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wraps to the attendant, Kiara directed us down the hall before turning to greet the next couple.
    The ballroom reminded me of the inside of one of the Easter baskets I’d created. Pink, blue, and yellow stuffed bunnies standing guard over baskets brimming with goodies acted as centerpieces on the tables, and festive Easter bonnets dangling from satin ribbons were strung from the ceiling. Garlands of pastel spring flowers were wound around whitewashed tree trunks whose branches were festooned with golden eggs.
    I was so busy admiring the decorations, I missed the reaction to our entrance. When I felt Noah tense, I realized that several women were staring at me with blatant resentment in their eyes.
    Oops! How dumb could I be? He had invited me to discourage the amorous advances of the women in attendance; I certainly should have realized that the ladies I was protecting him from wouldn’t be happy to see me.
    Noah took my hand and murmured in my ear. To the others, it might have looked as if he were whispering sweet nothings; in reality, he was asking if I wanted a drink. Which I did. A big one.
    We made our way to the nearest of the two bars set up at opposite ends of the large room, and Noah got in line. As I waited for him to rejoin me with the martinis—a chocolate one for me and a traditional one for him—I looked around, hoping to see a few friendly faces.
    Because of the Sinclair family’s banishment from the Shadow Bend upper class, I didn’t socialize with these people. But I recognized most of them, having either waited on them in my store or grown up with them. Several individuals nodded pleasantly, but no one made an effort to include me in their groups.
    After so many years, I should have been used to such treatment, but it still stung a little. I wondered for a second if Birdie felt the same way, then realized that even before our family’s fall from grace, she had never been one to hang out with the movers and shakers. That had been more my mother’s choice than hers.
    Just as I was questioning my decision to accompany Noah for the fiftieth time, Winnie and Zizi Todd marched up to me and enveloped me in a group hug. Mother and daughter were part of the Blood, Sweat, and Shears sewing group that met at my store on Wednesday nights. And although neither was the type you’d expect to see at a country club dance, both were passionate supporters of the women and children’s shelter, the focus of tonight’s fund-raiser.
    Zizi was in her early twenties and attending graduate school to become a clinical social worker. She had a quirky sense of style and tonight she wore her carrot red hair in braids wrapped around her head. Her blue skirt, white blouse, and red vest made her look like the girl from the Swiss Miss hot chocolate package.
    Zizi’s mother Winnie was the original flower child, and her fashion sense hadn’t changed since her teens. She had on a groovy patchwork maxi dress, and her long gray hair was a cascade of frizzy curls down her back. I thought the silver peace symbol hanging from a leather thong around her neck was just the right touch, but the sunflower painted on her cheek might have been a tad too much. Still, I loved that neither she nor her daughter ever bowed to the Shadow Bend peer pressure to conform and blend in.
    Winnie had left Shadow Bend to live in San Francisco during the mid-sixties and had returned, sans husband, in the late eighties to have her only child. Several of the townspeople had been vocal with their advice and opinion of a single woman Winnie’s age having a baby. But she blithely ignored their condemnation, gave birth to a healthy infant, and continued to do her own thing. Clearly she had raised her daughter to value her independence, too.
    Stepping back from the double hug, Winnie said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She swiveled her head. “Are you with someone?”
    “Uh . . .”
    Before I could answer, Zizi elbowed her mother, then gestured at