You had to get there early.
If you did, you were more richly rewarded than the Divine Right kings of Europe or the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. Long Johns, Bizmarks, Apple Fritters: these were the jewels of the plains, warm and glistening with a sugar glaze. These were riches beyond compare.
Remembering those mornings, digging into a grease-stained brown paper sack, made me wonder about Willowby, the fictional Wyoming town where Jo Harper lives. Was there a proper bakery back there in 1911, or were the breakfast treats of Jo's time more intimate, as befits a fledgling western settlement?
Before I married Gina, I met her Grandma Frida, a woman known well in her community for the pastries she made. Delivered in bulk to work crews, field hands and the ladies at the bank--free of charge--Frida's fried doughnuts were the stuff of legend. And the recipe unknown.
I decided that's the kind of breakfast Jo, Frog and Abby Drake would enjoy best. Home made, hand delivered --in the same brown paper sack I remember, with the same sensual overload.
Jewels of the plains. Diamonds in the rough.
Stolen diamonds is where this story begins...
BLURB
In the wild west, decades before Willowby, Wyoming was founded, Stink Carmichael robbed a stage coach of the famous Dakota Diamonds and was never heard from again. When Jo Harper and her best friend Frog find the loot in a hidden cellar, old secrets come out and greed can't help but rear its ugly head. When Frog disappears and Jo is accused of pilfering the diamonds herself, things can't get any worse. But Constable Abby Drake has a few secrets of her own and a sack of warm, flaky breakfast rolls might just be the key to saving the day.
EXCERPT
"We shouldn't be here, Frog," said Jo Harper, her lace-up boot slipping on the next step down. "It's muddy."
"It's damp," said Frog. “And since when have you ever in your whole life been worried about a little mud?"
A cold draft swept up the slippery wood plank steps from the underground darkness below, bringing with it a smell of mildew and grime that threatened to close Jo's throat.
A grim welcome from the hidden cellar deep underneath the Beemer mansion in Willowby, Wyoming.
"It's not mud I'm worried about," said Jo, quickly cupping her hand around the wick of the flickering candle she carried. "This is the longest set of steps I've ever seen. It's falling and breaking my neck that worries me. Then who's going to bail you out of trouble?"
"Ha-ha. Ain't you funny? You oughtta be in the movies, Jo."
Again, eleven-year old Frog Beemer dropped away down into the dark, fearlessly taking the stairs two at a time.
Jo waited for him to say something.
"Frog?" she said, ears straining, eyes peering past the dim circle of candle light. Jo willed her leg forward into space, sliding her toe out, over the worn edge of the step. "Frog, where are you?"
She put her weight down on her right leg.
A low squeal, like the settling of timber came from the hole ahead.
Timber. Or something else. Maybe something alive.
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