“You will take a morning bath.” Lily turned and waggled a finger at her daughter. “The bathroom is off-limits for putting on makeup or primping, and that goes for both of you. You each have a mirror in your room. And ten o’clock is bedtime, and there will be a bed check.”

“I don’t primp,” Braden declared. “And I want a shower, not a bath.”

“You’re out of luck, kid. Our bathroom only has a tub, and the weatherman says there’s no chance of rain for a couple of days,” Lily told him.

“What’s rain got to do with it?” Braden asked.

“Duh!” Holly snorted. “You have to go outside and dance around naked if you want a shower.” She clamped a hand over her mouth and groaned. “How am I supposed to wash my hair with no shower?”

“See that plastic pitcher sitting on the ladder-back chair?” Lily pointed.

“Are you serious?” Holly asked.

“Yep, I am, but on the positive side, that big old claw-foot tub is deep enough that you can sink down in it all the way to your chin,” Lily said. “You might even learn to like it after you take a few baths.”

“Yeah, when them goats out there sprout wings and fly.” Holly stormed off to her room and slammed the door.

Lily remembered the last time they had been there, Braden had called the deep tub his swimming pool. In those days, Holly had been content to read her Harry Potter books in the evenings, and there was no problem with sharing a bathroom. Wyatt was still with her then and had comforted her all through the days leading up to the funeral and even on the way back to Austin when she’d been so sad. Two days later, he’d told her that he wanted a divorce.

She went back to her bedroom and closed the door, sat down on the bed, and stared at the old oak secretary without really seeing it. “The bastard,” she whispered. “He was holding me and thinking of Victoria the whole time. Thank God I didn’t get pregnant that last night we were in this house.”

She blinked, bringing the secretary into focus. Lily had played at her mother’s feet when Vera would lower the little flap to make a desk so she could answer letters every Sunday afternoon. Her mother had warned her constantly to be careful with the curved glass door, behind which Vera’s most prized knickknacks were kept.