The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Chapter 16

The sun was hot on her back, but she felt too drained to move. Roan’s hands, stroking and gentling her, felt the warmth.

“You’re gonna get burned,” his lion’s purr voice rumbled as he nudged her forehead with his chin. Getting only a contented murmur in reply, he chuckled and rolled her over onto the blanket, then eased himself away from her and stood up.

Sunk deep in blissful lethargy, she watched from under a sheltering forearm as he walked naked to the edge of the creek, the hard muscle of his back and buttocks gleaming like marble in the sun. When he dropped to one knee and reached to scoop water from the creek with his cupped hand, she thought of statues of ancient Greek athletes, and didn’t even consider it strange to be daydreaming such romantic nonsense when for so many years she hadn’t allowed herself to dream at all. Today, her life was filled with wonder and magic, and even miracles seemed possible.

He splashed the crystal-clear water over his face and neck, shoulders and body, then turned to her, smiling, and held out his hand. Droplets of water clung to his hair and eyelashes and gleamed like oil on his cold-flushed skin. She rose to her feet and walked to him in a daze, too deeply under the spell of his warm and worshipful gaze to feel any self-consciousness at all. She was thinking only of him and how beautiful he was, and of how much she loved him and how much she wished they could be like this forever, just the two of them in a perfect little universe of happiness. Like Eden, before the Fall.

The icy water took her breath away, but didn’t shatter her fragile joy…only made it shiver and shine more brightly. He gently bathed her face and body, smoothing the crystalline water over her skin like lotion, and she did the same for him, shivering with delight and learning his body with all the fascination of a child with a new toy, until both their bodies glowed rosy pink all over.

A black-and-yellow butterfly flitted past, and Mary uttered an enchanted little cry and reached for it.

“Uh-uh,” Roan said, “come here…I’ll show you how to catch a butterfly.” Dipping water again from the creek, he stood behind her and brought her close to him, then dripped the water from his hand into hers. “Stand still,” he murmured against her ear. “Hold out your hand.”

She did as he told her, hardly daring to breathe. Moments crawled suspensefully past while she waited, and then…the butterfly fluttered drunkenly out of the sunlit sky…dipped and floated and swayed around her like a small plane trying to land in a high wind, and came to rest on her shoulder. She made a tiny sound, too overcome to move or speak as the butterfly slowly fanned its wings. Its legs tickled her skin.

“They like the water,” Roan said softly. He captured it gently and placed it on her outstretched finger.

Tears rose to sting her eyes and clog her throat. This is it. Happiness. This is how you find it. Not chasing after it recklessly, heedlessly. Standing still…letting it find you.

All her life, it seemed, she’d been chasing that elusive butterfly, only to have it always dance away beyond her reach. And now, when she wasn’t even trying, hadn’t been looking for it, never expected it…happiness had come to sit on her shoulder.

The butterfly fluttered away, and Mary drew a happy, shivering sigh. Wondering if a day could be more perfect.

“You’re gonna get burned,” Roan said again, dropping a tender kiss onto her shoulder, just where the butterfly had been. “Better get your clothes on.”

They dressed without urgency, helping each other, pausing to lean into lazy, intoxicated kisses. The breeze freshened, and the sun slipped behind a towering pile of clouds.

“Thunderheads,” Roan said, squinting at the sky. “We’d better be heading on back-looks like it’s gonna rain.”

They walked back to the horses through the shade of the pines. Mary looked back over her shoulder for a last glimpse of the meadow, not sunlit now, but darkened by the cloud’s shadow, and felt the shadow in her heart, too.

“It’s such a beautiful place,” she said wistfully. And then, though she didn’t want to ask, the question forced its way past the ache in her throat. “Did you bring Erin here?”

There was only a slight pause while he bent to pick up a blanket and saddle and heave them onto the gray mare’s back. Watching his hands settle the saddle and adjust the cinch, he said in a neutral voice, breathy and broken by the task he was doing, “Nope, never did…only found the place after Susie Grace was born…by that time she was home with the baby and I was busy being the sheriff…times of rambling through the wilderness like a couple of kids were over. Always meant to, though. Someday.”

Mary cleared her throat and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

He threw her a look and a wry smile before he bent to pick up the second saddle. “I’m sure you’ve probably heard all about what happened. The fire, and all…”

She gave a shrug of apology. “It’s a small town, Roan.”

