“It’s so good to catch up so I can finally get to know you better, Lizzie! We were all so surprised when Calvin told us he was getting married again. Heck, I don’t think he’d even mentioned he was dating.”

Avril Walters beamed at me as she poured my coffee from the pot. Her husband, Dale, worked with Calvin in the experimental planes division at El Paso, and their baby, Patty, was sitting up at the table next to me, stuffing cake into her mouth.

I met most of Calvin’s Fort Bliss friends after we got engaged. They were all involved with his aviation unit—pilots or engineers or specialists of one variety or another. I also met their families. There were Kevin and Becca Llewellyn and their adorable girls, Ava and Brianna; Juanita and Bob and their noisy tribe of sons, who destroyed any room they entered; Trevor and Gail had newborn Toby; and of course, Avril and her husband, Dale, and Patty. I’d attended a few dinner parties with Calvin, but I wasn’t quite sure what to make of these women. They seemed so tight-knit already, and Avril wasn’t the first one to express surprise that Calvin had remarried.

Most of the time I was fine with our arrangement, but when his friends teased Calvin about our relationship, I felt so self-conscious, I couldn’t bear it. I had no idea how I’d react to such a dynamic in a one-on-one conversation, so when Avril invited me for coffee, I always made an excuse. Finally, though, I accepted one of Avril’s many invitations to get to know one another better.

“Cal has been so coy about you but I’m dying to know—how did you two meet?” she asked as soon as we settled at her kitchen table.

“I was working at the Hilton,” I said. She pushed the cup of coffee in front of me and nodded to encourage me to continue. “He was a guest and we just became friends.”

“Tell me everything! Did he sweep you off your feet? Has he told you all about his poor dead wife, God rest her soul?”

“Yes, he swept me off my feet. And we don’t talk much about her, to be honest.” I sipped my coffee, grateful to have something to do with my hands. It felt like I was being interrogated. “I know her name was Louise.”

“So sad,” Avril murmured, shaking her head. “How did she die?”

“It was a car accident,” I said awkwardly. Poor Louise Miller had been hit by a car on her way to buy groceries.

“Tragic. Thank God he has you now.” She poured her own coffee, and then took a seat beside me. “And you grew up on a farm, right?”