Home to Hart's Crossing by Robin Lee Hatcher

softly. “We dated all through high school, and by then everyone else expected us to get married, too.”
    “So what happened? Why didn’t you marry him?”
    “For one thing, he never asked me. He meant to, I think, but he never did. After he went into the army, we corresponded, but then I met Chuck and he stole my heart.”
    “And you had to write Mr. Scott a Dear John letter?” Terri looked from Stephanie to Till and back again. “How awful for him.”
    Stephanie shook her head. “Actually, he’d met someone, too. It all turned out for the best. If he hadn’t gone away, I might not have married Chuck, and James might not have married Martha. They were together almost as many years as Chuck and I.”
    “James lost his wife about three years ago,” Till told Terri as she rose from the styling chair, patting her hair with her right hand. “To cancer. I heard she was ill for a long time before passing. Must have been terribly hard on him and their children, losing her that way.”
    As difficult as losing Chuck was for Stephanie, she was thankful her husband hadn’t suffered. He’d enjoyed good health right up to the end. On the day he died, he’d played a round of golf, come home, sat in his easy chair, and slipped into the presence of Jesus.
    Till stepped toward the cash register. “What’s the damage, Terri?”
    “Fifteen today, Miss Hart.”
    “You need to raise your prices, young lady.” Till placed two bills on the counter, a twenty and a five. “A worker is worthy of her wage, you know.” She gave a farewell wave to Stephanie, and then left the salon.
    “Just give me a minute to sweep up, Steph, and then we’ll get you started.”
    “No hurry. Take your time.”
    Time was one thing Stephanie had plenty of these days.
    * * *
    James Scott stood in the living room of his boyhood home, wondering if he was as crazy as his children thought. Why would a man in his right mind leave the city where he’d lived and worked for more than forty-five years to return to a small town like Hart’s Crossing? That’s what his son and eldest daughter had asked several times over the past few weeks. James had a hard time giving Kurt or Jenna an answer, mainly because he wasn’t sure himself.
    James and his wife, Martha, had loved living in Washington State. They’d owned a lovely home in Bremerton, purchased long before Seattle area housing prices shot through the roof. All three of their children—Kurt, Jenna, and Paula—had been raised in that four-bedroom home, and it was there Martha had breathed her last one windy March morning more than three years before.
    Maybe if his kids and grandkids lived in the Pacific Northwest, James would have remained in Bremerton. But Kurt and his family had settled in Pennsylvania after a series of job-related moves; Jenna lived in England with her husband of five years; and Paula, a divorced mom of two, had a home in Florida. Visits to Washington were few and far between for all of them. James understood. They had busy lives of their own.
    “But Hart’s Crossing, Dad?” Jenna had made it sound like the end of the world. “You haven’t been back there since Grandma Scott moved in with you and Mom. I was still a teenager, for Pete’s sake. Why not move into a nice retirement community? There’s got to be some good ones in your area. That way you can still be near your friends.”
    “I have a few friends in Idaho, too,” he answered her. “Besides, the cost of living is less there, and I own that house free and clear.”
    “Dad, you’re not having money problems, are you?”
    That comment irritated him. Did she think he was in his dotage? “No, Jenna. I’m not. But thanks for asking.”
    His daughter might live halfway around the globe, but James was able to imagine the exasperated expression on her face at the end of that phone call.
    Well, it was done now. His kids would have to accept his decision, like it or not.
    The doorbell rang. James was glad for the