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first title in her new Hawthorn Press Mystery imprint. Can you believe it, Joey?
It’s not that much money, but it’s a start.”
He leaned across the table and kissed her full on the lips. A few nearby diners looked askance.
“Yeah,” Daisy Maxwell added as she walked by, carrying a tray laden with glasses of iced tea. “You keep that up, Butch Dixon, and you’ll make all the other women in here jealous.”
But Butch’s infectiously happy mood was catching.
“I can’t believe it, Butch. This is wonderful!”
“You can’t believe it,” Butch returned. “Just wait until I tell my mother. She always told me I’d never amount to anything. When she finds out I’m going to be published, she’ll be amazed.”
“I’m not,” Joanna said with a smile. “When does it come out?”
“September of next year.”
“Over a year away?” Joanna asked. “It takes that long? That’s even longer than it takes to have a baby.”
“I guess so,” Butch agreed.
“So what are the love birds having today?” Daisy asked, stopping at their booth.
“The special is all-you-can-eat machaca tacos, five ninety-nine. And for the tenderhearted …” she added, peering pointedly over her glasses at Joanna “for them, I’ve got a nice new batch of chicken noodle soup.”
Joanna looked at Butch and realized she was suddenly feeling better. “Today,” she said, “I’m going for gusto and grabbing the machaca.”
“Me, too,” Butch said, beaming. “Whatever the lady’s having, I’ll have the same, and don’t spare the salsa.”
Minutes later, Joanna bit into the crunchy tortilla shell on the 363
first of three delectable tacos. “So how did the board meeting go?” Butch asked.
“It was fine,” Joanna said.
“Really?” Butch gave her a searching look. “After everything that’s happened, for a change Charlie Neighbors didn’t give you too much grief?”
A lot had happened. In terms of Cochise County, the human death toll for the last week and a half was off the charts. As far as Charlie Neighbors was concerned, those deaths weren’t worth mentioning. What counted for him were the votes that could be delivered to an opponent by the group protesting the deaths of Carol Mossman’s dogs.
Ever since his appointment to the board of supervisors, Charles Longworth Neighbors had made Joanna’s life miserable. Only today had she realized that he wasn’t nearly as all-powerful as she had once assumed him to be. And the next time Sheriff Brady had to go up against him in defense of her department, she wouldn’t be nearly as intimidated.
“No,” Joanna said, giving her husband a thoughtful smile, “when it comes to grief and Charlie Neighbors, today was my day to dish it out.”
After that, she lapsed into silence. “You’re awfully quiet,” Butch said finally.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Joey. I know you better than that. Tell me.”
“I drove past the ballpark this morning,” she said. “There’s already a For Sale sign posted on the Adams place.”
Butch shrugged. “Makes sense to me,” he said. “If I were Denny Adams, I’d do the same thing. Take Nathan and go somewhere else-preferably someplace far enough away that nobody
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knows anything about what’s happened. If Nathan tried to go back to school here in the fall, the other kids would eat him alive.”
“Yes,” Joanna agreed, “I’m sure you’re right. And I’m sure, too, that’s why Stella did what she did-to protect Nathan-to keep her son’s friends from learning the truth about who he is and where he came from.”
“You have to give the woman some credit,” Butch said. “Regardless of who Nathan’s father was, Stella Adams obviously loved her child more than she loved life itself.
I’m not sure how that works, though,” he added with a frown.
“How what works?”
“How is it possible that the process of becoming a mother can also turn someone into a killer?”
“It’s not that hard to understand,” Joanna told him. “Motherhood changes you. From the moment you hold that baby in your arms, you’re a different person from who you were before. You turn into …” She paused, searching for words.
“A tigress defending her young?” Butch offered.
Joanna nodded. “Something like that,” she said.
