“I know. You used her to make me leave. Kelly told me why you’d done it, but I didn’t believe her. I told Joe what had happened but he didn’t say anything. About a year later, we were being shot at by a bunch of drunken soldiers. They didn’t want us there. Joe said, ‘So this is what that guy gave up his life to give you?’ It was just the one sentence but it made me see the truth. I wanted to call you and tell you that I knew.”

“I wish you had.”

“No. It was better this way. If I’d called, I would have taken away your freedom. You got your daughter and you didn’t have to marry Gabby. And thanks to my leaving, you got the opportunity to have a real life. A normal one.” She glared at him. “That you didn’t take it was your fault, not mine.”

Miguel gave a half grin. “Marry someone else? Some pretty blonde girl who adored me? Who would braid Cait’s hair? We’d have a couple more kids? Boys, maybe? I could teach them to ride horses. How to barbecue beef.”

By the time he finished, Vera was smiling. “Now that I’m here, I can see the impossibility of that. You have a temper. You need someone to hold it down.” For a moment they stared at each other in silence. “So now what?” she asked.

Miguel didn’t move but his body and face changed. “That bed looks nice.” Vera’s mouth twitched. “Clean sheets.”

“I’ve always liked clean sheets. Actually, they turn me on.”

“What a coincidence. I feel exactly the same way.”

In the next second, they were on each other. Mouths and hands moving with years and years of suppressed lust. The sheets were well used.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cait knew Coop would be home. But then, he wasn’t exactly adventurous. He didn’t spend his evenings in a bar. He came home after work with a bag of takeout—he never seemed to cook—and didn’t go out again. Except for one night. She woke when she heard his old car go out and she didn’t go back to sleep until he returned three hours later. That afternoon she went to Gresham’s and found out that Dr. Coop had delivered a breech calf.

“He did a good job,” June Sanders’s husband said. That was high Kansas praise. Last night with Heather was his only evening out for anything social.

Not that Cait was keeping track. Not that it was any of her business. Certainly not that she cared.