aisy drove to work on automatic pilot. Luckily she had no stop signs to worry about and only one traffic light: one of the benefits of small-town life. She lived only five blocks from the library and, to save the environment, often walked to work if the weather was good, but the rain was still pouring down and during the summer the heat always got the best of her conscience anyway Her brain fizzed with plans, and before she put her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk, she took out the sheet of paper on which she had scribbled the items she needed to tackle, to study them again. Her mother and Aunt Jo had been bubbling with excitement, adding their own ideas, and after careful thought they had all agreed that she should take care of the big-ticket items first. She had a healthy balance in her checking account, due to living with her mother and Aunt Jo and sharing expenses with them, not that the groceries and utilities ever amounted to that much, and the old house was long since paid for. Her car was an eight-year-old Ford, financed for three years, so she hadn't even had a car payment for the past five years. The salary of a smalltown librarian wasn't great, even though she was director of the library, which was a glorified title that didn't amount to anything, since the mayor's office retained hiring and firing authority; she got to choose which books the library bought with its less-than-impressive budget, and that was about it. But when you put at least half, sometimes more, of even an unimpressive salary into savings every year, it added up. She had even begun investing in the stock market, after carefully researching her chosen companies on the Internet, and done very well, if she did say so herself. Not that Warren Buffett had any reason for jealousy, but she was proud of her nest egg.

The bottom line was, she could easily afford a place of her own. However, there weren't very many places available for rent in Hillsboro, Alabama. She could always move to one of the larger towns, Scottsboro or Fort Payne, but she wanted to stay close. Her sister had already moved to Huntsville, and though that wasn't really all that far, about an hour's drive, it still wasn't the same as living in the same town. Besides, Temple Nolan, the mayor, had a real obsession about hiring only Hillsboro citizens for municipal jobs, a policy that Daisy approved of. She could hardly ask him to make an exception in her case. She would just have to find some place here in Hillsboro to live.

Hillsboro had only a small weekly newspaper that came out every Friday, but last week's edition was still on her desk. She folded it open to the advertisement section—one page—and quickly scanned down the columns. She noticed that someone had found a calico cat over on Vine Street, and Mrs. Washburn was looking for someone to help take care of her father-in-law, who was ninety-eight and liked to take off his clothes at the odd-

est times, such as when anyone else was around. Rentals, rentals... She found the small section and quickly skimmed down it. There were eight listings, more than she had expected.

One address was familiar, and she dismissed that rental immediately; it was an upstairs room in Beulah Wilson's house, and everyone in town knew Beulah invaded her boarders' privacy whenever she liked, searching the rooms as if she were a drug dog sniffing out tons of cocaine, then gossiping with her cronies about whatever she found. That was how the whole town knew Miss Mavis Dixon had a box full of early Playgirl magazines, but Miss Mavis was so hateful and generally disliked that everyone agreed that the centerfolds were as close as she was ever likely to get to male genitalia.

No way would Daisy ever live in Beulah Wilson's house.

That left seven possibilities.

"Vine Street," she muttered, reading the next listing. That would probably be the Simmonses' small apartment over their detached garage. Hmm, that wouldn't be a bad choice at all. The rent would be very reasonable, it was a good neighborhood, and she would have privacy because Edith Simmons was a widow who had severe arthritis in her knees and could never climb the stairs to snoop. Everyone knew she hired someone to clean her house because she couldn't cope with all the stooping.

Daisy circled the ad, then quickly read the others. There were two empty condos in Forrest Hills over on the highway, but the rent was high and the condos were ugly. They were possibles, but she'd look at them only if Mrs. Simmons had already rented her garage apartment. There was a house on Lassiter Avenue, but the address wasn't familiar. She swiveled her chair to locate Lassiter Avenue on her city map, and immediately dropped that ad from consideration, because the address was in the rougher section of town. She didn't know exactly how rough, but imagined Hills-boro had its share of the criminal element.

The remaining three ads were also undesirable. One side of a duplex was available, but it was available on a regular basis, because the trashy Farris family lived in the other side and no one else could put up with the screaming and cussing for very long. Another house was too far away, almost at Fort Payne. The last ad was for a mobile home, and it, too, was on the bad side of town.

