Flamingo Diner. Sherryl Woods

      Dear Friends,

      Welcome to the fictional world of Winter Cove, Florida, and especially to Flamingo Diner, which was inspired by my own favourite Florida breakfast place.

      Years ago, after moving to Key Biscayne, an island community that is worlds away from downtown Miami yet right across a causeway, I discovered the Donut Gallery. OK, OK, I know I have no need to be eating doughnuts, but the truth is there are very few doughnuts on the menu any more. What this tiny restaurant has – aside from the usual scrambled eggs, bagels and sausage – is the pulse of a community. Over the years there I’ve met everyone from a confidante of President Nixon’s to a career lifeguard, from a federal prosecutor to caddies for some of the men on the seniors’ golf tour, from the captain of a charter fishing operation to snowbirds from all over the world. Birthdays and babies are celebrated there, deaths mourned. Over the years, that got me thinking about what would happen if a tragedy struck the family who owned such a place. Would these very diverse people pull together to support them? And in Flamingo Diner they do, just as I know they would at my own favourite spot.

      I wish all of you happiness and, for those times when you despair, a good friend to listen and a strong family to lean on…and a place just like Flamingo Diner, where people care about their neighbours.

      All the best,

       Sherryl Woods

      Also by Sherryl Woods

      THE BACK-UP PLAN

      FLIRTING WITH DISASTER WAKING UP IN CHARLESTOWN STEALING HOME

      Sherryl Woods

      Flamingo

      DINER

      To all of my friends at Key Biscayne’s Donut Gallery, who are every bit as diverse, warm and wonderful as the characters in Flamingo Diner. Thanks for inspiring me and entertaining me on a daily basis.

      1

      The July humidity was as high as it possibly could be without rain pouring from the sky. Despite recent power company improvements, another manhole had exploded just down the block in Washington’s Georgetown area, shooting flames into the air and shutting off power to several blocks of boutiques and restaurants. Without air-conditioning, Fashionable Memories felt like a steam room in one of those fancy spas their customers were always running off to.

      Emma wiped her brow and cursed the fact that today of all days five crates of antiques had arrived from an estate sale in Boston. Normally she regarded the arrival of new treasures with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning, but today the unpacking seemed a whole lot more like hot, sweaty drudgery. And naturally her boss was nowhere to be found. Marcel D’Avignon, who was about as French as country ham and grits, preferred spending money to the hard work of earning it. He left that to Emma.

      In fact, in the five years she’d been at Fashionable Memories, Emma had taken over most of the day-today operations of the high-end antiques business, while Marcel concentrated on acquisitions. For a woman who’d grown up in a small Florida town more prone to wicker and plastic, she had an innate ability to spot priceless pieces of old furniture, silver and porcelain and then sell them at a ridiculously high profit to the interior designers and bored Washington society housewives who made up the bulk of their clientele.

      Today, with the temperature in the shop approaching ninety, she could probably have gotten a better price for ice. Her friends here still marveled that a woman who’d grown up in Florida could have any complaints about the Washington summers. They didn’t seem to understand that back in Winter Cove, power outages from outdated infrastructure weren’t kicking off the air-conditioning every couple of weeks.

      Just thinking about home made her long to hear the sound of her mother’s voice. Rosa Killian had been born in Miami, but her parents had come from Cuba. Rosa had spoken Spanish before she’d learned English, and traces of the accent lingered, along with strong beliefs about family and principles of strict child rearing. Emma had learned at an early age that her father, Don, was a much softer touch than her mother when it came to doling out punishment, especially to the daughter he adored.

      Emma sighed thinking about how heartbroken he’d been when she’d announced her intention to leave Winter Cove to attend college in Washington, then stayed on to work for Fashionable Memories. Hurting her father was her only regret about the decision she’d made. Otherwise, it had been the exact right choice for her. She’d come into her own here, away from the watchful eyes of family and neighbors, all of whom thought they should have a say in her life.

      She loved Washington and the nearby rolling Virginia countryside. Being at the center of things in a city that hummed with excitement and power filled her with an energy she had never felt in the small Florida town where she’d been born. Winter Cove had its charms, but she’d felt as if she were growing up in a glass bubble with everyone watching everything she was doing, every misstep she made. Here she could make a monumental mistake and there were thousands of people who’d never have a clue about it.

      Not that she made that many mistakes. She lived a fairly sedate and uneventful life. No messy relationships. No wild nights. Not even a speeding ticket.

      Sweet heaven, she was barely twenty-six and she was boring, she thought with a sudden attack of dismay. Wasn’t that precisely the fate she’d left home to escape? And wasn’t that exactly what Marcel had been saying to her the week before when she’d turned down yet another blind date? She’d argued the point rather emphatically at the time, but she could see now that her boss had pegged her life exactly right. Fulfilling work that she loved was one thing. Having a life was something else entirely, and it was time she did something about grabbing one. Otherwise all that independence she’d moved to Washington to claim would be totally wasted.

      Spurred on by the thought, she reached for the phone to call her best friend before she could change her mind.

      Kim Drake had a social life that a Hollywood starlet would envy. Emma, however, had never felt the slightest twinge of envy, because she knew that the one thing Kim craved—a family—was still as elusive as ever. She called Emma after nearly every date for a postmortem to analyze whether the latest man in her life could possibly be the one. So far none had even passed Kim’s three-dates-and-he’s-out test. Their Sunday morning get-togethers at a trendy Georgetown coffee shop had become strategy sessions for meeting better candidates. Thus far Emma had doled out plenty of advice on the topic to Kim, but followed none of it herself. Today Emma intended to change that pattern.

      “Do we know anyone who has a swimming pool?” Kim asked plaintively as soon as she heard Emma’s voice.

      “I’m sure any number of men in your life live in singles complexes with pools,” Emma told her.

      “Given the disgustingly boring crop of men in my life at the moment, it’s not worth it,” Kim said. “I’d prefer to swelter. So, what’s up? I thought you were going to be hip deep in dusty antiques today.”

      “I am, and it’s given me too much time to think.”

      “Uh-oh. What’s on your mind?”

      “I’ve decided I need a social life.”

      “Well, hallelujah! Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been saying for months now? Even Marcel, who’s oblivious to most things that don’t involve him, thinks you’re a hermit,” Kim said. “Do you want to go out tonight? I have a date with a Congressional aide. I’m sure he has friends he could call. We could double.”

      “Which date is this for you and the aide?” Emma asked suspiciously.

      “Second, why?”

      “That’s okay, then.”

      “What are you talking about?” Kim demanded. She sounded