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at last, law school. Callie’s mother had understood can’t all too well—her whole life had been spent depending on one sleazy man after another rather than taking care of herself. If the search for a way for the world to make sense had driven Callie to law school, it was Miss Margaret who’d made her stay and finish.
    Yet Callie had still let Miss Margaret go. She’d never been the type to navel gaze; introspection got in the way of accomplishment. Looking back at the most painful period of her life would have hamstrung her, would have anchored her in the land of regrets.
    But she’d never even said thank-you, and admitting it now nearly brought her to her knees. How could she have neglected Miss Margaret all these years?
    Her mind darted in search of a solution, some way to undo this grievous wrong. Her focus landed on thespot where a headstone would stand, and she vowed that it would be a special one that she would provide herself.
    Still, it was not nearly the legacy Miss Margaret deserved.
    In that moment, what Miss Margaret was asking of her with her bequest struck Callie with force. Take care of my people , she could almost hear her asking. That was a legacy that would appeal to the woman who’d quietly given so much to so many.
    Including Callie herself.
    A woman is as strong as a man any day , Miss Margaret had told her often, we just don’t beat our chests or flex our muscles to show it.
    How, then? a skeptical Callie had asked.
    We endure, Callie Anne. We are the backbone.
    Backbone. Callie had been known for being tough on crime, for being ruthless, but she’d taken a shortcut in Philly rather than risk losing her high-profile case.
    She’d had almost three weeks after the end of the trial to stew over her failure, then to worry about complications when the defense counsel had gotten wind of a conversation Callie had had with the sister of one of the witnesses for the prosecution. The sister had told Callie that the witness had an axe to grind with the defendant who, she claimed, had raped and beaten her and gotten away with it. Whether or not that was the case crucial evidence had already been excluded from the trial because of procedural errors made by the police, and Callie badly needed the witness’s testimony to connect the defendant and the murder victim.
    So Callie hadn’t told anyone. Had let the woman testify. In the end, Callie’s ethical lapse hadn’t affected the outcome of the trial—the defendant had gone free—but the D.A. had found out what she’d done, and she’d had to face both him and her own conscience, that she’d been so desperate to win that she’d started down a very slippery slope.
    That was when, out of the blue, the news about Miss Margaret’s death had come. Now she was being forced to deal with her past…and all these people and their problems she felt unequal to solving.
    How could she do that when she wasn’t even sure she could solve her own?
    She lifted her head and looked across the grass. She’d never faced the child whose death she still believed, in her heart of hearts, was her fault, no matter that the midwife had assured her that these things just happened.
    Callie couldn’t stay in Oak Hollow, that much was true, but wasn’t there some way to do right by the people who’d depended on Miss Margaret without miring herself here? “I’ll figure something out, Miss Margaret. I won’t let you down.”
    Then Callie straightened and took the first step toward living up to that promise. As the shadows lengthened, she made her way across the grass.
    She saw the angel first.
    No cherub, nothing soft or sweet or cloying—this sculpture evoked the fierceness in the word guardian . First curious, then entranced, Callie was drawn to the marker for its very difference from everything aroundit. Not until she stood a few feet away did she realize that it was not made of stone but wood turned silver by the force of the elements.
    She knelt and reached out to