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the middle.
    Not wanting a divorce in the first place, as well as the expense and hassle of one, Brandon had agreed to her terms.
    All of them, actually. But then again, she’d tried hard to be fair.
    â€œI gotta hand it to you,” Ron said. “It sounds as though you two are dealing exceptionally well with your split.”
    Amy supposed they were. Yet again, her efforts to tiptoe around the truth and her hope that Ron would buy her explanation warmed her cheeks.
    Apparently, she’d been able to pull off the deception, because by eleven o’clock she’d signed a six-month lease and had been handed the keys to the Rucker place.
    â€œI’ve contacted a landscaping company to mow the lawn and trim the bushes,” Ron said. “Mrs. Davila said her mom had always prided herself in a beautiful yard, but the place has been going steadily downhill for years.”
    Amy supposed she’d talk to the landscaper about staying on while the lease was in effect. Something told her she’d be too busy inside the house to worry about the yard.
    Fifteen minutes later, she arrived on Sugar Plum Lane. She parked her car in the drive, removed several empty cardboard boxes from the backseat, and carried them down the walkway to the front door, intending to follow through on her part of the bargain. Somehow, that made what she was doing seem right.
    The lockbox had yet to be removed, but she used the key she’d been given to enter.
    Once inside, she inhaled the scent of dust and age, along with the hint of stale sugar and spice. She was tempted to open up the windows and air out the old Victorian, yet she also felt compelled to leave everything just the way it was.
    She was reminded of the dozen or so two-story clapboard houses that had been relocated from various sites in San Diego to Heritage Park and refurbished, the interiors decorated and furnished just as they’d been a hundred years ago, with a rope stretched across the doorways of the rooms to block people from entering or touching the displays.
    But Amy was free to walk through the rooms of the Rucker place, to touch each item that had once passed through the fingers of the great-grandmother she’d never known.
    She dropped the boxes onto the floor in the entry, then placed her hands on her hips and scanned the living room, with its faded blue walls edged with a floral wallpaper trim. Her gaze was drawn to a soot-stained red brick fireplace, where several framed photographs were displayed on a carved oak mantel.
    Curiosity urged her to take a closer look at the people who’d meant something to Mrs. Rucker, and she crossed the room. As she lifted each frame, she studied the smiling images in an effort to see her mother in one of them.
    There was, she supposed, a family resemblance. Or maybe she just wanted there to be one.
    She lifted a brass frame that held a black-and-white photograph of a smiling young couple. The man had on an Army uniform, and the woman, an attractive blonde, was wearing the style of clothing worn in the 1940s.
    There was something about the woman that reminded Amy of Betty Grable, the popular pinup girl during the war years. And while it was a stretch to see Jimmy Stewart in the fair-haired soldier, his tall, lanky build and a down-home grin lent credibility to her musing.
    â€œWho are you?” she whispered. Friends of Mrs. Rucker? Other family members?
    She returned the picture to its place on the mantel, and even though she supposed the framed photos were the sort of personal effects she should be wrapping in tissue and packing away, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Instead, she took a long, lingering look at each person.
    Most of the photographs appeared to be thirty years old or more. Weren’t there any more recent than that? Didn’t Mrs. Rucker have any great-grandchildren?
    The Rossi house was loaded with pictures and portraits of both Susan and Amy when they were young, and now