Billy Lee nodded toward the house as he pointed to his drawings. "The way I see it is that we have someone come in first and redo all the windows. They're older than Methuselah, and we need central heat and air. All that bought air will escape out those old wooden sashes. I've got some estimates here on new ones that open to the inside for easy cleaning and will still keep the look of the house"

He already had that "we" business down pat. I forgot all about dynamite when he flipped a few pages and showed me a before-and-after picture in a brochure of a house where that kind of windows had been installed. He had my undivided attention after that.

"While the window people are here, the electricians can be rewiring the whole place and getting it ready for airconditioning. I see you've got one of those little units in your backseat. Guess that's for your bedroom. You'll have to run an extension cord from the outlet attached to the light fixture in the ceiling, since there are no plugs on the walls in any of the upstairs rooms. Gert had one put in the kitchen so she could hook up a microwave. The rest of the house is wired only for lighting."

"Good grief!" I was glad I'd had my hair cut. I would have had to unplug the microwave every morning to plug in my hair straightener.

"If you'll trust me to get the ball rolling, I can probably get things started on Monday morning."

"Fine," I agreed.

With one word I had just put my trust in Billy Lee-after I'd vowed never to trust another man for anything.

"While they're working on that, I'll start rebuilding the front porch. It's a wonder Gert didn't fall through those rotten boards. And all the gingerbread around the eaves and dormers needs to be removed and stripped of all that nasty peeling paint and refinished. You'll need to decide what colors you want to use on the house and the trim while I get it ready to paint. Hopefully we'll get all that done by fall, and then we'll begin on the inside. That'll give you lots of time to clean it out. By the way, why are you living here without your husband?"

"I want the house a soft yellow and all the trim white like it was in the beginning. I want to take out the wall between the living room and dining room and make it airy and light. I want a new bathroom upstairs, so we will need a plumber, and I want a bathroom put in downstairs. Part of the back porch off the kitchen can be turned into a bathroom, can't it? And I'm divorcing my husband, Billy Lee"

"Sorry if I stepped on sore toes. You sure you want to move in here?"

"Very, very sure."

"Want me to carry that air conditioner upstairs and get it running for you?"

I could have kissed the man right between his pretty blue eyes. Billy Lee had simply accepted my decision and moved on. And everyone thought he was an odd duck!

He picked up the air conditioner box as if it was a feather pillow and started into the house. "Tomorrow is church. Shall we begin the work the next day?"

I carried my other bags and opened the door for him. "I'd like that"

He found a long brown extension cord in a kitchen drawer, laid it on top of the air conditioner box, carried both upstairs, and plugged the cord into an apparatus with a plug on each side that was screwed into the lightbulb socket. He weaved the cord around the end of the iron bedstead, under the throw rug on the hardwood floor, and over to the window. In minutes cool air blew into the room.

"Keep the door shut, and this room will cool down by bedtime. I've got a rack of ribs smoking for supper. Dinner at six?"

My expression must have been scary, odd, or plain crazy, because he threw up his hands in defense. "What's the matter? Did I say something wrong? Do you hate ribs? I used to bring Gert food all the time."

Evidently I'd taken Gert's place in the scheme of things. As the wife of a small-town lawyer I'd been at the top of the social ladder, but now I was on the same level as crazy old Aunt Gert. That deflated my ego as much as the news in the ladies' room had.

"No, Billy Lee, you didn't say anything wrong. I'd love to have ribs for supper. Thank you"

"Good. I'll go on home and check on them. They're in the smoker. I'll be here at six, then?"

I nodded.

He closed the door behind him.

I plopped down onto the bed and enjoyed the wonderful cold air flowing over my body. After a while, I flipped over onto my stomach. That's when I saw the old wooden jewelry box sitting on the nightstand. I rolled off the bed and picked it up. It was heavy enough that it could have been holding gold nuggets, and after my bank trip nothing would surprise me. I opened it carefully. It was brimful of gorgeous jewelry that I'd never seen Gert wear and that sure hadn't come from a dollar store.

I picked up a brooch shaped like a daisy with a long golden stem. The petals were white elongated opals, the center a lovely golden topaz of at least three carats. I flipped it over to find a date written on a tiny piece of masking tape attached to the back. June 3, 1958. That would have been a year after she'd married Uncle Lonnie. Why hadn't she ever worn this lovely piece?

A beautiful, heart-shaped pendant was the next thing I pulled out. The diamonds around its outer edge sparkled in the light. The single dangling diamond in the middle was a carat or maybe more. It was dated August 1959. Uncle Lonnie had died the year Drew and I married, and there was a piece for every year up until then.

Why had he given Gert one costly piece of jewelry a year, and why hadn't she worn any of them? They couldn't be anniversary presents, because they'd married in June of 1957, and not all the dates on the jewelry were in June. She'd told me at my wedding, which was also in June, that she'd married in the same month and that I was not to expect a happily-everafter marriage just because I'd chosen that most traditional month to marry.

I scattered the jewelry on the bed all around me. The topaz and opal pin looked familiar; I'd seen one like it before, but where? I picked it up, and then it dawned on me. Daisy Black wore one pinned to the lapel of a black suit almost every Sunday. Why would Aunt Gert and Daisy have identical fancy brooches?

I untangled a pendant with a fine gold chain and looked at the diamond cross and remembered that Patsy Banner had had one like it. She had died a couple of years ago and had passed it down to her daughter, Loretta, who wore it all the time to remember her mother.

A square-cut emerald ring caught my attention. As I laid it back in the box, I noticed the corner of something sticking out from the felt bottom. It was a certificate for the diamond pendant from a famous jewelry store in Oklahoma City.

What a mystery! Either Uncle Lonnie Martin had purchased the necklace for Gert, and she'd been too mean-spirited to ever wear it, or she had bought the jewelry for herself and maybe kept it a secret from Lonnie. If the designer was still living, the jewelry store that sold it could probably tell me something about the pieces. Finding the jeweler took a little longer than typing the address into the laptop I'd left behind with all my other belongings, but the telephone operator finally located it for me.

The phone rang twice before a nice voice asked if she could be of assistance.

"Hello, this is Trudy Williams. I've just inherited several pieces of jewelry from my aunt, Gertrude Martin..

"Just a minute, ma'am. You'll need to speak to my husband. Please hold on while I transfer you to his office ""