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time.”
    Neil’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “That’s not the guy I got to know. He’s one of the main people who suggested I use my display to raise money for charity. And he was the Christmas parade grand marshal for two years running, plus he served on the Christmas downtown celebration committee. Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?”
    Charli wasn’t. But it irked her that Neil had known a different side of the man she’d thought she’d known inside out. “He always—well, he always said he could take it or leave it,” she said.
    Neil shook his head and reached over to tweak an errant light into place from where he sat on the steps. “That’s amazing. Your mom and dad were a force to be reckoned with around the holidays—your mom was a fixture on the Christmas tour of homes. Yeah, maybe their decorations weren’t as—shall we say—dime-store tacky as mine, but they went all out. Your dad even beat me out on the Christmas lights competition last year.”
    Charli couldn’t reconcile what she was hearing with the dad she’d known and loved, despite his flaws. She couldn’t help but mutter, “I’ve been gone so long...maybe I didn’t know him at all.”
    Neil sprang up and stretched out his arm. “Then let me introduce you to him, the man your father became.”
    She hesitated, then placed her hand in his. It was a nice hand, with just the right grip—warm and comforting and sure of itself. Part of her wanted to yank free and run for her house, because she didn’t want to contemplate how she could have missed knowing one thing about her dad. But his hand in hers seemed to reassure her. That, and her curiosity, got the better of her.
    “Okay.”
    Five minutes later, Neil had parked on the downtown square. “Ready to commence the walking tour?”
    On the sidewalk, a brisk wind tugged at Charli’s hair, but her jacket kept her warm in the darkening evening. Neil strolled beside her, in no hurry. As they went, he pointed out various buildings and causes and people that her father had championed. It was a revelation to Charli—she’d known of his fight to keep the hospital, but she’d had no idea he’d worked to revitalize the downtown area or to assist the Boys and Girls Club, or that he’d served on the permanent homes for foster children board.
    “No wonder he had a heart attack,” she said as she and Neil came to a stop on a street corner. “He worked himself to death.”
    “Oh, no, you don’t think that, do you?” Neil peered at her. “Nah, I didn’t think so. It seemed to energize him, actually. And he’d recently taken on a new project.”
    “Yeah? When did he have time?”
    “Come on. You’ll like this.” He started off down the sidewalk toward the rougher side of town.
    She hesitated. “Neil...things may have changed a lot, but the direction you’re heading in used to be a hotbed of drug sales.”
    “It’s okay. It’s cleaned up now—at least a little. Thanks to Dr. Prescott.”
    A five-minute walk brought them in front of a new metal building with big glass windows, the lights on and the paved parking lot still dark with crisp yellow lines. The parking lot was overflowing with cars of every shape and size, none of them any newer than a decade. On the building’s metal exterior were simple block letters: Brevis Community Clinic, and underneath, in Spanish, Clínica de la Comunidad.
    “Huh?” Charli gawked at the building. “What is this? Why isn’t it near the hospital and the rest of the doctors’ offices?”
    “Let’s just say the hospital authority didn’t welcome this addition to the Brevis medical community,” Neil said. “But your dad saw the need for a community clinic. He said that a lot of people were uninsured and couldn’t afford or wouldn’t go to a regular doctor. But they’d come here. He really fought for this place.”
    A group of people came out of the building, walking down the painted concrete block steps, talking excitedly