Roan gave the cinch one last tug and turned to look at her, one hand resting on the saddle. The sadness in his eyes and in his voice made her throat close. “Mary, Erin’s always going to be here with me. I can’t help that-wouldn’t be right if I tried. You don’t stop loving somebody just because they die.”

She nodded, aching, and whispered, “I wouldn’t want you to.” But she knew…her heart knew it was a lie.

After a moment, he gave an awkward little cough and his eyes narrowed with a frown. “Doesn’t mean when a person loses someone, he can’t ever love someone else again. If a man can’t love, can’t share his life with someone, he’s only half-alive.”

Mary didn’t answer, only stared at him in silent agony while inside her battered heart was screaming at him. What does that mean? Does it mean you think you might possibly…someday…love me? Don’t talk in abstracts, dammit! Tell me what you feel.

Thunder grumbled, not far off. Roan looked up at the sky and said, “Better get moving if we’re gonna beat the rain home.”

They made it to the barn by minutes-and not once during that wild ride home did Mary think to be afraid-though by the time she’d helped Roan unsaddle and rub down the horses and they’d made a mad dash for the house through the downpour, they were both soaking wet anyway.

On Monday morning, Roan went to his office early. He was planning on going back over everything he had on Jason’s murder, hoping to find something-anything-that would lead him to the real killer. In order to clear Mary he knew he was going to have to go back to the beginning, go over all the evidence, photographs, autopsy reports, forensics-everything. But even with the early start, with Boomtown Days activities and aggravations it was late evening before he got around to re-interviewing witnesses.

Monday night of Boomtown week wasn’t the best time to be in Buster’s Last Stand. Roan expected it to be a madhouse and it was, noisy and crowded with a whole lot of people dressed up like cowboys, a few of them maybe even the real kind.

Buster had hired some temporary help to handle the crowd, so when he saw Roan come in he stopped what he was doing to come over and talk to him. Roan asked if he had a minute, and the big man said “Sure,” and flung his bar towel over his shoulder and followed him outside.

“Sorry to take you away from your Boomtown business,” Roan said as soon as he didn’t have to shout to make himself heard.

Buster shrugged. “Ah, hell, I’m glad to get away from the racket. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Roan told him what he was doing and why. “I know there must be someone else Jason pissed off besides Mary,” he concluded. “I want you to think back a ways, try to recall if there was anything else Jason said or did that might have got him killed.”

Buster looked at him sideways and rubbed a big meaty hand over the lower half of his face, fidgeting like a schoolboy. Roan’s scalp began to prickle. “Come on, let’s have it. You’ve obviously thought of something.”

“Ah, hell. I been thinkin’ about this-didn’t want to tell you, didn’t think it could have anything to do with Jase’s murder, on account of…well, because the only person it might give a motive to is you, Sheriff.”

Roan narrowed a stare at him and growled, “Tell me.”

Buster held up a hand. “I…all right, look, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?” He shifted, looked over his shoulder, then cleared his throat. “Happened awhile back. Jase was drunker than usual…got to bragging to a bunch of the regulars about how the law in this town couldn’t touch him. He was hinting-more than hinting-about all the things he claimed he’d done and gotten away with. One of them-ah, Christ, Roan-he said he’d had the sheriff’s wife.”

Roan’s world went cold and dark and scary. Somewhere in it he heard his voice quietly asking Buster why he’d never mentioned any of this. And Buster’s voice, nervous and tinny, saying, “Shoot, I thought you already knew, Sheriff. Figured Boyd woulda told you.”

For an instant everything stopped. Then the cold and the blackness began to whirl around him. “Boyd?” he croaked.

Buster nodded, looking miserable. “Yeah, he was in here that night. Couldn’t help but hear what Jase was saying. Thought Boyd might go for him then and there, you know? But the old man just finished up his beer and walked out without sayin’ a word.

“I never did think you had anything to do with killin’ Jason,” Buster called after him. Roan was already striding across the parking lot, the keys to his sheriff’s-department SUV gripped in his ice-cold hand.

It was late. He knew he had to go home sometime. Knew he’d have to talk to Boyd…sometime. Instead he found himself driving aimlessly through the streets of the town he’d lived in all his life, streets as familiar to him as his own backyard. Right now it seemed like an alien planet. His world had blown apart, everything he’d trusted and believed in turned upside down.

He kept going over it in his mind-even though his mind cringed and rebelled against the images playing through it like some grim movie flickering on an old-fashioned screen.

