He was headed home for lunch, without calling ahead to let her know he was coming.

This also wasn’t behavior she expected from him, which was why he was doing it.

It was his third uncharacteristic act in forty-eight hours, he realized.

Hugh-Jay thought of what his mother had asked him-oddly, out of the blue-that morning: Are you all right?

No, was the honest answer to that, he wasn’t all right.

He was far from all right. He was worried as hell and sick about it.

And his father’s order-also out of the blue-for him to check up on the ranch in Colorado, hadn’t made him feel any better. When he heard it, he felt his bowels go loose and he got an awful feeling in his gut. Somehow he managed to cover up his reaction so his dad didn’t notice anything, but he hadn’t fooled his mother. He never had been able to put anything over on her, not like Chase could by charming her, or like Bobby and Belle could by just refusing to talk about stuff. Hugh-Jay wondered how long his mom would wait to ask him again.

A sudden gust of wind preceding the rain jangled the wind chime on the porch.

Wishing it didn’t take courage to walk up to his own back door, Hugh-Jay forced himself to get going. He took off his boots before walking into the kitchen in his stocking feet, so quietly that he had a moment to take it all in before Laurie even knew he was there.

THE BIG OLD-FASHIONED KITCHEN was fragrant with baking pies.

Hugh-Jay saw his wife dressed in her favorite yellow sundress, with her dark pixie hair stuck sweatily to the back of her neck, and he saw her bare arms, shapely bare legs, bare feet. The bones at the backs of her ankles were so slim they looked as if he could break them with a pinch. Her painted toenails-red-made his heart hurt, they were so sexy and perfect. He could have held her feet and played with her toes all day long, if she would let him. Such longings used to make her laugh and tease him; now, they would probably make her run and put on shoes.

He stared at her in silence while she worked at the sink.

She was twenty-two to his twenty-four, and so lovely that when he married her he could hardly believe she was supposed to be his for the rest of their lives. She’d left college to marry him, which sounded like a sacrifice except to anybody who’d seen her grade average. Laurie Linder was far from stupid, but she’d never had any interest in learning about much of anything beyond makeup, clothes, and gossip. Hugh-Jay hadn’t cared; he’d loved her from afar for years, awed by her beauty, admiring her sexy walk and exuberant spirit, while he waited until she was old enough for him to ask her out on a date. He knew perfectly well that if he weren’t the son of the wealthiest people around Rose, and if he didn’t have things like this house to offer her, she’d never have looked at him.

He hadn’t cared, not really. He was happy just calling her “my wife.”

His parents didn’t like her, considered her shallow and self-centered; he knew they did. They tried to hide it for his sake, but when Hugh Senior or Annabelle Linder disapproved of someone, that fact was hard to miss despite their outward show of warmth. It made him feel protective of Laurie, who might not be “deep,” but whom he loved deeply.

“Daddy!” three-year-old Jody squealed, and rushed at him from the hallway.

The child leaped at him with both arms up, trusting him to catch her in midair and sweep her into his arms. In an instant she was cuddled against him with her head tucked onto his left shoulder, and she was chattering away about her day. She had on a blue sundress and was sticky with little girl sweat, which told him she’d been busy that morning, probably hopping up and down the stairs, her current favorite indoor pastime when she wasn’t twirling to make her skirts fly out around her. Like her mom, her feet were bare, and like her mom, her toenails were painted red. They also made his heart hurt for love of them and her.

“Hey,” he said gently, to both of them, when she paused for breath.

Laurie had whirled at the sound of “Daddy!” dropping her paring knife.

“Daddy’s home!” Jody told her, with joy in her lilting voice.

“Hugh-Jay, you scared me! What are you doing here?”

He smiled, hoping it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

“I can’t have lunch with my wife and daughter?”

“Yes, Daddy!” Jody chirped, and hugged her arms around his neck.

He looked over at Laurie to hear her say so, too.

She turned her back and continued dicing carrots.

Hugh-Jay set his daughter on the floor and gave her behind a gentle swat as she ran off to get something from her bedroom to show him. Then he took a shaky breath and moved purposely toward his wife.

IT SCARED LAURIE that Hugh-Jay had come home without any warning.

She counted on him to be predictable, as he was every time he came in the house. First he’d scrape the soles of his boots on the shit-catcher, a little metal bar attached to two other bars, then he’d pick up his boots, knock them together to dislodge more dirt and cow shit, and then set them neatly side by side beside the back door. Laurie knew that if she looked out there now, she’d see them paired like that. Before he walked into the house, he took off whatever hat he was wearing-today it was a Kansas City Royals baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat-and he knocked it against his jeans to clean it, and then hung it on a hook above the boots, leaving his blond hair plastered down and sweaty where the cap had been. His big square face was reddened, and rivulets of dirty sweat ran down it. That meant that he would come to the sink to wash off.

The routine of his thoughtfulness drove her crazy.

She also depended on it, however, especially lately.

“I missed you,” he said, answering her question about why he was there.

“Missed me!” she scoffed, still without turning around. “You’ve been gone, what, five hours?”

She heard the old wood floor creak as he walked toward her.

She tensed as he hovered like a huge tent closing around her, darkening the space, exuding heat from his big body. She expected him to grasp her arms and move her aside so he could rinse his face and arms. Instead, she felt his big arms come around her, felt him bend down to kiss the back of her neck. When he kissed her right ear, she shuddered reflexively. She felt his surprise as he discovered she was naked under her sundress.

“Are you sure you weren’t expecting me?” he teased.

“I just got out of the shower,” she said sharply. She tried to lean away from him, to reach for a dishcloth. “I didn’t have time to put on anything but this.”

His hands moved to the straps of her dress.

“What are you doing, Hugh-Jay?”

She heard his breathing quicken, felt him pressing harder into her until the front of the sink bit into her waist. “Hugh-Jay!” He kissed her neck again and started pushing the straps of her dress down over her shoulders until the tops of her breasts were exposed to him. “Don’t!” She bent her head forward, trying to get away from his mouth. She jerked her straps back up. “Stop it!”

He backed off immediately. Then he did what she had originally expected him to do: he gently moved her aside, turned on the water, and washed off his hands, then his face, lower arms, and the back of his neck, until the water finally turned from mud to clear.

He grabbed a nearby towel and rubbed his face and arms dry.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she accused him.

“Did what?” He turned toward her, his broad, plain face looking hurt, his voice plaintive in a way that only annoyed her more. “Try to love my wife?”

“In the middle of the day? In the kitchen? With Jody right here?”

“I wouldn’t have done that in front of her!”

“You shouldn’t have done any of it.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Before they married, she hadn’t objected to anywhere or any time, or even to the chance that somebody might see them. He was the one who’d been straitlaced and worried about getting caught. She remembered that; she knew he did, too. Neither of them reminded the other of it.