She’d only been to this small Texas town a few times in her life before today. Her most recent visit had come just two weeks ago. Every occasion she’d come to Lusty had been to see her Aunt Shirley. Most often over the past several years, her aunt had visited her in El Paso, or they had gotten together in either Houston or Dallas. She and Shirley would meet for their semiannual shopping excursions, and to catch up on each others’ busy lives. Jillian sighed. She was really going to miss her Aunt Shirley. Now Shirley had retired and moved to Florida, likely already settled in close to Uncle Hal and Aunt Betty. And Jillian was here, in Lusty, Texas, getting ready to move in to her aunt’s vacated apartment and her vacated job. Shirley had been planning to go into retirement and live next to her last surviving brother and his wife for the last few years. No one had been as surprised as Jillian when the older woman had declared, just a month before, that the time had come for her to do exactly that.