The way Jason was with women. The way Erin had been acting, those few days before she died. She was upset about something. Worried. Or afraid. What Jason did to Mary. A fire deliberately set, started in the master-bedroom wing, on a night when I was working late.

Was it possible? Could Jason have tried to hit on Erin, the way he’d gone after Mary? What if she’d fought back, threatened to tell Roan…what would Jase have done then? If what had happened with Mary was any indication, could he have tried to rape her? Even succeeded? Then, scared, set the fire to cover up what he’d done?

With a screech of brakes, Roan pulled over to the side of the road. He barely got the door open in time before he was violently, wrenchingly sick.

Although Susie Grace had been grounded for a week for her horseback-riding escapade, the way Mary saw it, being grounded meant no TV or Internet or playing with friends-or in Susie Grace’s case, kittens. It didn’t include books. So that evening when Susie Grace pouted about missing her favorite TV shows, Mary offered to read to her instead. She’d found a well-thumbed copy of Charlotte’s Web in a bookcase in Roan’s bedroom, with a hand-written inscription on the flyleaf that read: To Erin Elizabeth on your ninth Birthday. Love, Mama and Pop.

She was sitting on Susie Grace’s bed with the child snuggled up next to her, her small scarred chin nudging against Mary’s arm. Susie Grace had her arm around Cat, who was curled up on the other side of her, softly snoring. They hadn’t gotten far into the book-a frightened and bewildered Wilbur had just been banished to the barnyard-when Cat lifted his head and gave a low growl. For a moment he froze there, big yellow eyes staring intently at the dark windows, the growl rising in pitch and volume. Then he jumped off the bed, landed with a heavy thump, and vanished under it.

Mary felt herself go cold. She closed the book and put a finger to her lips to tell Susie Grace to be quiet, then reached to turn off the lamp. With her heart beating fast and hard, she crept to the window and looked out. At first she didn’t see anything unusual. Then something caught her eye-the glint of moonlight on the hood of a car. Not the pale buff of Roan’s SUV, but a dark sedan, coming slowly along the lane with its headlights off.

“Where are the dogs?” she whispered, and jumped when Susie Grace answered her from close behind.

“They’re probably at Grampa’s. He lets them come in the house sometimes before he goes to bed. To keep him company.”

Mary put her hands on Susie Grace’s shoulders and bent down so her face was close to hers in the darkness. “Susie Grace,” she said, her voice low and urgent, but calm, “I have to ask you something. Do you know if your daddy keeps guns in the house?”

Susie Grace’s head moved emphatically back and forth. “He only has guns at work. Grampa Boyd has guns, though. Lots of them. They’re at his house.”

“Okay…sweetheart, here’s what I want you to do.” Mary’s fingers tightened on the little girl’s shoulders. “I want you to run to your grampa’s house as fast as you can. Tell Grampa Boyd somebody’s here-tell him it’s a car you don’t know. Then you stay there, you understand? No matter what happens, you stay there. Got it?” She gave Susie Grace a tiny shake, and the little girl nodded. “Okay-off you go. Quickly-go through the kitchen. And don’t turn on the lights.”

Halfway out of the room, Susie Grace turned. Mary could see that her hands were on her hips and her head tilted with indignation. “I don’t need lights, I know my way blindfolded.”

Mary gave a little spurt of laughter, went to her and bent to gather her into a hug. She could feel the little girl’s heart beating, a slightly lighter and faster cadence than her own. “Go now-scoot. Hurry.” She kissed her, and Susie Grace slipped into the dark hallway.

After a moment, Mary went back to the window.

Empty and clammy, Roan drove the SUV through the darkness while more images flickered across the movie screen of his mind.

Jason lying in the morning sunshine with a bullet hole in his head and another one in his heart, and no fear at all on his face. Bullets from a Colt 45…the Gun that Won the West. Frontier justice. Boyd’s collection of Old West memorabilia. Boyd, marching with his gun club in past Boomtown Days parades.

Boyd.

There was no doubt whatsoever in Roan’s mind that if Boyd Stuart believed Jason Holbrook guilty of setting the fire that killed his daughter, with no way of proving it in the eyes of the law, he wouldn’t hesitate to take matters into his own hands. He’d consider it frontier justice. Justice…for Erin.