Quickly she dialed Mrs. Simmons's number, hoping the apartment was still available, since the newspaper was already four days old.

The phone rang and rang, but it took Mrs. Simmons a while to get anywhere, so Daisy was patient. Varney, the son, had given his mother a cordless phone once so she could keep it with her and wouldn't have to walk anywhere to answer it, but she was set in her ways and considered it a nuisance to carry the phone with her all day, so she accidentally dropped it in the toilet, and that was that. Mrs. Simmons resumed use of her land-line phone, and Varney saw the wisdom of not buying her another cordless to drown.

"Hello?" Mrs. Simmons's voice was as creaky as her knees.

"Hello, Mrs. Simmons. This is Daisy Minor. How are you today?"

"Just fine, dear. This rain makes my joints hurt, but we need it, so I guess I shouldn't complain. How's your mama, and your aunt Joella?"

"They're fine, too. They're busy canning tomatoes and okra from the garden."

"I don't do much canning anymore," Mrs. Simmons creaked. "Last year Timmie"—Timmie was Varney's wife—"brought me some pears and we made pear preserves, but I don't even try to have a garden. My old knees just aren't up to it."

"You might think about knee-replacement surgery," Daisy suggested. She felt honor-bound to try, though she knew Varney

and Timmie had been making the same suggestion for years, to no avail.

"Why, Mertis Bainbridge had that done, and she said she'd never go through that again. She's had nothing but trouble with it."

Mertis Bainbridge was a hypochondriac, and a general com-plainer to boot. If someone gave her a car, she'd complain about having to buy gas for it. Daisy refrained from pointing that out, because Mertis was one of Mrs. Simmons's best friends.

"Everyone is different," she said diplomatically. "You're much tougher than Mertis, so you might have better results." Mrs. Simmons liked being told how strong she was, to be able to endure such pain.

"Well, I'll think about it."

She wouldn't do any such thing, but Daisy had satisfied the social requirements; she moved on to the purpose to her call. "The reason I called was to see about the apartment over your garage. Have you rented it yet?"

"Not yet, dear. Do you know someone who might be interested?"

"I'm interested for myself. Would it be all right if I came over at lunch and looked at it?"

"Why, I suppose. Let me just check with your mother. I'll call you right back. You're at work, aren't you?"

Daisy blinked. Had she just heard what she thought she'd heard? "Excuse me?" she said politely. "Why do you need to check with my mother?"

"Why to see if it's okay with her, of course. I couldn't let you rent my apartment without her permission."

The words slapped her in the face. "Her permission?" she choked. "I'm thirty-four years old. I don't need permission to live anywhere I choose."

"You may have argued with her, dear, but I couldn't hurt Evelyn's feelings that way."

"We didn't argue," Daisy protested. Her throat had grown so tight she could barely speak. My god, did the whole town consider her so hopeless that she couldn't do anything without her mother's permission? No wonder she never had any dates! Humiliation mingled with anger that Mrs. Simmons wouldn't even think Daisy would be insulted. "On second thought, Mrs. Simmons, I don't think the apartment would be right for me. I'm sorry to bother you." It was rude, but she hung up without the usual good-byes. Mrs. Simmons would probably tell all her friends how abrupt Daisy had been and that she was having a disagreement with her mother, but she couldn't help that. And Mrs. Simmons might not snoop in the apartment, but she would certainly monitor all of Daisy's comings and goings and feel obligated to report them back to her mother. Not that Daisy intended to do anything bad, but still...!

The humiliation burned inside her. Was this how all their friends and acquaintances saw her, as someone incapable of making a decision on her own? She had always considered herself an intelligent, responsible, self-supporting woman, but Mrs. Simmons, who had known her all her life, certainly didn't!

This move was way way too late. She should have done it ten years ago. Back then, changing her image would have been easy. Now she felt as if she needed an act of Congress—and a permission slip from her mother!—to change the way people saw her.

Maybe it would work out better not to live in Mrs. Simmons's garage apartment, anyway. She would be out of her mother's house, yes, but still under "supervision." If she wanted to change her image, she had to give the impression of complete freedom.

The ugly condos were looking better by the minute.

She dialed the number in the ad. Again, the phone rang and rang. She wondered if the condo manager had arthritic knees, too.

