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trucks.
    “You’re just in time for dinner,” Maggie said, coming from the innkeeper’s quarters to greet me.
    “No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to intrude,” I said, my empty stomach kicking.
    “No intrusion. I always make more than three people can eat in a week.” She pulled me into her side of the house, through the sitting area and into the dining room.
    Maggie’s daughter—I couldn’t think of her name—sat at the table, the mangled side of her face turned away from me. The cocoa-spiller from the diner was next to her.
    “Sarah, you’ve met my daughter, Beth. And that’s my son, Jack. This is Sarah Graham. She’s staying here a few days.”
    “I hope you’re feeling better,” Beth said cheerfully.
    “Ah, yes, thank you,” I replied, sitting down across from Jack. Now hatless, his lips smeared with some sort of balm, he looked like the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind meeting in a dark bedroom.
    “I hope your hand is feeling better,” he added.
    I wiggled my fingers in front of him. “I’m fine. No lawsuit.”
    I piled my plate with ham and potatoes and, while listening to the gentle banter the Watsons tossed around the table, remembered why I hated family dinners.
    I’d never had them.
    “It’s supposed to snow again tonight,” Beth said.
    Maggie sighed. “It seems like each year the snow comes sooner and deeper. Oh, Sarah, Luke’s truck was brought over for you.”
    “Which one is it?” I asked.
    “The black one,” Maggie said.
    “The cops didn’t call here about my car, did they?”
    Maggie shook her head and declared, “People today just don’t have the fear of the Lord like they used to. Speaking of that, have you written your sermon yet, Jack?”
    Jack sighed. “Not nearly.”
    “Well, last Sunday’s was very good,” Maggie said.
    “Not just good. Beautiful,” Beth insisted.
    I looked at Jack. He shrugged. “It was okay.”
    “Jack’s the town’s pastor,” Maggie said, voice alight with pride.
    “Oh?” A preacher. It figured. “What was your sermon on?” I asked politely, to keep the conversation moving.
    “The church at Philadelphia. Small but faithful.”
    Whatever that meant. Then I recalled the conversation I overheard at the diner. “Are you the only minister in town?”
    “Well, I suppose. There’s Reverend Joseph, but he’s been retired about five years now,” Jack said, picking up his glass.
    “So you’re the one that Ima-Louise Saltzman’s daughter has a thing for.”
    Jack choked, milk dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He covered his lips with his napkin and, after managing to swallow, coughed several more times. Maggie and Beth laughed.
    “I told you,” Beth said. “Everyone in Jonah knows that Patty is still nuts about you.”
    “But how does she know?” Jack demanded.
    “Small town, news travels fast,” I said.
    “I’d say,” he grumbled, wiping beads of milk off his sweater. I wondered if he’d ever had a beer. Or a date.
    “Well, since you seem to know so much about me, what about you?” Jack asked. “How long will you be part of this very wonderful, very small town?”
    I hesitated, juggling several creative responses before I finally settled on the truth. “It looks like I’ll be here a little longer than first expected. Through the winter, actually.”
    The three exchanged quick glances, and Maggie pushed away from the table. “How about dessert? I made pie.”
    “I’ll help you,” Beth said, picking up some of the dirty dishes and following her mother into the kitchen.
    “Was it something I said?” I quipped.
    Jack smiled, kind but tired. He’d never had braces. “They think that because I’m a pastor, I always know the right words.”
    “Do you?”
    “No,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Obviously, we all knew Luke.”
    “Obviously.”
    Jack bit his lip. I should have been nice to him, but I was in no mood for charity. He shifted in his chair, looking like a five-year-old boy who’d been caught