He glanced over at Mabel and nodded in her direction. “Or she’ll do it for you,” he said with a sour note in his voice. “Now, go on. Do what you know is right.”

Melissa didn’t question the sense of relief she felt at being nudged determinedly out the door. If Eli didn’t find it odd that she’d be going to the funeral, maybe no one else would, either. Maybe it would have been more noticeable if she’d stayed away.

Bracing herself against the brisk January wind, she rushed down Main Street, glad that she’d chosen to wear a dress to work rather than her usual jeans and T-shirt. Obviously some part of her had known even when she’d dressed that morning that she would change her mind about going to the service.

It was a dreary day for a funeral. Leaden clouds, practically bursting with rain—or, given the rapidly dropping temperature, more likely sleet—hung low in the sky. She tugged her coat more tightly around her, but gave up on keeping her long hair from tangling as the wind whipped it around her face.

All the way to the church she tried to keep her mind off Cody and on the service that was to come. Her best efforts, however, were a dismal failure. She kept envisioning Cody, wondering how he was holding up, worrying how he and all of his brothers were doing and regretting more than she could say that she couldn’t take her place with them and offer the support she desperately wanted to give.

She was so late that she planned to slip into the back of the church and stand in the shadows. Cody would never know she was there. The last thing she wanted to do today was add to his misery.

She ran up the steps of the old church just as the bells were chiming in the tall white steeple. The sun peeked through the clouds for just an instant, creating a terrible glare. Going from that sudden bright sun outside into the church’s dimly lit interior, she was momentarily blinded.

Apparently, whoever was hard on her heels was having the same problem because he slammed smack into her, his body rock solid as he hit her at full tilt. The contact almost sent her sprawling on the polished wood floor.

“Sorry,” he said, gripping her elbows to keep her upright. “You okay, darlin’?”

Melissa’s heart climbed straight into her throat. She would have recognized that voice, that automatic flirtatiousness, even if she hadn’t heard it for a hundred years. The firm, steadying touch was equally familiar and just as devastating. If she’d brushed against a live wire, she couldn’t have felt any more electrified.

“Cody?”