AS WE STRODE up the sidewalk under an arch of new leaves, the garden flowers greeted us. I hadn"t really noticed when I"d left home that morning, but the tulips had joined my daffodils in a parade of bright colors. I had planted almost two hundred bulbs in the fall, and the flowers were now waving in red, yellow, white, and purple. There were some multi-colored ones, yellow and purple, and a few that looked like candy canes. Ash said, “When winter comes, can spring be far behind?” The flowers were a perfect foreground to my white house. I reached into my pocket for my keys, but a soft metallic ping on the walkway made me stop. My desk key. “I forgot to lock my desk.”
“Anything worth stealing?”
“Probably, but only I would steal it.”
I dropped the key back in my pocket as we climbed the s
