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row.”
    “This is the mayor Larry Masterson?” Gus questioned. She’d never seen the man, but had heard a great deal about him from Alan and Lydia.
    “The very same. He and Scotty were like brothers growing up. Rumor has it, it was Larry who got Scotty to come back and take over at the high school.”
    “You’re a big Hammond fan, too, I take it.”
    Why someone didn’t simply canonize the man, she didn’t know.
    He took a plate with a hamburger on it from Lydia, who was giving her sister the eye to behave herself, as she seated the children around the small backyard picnic table. Alan was backing his way out the door with their drinks.
    “Everything the man touches turns to gold,” Howard said in his very serious way. “It’s hard not to like him.”
    Not for her.
    “Lydia tells me there are several sisters and they all still live here in town.”
    “Yes, yes, they do.”
    “Well, how many are there exactly? Lydia says there are six or seven of them.”
    “No no. There were a bunch of them all right, but only five sisters, with Scotty born smack in the middle of them. Big, busy family, volunteering for this, running that, seems like they’re everywhere. I’m a year or two older than Donna, so I didn’t know them well. It’s hard to keep track of them all.”
    In an eerie, unexpected moment the wind stopped rustling the leaves in the trees and the insects ceased buzzing and no one spoke as a clear, steady whistling drifted over the fence and filled the air around them like a...a rain cloud, was her first thought, her heart leaping into her throat then hitting hard somewhere near her feet.
    The others didn’t appear to be particularly put out by this untimely development. Eyes and heads turned to the fence as the snappy, happy tune drew closer. She could tell they were expecting Scott Hammond’s face to appear over the five-foot fence at any moment—but was she the only one holding her breath? And just exactly how uncool would it be to shoo him away with a broom?
    The whistling stopped abruptly, and the anticipation mounted rapidly. They waited. No sound. No Scotty. Their gazes drifted back to the table, to one another, then back to the fence.
    Alan, normally a great brother-in-law and the manager of the local fan factory that was one of the major veins of Tylerville’s economic structure, was, unfortunately, a get-it-done sort of fellow.
    “Scotty Hammond?” he bellowed. “That you over there?”
    “Why, yes, it is,” he replied, a little too casually to Gus’s thinking. “Who’s asking?” he said moments before his face rose, dimpled and curious, over the fence. “Well, look at this,” he said—and she was sure he had been for some time. “Howard. Alan. Lydia. Hi, kids,” he said, waving to the children. “Ms. Miller. I thought I smelled barbecue out here.”
    “Have you eaten yet?” Lydia, the dumbest sister in the world, asked. “Come join us. There’s plenty.”
    He made a feeble attempt to appear humble before he said, “I don’t want to intrude. This looks like a family dinner.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Lydia said. “We’d love to have you. Wouldn’t we, Gus?”
    It took her so long to answer that everyone was watching when she finally nodded and muttered, “I guess.”
    “In that case, I’d love to,” he said, beaming. “I’ll put Bert in the house.”
    “Oh, bring him along,” Lydia said, pretending not to notice the look her sister was sending her. “We love dogs.”
    “Well, great. Come on, Bert. You mind your manners now.”
    “Lydia,” she growled without moving her lips.
    “Well, the poor man lives alone. He needs to eat,” she whispered back. In self-defense she slid closer to Jake, her middle child, in case Gus planned to throw something at her.
    “He has a thousand sisters to eat with,” she groused.
    “Don’t you like him?” Howard asked. He shot a quizzing glance to Alan—as if there was something clearly wrong with her if she didn’t