Boot steps rang on the porch, and Val looked toward the back of her little carriage house. Slade, Bo following him, walked through the door, the screen slapping behind him. “You’ve made up your mind, right?” he asked her, smokey blue eyes sparking with humor. “We’re giving this pathetic marriage of ours one more shot?”

Val couldn’t help but laugh. “I suppose. If you mind your p’s and q’s.”

“Oh, God, don’t get cute on me,” Freya begged, holding up her hands as if to fend off an attack. “I might just throw up my cheese blintz!”

“We’re never ‘cute,’” Valerie insisted. “I abhor all that kind of stuff.”

“Good.” Freya’s eyes said she didn’t believe a word of it. “Then keep it in mind. And we’ll talk about you selling out your interest at the end of the year—see where you are.”

“Barefoot and pregnant,” Slade said, then laughed and winked at his own joke. “As if that would ever happen.”

“As if you would ever want it to happen,” Val said.

“The pregnant part is good.”

“Hmmm. Maybe. I think I should get out of my cast first.”

“It’s kinda sexy.” Slade was pulling her roller bag from the bedroom. “And I’ve always had a foot fetish—barefoot would be all right.”

Freya looked stricken. “Enough!”

“He’s kidding!” Val said. “See why he drives me crazy?”

“Yeah, and you love it.” He was out the door again, and Val sighed.

“Thanks for everything,” she said to Freya.

“No thanks needed. The added notoriety of what happened here has only helped business. Sick as it is, I’ve had to turn people away. We’re full up for the rest of the summer, which isn’t usually the high season around here.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said, and it was heartfelt.

“Ditto. And I’m leaving everything just as you left it in here. While Sarah’s with me. But”—she wagged a finger at Val—“if you ever say you’re not coming back, I’m putting all your stuff on craigslist and selling it. I’ll turn this room into an apartment for the guests—it’ll make me a fortune.” Her eyes lit up at the prospect.

“I changed my mind. I won’t miss you at all.”

They laughed and hugged, and then Val, with Slade’s help, limped out of her little house and into the truck.

They were going to start over, to pick up the frayed threads of their marriage and weave it back together.

He started the engine and, with Bo between them, pulled into traffic.

They were on their way to the ranch outside of Bad Luck, Texas. She was going to forget that she’d ever mistrusted him, and she had already forgiven Cammie.