All he knew was the best way to handle a disturbed horse, and heading straight at the problem was often exactly the wrong way.

“We’re going camping this weekend,” he remarked. “The boys asked if you could come.” They had, but he’d put them off, not wanting to deepen this relationship any. But that had been his immediate response. His secondary response was the one he always got around to sooner or later: help the horse.

She’d probably hate him if she ever figured out he was thinking of her that way. But there it was.

“Camping?” she repeated uncertainly. “But, um …”

“You’re not going to finish going through Mary’s stuff tomorrow. We both know it. And I assume, since you’re here, that you’re on some kind of vacation. Because they sure wouldn’t have let you come otherwise from what you said.”

“You’re right.”

“So take some vacation. The weather is supposed to warm up, I need to go into the upper pasture to gather about twenty head that are still there. The boys have a great time. We ride up on Saturday morning, gather the herd and bring them back down on Sunday.”

“I … don’t know.”

“Think about it. I’m getting some coffee. You want fresh?”

“Please.”

Just a gentle movement of the bit, he reminded himself. Just a hint to let the horse know something was needed. No woman who had gotten into her car and driven out here in defiance of her orders could be weak. No, she had to be a strong woman. But right now she was looking weak, and that was because she was floundering as she tried to find a way to deal with a burr under her saddle.

That would change, he thought. If nothing else, her visit here would convince her it was a dead end. And maybe some mountain sunshine and fresh air would clear her emotions a bit.

Because, as he’d learned these past two years, sometimes you just had to live with the way things were, like them or not.

Friday morning dawned misty as the warm front moved in, bringing the possibility of light rain.

Courtney rolled onto her side and stared out the window, struck by the lack of curtains. But why would anyone need curtains here? Beyond that window lay nothing but mountains and trees. The bunkhouse, barns and main pastures were on the other side of the house and behind it. In her world, though, no window was ever left uncovered because it was too easy for people to look in from nearby buildings, or even from the ground.

A different world indeed.

From below she could hear the sounds of Dom and the boys at breakfast, and she could even smell some of the aromas that had wafted under her closed door, but not even coffee could make her move.

Emotionally, she felt trampled. Last night she had determined that she would finish up today somehow and leave.

This morning she doubted she would be able to do much of anything. It was as if a load of grief she had been carrying around, carefully compartmentalized for two years, had finally hammered her. Reading through Mary’s letters to her sons had left her feeling positively battered.

Worse, it seemed to have awakened memories of things she had seen over there. Nightmares of war, of mutilated bodies, had plagued her all night. She’d awakened at least three times with the sounds of screams in her ears. But her exposure had been relatively small. Someone like Mary, someone who saw it almost every day, would surely have worse nightmares, worse memories. Worse everything.

I’m lucky, she told herself firmly. Lucky her job had taken her into hell so rarely. Other people had been there for years.

But the thought of opening those doors of memory any wider almost sickened her.

So what was she going to do? Give up her pursuit of justice? Let the desert ghosts lie in their hiding places? Because for her Mary wasn’t the only ghost. So were the women of that village who had never received justice. So was the person who had murdered Mary to protect himself and his buddies. Some of those ghosts she felt unable to leave alone.

Except that today it all seemed like too much. Way too much. Her plan of poring over letters, photos and tapes had been anticipated from a professional angle. It was the kind of thing she did all the time in her job.

But this was no job. This was personal. And it hurt.

Apparently not even two years had buried the anguish completely, and she could only imagine what it was like for Dom, surrounded by all his memories of his wife, taking care of two boys who looked quite a bit like her.

Of course, maybe that had helped him deal faster than her own burying of it had. Maybe he was further down the road than she.

Sighing, she at last rose, tended to her needs and went downstairs. Dom wasn’t there and she imagined he had taken the boys to the bus. Through one of the windows she could see Ted walking out into the pastures. He appeared to be carrying some tack with him.

Breakfast still waited on the table, and the coffee was still hot and fresh. Her place had been set, as if her arrival was anticipated. Somehow that made her feel a little more welcome.

She poured some coffee and then took some pancakes and link sausages from a platter and warmed them in the microwave. Blueberry syrup topped her menu. Not that she felt much like eating. Not after the nightmares, not after that damn email yesterday that was probably as toothless as an old hag, designed to frighten her, but unable to do anything else.

She forced herself to take a bite of pancake. No, that email was meaningless. It had probably arrived simply because she had gone out of reach of oversight. And someone was worried.

Wouldn’t they be horrified to realize that all they had done was confirm her suspicions that something was seriously wrong with the way the investigation had been quashed? For a moment, she almost smiled, and the taste of the pancakes became wonderful.

Yeah. They’d confirmed her suspicions. Now she would get to the bottom of this or die trying.

She tried to imagine Mary sitting at this table. All her memories of Mary involved the base, the hospital and a couple places where it was safe for an American to stop for coffee. Even in a pacified zone that wasn’t always a sure thing.

She ran her fingertips over the aging oilcloth, and figured from the pattern that it must have been Mary’s choice. She had loved cheerful things.

And she probably wouldn’t be very happy to see Courtney sitting here feeling as if lead weighted her down. That just wasn’t Mary. She probably wouldn’t be happy, either, that Courtney had gotten Dom all stirred up again.

Crap! She put her head in her hands as powerful, painful feelings grabbed her. Maybe she should have just let this lie and lived with her sense of outraged justice.

But as soon as she had the thought, she knew she couldn’t rest until she was absolutely certain that she had done everything possible. Everything.

She heard Dom come into the mud room, and didn’t even bother to look up. She didn’t want to know, in a moment of reaction he couldn’t conceal fast enough, how little he wanted her here.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she admitted frankly. “But it doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t, compared to his problems.

“Of course it matters.”

She listened to him pour coffee for himself, then heard a chair scrape as he sat at the table. “What’s going on?”

She shook her head, still resting in her hands. “It’s hard reading those emails and letters.”

“I know.”

Yeah, she was sure he did. And it seemed petty of her to even mention it. “How are you managing?”

He shrugged a shoulder, seeming to indicate he wasn’t going to talk about it. But then he said, “With time I feel it less often. I still feel it, it still hurts like hell, but it happens less often. I guess you can get used to anything, given time.”