Calm settled over Roan like a cold thick fog, insulating sensations, muffling feeling, letting him calmly key on his radio mike and sign out for the night the same way he did every night. “SD Mobile one, Donna…I’m headin’ for the barn… Out.” Then he headed home to confront the man who’d all but raised him, the man who’d been, in every way that counted, a father to him. The only one he’d ever known.

The storms that had blown through the day before were gone. The night sky was clear. The moon wasn’t full, but it had risen to shed enough light so Mary could see clearly, now her eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

The dark sedan had rolled to a silent stop in the shadow of one of the giant cottonwoods. She didn’t know how long she watched, standing beside the window while her heart kept up its frantic pounding and sweat crawled down her back in icy tickles. Then…she saw something move out there in the darkness. The car door opened…then shut without a sound, with no flare of light from the interior. Whoever it was, he’d thought to turn it off.

She wondered if it would be the hitman who’d shot at her on Saturday…or if Diego would come for her himself this time.

One thing she knew-she wouldn’t wait for him here. In the house she’d be trapped; there was no place to hide where he wouldn’t find her. Now that Susie Grace was safe, she thought, it would be better to run. Outdoors, in the maze of corrals and sheds, stables and animals, she’d have a chance. But how to escape? If she picked the wrong door she could run right into the intruder’s arms. And there were only two ways out of the house, not counting the boarded-up hallway-the front door, and right around the corner from there, the kitchen.

Susie Grace had gone out the kitchen door, so it would be unlocked. The intruder would probably come in that way. Which left the front door for her.

She crept out of the bedroom, down the hall and into the living room. When she heard the kitchen door creak softly, she wrenched open the front door, flew across the porch and down the steps, and ran. She ran instinctively, away from the sinister dark sedan, down the lane toward the old barn, bypassing the stables and the restlessly whickering horses. She ran without heed, praying her feet would find their own way in the darkness, praying she wouldn’t trip on a hummock of grass, praying Susie Grace had done what she’d been told and stayed at Boyd’s where she’d be safe. Praying.

Running as hard as she was, with her heart and breath loud in her ears, she didn’t hear the pounding footsteps until they were almost upon her. When she did hear them she gave a high, frantic cry and tried to run faster, but cruel hands caught her just inside the barn’s wide-open door. She struggled wildly, but the hands jerked her back against a hard, panting body. An arm clamped viciously across her throat, cutting off her breath.

A breathless laugh gusted through her hair. “What’re you fighting me for, Yance? I’m your fiancé, remember?” The voice was softly accented…well known to her.

The arm across her throat eased enough for her to gasp it out. “Diego?”

“Yeah, querida, who did you think? You know how long I been looking for you? Nice of you to make the news broadcasts, so I know where to find you, eh?”

“Diego, please-”

“Are you surprised to see me? Ah-well, you see, after the man I sent to kill you missed, I got to thinking…shooting is too easy a way for you to die.” His lips were close to her ear…his hot breath misted her cheek. “I think you should know what you did to me, sending me to prison. I want you to experience what I did…what was done to me, all those years. Then I kill you slowly…with my bare hands…while you look in my eyes-”

“Turn her loose.” The voice rasped through the darkness, a sound like a rusty hinge.

Roan turned the SUV onto the ranch’s gravel road, his fingers beating a restless tattoo on the steering wheel. Now that the moment of truth was here, his heart felt sore and heavy. How could this have happened? He’d have done just about anything-paid a high price in sweat, blood and tears, to set Mary free from the murder charge against her. Now he knew just how high that price was going to be. Dammit, Boyd.

Up ahead he could see the house was dark. Kind of early for everyone to be in bed, he thought, but maybe because Susie Grace wasn’t allowed to watch TV…

Then he saw the dark sedan.

Diego spun toward the sound, jerking Mary around too, pressed against him, his arm tight against her throat again.

“I said, turn her loose.” Boyd was a dark silhouette in the barn doorway, his bow-legged shape like something out of an old Western movie. Like something from a Western movie, too, was the old-fashioned weapon he held in his hand.

When Mary heard the clicking sound of the gun being cocked, she reacted out of instinct, perhaps helped by the self-defense classes she’d taken long ago. She stomped savagely on Diego’s instep, then let her body go limp.

Diego DelRey wasn’t a powerful man. In pain, and finding himself with Mary’s full dead weight in his arms, he gave a bellow of rage and let her slip to the ground.

Roan was out of the SUV before the wheels had stopped turning. A quick check of the sedan told him it was empty. He was heading for the house at a dead run when he heard the shot.

