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day she was particularly rushed because she needed to get the Rodriguez’s paperwork in the mail by three o’clock to meet their adoption agency’s cut off date, or else she’d have to drive all the way to Dallas to hand deliver it. It was already two forty-five. Luckily the post office, like every other civil service in Drummond, was on Main Street, albeit at the opposite end as her building. If she walked really fast, she could get there in under ten minutes.
    She thought about not answering when the phone rang just as she was getting out of her chair to leave. But when she saw her father’s extension pop up in the caller ID box, she knew she would have to. The mayor’s office was only two doors down from hers. He knew she was in the building, and if she didn’t pick up, he’d just make the small walk to talk to her in person, delaying her even further.
    “Hey, Daddy,” she said, picking up the phone. “I can’t really talk right now. I’m handling some important paperwork.”
    “That can wait. I need to see you in my office.” Cleveland St. James’s voice rung through the phone line with austere authority.
    Eva rolled her eyes, resenting how her father always made it seem like she should drop everything at her “little social work job” and come running whenever he called.
    “It can’t wait. It’s adoption paperwork, and if I don’t get it in the mail by three, it won’t get to Dallas on time.”
    “Finish it up after we meet, then I’ll have Berta overnight it for you.”
    “You’re going to let me overnight it?” Now he really had Eva’s attention. Her father was notoriously stingy about allowing anyone who worked for the town to overnight anything on Drummond’s dime. “That’s why all these small towns are going broke,” he’d said the last time she had asked to overnight something, as if every small town fiscal crisis had less to do with businesses closing down or moving away and more to do with frivolous local employees.
    “Is everything okay?” she asked him. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Daddy, do you think you’ve had a stroke and just don’t know it? I hear that can happen.”
    An irritated beat. “Eva Janelle St. James, get in my office. Now.”
    Less than a minute later, Eva dropped into one of the brown, leather guest chairs in her father’s office. Just like the home they lived in, Cleveland’s office was large and stuffed to the gills with leather furniture, hunting trophies, and framed commendations from political, social, and community organizations.
    He scanned her outfit of jeans and a neon-pink T-shirt with frank disapproval but didn’t say anything. They’d already had many discussions about her refusal to wear a suit or even business casual in her position as Drummond’s only social worker, until they had both agreed to let the issue lie. Eva liked to be comfortable and she wasn’t going to budge. Still that didn’t keep her father from wearing his blatant disapproval all over his face every time they met during the course of a work day.
    “Are you sure you’re all right, Daddy? I mean what could be so important that you’d be willing to break out Drummond’s dusty FedEx account?”
    Cleveland heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I keep on hoping one day you’ll grow up and realize not everything’s a joke, but it just doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Thank goodness we had your brother first, or you would be too much of a trial to bear.”
    She tried to keep the hurt his words caused her from showing. She didn’t know why his low opinion of her still bothered her so much. It had always been this way between them, him wondering out loud why she couldn’t be more like her brother, Steve. For a short time, she had actually managed to gain his approval when she decided to get her M.S. in Social Work in order to take over the Social Services & Welfare Office post from her mother, who had been doing the job for over thirty