There was general laughter that Don chose to ignore along with Bob’s bellyaching. “On your marks…get set…”

“Good luck,” Suzanne said to Winona as she stepped back from the table to give her friend space to create.

“Go!”

“Yee-haw!” Bob started the hedge trimmer with a mighty roar that caused several looks of alarm among the crowd before he handed it over to long-suffering Ray.

Suzanne spied Cora and Burl through the crowd as chisels went to work and ice shavings flew through the air. Cora gave an enthusiastic wave, which Suzanne returned, but she felt so bad about her deception, she made no move to join them. Grady had told her last night that his aunt had been fine with the situation, but what did Cora really think of her?

Grady wasn’t exactly in touch with such esoteric things as emotions, so maybe he couldn’t read those kind of cues?

Just like she hadn’t been able to read his cues last night about Bethany. Suzanne had lain awake into the wee hours thinking about Grady’s high school sweetheart who had died so tragically. Died too young. Wondering if, had she lived, would she and Grady have still been together today? Wondering if he was still in love with her and that’s why he’d shut himself off to the possibility of another relationship. Why he was happy to settle for nothing and nobody out here in the wilds of far eastern Colorado if he couldn’t have the woman he loved.

Just because there wasn’t a single picture of her, no shrine to her memory, didn’t mean she’d faded from his mind. All he had to do was look at Zoom and be reminded of her, right?

Did he? Did he think of Bethany every time he laid eyes on the turtle?

God…had he been thinking about Bethany that night in her bed?

“You okay, dear?”

Suzanne startled at the intrusion, blinking twice before she realized Cora and Burl had joined her at Winona’s table. “Yes. Thank you.” She smiled at Cora, who returned it as she looped her arm through Suzanne’s.

“We thought you’d be competing as well,” Cora said.

“Figured you’d be a chip off the old block,” Burl added, then laughed at his own pun.

Suzanne laughed, too, but she wasn’t really feeling it. She’d been looking forward to joining in the comp, but giving up her fourth painting yesterday had killed whatever paltry creative urge she still owned that hadn’t been decimated by the arrival of her parents.