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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or StoryStory Notes:
I am well aware that the Centre and Mayberry occupy two different decades in time. I have completely disregarded this and set this story in a space-time continuum of its own. However, it does take place soon before Miss Parker meets Thomas.
Chapter 1
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you were speeding.”
Miss Parker glared out of her window at the tall, genial-looking sheriff with red-brown curly hair and suspiciously twinkling brown eyes. “I’m in a hurry,” she snapped.
“Wa’al, ma’am, we can’t allow you to speed through our town. We have a whole passel of young’uns about to get out of school for lunch, and it wouldn’t do to hit one of them. Oh, no. I’m going to have to give you a ticket.”
“Look, officer, I’ll drive slower. But I’m in a hurry, so let me go!”
“Sorry, ma’am. Can’t do that.”
“I’m not paying a ticket!”
“Miss Parker,” Sydney said from the back, “it would be better just to take it and be on our way.”
She slewed around and glared at him. “After what happened the last time in a stupid, podunk town like this, I am not taking anything from a rent-a-cop with a plastic badge!”
“Now, that’s direspectin’ an officer and flouting the law, ma’am. Would you step out of your car?”
Fury on her face, Miss Parker got out. The sheriff didn’t blink at her short skirt and long legs.
“Now then, ma’am—” His hand flashed and arrested hers in its move toward her back waistband. “No, you don’t.” He relieved her of her gun. “Ma’am, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”
