Sheridan turned and looked hard at him. They had had a conversation like this before.
'I love you, Dad,' she said. 'I'm glad you're back.'
Joe felt his face flush. He leaned forward and buried his head in her hair. 'I love you too, honey And it's good to be back.'
***
Slicked out and sweating, Toby pounded the packed earth in the round pen. Marybeth turned him and asked him to lope in the other direction. She was working him hard, very hard. As if she were exorcising something out of him. Or herself. Joe was intrigued by the fact that he was still learning about the woman who was his wife.
Joe's eyes wandered away from the horse, over the corral to the humpbacked Bighorn Mountains. There was no conceivable way that Stewie could have survived the explosion. No possible way.
No possible way.
