18
Spring came much earlier to Jerome and the Verde Valley than it did to Flagstaff. It wasn’t even April yet, and already Autumn could see buds on the trees, giving them just the faintest film of green, and cheerful yellow forsythia had begun to bloom in people’s yards.
Normally, those signs of warmer days would have immediately cheered her up. Now, though, she could only wonder if she was going to have to live in this reality for a whole year before Michael finally got it together and confessed his true feelings for her.
But she did her best to hide her impatience, and worked as hard as she could to make sure he would have no clue how much she wanted to reach out and shake him and demand, “Do you love me or not?”
Easter came and went — not as big a deal in McAllister territory as it
