Timmie swept a lock of near-black hair off her daughter's high forehead and forbore swearing. "Nothin' I can do about it, Megs. You know that."

"It's the only reason I came here," Meghan reminded her tardy. "Since there isn't a beach."

You came here because your father jacked us around enough that we had no place else to go, Timmie amended silently. Not something she chose to share with a six-year-old, however.

"Enough," Timmie commanded, even knowing why she was getting the grief. "I'll see you when I get home. Please behave for Cindy until I can find another baby-sitter."

Meghan refused to face her mother. "Yes, ma'am."

Dropping one last kiss on her daughter's forehead, Timmie resettled her nursing bag on her shoulder and turned down the street for her walk to the hospital.

"Don't forget to stop by the pharmacy on the way home," Cindy called in farewell.

Timmie just lifted a hand in answer and walked on.

The day was a beaut, all high, sharp sky and gem-colored trees. Just enough of a chill in the air for Timmie to have broken out her jacket. Leaves crunched underfoot and jack-o'-lanterns waited to be lit on front porches. The image of small-town America. The fantasy Timmie had kept with her when the streets of Los Angeles had gotten too mean. Small kids on bikes and parents raking lawns and waving hello to passersby. Sidewalks and yard sales and night sounds that didn't include the constant whine of helicopters.

On one side of her, a Mercedes purred to a stop at the sign. Two kids on skateboards in baggies and ball caps swerved right for her on the sidewalk. Weeds poked through the mat of zoysia old Mr. Bauer had once maintained with a nail clipper, and spray paint on his milk-can mailbox betrayed the gestation of a local gang.

Puckett in the nineties. A pretty, Civil War-born town rediscovered by the wealthy white-flighters of St. Louis, a Missouri River port that had supported a blue-collar trade for generations, a dying transportation hub that saw boards go up over factories and train stations become curio shops. The place Timmie had avoided like the plague for as many years as she'd been able.

Timmie might have loved it here, if it just hadn't been here. If she could have come fresh and of her own accord. It hadn't happened that way, though, so she did the best she could. Today, that meant turning her attention to the new granite-and-glass hospital four blocks ahead that shouldered its way into all the gentle red brick like an ill-mannered twentieth-century trespasser.

Without even realizing it, Timmie began walking faster. Anxious for work, where nothing mattered but her skill, her reflexes, and her sense of humor. Where, in this small town in mid-America, the load would be light and the crises manageable.

Silly her, she should have known better. Especially since she seemed to be the one always screwing up those perfect shifts.

* * *

She got her first surprise when she walked into the nurses' lounge to put her things away.

"Well, I give up," she said, staring stupidly at her locker. Between the time she'd left work the day before and gotten in this afternoon, it had somehow sprouted all manner of bouquets, cards, and balloons, bearing congratulatory messages.

"What, you don't like being a shrine?" Mattie Wilson spoke up from the next locker.

Timmie pulled off one small bunch of blue and white chrysanthemums with a card that read "It's a miracle!"

"A shrine?" she asked. "What for?"

"Word around here's how you saved the great white doc from hollow-point poisoning."

Timmie opened the locker door and rained chrysanthemum petals on to the tile floor. "All I did was dance with a tall, sweaty guy. Kind of like high school mixers."

Mattie laughed. "You went to a tough school, girl."

"Well, I was usually the one with the gun, anyway.... Oh, look, this one's obviously from my date."

Considering the amount of personal property that regularly disappeared from lockers, Timmie shouldn't have been surprised that somebody had managed to get yet another bouquet inside hers.

Only these flowers were black. And dead. And the card was sealed. Timmie had a feeling this note didn't say congrats.

Mattie gave a low whistle. "Maybe you wanna get that gun back, girl."

Timmie spent a couple of seconds standing there before picking up the brittle flowers. "I bet somebody wants me to open this card, huh?"

Mattie slammed her own locker shut and shrugged into her massive lab coat, which covered what she referred to as her colonel butt. As in, "The colonel and his damned chicken built this butt." Mattie was as short as Timmie and as wide as Barb, with cafe au lait skin, tilted amber eyes, and buzzed hair. One of the few blacks on the ER staff, Mattie made Timmie feel much more at home in this preternaturally white town.

"It's you," Mattie advised, "I'd throw that trash where it belongs."

"And not know what's inside?" Timmie still hadn't quite gotten around to opening it, however.

Mattie considered her for a minute, hand on hip. "You do have a long nose, don't you?"

Timmie grinned. "I keep getting asked that question. Yeah, okay, shoot me. I'm curious. As opposed to every other soul in this town, I might say." She waved the card at her friend. "Am I the only one asking questions here?"

"You the only one gettin' dead flowers."

"But, Mattie, if everybody's so happy I saved Dr. Raymond, why doesn't anybody try and figure out who from? I mean, that was a gun out there yesterday. Even in my old 'hood that got a mention in the coffee conversation and a couple questions from the five-oh. Especially if the guy who was saved inspired bouquets."

Mattie's laugh could be heard out on Front Street. "You serious? Girl, that wasn't Raymond that boy was after. It was Landry. You spent time out in the real world. You really think this town gonna chase after a nice middle-class white boy just 'cause he pissed some uppity black brother stole his job?"

"Landry?" Timmie asked. "Really? You know who did it?"

Mattie shrugged. "I know the brother fired more'n a few good, solid citizens hereabouts. And I know the only reason you gettin' flowers for stopping that shooter is 'cause Raymond mighta got shot 'stead of a nigger. That card probably says you shouldn't'a bothered, the nigger deserved it."

"Is he?" Timmie asked, knowing Mattie would understand.

"A nigger? Oh, yeah, girl. He jus' wear good suits, is all. Now, throw that card away and let's go do us some sick people."

Timmie did throw the flowers in the trash. The card she kept, though, stuffing it in her pocket as she walked onto the hall.

* * *

It took two hours to score Billy Mayfield's records. By then Timmie had taken care of, among other things, five flu victims, two cheerleaders involved in a senseless cartwheel accident, and a kid with a Jujube up his nose. She was definitely ready for lunch. The only thing standing in her way was the triage nurse who stood dead center in the hallway with a chart in each hand.

"Choose," he challenged.

"Hey!" the prize behind curtain number one yelled. "Hey, goddamn it! Do you know who I am?"

Catching the unmistakable roux of Jack Black and Giorgio perfume, Timmie pegged the lady long before she was officially introduced.

"Lillian Carlson," the triage nurse specified. "Wife of Puckett General Bank president Edward Carlson, charter member of the TipaFew luncheon club, and holder, evidently, of half a dozen pieces of lingerie she forgot to pay for from Dawn's Designs. Dawn pressed charges, and Lillian complained of whiplash."