Museum curator Meredith Morehouse stumbles upon the remnants of a stolen shipment of scary-looking wood figurines, but she can’t tell if they are smuggled national treasures or clever fakes.

While Meredith is sucked into the secret federal probe of the fishy figurines and their importer, her ex-fiancé—a man so annoyingly arrogant he could easily drive someone to murder—returns for another round of marriage proposals, and he won’t take no for an answer. Just when her friendship with tugboat captain Pete Sills might be heating up...What’s a girl to do?

Jerusha Jones lives in a small town in the west end of the Columbia River Gorge. When she grows up, she fully intends to be a feisty old lady. In the meantime, she regularly maxes out her library's lending limit, has happily declared a truce with the clover in the lawn, but is fanatical about sealing up cracks in her old house, armed with a caulking gun. Due to the number of gaps she has yet to locate, however, she has also perfected her big spider shriek. Jerusha loves wool socks, Pink Lady apples with crunchy peanut butter, feather pillows, scenery of breathtaking grandeur, and weather just cool enough to require a sweater, all of which are plentiful in the Pacific Northwest. She is eternally grateful to have escaped the corporate world with its relentless, mind-numbing meetings and now writes (or doodles or fantasizes or cogitates or stares out the window or whatever you want to call it) full time.