“I still feel like she can’t be gone,” Tiff admitted.

“Me too,” Adora agreed. “It seems like any minute she’s going to walk in that door.”

It was well after dark when Tiff rose from the couch. “I think I’ll just go on to bed now.”

Adora pushed herself out of the easy chair and held out her arms. Tiff ran to her.

“I’m glad you were here,” Tiff whispered as she hugged Adora close.

“Me, too.” She cupped Tiffs sweet face in her hands and looked into those soft, dark eyes. “I’m going home now.” Gently she smoothed Tiff’s silky hair. “But I’ll be back in the morning, to fix you some breakfast. Okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Once Tiff had disappeared down the tiny central hall, Jed walked out to the porch with Adora. They stood for a few moments, there in the darkness, listening to the crickets and one lonesome frog croaking forlornly somewhere out on the lawn. Eventually Adora felt Jed’s pale gaze on her and turned enough to give him a smile.

He asked, “Do you think I did the right thing?”

She leaned against one of the four posts that held up the porch roof. “Deciding to keep Tiff with you, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

She thought of the Laidlaws, of their settled, middle-class life. They’d already raised two daughters, so it was a job they were familiar with. And Morton was a nice enough man, a retired dentist who had closed his practice in nearby Portola just a few years ago. Adora and her family, like most folks in Red Dog City, had always gone to Doctor Laidlaw when they needed dental work. He knew how to administer a shot of novocaine so you barely felt it.

Jed was chuckling. “Don’t answer. I can tell by your face.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “What?”

“You have your doubts about me.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Morton Laidlaw. That he’s a nice man, even if he is married to Charity.” She grinned. “You know what Reggie Kratt says about him?” Ancient Reggie Kratt ran Kratt’s Hardware, over on Commercial Row.

Jed knew. He put on a voice like Reggie’s. “‘That man is more than henpecked. He’s henhammered, and it’s a cryin’ shame.‘”

Adora laughed, and Jed did, too.

Then they fell silent. That frog started croaking again. Jed hitched a leg onto the porch rail. “So why did you volunteer to help me out?”

She looked out toward the street. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Well...”

“Tell it like it is.”

She met his eyes again. “Tiff wants to be with you.”

“And?”

“There’s more to raising a child than being respectable.”

“Good. ’Cause most people would say I come up zero in that department.”

“Charity’s...well, I’d hate to have to live with her.”

“And?”

She sought the right words, but didn’t find them.

He urged her on. “Spill it.”

“Charity reminds me of my mother.” It was out before Adora really considered how it would sound. She hastened to amend, “I mean, one side of my mother. The side that thinks she has to control everything. The side that’s always worried about what other people will think.” Adora looked out at the stars. The moon was no more than a sliver. It hung high above them, looking very far away.

She could feel Jed watching her. And when he spoke, she could hear the smile in his voice. “Are you a secret rebel, Adora Beaudine?”

She made a scoffing sound. “No way. You ought to know that, after the things I told you today.” Lord, was that only a few hours ago? It seemed like years, somehow.

He grunted. “Right. You wanna get married. To a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit.”

She had a silly urge to argue the point. But why? “You’re right. A guy in a Brooks Brothers suit is exactly what I want.”

“Still, I know you went with Dillon McKenna. Back in high school, when his reputation was almost as bad as mine.”

She kept her eyes on the faraway moon. “That was different. We were only kids. A crush. And in case you haven’t heard, Dillon’s married to my sister Cat now.”

“I heard.”

Adora thought about Dillon. Like Jed, he’d left town when he was barely grown. He’d returned to Red Dog City just last winter, an international celebrity whose career as a professional daredevil had ended after one of his jumps almost killed him. As soon as he’d set eyes on Cat again, he’d known what he wanted. Cat had taken some convincing. But in the end, Dillon had been more than persuasive enough to win her.

“Jealous?” Somehow, Jed made the question sound tender.

Adora looked at him then. “Of what?”

“That your first love belongs to your sister now?”

She stared at him, wondering how he managed to ask her such personal questions—and yet not offend her at all when he did it. And he’d hit right on the mark, too. She had been jealous. At first. There had been trouble between her and Cat. But it had all worked out in the end. Now Adora couldn’t picture Dillon with anyone but Cat.

She said, “No, I’m not jealous. And if I was, I’d be suffering for nothing. No other woman’s got a chance with Dillon. He’s crazy over Cat. And she’s nuts for him. They’re so in love, it’s embarrassing sometimes to be in the same room with them. They forget other people exist.”

The porch light caught on the diamond stud in Jed’s ear, making it glitter. “You wanna be loved like that?” His voice, always low, was lower than ever. And intimate.

She couldn’t help thinking of that afternoon, on the trail by Trout Creek. Of the impossible way she had felt then. Of the way she felt right now...

“Come on. Say it out straight.”

She gulped, and then she did it; she said it out straight. “Yeah. I do. I want to be loved like that. What woman wouldn’t?”

He grinned, white teeth flashing. The diamond stud gleamed. Right then he looked like a pirate from one of those old movies, that Cat used to take her to when they were kids. “You think Mr. Brooks Brothers Suit is gonna love you like that?”

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