“Wow, we’re getting quite a few eggs now every day, aren’t we?” Hope said, as he set the basket on the counter.

“A little over two dozen this morning. I’m going to change clothes and get my raincoat,” Duke said.

“Are you going to see Cathy Terry?” Hope asked.

“I might, why?” Duke asked.

“I thought I’d send a dozen fresh eggs if you were,” Hope said.

“Okay, sure. Get them ready. I’ll take them by,” Duke said, and left the kitchen.

A short while later, Duke was clean and dry, wearing his good raincoat and the waterproof cover over his Stetson, when he picked up the eggs and the grocery list.

Jack and Hope were nowhere to be seen, and Duke guessed they were going to take advantage of having the house all to themselves while he was gone. Hope was really good natured about the Talbot brothers’ living arrangements, but Duke knew the day might come that they wanted a house of their own.

He settled the eggs into the floorboard of the pickup and then headed out of the drive, glad for the heavy layer of gravel all the way to the blacktop that would take him to the highway into Blessings.

* * *

Mercy Pittman was up to her elbows in flour at Granny’s Country Kitchen, turning out her famous biscuits as fast as the oven could bake them. On a normal day, Granny’s was the place for locals to congregate at breakfast time, even if they’d already eaten at home first. They could always drink another cup or two of coffee and have some biscuits and jelly. But when rain interfered with all of the people who normally worked outdoors, they came to Granny’s.

Mercy was just putting two more huge sheet pans of biscuits in the oven when the power flickered.

Everyone in the kitchen gasped. The ovens and the flattop grill were gas, but they needed power for everything else. But before they could panic, Lovey’s son, Sully Raines, who had begun helping her run the cafe, came flying into the kitchen.

“It’s all good! I had that generator wired into the power here last week, remember? If the power goes out, the generator will kick in.”

Mercy sighed with relief. “Oh that’s right! Thank goodness.”

He gave her a thumbs up and then headed back to tend to business.

While Granny’s was safe from power outages, the same could not be said down at The Curl Up and Dye.

Ruby Butterman, who owned the hair salon, was a little nervous. Vesta was already in the middle of coloring her first client’s hair, and her twin sister, Vera was rolling perm rods into her client’s hair. Ruby’s first customer was due in at any moment, and there would be a hair disaster of tragic proportions if the power went out.

When the power flickered there, Vesta gasped. “Oh Lord, Lord! Please don’t let us lose power!”

Mabel Jean, the manicurist, was doing a mani-pedi on Clara, the Baptist preacher’s wife, and when Vesta called on the Lord, the preacher’s wife took it upon herself to beseech Him some more.