“Everybody walks this path at their own pace,” Hayley said gently, and Amanda remembered her own mother had died several months before she’d met Quinn. “And you may reach a point where staying does you more harm than good, but only you can decide when that is.”

“Just be honest with yourself,” Quinn advised. “If it hurts too much to go, stay. If it hurts too much to stay, go.”

“That’s my husband, ever logical,” Hayley said with a loving smile.

“If I only knew the answer to either of those,” Amanda said wryly.

“Leave for a while, then, and see how it feels,” Quinn suggested. “Go somewhere for the rest of the winter. Be a snowbird for a bit.”

“I’ve thought about that,” she admitted.

“So do I,” Hayley said, “whenever I go south to visit my brother. Which we’ll be doing in a few days.” A broad smile curved her mouth. “He’s getting married.”

“Congratulations to him,” Amanda said, meaning it; she had nothing but good feelings about the Foxworths and anyone connected to them. “I was—”

A sharp bark cut off her words. Cutter had disappeared, and the bark had come from the back of the house. She instinctively looked at Quinn. For translation, she supposed.

“Hmm. That’s interesting,” was all he said, but he got up and headed toward the sound.

Amanda followed. She was a bit apprehensive and more than a little startled when she realized the dog had gone into what she now called—or tried to—the library, but which had also always been her father’s office. His desk was here, and the laptop she’d spent so much time poring over immediately after his death. The bookshelves along one wall were full; her father had grudgingly used an e-reader for some things, but print had always been his first choice. She had also kept her own books there, mostly from before her own e-reader days, which she had taken to much more thoroughly than he had.

That’s because I’m old, Mandy.

He’d been half joking, but it still wrenched at her. Because he would never get old now. She’d heard someone say once that you never really understood what forever meant until you lost someone you loved. She hadn’t gotten it then. She did now.

Cutter was nosing at the bottom shelf, which held her childhood favorites, including a magical series she to this day went back and read now and then. And she had been very tempted lately, as this grim anniversary had neared, to begin anew with book one, hoping to find some escape in the much-loved story.