Inexpressibly moved by the simple gesture, Hope rose, took his face in her hands. “That’s perfect,” she said, and kissed him.

“It’s cooling off. You’re going to get cold,” Beckett told Clare. “I’m going to swing by, pick up the dogs, take Clare and the boys home.”

“We need to tell her.” Clare looked at Hope. “I feel like we should all be there when you tell her.”

“It can wait until tomorrow. You get pale when you’re tired.” Beckett trailed a finger down her cheek. “And you’re pale. It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Maybe that’s better anyway.” Avery lifted her hands. “We can think about how to tell her. I mean we found him, here he is. But what does that mean? It seems almost cruel to tell her he’s buried out here, miles away from where she is.”

“In the morning,” Justine agreed. “Let’s say about nine. Yes, it interrupts your day,” she said to Ryder before he could speak. “But it’s before Clare and Avery open, before Hope and Carolee have anyone checking in.”

“Nine’s fine.”

“Will you come, Willy B?” She turned to the big man with the little dog in his arms. “Can you take the time?”

“If you want me, Justine, I can be there.”

“I’d appreciate it. I want to know which of these is their mama. She lost two of her sons, maybe the third, too, before she died. That’s a cruel thing.” Justine’s voice thickened before she breathed deep to steady it. “I want to know her name and remember her.”

“It’s getting dark.” Willy B patted her arm, stroked it. “Let me take you home now, Justine.”

“All right. Let’s all go home.”

But Ryder lingered as the others started away. He made himself step back from the trio of graves when Hope touched his arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“That there are three of them. Like you and Owen and Beckett?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “It hits home, I guess. He’s my mother’s. He’s ours. She’s yours. I’ve got his name—the last of it for my first. And—” He shook his head as he wanted to shake this feeling away. “Let’s go.”

“What? And what?” she insisted as he drew her away.

“Nothing. It’s just weird, like I said.”

He didn’t tell her he’d known, the minute he’d stepped inside the low stone wall, where to find Billy. He’d known where to walk, what he’d find.

Imagining things, he told himself as they got back in his truck. Just that graveyard at dusk deal.