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split up because of us. We can work the business without you, and if it’s too much for us and we still can’t afford an employee, then we’ll sell it, along with the farm. We should get a pretty penny out of the place, the way real estate prices have been soaring. Enough to last us the rest of our lives. Lots of people are looking to get into good home-based businesses these days.” She took her only child’s hand in hers. “We’ve been so fortunate to have all of you, Martin and the children, right here on the farm with us all these years. I thank God every day for—” Her voice broke.
    “No, Mom, listen to me. I don’t want to move to San Francisco.” Andy told her mother all the personal reasons why, the same ones she had told Martin, only this time she added, “I wasn’t cut out to be a corporate wife. I don’t like charity balls and women’s club lunches. I like it here, with you and Dad and the animals. And I like being a businesswoman again. I’m good at it, and I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. I gave all that up once for Martin, and I’m not going to do it again.”
    “Not even if it means losing him?”
    Andy fought the tears, but when she reached out to hug hermother, they collapsed in each other’s arms. “He … he never even acted pleased about the Nordstrom order,” she sobbed. “I … I have always cheered him on, but he shrugged off my good news like it didn’t mean anything.” She clung to her mother, a little girl again, a little girl whose kitten had just died.
    That night, Andy brought herself back to stare at the face in the mirror. “God, what am I going to do?”
    Are you going to trust Me?
    “Yes, I trust You, but that isn’t what I asked.” At least, I’m trying to trust You. But You have to help me out here, so I know what to do.

Kansas City
    Julia Collins accepted the congratulations of her trial assistant with a smile. “Thanks, and thank you for finding that last witness. She was the clincher. I wouldn’t have laid money on the outcome before you brought her into the picture.”
    “Something just kept niggling at me and wouldn’t let go, so I went back through all the transcripts until I found her name.” Adam Jefferson, fresh out of law school, was also Julia’s latest hire, and she had no doubt he would be a keeper.
    “Well, anytime you feel a niggling, you follow it.” She turned to accept the grudging congratulations from the opposing lawyer, a good friend of hers outside the courtroom. “Thank you, Glen. I can’t say I’m sorry you lost this one.”
    “Luck of the Irish, I tell you.” The man shaking her hand shook his balding head at the same time. “I thought sure he was innocent.”
    Julia tucked a strand of deep brown hair with auburn highlights back behind her ear. “Pretty weak strain of luck, I’d say. Just good work on my assistant’s part here. Adam, have you met Glen Heinsmith?” She kept a smile on her face in spite of the weariness thatnearly knocked her knees out from under her. If only she could fit in a massage this afternoon to work the kinks out of her neck and shoulders. Although she was known in court as the picture of calm, that image frequently came with a price.
    Dreams of her granddaughter, Cyndy, had awakened her three times last night from sleep that was already too short because she’d been fighting to bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion.
    “May I take you to lunch?” Glen asked, a hopeful note in his voice.
    She started to say no, then thought better of it. “I’d like that. Thank you. Just give me a second.” She turned to her assistant and handed him her briefcase. “Please take this back to the office and ask Joanne to cancel my appointments for the afternoon. There’s not much on the calendar anyway.” At his nod she said, “Thanks.” After handing over her briefcase, she turned to Glen and slung her black leather purse over her shoulder. “It’s been too long since we’ve