The house was exactly as she had left it-half restored, half disaster area. Mari walked through, making a mental list of the things she would do in the coming weeks, of the things she would change to make the house her own. Everything that had been Lucy’s would go. She couldn’t bear to look at a chair or a painting and wonder whose secrets had been used to buy it. She would scavenge through antique shops and flea markets for things of her own. The expensive artwork would go. She would replace it with local folk art. She had already made arrangements for a plumber and a carpenter to come out and repair the damages made by Bryce’s people during the search that had passed for vandalism. The cars would be sold and the proceeds, along with the cash Lucy had left behind, would go to pay the inheritance taxes.

When all was said and done, she would have an empty house and an empty bank account, but her new life would not be tainted by the old.

In the great room her eyes landed on the Mr. Peanut tin on the mantel above the fireplace. The peanut regarded her with a cynical, knowing look, as if it had foreseen everything that had happened and was amused with her response to the challenges. With a heavy heart she took it down and packed it in a box.

“You’re outta here, Luce,” she whispered, blinking back tears.

With Spike scouting the way ahead of her, she walked out to the barn with the box tucked under her bad arm and checked on Clyde. The mule was unimpressed by her return and went on eating grass. The gash in his side was healing nicely. The vet had told her he would be ready to ride before she would be ready to ride him.

Spade in hand, she wandered out into the llama pasture. The llamas had all gone down to the other side of the creek to graze and to lie in the shade of the cotton-wood trees. Spike caught sight of them and sent up an alarm that caused the whole herd to raise their heads. He charged toward them, ready to do battle. Mari called him back and explained to him that the llamas were cool and he didn’t need to worry about them. The little dog cocked his head and listened to her with perked ears. When the lecture was over, he picked a shady spot and curled up to watch her dig a grave for Mr. Peanut.

The task was awkward and time-consuming because of her temporary handicap, but Mari dug steadily, pushing the spade into the ground with her foot and levering it up with her good arm. The spot she had chosen was far away from the house, on a little knoll of land that overlooked the creek and was shaded by a clump of young aspen trees. An exile of sorts, but a peaceful one.

She buried the box with the peanut tin inside and transplanted wild bitterroot on the grave. When the task was finished, she stood back, leaning on the spade, and stared down at the vibrant pink flowers. Bright, pretty, tough with bitter roots. Like Lucy.

The flood of feelings that came with thoughts of her friend were a muddy mix of loss and hurt and disappointment and gratitude. She longed to grab her guitar and try to pick through the tangle with the divining rod of her music. But she couldn’t play with one hand, and so she packed the feelings away in her heart to be sorted through another day when time may have given her the gift of perspective.

Turning back toward the house, she looked up the mountain and wondered if time had given J.D. any perspective.

She missed him. Damned ornery cowboy. She missed his toughness and the tenderness beneath it. She missed his hard opinions and the vulnerability behind them. She missed his arrogance and the rare glimpses of humor that tempered it. She missed his touch. She missed his kiss.

“So what are you gonna do about it, Marilee?” she asked out loud.

In her past life she would have done nothing but make excuses. They were wrong for each other. It wasn’t meant to be. Just this morning she had tried to tell herself it was best to do nothing. To accept. To settle.

The hell it was.

“Come on, Spike,” she said, starting back toward the ranch buildings. “We need a plan.”

J.D. slapped his catch rope against the leg of his chaps and shooed the two calves that had wandered back toward their mamas. The youngsters darted to the herd with their skinny tails lifted high. His horse fell out of the canter and dropped to a walk.

He had come up the mountain with the herd three days after the “Incident at Bald Knob,” as the newspapers had labeled it, and stayed on. He needed to spend some time with Del, to decide what to do about him. Beyond that, he needed some time to decide what to do about himself. A lot of things had turned around on him and shifted beneath him in the past few weeks-perspectives, philosophies, long-held beliefs. He needed some time to let it all settle into place.

He needed this-long days in the saddle, trailing after cows and calves, days on the mountainside and in the lush meadows with nothing but time to think and reflect. It was a luxury he seldom afforded himself, too busy with running the ranch and protecting the ranch and fighting off the outsiders. But he wasn’t the only one fighting and he wasn’t the only one capable of doing the work and it wasn’t his sole responsibility. It was Rafferty land and Will was a Rafferty too.

J.D. had left him in charge. The irrigation had to be seen to and plans made for cutting the hay crop. Will’s first concern was to see to Samantha’s recuperation, but he had accepted the jobs without complaint. By Tucker’s accounts, Will was applying himself with a seriousness heretofore unknown to him; Samantha was healing; the two appeared to be very much in love.

Good news. Something they had been short on for a long time. So why did that last part leave him feeling empty?

J.D. turned his thoughts away from the question and turned his horse toward the southeast. The day was waning. It was Friday, seventeen days since he had seen Mary Lee. Again he ducked the issue and focused on the prospect of lasagna for supper. Tucker brought supplies and lasagna on Friday.

He met Del at the edge of the basin and they rode up toward Bald Knob in silence. Del stared down at his saddle horn as they rode past the knob, the muscles in the shattered side of his face twitching with tension.

“We’ll need to talk about it, Del,” J.D. said, his heart feeling like a rock in his chest. He had tried to bring the subject up more than once since they had gotten the cattle settled, but Del had dodged it every time and J.D. hadn’t had the heart to force it. He couldn’t stand to see the sick worry in his uncle’s eyes, or the shame.

Del pulled up suddenly and pivoted his roan around so he could look out over the knob to the wide, flower-strewn meadow where the cattle grazed and beyond to the next mountain and the next, their shapes turning hazy and indistinct as the sun slid behind the farthest of them. He stared out at it all from beneath the brim of his hat, stared hard, as if he were memorizing every last detail.

He didn’t want to talk about what had happened. He didn’t even like to remember it, though the memory was always right there, hovering like a fog just beneath the plate in his head. It descended at night and tormented him, visions of the blondes with their features melding together until he couldn’t tell one from the other…

He had wanted only to do the right thing, to help save the ranch, to make J.D. proud of him. But he saw the looks his nephew sent him when he didn’t think he was paying attention, and they were full of pity and shame and regret.

“You ought to go back down, hadn’t you, J.D.?” he said, hoping against hope J.D. would say yes and simply leave, leave him be as if nothing had happened.

J.D. sighed. “Del-”

“You won’t send me away, will you, J.D.?” he asked flat out, then sat there, shaking inside, as he waited for an answer.