“Did you not notice that I moved the car before the storm hit? It’s up by the road.”

“Where anyone trying to drive on that narrow road can bash it?”

“Where we won’t have to get up an icy slope in it and possibly end up in the lake.” Apparently, happy sex and our altered relationship didn’t preclude our occasional squabble.

“Okay, that was a good idea,” he said. “We’ll see if we can get into town around noon, when whatever’s going to melt has melted.”

Somehow we never got around to talking further about what had happened between us, and somehow that was okay. Tolliver got restless, which I’d expected, and he bundled up and went outside to help Ted Hamilton for an hour or two. When he came back up the stairs, I could hear him stomping snow and ice off his boots. I was reading by the fire, and I was getting a little stir-crazy. I looked up expectantly, and he came over and bent to give me a casual kiss on the cheek, just as if we’d been married for years.

“Your face is freezing,” I said.

“My face is frozen,” he corrected me. “Did you call Manfred? We saw a car go by while we were out there working, and they made it okay.”

“I’ll call him now,” I said, and found I had to leave a message on Manfred’s voice mail.

“Probably has it turned off while he’s inside the hospital,” Tolliver said.

I opened my mouth to ask a few questions about our new relationship, and once again I saw the wisdom of closing it. After all, why would Tolliver know any more about it than me?

I relaxed and let the tension drain away. We would make this up as we went along. We didn’t have to send out announcements. I did have a sudden awful thought. “Ah, this new thing we’ve got may be a little confusing for our sisters,” I said.

I could tell from the expression on Tolliver’s face that this hadn’t occurred to him. “Yeah,” he said. “You know…you’re right about that. Mariella and Gracie…oh, God. Iona.”