Mack felt the heat rising from his neck to his cheeks. Of all the things for his father to say in front of Braden, that dang sure wasn’t what he wanted Orville to get started about. “Yes, she does, and she’s a good woman. Now how about that brown goat out there? The one jumping up on the hay bale—you think she’s top-notch?”

“She’s a grade below the black-and-white one but still ain’t too bad. Have you moved in with the Miller girl? You moved in with Brenda, and Adam married her. Maybe you better not live with Vera’s daughter.”

“Maybe not,” Mack agreed.

“But he already lives with my mama, only he lives downstairs and we all live upstairs,” Braden told him.

Orville acted like he hadn’t heard. “I’m getting hungry. You reckon your mama has dinner ready yet?”

“Maybe,” Mack answered, glad that his dad was getting away from the subject of Lily and marriage. “Why don’t we go see, and if she doesn’t, I know that she keeps the cookie jar filled.”

Orville stood up and started walking straight out from the barn. Mack stood up and hurried to catch up with him. “We’d better go this way, or we’ll have to climb a fence.”

Orville chuckled. “I got turned around a little.”

Lily leaned her head back on the sofa that evening and let out a long whoosh of air—something way beyond a sigh. Mack had taken Holly and Braden over to the Torres place, and now he was out doing the evening chores. Thank God she had thought to invite Polly over for the afternoon. Orville had gone to Mack’s room for a nap, and Polly had caught Nora up on all the town gossip.

It had been years since she’d had an all-day event with anyone, including her two best friends, Sally and Teena, or even Mack. On Saturdays, he was usually in and out of the house, doing one thing or another out around the place. Lily closed her eyes and had started to doze off when her phone rang. She fumbled across the end table for it, barely opened one eye a slit to find the right icon to answer it, and said, “Hello.” She halfway expected it to be one of the kids wanting to know if she’d bring them the Harry Potter collection of movies.

“Is that you, Lily?” Wyatt asked. “Your voice is even huskier than usual.”

Her eyes popped wide open. “What? It’s me. Why are you calling?”