It sounded like thunder, trapped in the confines of that old wooden building. As it died away, Mary could hear panic-stricken wings flapping somewhere up in the rafters. Somewhere behind her, Diego was a motionless dark shape in the straw. She lifted her head and saw Boyd standing in the barn doorway, his arm hanging limp at his side, the gun pointing at the floor. She gave a little whimpering cry and was scrambling over to him on her hands and knees when she saw Roan running toward her.

She tried to rise, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. And then he was there, helping her up, folding her into his arms and holding her tightly. Whispering brokenly into her hair. “Oh God…Mary…Mary. Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Oh…God…Mary.”

Roan held on to her shaking body and knew he didn’t want to let go of her ever again. But when Boyd walked over to him, he knew he was going to have to, for a little while, at least. He peeled himself away from her and turned her into the curve of his arm to keep her close, and Boyd handed him his old Colt 45 revolver, butt-first.

“Want you both to know,” the rancher said in his gruff and crusty voice, “I wouldn’t’a let her go to jail.” He hesitated, then touched the bill of his cap and gave a little nod. “You got things to finish up here. I’ll be waitin’ for you in the car.”

His footsteps crunched away into the night.

Roan caught Mary’s arms. “Susie Grace-”

“It’s okay-she’s okay. She’s at Boyd’s.” Her voice broke and grew thick with tears. “Oh Roan…Boyd?”

“I’m afraid so.” Aching with love and grief, he took her face between his hands and whispered as he kissed away her tears, “It’s all over, Mary. The nightmare’s over. You’re free.”

It was the wee hours of the morning before Mary got to sleep. Long after Roan had left to accompany Boyd and Diego DelRey’s body back to town, after Susie Grace had fallen asleep with a placidly purring Cat tucked under her arm, she sat huddled in the middle of Roan’s bed, hugging her drawn-up knees, with the words Roan had said to her echoing inside her head.

The nightmare’s over. You’re free.

Why, then, did she feel such desolation?

She must have fallen asleep at last, because she woke up when she heard Susie Grace in the kitchen, rattling cereal bowls and scolding Cat for jumping on the counter. She got up, sticky-eyed and fuzzy-headed, long enough to see Susie Grace off on the school bus, then crept back to bed, too dispirited to begin the task of packing. She knew she had to do it-Roan would be coming back, soon, to take her home. Not home. To Queenie’s house, not mine. Boyd had been arrested for the murder of Jason Holbrook, who had killed his daughter…Roan’s wife. The charges against Mary would be dropped. She could have her car back. Her life.

My life. But what is my life now?

Again, she must have slept. She woke with her throat parched and chest aching, having dreamed-Roan had been wrong about the nightmares-of being chased endlessly by something or someone terrifying she couldn’t see. As she lay in groggy half-awareness, it came again-the sound that had awakened her-a wrenching metallic screech.

Scrambling out of bed, she rushed into the hallway. And saw Roan, with a crowbar in his hands, pulling nails out of the boards that held the plywood barricade in place.

“Roan?” she said in a wondering voice. Her stomach dropped and her legs weakened at the sight of him. He threw her a look of such endearing uncertainty, it grew hard for her to breathe.

“Sorry to wake you,” he grunted as he attacked another nail, not sounding sorry at all.

“What are you doing?” She ventured closer, catching her hair with both hands and dragging it back from her forehead.

“Thought maybe it was time I finished this.” He glanced at her, then quickly away to stare narrow-eyed at the last remaining board, just above his head. His voice was a muffled rumble. “Never know-might have need of it someday.”

He lifted the crowbar, wedged it under the board and gave it a mighty yank. The board came away with another of those earsplitting screeches. He tossed it aside and stretched his arms wide to grasp the edges of the plywood. His muscles bulged beneath the soft fabric of his shirt as he lifted it, turned it, and propped it against the wall.

Mary gave a little gasp as light poured into the dark hallway. Then she followed Roan as he stepped across the ragged threshold, into a forest of two-by-fours.

“Doesn’t need all that much,” he said, peering up at the underside of the roof. “Sheetrock…a little paint. Bathroom’s all plumbed.” He looked at Mary, a longer look this time, and she saw the vulnerability he tried so hard to hide. “It’ll be a nice big bathroom when it’s done.”

It came to her then, with a force and clarity that rocked her to the depths of her soul, what he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say. She knew. “Roan,” she said softly, “don’t you think you should get back on the horse?”

