“So do I,” she said. “But, Mack, you might want to think long and hard about things. We could go back to Austin at the end of the school year. Braden is the only one who’s said he wants to stay here. Holly says the jury is still out.”

He tipped up her chin with his knuckles and kissed her. When it ended, she leaned into his broad chest. It felt good to have a man’s strong arms around her and to hear him say nice things about her. But—there always seemed to be a but in her life—she couldn’t start something and then walk away from it in a few months. It wouldn’t be fair to him, and it would break her heart, too.

He turned around and headed the short distance to his bedroom, and she went on up the steps, taking them one at a time, and wishing the whole time that she could go back and follow him into his bedroom. Her breath was still coming in short bursts when she reached her bedroom and got the journal out of the secretary. She started toward Holly’s room with it, only to meet her in the hallway.

“Can we read some more?” Holly asked. “I’ve got thirty minutes before bedtime, and I’d like to work on my project.”

“Great minds think alike.” Lily turned around and led the way back to her room.

“Oh, yeah.” Holly grinned and crawled up in the middle of Lily’s bed. “It seems strange, Mama, to read about these women that were kin to us, and the time from one chapter to the next being so far apart. It seems even weirder that we’ve been here in Comfort as long as we have, and it only seems like a day or two.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Lily thought of her and Mack. They were adults living in the same house, but it could so easily turn into more than that, given time. Would she ever write in the journal that she’d gotten married a second time? Would it be Mack, or was he just showing her that there were still a few good men out there in the world?

“Are you going to read or not?” Holly asked impatiently.

Lily glanced down at the book and read:

Jenny Medford O’Riley, May 1917:

Holly let out a long sigh of relief. “I’m glad that she’s still alive. I like her.”

Lily went on: