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  It was a clear day, and the summer sun beat down on Ben’s shoulders. Given the call had come with the detail that felines were at risk, he hadn’t put on his turnout gear or helmet.

  “Look at that! A tall man in uniform.” An elderly woman with short, purplish-gray curls waved at Ben as if he was a returning veteran in a homecoming parade. She stood out from the crowd in her Easter-egg pink tracksuit. “A fireman! And a handsome fireman to boot.”

  If there was a bright spot to working in Harmony Valley, it was that its residents were outgoing and welcoming. And yet, that little bright spot couldn’t make up for the fact that their first few calls weren’t exactly what Ben would classify as emergencies—lost house keys, a stuck spigot, a runaway dog. “Who called the fire department?”

  “I did.” The mayor separated himself from the crowd. He had a thin face made thinner by a long gray ponytail. The yellow-and-black tie-dyed T-shirt he wore over black khaki shorts made him look like an aging psychedelic bee. “Those kittens have been up there for a good thirty minutes. Breaks my heart.” He leaned in closer to Ben and said in a low voice, “And I thought it’d be the perfect time to show the town we have emergency services again after so long going without.” The mayor craned his neck to see around Ben. “Where’s the chief?”

  The truth pressed in on Ben. He couldn’t quite meet the mayor’s gaze. “He’s waiting on my assessment of the scene.”

  Ben’s grandfather stood beneath the oak tree next to a folding table stacked with cans of cat food.

  “Granddad.” Ben gave the empty cage near his grandfather a disapproving look.

  “It’s not my fault.” Granddad brushed white cat hair from his navy T-shirt and looked like he wanted to slink away with his empty cat cage. Felix Libby was the retired fire chief and just as thickly muscled as he’d been when he was active. Now he ran a feline rescue. “Truman wanted a kitten and he got the cage open before I could stop him.”

  There were two furry miscreants in the tree with the kid. One was black with white paws. The other was white with a black mask. They mewed from positions too far out on a branch to support a little boy and too far within the canopy for the ladder and bucket to be of any use.

  “Granddad,” Ben said again.

  “It’s not my fault,” the retired fireman repeated.

  Truman, aka the ginger-haired boy in the tree, grinned down at Ben in a way that made it hard to be annoyed at him. “Whichever kitten comes to me first is the one going home with me.” His expression turned earnest. “Here, kitty-cat. Here, boy.”

  “Those kittens are girls,” said a small, solemn voice at Ben’s side.

  Ben smiled down at his godchild. Her fine blond hair was windblown, and the ankles of her socks were dirt-rimmed. “What are you doing here, Han?”

  Hannah didn’t take her bespectacled blue eyes from the felines in the tree. “Granny Vanessa was cleaning, so I went for a bike ride.”

  “Please tell me you left Granny a note.” Or Ben’s mother was going to be calling him any minute, frantic with worry over where her small charge had gone to this time.

  “Tru, come down.” A petite redhead used her mom-voice and pointed to the ground.

  Several spectators chuckled.

  “But, Mom.” Truman’s wide grin was on a first-name basis with mischief. “I don’t have a kitten yet.”

  “Truman...” Immune to the boy’s charm, his mother was cranking up for a good lecture.

  Ben tuned her out. In his experience, one of the two treed parties—kid or kittens—needed to come down to entice the other to the ground. Seeing as how Truman wasn’t budging, that left two felines to convince.

  Hannah had come to the same conclusion. She pushed her glasses firmly in place, opened a can of cat food on Granddad’s table and called, “Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.”

  Two small noses twitched. Two furry tails swished. Two pairs of innocent green eyes turned calculating.

  “We need to ensure capture.” Ben lowered the empty cage to the ground, put the can of food Hannah had opened inside, and backed away.

  “Kitty-kitty-kitty,” Hannah crooned.

  The kittens leaped from one branch to the next, bounced to the ground and raced to the food. Once they were inside, Hannah closed the door.

  The crowd applauded.