"Hello." The voice was male, and sleepy.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Daisy glanced at the clock over her desk; ten after nine. What kind of manager slept this late?

"S' all right."

"I'm calling about the rental listing—"

"Sorry. The last one was rented yesterday." The man hung up.

Well, damn.

Frustrated, she stared down at the newspaper. She was left with the house on Lassiter Avenue, the duplex containing the Far-rises, and the mobile home on the bad side of town. The duplex was unthinkable.

She couldn't back down now, or she'd never be able to face herself in the mirror again. She had to see this through. Maybe the mobile home or the Lassiter Avenue house wouldn't be too bad. She didn't mind a run-down neighborhood, so long as it wasn't dangerous, with drug dealers lurking on every corner and shots ringing out in the night.

She was pretty sure if there had been any shots ringing out in Hillsboro, night or day, she'd have heard about it.

The discreet little bell over the door rang as someone entered the library. Daisy got up and smoothed her skirt, not that the action would help its looks any. She was the only one working until noon, because they seldom had anyone in during the morning. Most of their traffic was in the afternoon, after school was out, though of course during the summer that pattern changed. The bulk of people still came in the afternoon, maybe because they were too busy doing other stuff during the relatively cool mornings. Kendra Owens came in at twelve and worked until the library closed at nine, plus Shannon Ivey worked part-time from five until nine, so Kendra was never alone there at night. The only one who was alone for any length of time was Daisy, but she figured the greater responsibility was hers.

“Anyone here?" a deep voice boomed, before she could step out of her small office behind the checkout desk.

Daisy took two hurried steps into view, a little outraged that anyone would shout in a library, even if there weren't any other patrons present at the moment. Seeing who the newcomer was, she checked briefly, then said briskly, "Yes, of course. There's no need to yell."

Chief of Police Jack Russo stood on the other side of the scarred, wooden checkout desk, looking impatient. Daisy knew him by sight, but had never spoken to him before, and she wished she wasn't doing so now. Frankly, she didn't think much of Mayor Nolan's choice for chief. Something about him made her uneasy, but she didn't know exactly what. Why couldn't the mayor have chosen someone local, someone already on the force? Chief Russo was an outsider, and from what she'd seen in town meetings, he wasn't averse to throwing his weight around. It was easy to dislike a bully.

"I wouldn't have yelled if anyone had been in sight," he said tersely.

"The door wouldn't have been unlocked unless someone was here," she replied just as tersely.

Stalemate.

Physically, Chief Russo was a good-looking man, if one liked jocks with thick necks and broad, sloping shoulders. She wasn't silly enough to automatically assume anyone athletic was also stupid; still, Daisy had never cared for the type. There had to be something basically narcissistic about a man who worked out enough to maintain that sort of muscularity, didn't there? She didn't know how old he was; his face was unlined except for a few squint lines around his eyes, but his short-cut hair, while still mostly dark on top, was gray everywhere else. At any rate, he was too old to be devoting hours to lifting weights. Nor did she care

for the cocky arrogance in his eyes, or the way his full lips always seemed to be on the verge of sneering. Who did he think he was, Elvis? Moreover, he was a Yankee—he had been a cop in either Chicago or New York, she had heard both—with a brusque, abrasive manner. If he'd had to run for office, as the county sheriff did, he would never have been elected.

Daisy stifled a sigh. She was in the minority in her opinion of the chief. Mayor Nolan liked him, the city council liked him, and from what she heard around town, most of the single women thought he was the cat's pajamas. So maybe she was wrong in her instinctive dislike of him. Maybe. She reminded herself it was only neighborly to keep an open mind, but she was still glad she had the checkout desk between them.

"May I help you?" she asked in her best librarian's voice, both brisk and friendly. Working with the public was a science, especially in a library. One had to encourage people, because of course you wanted them to read, but at the same time you had to impart a sense of respect for the library and other patrons.

"Yeah. I want to sign up for the virtual library."

He couldn't have said anything more likely to bring a beaming smile to her face. His stock automatically went up a few points. She was justifiably proud of the state's virtual library; Alabama led the nation in that category. Any citizen of the state could register at any library and have on-line home access to thousands of newspapers, magazines, articles, encyclopedias, research material, medical journals, and the like. Some of the categories were targeted to specific age groups of children, for work in the classroom and for help with their homework, or as general interest. Other states had virtual libraries, but Alabama's was by far the most extensive.

