Her mother tried for over an hour to coax her inside. "He's not coming," she said, and later, "Honey, it's getting dark."

"But my extra wishes. He's taking me to the circus and then coming to live with us."

Posey bit her lip. How appropriate that her earliest memory of her father involved his absence, not his presence.

She returned the letter to the envelope, making a mental note to record the appointment in her private datebook. This was certainly not going on the family calendar. They probably want to thank me for my suggestion to the governor that he declare Spark's downtown district a historic site. Tourists would flock to Spark, spending big-city dollars in her husband's shop.

She tucked the letter in her purse, planning to call the lawyer's office as soon as Vern and Callie Jane left for the Emporium the next morning. She went back to preparing dinner, counting out the days until she would make the hour-long drive into Nashville. Thirteen. A bad omen.

CHAPTER TWO

Callie Jane

Callie Jane gripped the steering wheel of her father's truck until her knuckles whitened as she recalled what had happened two days earlier around the Humboldts' oak dining table. After Wednesday night church, she'd eaten dinner at the Humboldts' as usual. As they were sitting down, Trace had suddenly dropped to one knee and asked Callie Jane to marry him. Stunned, she had only managed to squeak out, "Oh, Trace," when his mama shot out of her chair with a scream and started hugging Callie Jane. Deep against Mrs. Humboldt's ample bosom, she was unable to articulate the rest of the sentence formed on her lips: "I'm not ready."