  “Way to go, peanut.” Ben knelt and gave Hannah a quick hug.

  Hannah didn’t so much as crack a smile. She was a quiet child by nature, but since her mother had died three months ago and Ben had become the temporary guardian to his firefighting coworker’s child, her smile had been as AWOL as the man listed as father on her birth certificate. He hoped she’d smile freely when he found the man. He hoped by the time his own father retired in nine months that Hannah would be settled with her biological dad and Ben would be free to pursue a career in fire investigation.

  “Well, now I don’t know which one to pick.” Truman reclined on his stomach on the thick branch, arms and legs hanging down as if he was a lion readying for a nap. “We’ll have to take both.”

  Before Granddad could do more than perk up his silver eyebrows in glee, Truman’s mother put the kibosh on that idea. “I don’t think Ghost would appreciate you bringing home one kitten, let alone two. Old cats don’t like to share their turf with other cats. Time to come down.”

  “Okay.” Truman sounded disappointed, but he did as his mother asked. And he did a good job of it, too, moving quickly and with confidence.

  Until his sneaker slipped and he fell, tumbling through the air in a slow-motion cartwheel that sent the crowd gasping.

  Ben was ready. Arms outstretched, he was in the perfect position to catch the boy.

  And a sneaker to the mouth.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “IT’S NOT LIKE the busy hub in Santa Rosa,” Utley Rogers said in a voice thick with age and cigarette smoke. “But your grandfather and I loved the place.”

  Mandy clutched the Harmony Valley Post Office key ring tightly in her hand. She and Olivia had moved what little furniture they had into their grandparents’ house. They’d seen no one and had been visited only by Mandy’s memories, many of them bittersweet.

  The memories were less bitter here. She used to stop by the post office after school, get a Popsicle from the freezer in the break room and sit on her knees at the interior window of Grandpa’s office so she could watch Grandpa and Utley sort mail and work the counter. When she was in high school, she’d been hired to help during the holiday season, which turned into a full-time job. Back then, everything about the post office was neat and tidy. The outside as well kept as the inside.

  And today...

  The gray wood siding was warped and peeling and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The white flagpole was speckled with rust. The lines of the parking spaces were barely visible on the asphalt. So why did the tire swing Grandpa had hung from the oak tree in back look like it was ready for a good spin?

  “I always thought I’d be the next postmaster.” Utley’s expression wavered on the edge of tearful. He cleared his throat and settled a faded blue U.S. Postal Service cap more firmly on his thin white hair. His shoulders were stooped beneath his maroon Hawaiian shirt, as if still weighed down by a mailbag. “Are we going inside or what?”

  Mandy forced herself to smile as she shook the key ring, trying to shake off the feeling that her life was being shaped by her past.

  Inside, the lobby had the same white walls and scuffed gray linoleum she remembered. Everything else had changed. Dust motes drifted lazily in the sunlight. Cobwebs draped like valances over the grimy front windows and connected handles of the post office boxes like modern-day data network servers. Instead of feeling comfortable with its vacant neglect as she had at the house, Mandy felt trepidation. The building and its operations were her responsibility no
w. There was a lot to be done before it was functional.

  Utley rang the bell on the counter, but he didn’t hit it squarely and the sound was off-key, jangling Mandy’s already raw emotions.

  After Grandma died, the grain mill in town had burned to the ground, incinerating jobs with it. With people moving away in droves, Harmony Valley’s post office had been shut down as a result of budget cuts. Luckily, Grandpa had been offered a postmaster job in Santa Rosa, and he’d found a position for Mandy there, as well. The three Zapiens had moved into a small apartment and tried to build a new life. And for several years, they’d been happy. Maybe Grandpa was a bit grumpier and a bit more forgetful than when Grandma had been alive, and maybe Olivia’s teenage angst was drama-laden, and maybe Mandy had to sacrifice a social life and take on a bit more to keep their family together, but they had enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

  And then complications from Grandpa’s diabetes forced him to retire. And the forgetfulness Mandy had once thought was endearing intensified until no one could deny he had dementia. It had all been downhill from there.

