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Brian’s saved the injured Daisy, whose seatbelt
prevented her from escaping. For several horrifying minutes, she’d
been pinned underwater.
    He pulled her from the wreckage and
administered CPR, then climbed the hillside with an injured leg to
flag a passing motorist.
    Police Chief Alec Boone responded to the
scene and once the teens were en route to the hospital, he rushed
to the Moore house and informed Erica and Clay of the accident.
    Although Clay met Boone only twice – at the
house and again when he went to the Chance Police impound lot – he
admired the man.
    Erica knew Boone a bit better, and credited
him with saving her sanity one night on Weeping Woman Mountain.
Filled with fear and rage, she’d blamed Clay for the accident,
breaking up with him. She’d gone for a long, meandering drive and
wound up on the mountain road near the waterfall. There, no one
would hear her heart-breaking cries. Boone, patrolling the
township, came across Erica and offered her a bit of comfort and a
lot of advice. Although several months passed before Erica overcame
her anger, Boone’s sage words helped pave the way to
forgiveness.
    She recalled him saying, “... you can’t
anguish over what could have been. I know how it feels to love
someone and then lose them in an accident. You can’t assign blame.
You can’t hide behind your anger. It will eat away at you until
there’s nothing left.”
     
    “What date did you select?” Clay asked
Erica.
    “I picked April,” she said with a grin. “But
I don’t mind losing. I want everyone to be as happy as we are.”
    “Count me in,” Clay said, opening his wallet.
“I’ll take the end of February, when the ice breaks on the
lake.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Bridget and Boone slid into the first open
booth at Frankie’s Diner, facing each other. While Bridget’s eyes
scanned the room for people she knew, Boone read the laminated
menu.
    “I don’t know why you bother,” she said,
lifting her chin to nod at Frankie. She raised two fingers. “You
always order the same thing.”
    “I can change,” he said, winking at her over
the menu.
    Frankie plunked two thick white cups of
steaming coffee on the table. She removed a small tablet from her
grease-stained apron pocket, then reached behind her ear for an ink
pen. Her face crinkled into a smile, her blue eyes twinkling behind
eyeglasses. Frankie, a thick-waisted matron in her late sixties,
kept her curly, salt-and-pepper hair short and while working at the
diner, in a hair net. She looked and acted like a public school
cafeteria lady, which she had been for thirty-eight years. Instead
of retiring, she and her husband, Joe, purchased the old diner on
Main Street.
    The diner had been a hangout for teens during
the 1950s and ‘60s, and the wooden tables still bore the etched
initials of most of the people of Eaton. The green leather benches
had been re-upholstered in the late 1980s, but other than that, and
the microwave oven and soda fountain, the diner remained the same,
frozen in time.
    Frankie added a comforting ambiance. Since
she had slapped Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy on the
lunch trays of most residents also, during her tenure at the
elementary school. She claimed she knew everyone by their first
name, as well as their parent’s and even most grandparents.
    “Afternoon, Boone. The usual?” Frankie’s pen
hovered over the pad. “What about you, Bridget? What’ll you have
today?”
    “I’ll have the soup of the day and an egg
salad sandwich,” Bridget said pulling napkins from the
dispenser.
    Boone hesitated so long, a frown creased
Frankie’s forehead. She shuffled her sore feet.
    Bridget clasped her fingers on the tabletop
and waited. Seconds passed with still no answer. Bridget pushed the
Boone’s menu down and quirked her eyebrow.
    He forced a quick grin at her, then tilted
his head to Frankie. “The usual. Thanks.”
    Frankie shook her head, tucked the pad back
in her apron pocket and