I couldn’t believe Jim had asked me to marry him. We’d said our vows a year ago. I’d prayed for just such a godly man. My second prayer had also been answered. I stroked my slightly rounded stomach. A son. We hadn’t decided on a name yet.

Today could be the icing on the cake—finding my perfect horse, which I would one day ride to a team roping and barrel racing championship. The horse that we’d been on our way to see.

“Darby?” He was staring at my face. “You zoned out for a moment.”

“Just contemplating our future.” I pointed at the house. “And I do hope it doesn’t include buying the Daday place. That’s just plain creepy.”

“No.”

“Then shouldn’t we get going?”

“We won’t bother anyone. The place is empty.”

“That’s good.” This time when we kissed, I wanted it to go on forever, but eventually I had to come up for air. “I . . . um . . .” I cleared my throat. “I thought Daday had an apartment in town.”

“He did, but we found this address when we searched the apartment.” He reached over and stroked my now-tangled shoulder-length hair. “Daday would still be killing women if not for your work.”

“But my contribution was very small. Infinitesimal.” I held my fingers a quarter inch apart. “Just a bit of a nudge on some notes he wrote.”

“Hardly—”

“I was just doing my job. Everyone in the department put in overtime, especially you. You should have gotten a promotion after all that.”

“Well, I—”

“I’d bet if Daday hadn’t committed suicide-by-cop, his trial would have highlighted your investigative work.”

“Maybe, but it was your linguistic work that moved the case forward.”

“Then there’s that whole nickname issue.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t start on that again—”

“It offends me. Of course, naming a killer is disgusting enough, but when the press gives a serial killer a label, they usually do a better job. The Hillside Strangler. The Green River Killer. Jack the Ripper.”

“Is there a book somewhere that gives the rules for naming serial killers?”

“Of course not, don’t be silly, but the structure should be the ordinary juxtaposed with the dangerous.”

“Darby, nobody thinks about the order of the words.”

“I do. And how stupid a name is the Butcher of Sedro-Woolley?”

He sighed and straightened. “But that’s where his victims lived—”

“And the words butcher and Woolley don’t flow. Woolley makes me think of Chewbacca. Wild and woolly. A woolly lamb. Woolly bully.”

“I think—”

“Even Chewbacca was a Wookiee, close to woolly.”

“You and words. Come to think of it, you and talking.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you saying I talk too much?”

He touched my hair again. “I would never say that. And live.” He grinned. “What would you have named the serial killer?”

“Something like the Cascade Killer. Seattle Slayer—”