  They’d buried Grandpa eighteen months ago. And during his last few weeks in hospice care, the former Santa Rosa postmaster had received visits from many work colleagues. He’d made it clear—in the moments when dementia allowed him to be clear—that his last wish was for Mandy to be postmaster in Harmony Valley. And every time he expressed the request, Mandy had smiled and patted his hand, certain it wasn’t possible, certain no one would take his request seriously, certain she’d never return to Harmony Valley.

  And yet, here she was.

  Mandy unlocked the door to the back room, took in the state of things and sagged against the door frame. “I’m supposed to have this running in a week.” It would take at least two.

  She’d expected the post office to be outdated, without a single modern feature or machine. She hadn’t expected infestation. The place smelled musty, tinged with the aroma of dead things. The sides of the canvas mail carts had holes eaten through them on the bottom, and would have to be replaced. Animal footprints (possum? raccoon?) ran across the long sorting counter.

  Something scuttled in the corner and squeaked. The sound of unwanted visitors had Utley banging against the wall and Mandy shrieking.

  “This isn’t my finest hour,” she said when she’d caught her breath.

  “Ditto,” Utley replied.

  Responsibilities and deadlines loomed over Mandy like stacks of full mailbags the week before Christmas. Too many people had been passed over for this assignment. Mandy had a target on her back wider than a turkey platter.

  “It can’t be like this everywhere.” Utley led Mandy to the back with shuffling steps that spoke of two knee surgeries. His leather sandals left footprints in the dust. “Let’s give George’s office a look-see.”

  Mandy didn’t want to upset whatever beastie was living in the post office anymore, but Utley left her no choice. She couldn’t let him go it alone.

  Grandpa’s office was next to the bathroom. It was impossible not to glance at the lavatory and gasp. Hard water had made dark rings around the toilet bowl. A tiny frog croaked and disappeared into the drain of the sink. The mirror had a jagged crack that split her reflection crosswise.

  She’d been torn like that as a child. Heart ripped apart by a divorce that left her estranged from her father and with a mother who disappeared for months, or years, at a time. And those rare occasions when Mom had returned? Mandy had been torn between wanting to earn her mother’s love and wanting to be loyal to her grandparents.

  Utley entered Grandpa’s office and pulled the chair from behind the desk. “It was George’s proudest achievement, earning the title of postmaster.” He brushed the dust and cobwebs from the chair, hesitating for a moment as if he was considering sitting there. But then he turned to Mandy. “Have a seat, Madam Postmaster.”

  Mandy pictured her grandfather’s round, patient face, remembered him sitting in that chair behind the metal desk with postmarks stamped on top. She recalled his booming laughter and how he’d say she was a big help to him—whether she was changing the date on the postmark stamp when she was ten or changing his adult diapers when she was thirty.

  She sat, trying to feel proud for having earned a postmaster position before she turned thirty-five, trying not to think about what failure would mean. A demotion. A pay cut. Angrier debt collectors wanting her to make good on Olivia’s medical bills.

  The chair listed to the right, as if missing some ball bearings.

  Utley brushed off a metal folding chair opposite her. “When does the cleaning crew arrive?”

  “She’s already here.” Mandy would need to add specific repairs to her to-do list. Dave, her superior in Santa Rosa, wasn’t going to be pleased. He’d made it clear that reopening the office wasn’t a priority. She had to prove its profitability.

  “You always were a hard worker.” Utley settled in the folding chair with a contented sigh, as if deaf to the creaks and groans of the old metal. “I can’t wait to see how your newfangled equipment works. You know, I have a smartphone.” He produced a flip phone from his blue checked shirt pocket. “Now I understand why people send fewer letters. I can send mail from here.”

  Mandy blinked. “You mean texts.”

  Utley blinked back. “Aren’t texts and electronic mails the same?” He tucked his phone away, shrugging. “I never thought I’d see portable phones in my lifetime, much less all the fast, fancy stuff I expect you’ll be bringing in here. A lot has changed since I retired.”

