“What are you thinking? Sandwiches?” Finn asked in a hopeful voice.

“No. I’m in the mood for something sweet.”

I grabbed the butter out of the fridge, then rummaged through the cabinets. Flour, oats, dried apricots, golden raisins, brown sugar, vanilla. I pulled them out, along with some mixing cups, a baking pan, a spatula, and a bowl. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and drank his coffee while I worked. By the time Jo-Jo walked back into the kitchen, I was sliding the batter into the oven.

“Whatcha making?” the dwarf asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Apricot bars,” I replied, wiping my hands off on a cloud-covered dish towel. “Which I’m going to turn into a poor man’s cobbler. They’ll be done in a few minutes, which should give you just enough time to tell us all about Fletcher and Warren T. Fox.”

Jo-Jo nodded. She took her coffee to the table and sat down next to Finn. I leaned against the refrigerator so I could keep an eye on the oven. It just wouldn’t do to get the apricot bars too brown.

“Fletcher and Warren grew up together in Ridgeline Hollow,” Jo-Jo said. “Best friends who were thick as thieves. More like brothers. Always together, from sunup till sundown. Sophia and I knew their parents. Grandparents too.”

Finn shook his head. “Dad never mentioned anyone named Warren Fox to me. Never. Especially someone who was his best childhood friend. What happened between them?”

“A girl,” Jo-Jo said. “They both fell in love with the same girl. Stella. She was a pretty thing who lived up in the hollow. Stella knew Fletcher and Warren were both in love with her. She’d go out courting with first one, then the other. She liked playing them against each other. Pretty soon, they were fighting over her.”

“So who got her in the end?” I asked.

A wry smile curved Jo-Jo’s lips. “Neither one of them. She ran off with a boy from the city. But by then, it was too late for Fletcher and Warren to repair their friendship. Fletcher moved into the city to start the Pork Pit. Warren stayed where he was up in the hills and took over his family’s general store.”

I looked at Finn. With his walnut hair, green eyes, and smooth smile, Finn was the spitting image of Fletcher at his age—and handsome to a fault. I wondered what Warren T. Fox had looked like in his youth, to give Fletcher Lane a run for his money.

“Warren’s store, is it called Country Daze?” Finn took another sip of his chicory coffee. “Because that’s where Violet Fox gets her paycheck from every two weeks.”

Jo-Jo nodded. “Been in the family for four generations now, counting the girl in there.”