For another long moment he glared at her, eyes narrowed and fierce, blue and bright as chips of sky. A great breath rushed from his chest. “Ah, hell, Mary, what do you want me to say? That I’d like it if you’d stay here with me? Maybe help me rebuild this place? Shoot, you know I would. But I know this ranch is a long ways away from the life that’s waitin’ for you out there. You’re free to go back to it now. Pick up from where it got taken away from you ten years ago.”

No-he wouldn’t ask it of her. Wouldn’t do that to her. The tears he could see shimmering in those green-gold eyes of hers were hard enough to bear. He was so busy denying himself happiness, denying it so vehemently, it was a moment before he realized what she was saying, in her husky, shaking whisper.

“Roan…don’t you know? There’s nothing of that life I want. Not anymore. That life…was my past. My future?” She hitched one shoulder, and a tear spilled over and ran down her cheek. She brushed it away with a little laughing sob. “I’d like to think that might be here…with you. And Susie Grace.”

“Really?” He felt exhausted, suddenly…wracked with pain and a sort of dazed and wary hope, the way he imagined a marathon runner must feel when he staggers across the finish line…unable to grasp the fact that the long race is finally over, and that he’s won. “I’m just a small-town sheriff, Mary, all I’ve got-”

The tears in her eyes seemed to sizzle, now. “Maybe a small-town sheriff is what I want.”

He frowned down at her, still not ready to believe. “You’d really stay with me? Marry me?” She nodded, vigorously, touching her fingers to her tear-drenched lips. He let out an exasperated breath. “Then I’ve really got to ask you, why?”

“Because I love you,” she burst out, laughing and crying again. Fire and rain. “I really love you. So much I’m willing to marry you in the hopes that someday you’ll come to love me.”

“Come to-” He stared at her, stunned, then reached for her with shaking hands. “My God, Mary,” he whispered as he pulled her to him, “don’t you know? I do already. Love you.”

“I know,” she murmured with a long sigh as she snuggled joyfully against him. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

On the day Boyd Stuart was arraigned on murder charges for the shooting of Jason Holbrook, and the charges against Mary Owen were formally dismissed, Roan paid a visit to the cemetery. He went there fairly regularly, especially in the spring and summertime, when there were fresh flowers to put on Erin’s grave. On this particular day, though, he found he wasn’t there alone. When he saw the tall figure standing beside his wife’s tombstone, head bowed, hat in his hands, expensively cut Western-style jacket hanging loosely from stooped shoulders, he checked and hitched in a breath before he went on.

“Mornin’, Cliff,” he said as he joined him.

Senator Holbrook looked over at him, nodded, then shifted his hat to one hand. “Roan… Uh, listen, I’ll be getting out of your way. I just…” He waved a hand, cleared his throat and said gruffly, “They set Jason’s marker today. I wanted to stop by before I left town, you know…just to check-make sure everything was right.” He paused…gestured with his hat toward the simple granite block that bore the words, Erin Elizabeth Stuart Harley-Beloved Wife and Mother-Beloved Daughter. “I hope you know how sorry I am.”

The pain in the other man’s voice made Roan look at him, much as he didn’t want to. The man who was most likely his father looked haggard…a hundred years old. Roan tightened his jaw and nodded, knowing the senator wasn’t asking for his sympathy, wouldn’t want it if it was offered.

“Jason was my son,” Holbrook said in a voice like tearing cloth. “But I never would have-” His voice broke, and he finished in a harsh whisper. “You have to believe-I didn’t know.”

“I know,” Roan said, with a tightness in his own throat. He held out his hand. After a brief hesitation the senator took it in both of his, his politician’s handshake.

“Son…” For a long moment the man’s glittering blue eyes gazed back into Roan’s. Then he squeezed his hand once more-hard-and went striding away across the grass.

Roan watched him go, then huffed out a breath and reached to lay the sprays of lilac he’d brought on top of the tombstone. A few minutes later Mary came to join him, holding Susie Grace by the hand-his two red-headed women. Tears misted his eyes as he lifted Susie Grace up so she could add her sprig of lilac to his, then took Mary’s hand and held it while she put hers there, too. Then they all turned and walked back to the car together.

Something stirred through his hair like warm breath…caressed his cheek with loving fingers. The wind? Perhaps…it could have been. But Roan knew better; his Spirit Messenger’s touch was familiar to him now.

This time, he had the strangest feeling she was saying goodbye.