  “We’re not as far ahead as you might think. Equipment and supplies are coming next week.” A credit card reader. A computer and scale to calculate postage. Stamps, shipping boxes, envelopes. The bare minimum to get the town’s services up and running.

  Utley gave her a proud smile with wrinkles so like Grandpa’s, she had to look away. “You must’ve done something wonderful to have been given this opportunity.”

  She hadn’t done anything wonderful.

  But Grandpa expected her to.

  * * *

  “CHEAPEST WAY TO fight fires is to prevent fires.” Winded and wheezy, the fire chief stood outside the Harmony Valley Post Office in his navy blue uniform, one sunspotted hand on the wall.

  It didn’t help his lungs that there was a wildfire burning forty miles away on the other side of nearby Parish Hill. Ten wildland firefighter crews were battling that blaze, and it was over 50 percent contained. Smoke from the fire tinged the midday sky gray-brown and would for days.

  “Cheapest way,” Dad repeated.

  Ben didn’t care about budgets. He cared about safety. “The town council should have approved funding for a four-man crew.” He stopped next to his father, scoping the empty street like a burglar about to do business. The fire code required a minimum of four firemen on active fire calls, which left them dependent upon other nearby fire crews. And by nearby, he meant thirty minutes or more away. Harmony Valley was in a remote corner of Sonoma County.

  “You’ve driven around town.” Dad sucked in a shallow breath, as if he were simply winded, rather than coping with lung disease. “Our district constituents are old.” Suck-wheeze. His face lost more color. “We’ll be handling more medical calls than fire emergencies.” Suck-wheeze. “Which is the way of the world now it seems.”

  Kitten and medical calls were turning out to be their charter. Once they put a volunteer program in place, they wouldn’t have to rely on Cloverdale for backup if there was a fire.

  Ben took Dad’s arm. “Why don’t you wait in the truck with an oxygen mask?”

  Dad tugged his arm free. “Because I’m the one who signs off—” gasp-wheeze “—on inspections and citations.”

  “You haven’t issued any citations. Only warnings.” In Ben’s twelve-plus years’ experience a
s a fireman, you had to operate by the book or have the book thrown at you.

  The post office was a plain, boxy gray building with an air of neglect. It looked in need of about ten citations. There was a small grove of trees behind it. Beyond the trees was a field with waist-high wild grass. Beyond that was a two-story farmhouse that was more tear-down than fixer-upper.

  “I’m almost sorry I raised you in the city,” Dad said. “You don’t understand the role of a small-town fireman. These people are our friends.” Dad’s glare was boss-man defiant.

  Ben had a defiant glare of his own. Too bad Dad wasn’t looking at him. “Friends don’t let friends burn their businesses down. Issue some citations.”

  “A warning will suffice.” His old man lumbered toward the post office door, his breath sounding like an out-of-tune accordion. “You’ll understand someday.”

  “Maybe...” Ben chewed on the tether binding his sarcasm until it broke. “Maybe when I’m old and dotty, like you.”

  Dad mumbled something about ungrateful sons and fire captains who were wet behind the ears. In turn, Ben mumbled something about passing up a fire inspector promotion and fire chiefs who were softies.

  “Walk with a purpose, son,” Dad said as if Ben was twelve and lagging behind at the mall. “We have plenty more inspections to do.”

  They had a list of overdue inspections as long as Ben’s arm. After more than a decade without a fire department, father and son were playing catch-up on safety measures in Harmony Valley. Ben was trying to time the inspections to coincide with the least amount of traffic possible. Why disrupt businesses and inspect them during peak hours? Why not sneak around on little-used side streets until midafternoon when many of the elderly would be having a siesta?

  Reel in the sarcasm, dude.

  Covering for Dad was wearing on Ben. And he’d barely been on the job a week!

  The post office door was unlocked, but the counter window was closed. Classic country music drifted out to them from the back. Ben knocked on the door that said Employees Only.