Chapter 1
Sage
Sage Everton held the jar of raspberry jam up to the sun, and the red-filtering light came through and whacked her in the eye like Christmas in July. White and yellow seeds studded the glass jar. Dad would absolutely drool over this as a birthday gift. Perfect. Just like this day at the park.
“How much?” she asked the Raspberry Days booth girl—who was wearing a hat crocheted to look like a giant raspberry.
“Ten dollars a pint, three for twenty.” The girl in the lawn chair didn’t look up from her phone.
“You can’t pay that much.” Kennedy whipped the jar out of Sage’s hand and set it back on the table. “My stepmother’s entire back yard is full of raspberry bushes. I’ll make you some jam if the birds haven’t foraged them all. Ten dollars? That’s highway robbery.”
“You don’t make jam.” Sage picked up the bottle again and away from her best friend’s swiping reach. “And isn’t it weird to call her your stepmother when she’s only two years older than we are? Besides, when on earth would you have time to make jam? You work full time at the region’s largest hospital and come to Mendon on the weekends to watch your step-siblings.”
“Point taken.” Kennedy had a life working at a medical clinic in Reedsville, but she came home as often as possible—partly to babysit, and partly to hang out with Sage, now that Sage was back in this part of the state.
Sage wasn’t complaining.
“Hold up, Buffy.” Kennedy whipped a Kleenex out of her diaper bag to wipe the four-year-old’s nose. “That’s better.” She turned back to Sage. “I heard Dr. Parrish died.”
“Sad.” Especially sad since that meant one less doctor in a town already low on doctors. “I wonder what will happen to Parrish Medical.” His clinic was vital to a huge number of patients. Where would they go if it closed?
“Seriously? Even I know this. You live here. You should be the first one to hear these things, not me.”
“I haven’t been scheduled at the hospital for a week or so.” Because anesthesiologist Dr. Babbage had hogged all the surgeries. Again.
“Well, my mom says Parrish’s stepson is taking over the clinic. And that he’s single.” Kennedy’s eyebrow shot up suggestively.
Sage nearly dropped her purse—and the bottles of jam she was inspecting. “Stop it. Not you, too.” Everyone was on her case to date, but Sage knew how wrong that would be.
“Are you buying or browsing?” the booth-girl asked, popping her gum.
“I’ll take six.” Sage handed Raspberry Beret girl two twenties.
“Six! Are you made of money?” Kennedy pushed Sage’s wallet back into her purse.
“Today I am.” Sage wasn’t about to tell Kennedy—or anyone—about the insurance payout that allowed her to be generous now and then. “It’s my dad’s birthday. He loves raspberry jam.”
“Bah! Dollars to doughnuts it’s for your solo Netflix binge tonight.”
“It’s not going to be solo. I’ll have my boyfriend, Orville, there.”
“Orville.” Kennedy’s eyes lit up a second then dimmed. “Oh, not the octogenarian spokes-model for the microwave popcorn.”
“Orville is the original hipster. He wore a bow-tie before bow-ties were cool.”
“And don’t say you call him Mr. Redenbacher when you want to get a little closer.” Kennedy pulled a Froot Loop out of Buddy’s ear, where it had been diligently shoved. “Shouldn’t you be done putting cereal in there by your age, pal?”
They passed a booth selling freeze-dried raspberries.
“Orville always lets me pick the movie.”
“This is pathetic, Sage. You’ve been single for a year and a half.”
“I’m not single.” Widowed wasn’t the same as single.
“You’re not wearing Leo’s ring anymore.”
No, she wasn’t. For a lot of reasons. In fact, she’d taken it off the day Leo died. “I’m a nurse. Nurses can’t wear rings. Safety issues.”