"You'll love it," she said enthusiastically, lifting the hinged countertop that allowed her to step out from behind the security of the checkout desk. "Come with me."

She led him to the reference section, where their on-line computer sat quietly humming, always ready. She took the chair in front of the computer and gestured to him to pull up another. He hooked a chair over, positioning it much too close to hers, and settled his large frame on it. He immediately leaned back and hitched up one long leg, crossing his right knee with his left ankle. It was the automatic position of a dominant male, that of a man accustomed to physically commanding the space around him.

Daisy frowned and mentally deducted those points he had just gained. Didn't he know he shouldn't crowd people? She scooted her chair a couple of inches away and chalked up "bad manners" in his debit column.

She took the required information from him, entered it into the system, and gave him his password. All the time she was aware that he was still too close; she glanced several times at that muscular thigh right beside her. If she scooted any farther away, she wouldn't be able to reach the keyboard. Irritated, because he had to know he was crowding her personal space—cops in big cities studied things like that, didn't they?—she shot an exasperated look at him and almost jumped, because he was staring at her. He wasn't trying to hide it, either.

She felt a blush heating her face. Ordinarily she would have finished as soon as possible and scurried back to the safety of her office, but today was a new day, a turning point in her life, and she decided she'd be damned if she'd let herself be intimidated. She'd already been rude to Mrs. Simmons, so why not the chief of police, as well?

"You're staring," she said bluntly. "Do I have a smudge on my face, or do I look like a dangerous criminal?"

"Neither," he said. "Law enforcement officers stare at people; it's part of the job."

Oh. She supposed it was. She ratcheted her indignation down

a few notches—but just a few. "Stop it anyway," she ordered. "It's rude, and you're making me uncomfortable."

"I apologize." He still didn't look away from her, though; he probably didn't respond well to orders. His eyes were land of an odd gray-green, more green than gray, and a tad out of place with his olive skin. Of course, she didn't have any room to comment on anyone else's strange eyes, since her own were two different colors. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Miss... Daisy, isn't it?" His full lips quirked. "May I drive you somewhere?"

Her face went way past blush, straight into tomato red. Since the movie Driving Miss Daisy had come out, countless people had thought it funny to make the same offer. She hadn't laughed yet. She gave him two more checks in the debit column, because making fun of someone's name was rude and deserved extra deductions.

"No, thank you," she said in such frigid tones he couldn't miss the fact that she didn't think he was amusing. She got to her feet and handed him his plastic card with his password written on it, then without another word marched back to the checkout desk and pulled down the countertop that closed her off from him. Thus barricaded, she faced him across the wooden expanse.

"Sorry," he said, which was the second time he had apologized in as many minutes. The problem was, she didn't think he'd meant it either time. He leaned on the checkout desk and flicked the plastic password card in his long fingers. "I guess you get that a lot, huh?"

“A lot," she echoed, keeping her tone deep in the arctic.

He flexed his shoulders, as if settling his shirt more comfortably, but she had read magazine articles about body language and thought he might be trying to impress her with his physique. If so, he had failed.

After a long moment in which she remained stubbornly silent, refusing to acknowledge or accept his apology, he gave another

shrug and straightened. He tapped the plastic card on the desk— goodness, what kind of signal was that?; she tried to remember if tapping meant anything in body language—and said, "Thanks for your help."

Darn it, now she had to reply. "You're welcome," she muttered as she watched him leave. She was fairly certain she heard him snickering.

Damn Yankee! What was he doing down here, anyway? If he was such a hotshot big-city cop, why wasn't he in a big city? What was he doing here in Hillsboro, population nine thousand and something, tucked away in the north Alabama mountains? Maybe he was a dirty cop and had gotten caught. Maybe he'd made a terrible error in judgment and shot an unarmed innocent. She imagined he was capable of all sorts of things that would have gotten him sacked.

Well, she wouldn't waste any more time fretting about him. In the grand scheme of things, rude patrons weren't important. Mentally she settled her ruffled feathers. She was a woman with a mission, and she wasn't going home today until she had found a place of her own to live in.

She sighed as she remembered her short list of choices. If she kept that vow, she might be sleeping in her car tonight.