She sighed a little, holding the warm, smooth sheet she took from the basket to her cheek. Ethan’s sheet—she’d taken it off his bed that day. She’d been able to smell him on it then, and maybe, for just a minute or two, she’d let herself dream a little of what it might have been like if he’d wanted her, if she had slept with him on those sheets, in his house.

But dreaming didn’t get the work done, or pay the rent, or buy the things her little girl needed.

Briskly she began to fold the sheets, laying them neatly on the rumbling dryer. There was no shame in earning her keep by cleaning houses or serving drinks. She was good at both, in any case. She was useful, and she was needed. That was good enough.

She certainly hadn’t been useful or needed by the man she was married to so briefly. If they’d loved each other, really loved each other, it would have been different. For her it had been a desperate need to belong to someone, to be wanted and desired as a woman. For Jack . . . Grace shook her head. She honestly didn’t know what she had been for Jack.

An attraction, she supposed, that had resulted in conception. She knew he believed he’d done the honorable thing by taking her to the courthouse and standing with her in front of the justice of the peace on that chilly fall day and exchanging vows.

He had never mistreated her. He had never gotten mean drunk and knocked her around the way she knew some men did wives they didn’t want. He didn’t go sniffing after other women—at least not that she knew about. But she’d seen, as Aubrey grew inside her and her belly rounded, she’d seen the look of panic come into his eyes.

Then one day he was simply gone without a word.

The worst of it was, Grace thought now, she’d been relieved.

If Jack had done anything for her, it was to force her to grow up, to take charge. And what he’d given her was worth more than the stars.

She put the folded laundry in a basket, hitched the basket on her hip, and walked into the front room.

There was her treasure, her curly blond hair bouncing, her pretty, rosy-cheeked face alight with joy as she sat on Ethan’s lap and babbled at him.

At two, Aubrey Monroe resembled a Botticelli angel, all rose and gilt, with bright-green eyes and dimples denting her cheeks. Little kitten teeth and long-fingered hands. Though he could decipher only half her chatter, Ethan nodded soberly.

‘‘And what did Foolish do then?’’ he asked as he figured out she was telling him some story about Seth’s puppy.