She bolts to her car, reaches into the wheel well retrieving a key, and opens the door. ‘Don’t let her go. Don’t let her go. Don’t let her go,...�� rolls through my mind. Logically, I can’t force matters of the heart. I know that. ‘Chase her down!’ While clutching the door handle, I hear her engine roar to life, followed by tires throwing gravel. She reverses out of her space, and then rockets toward the exit. Her car fishtails, leaving ruts and throwing pebbles that ping my car, but she doesn’t. I. bill. I’d been in both the motor pool and an engineering battalion. I was lucky enough to avoid playing in the big sandbox.’ ‘You sure don’t sound like you come from the south,’ I mentioned. ‘Nope. Davenport, Iowa. I mustered out at Fort Hood and decided to see some of the country. I got as far as Monroe and hung around when I got a job in a car dealership. The pay for part time was decent, so I looked around for a place to go to school. Louisiana Tech was nearby and I checked them out and. ”“A very odd request indeed, Jeeves. You think it is worth the cost and effort?”“Based on what Mister valuer and I are thinking, worthwhile indeed, sir.”“Make enquiries, Jeeves, for a local joiner to do what you say, with the expectation of replacing the extracted panelling afterwards. Let me know what the estimate is.”“I shall attend to that, sir.”I consulted the local telephone directory and selected what appeared to be a competent joiner, Robert Young. Speaking to the joiner himself, who was. The chill permeating her bones was only made worse by the fact that she was alone in the house. Both kids were over-nighting with friends so she and her husband had been looking forward to some unusual quality time alone.As it always seems to happen, he was called in at the last hour to replace a sick associate. The disappointment that drifted through her chilled her Arizona bones almost as much as the Rocky Mountain snow outside.She would just have to make do by herself, disappointment or not..