The Trouble Was a Girl

The year is 1936. The place is a small town in Oregon. Etta and Lucy, a woman and her 12-year-old daughter, step down from a bus in front of Maggie's Diner with nothing other than the suitcases each carries. They are almost at the end of all hope.
No money, no place to stay, no job, and no prospects.
Maggie, the café owner, sees their needs and tries to help. Harley, a broken-down ex-baseball player, sees them as intrusions on his comfortable, if sedate, life.
The almost teen-age Will sees the twelve-year-old Lucy as something both intriguing and disturbing. At an age when boys have life all figured out, this girl has become a complication he never expected.
The one thing he is sure of is, girls are trouble!
But, as the two become friends, Will discovers that some things are worth the bother-even when the trouble comes out of Lucy's past and threatens to put both their lives in danger.
This is a character-driven, coming-of-age story with clean, uplifting messages, life-changes, and about a community that comes together during the Great Depression-with a little mystery and romance thrown in.