“Then that makes you extra special, doesn’t it?” Brynnie edged into the room and looked over her shoulder. “Go on,” she mouthed to Katie as she took a seat on the foot of the bed. “Now, kiddo, what’ll the bet be?”

“I dunno.”

“I know. If I win, you’ll come over and mow my lawn, but if you win, I’ll take you and a friend over to the water park next weekend.”

“Really?” Josh sent his mother a glance that said he knew he was being conned.

“Of course.” Brynnie looked up, caught Katie standing at the crack in the doorway and gave her a curt little wave.

“Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” Katie said, relieved that her son seemed to be jollying out of his bad mood. “I’ll see you both later.”

She packed the Jeep with boxes, coats from the front closet and a few sacks from the kitchen, then drove to the old Victorian house she would soon call home. It felt odd, somehow; she and Josh had lived in the cottage for all of his life. But it was time for a change.

She parked in an open spot by the garage, noticed that Luke’s pickup was missing and kicked herself when she felt a pang of disappointment. “Forget him,” she whispered under her breath as she started unloading boxes and carrying them into the old house. It seemed empty and cold. Fresh paint, a soft gold color that Tiffany had let Katie pick out, covered the walls and the wood floors gleamed, but the furniture was missing, the hanging pots, the dried herbs and the children’s artwork stripped from what had been Tiffany’s once-cozy kitchen. No black cat slunk through the shadows and without the wail of Stephen’s guitar, the patter of Christina’s busy feet or Tiffany’s soft laughter, the house was little more than a tomb.

“Cut it out,” she reprimanded and busied herself by carrying box after box into the house and leaving it in the appropriate room. She’d finished her last trip and was actually hanging coats in the front hall when she heard the back door open.

Her heart nearly stopped.

“Hello?” Luke’s voice filled the empty space.

“In here.” Her pulse jumped a bit as he came into view—tall and rangy, in jeans and a faded denim shirt with its sleeves shoved to the elbows, his hair windblown. He brought with him the scents of rainwater and horses.

“Movin’ in?” he asked, his blue eyes intense.

“The first load.” She shut the closet door and suddenly felt tongue-tied. “I, uh, I’ll move the big stuff in a couple of days. My brothers have offered to help with the furniture and appliances.”

He glanced around the empty rooms. “Your boy here?”