"In the wee small hours of the morning,
While the whole wide world is fast asleep.
You lie awake and think about the boy,
And never, ever think of counting sheep … "

Betty Roberts lay awake, her tired body losing the battle for sleep against her conflicted mind. It was like she'd overdosed on Agitato coffee. All the recent bombshells—Victor back from the dead, the station under repulsive new management, Scott Sherwood exposed as a fraud—had her tossing and turning. Part of it was shock, even more of it was anger, but beneath it all flickered a tiny, unexpected flame of excitement. And that, as much as anything, kept her wide awake.

She shook her head, trying to regain her common sense. What was she thinking? A practical Elkhart girl certainly wouldn't be silly enough to fall for a fake, a con man, an adventurer who only stayed around until he got caught.

She should be over the moon that Victor was alive. She was happy, of course, and literally faint with relief. But she'd expected to be dancing on air, the sky ablaze with fireworks, everything right with her world because a stand-up guy like Victor was still in it. So why, just when he'd seemed about to make the declaration she longed for, had she cut him off?

Because somehow, without her even realizing it, the way she looked at everything had completely changed.

Her thoughts kept drifting back to a man who could pull off an elaborate con like this, primarily because he wanted to see what it would be like to come home to a sweet, smart girl named Betty Roberts. She'd slapped his face for that today. And yet it was wildly romantic, she had to admit, like something right out of one of her radio scripts.

And that kiss. Victor had never kissed her like that. She always had the feeling that, even while he was kissing her, Victor's mind was far off in London, France, Norway, plotting to save the free world.

But Scott ... His kiss had revealed his true, entire self for once, nothing held back. Despite having one of those brains that was constantly churning out new schemes and scams, in that moment, his mind had been firmly focused on her, on just the two of them.

And so had hers.

She looked at the time and abandoned all hope of sleep in favor of pacing the floor. It didn't matter anyway. Scott Sherwood was headed to a big network job in Hollywood. Sunshine and starlets, not staid, sensible Elkhart girls. Or so he said. What had Rollie Pruitt called him? An angler with a sharp hook at the end of a smooth line. He'd certainly had her fooled. But what difference did it make? He was a guy in a bar, that's all. Just a guy in a bar.

She leaned her head against the window frame, hugging herself for warmth and looking out at the night sky. She'd never see Scott Sherwood again, and wasn't that for the best?

So then why did the world outside her window suddenly seem so dark and empty? And not very exciting …