Olivia made her way through the gravestones toward her friend’s little flat marker, and she sank down to a crouch beside it. Tears ebbed close to the surface, but she sat there, dry-eyed.
“I wanted to come here and cry for you, Mia...” she murmured aloud.
Olivia’s heart felt empty and sodden, and as she looked at Mia’s grave, all she could think about were all those hopes for the future that they’d both shared. Life had been harder than anticipated...for all of them. But Olivia had faced those challenges. And now, she was no longer the young woman reeling from this town’s cruelty. She’d grown up and she’d toughened up.
“It’s going to be okay...” she whispered, and she realized she wasn’t talking to Mia anymore. This was for herself. It would be okay, eventually. God would bring her that promised comfort.
“Olivia?”
Olivia startled and turned to see Irene standing behind her. She was wearing the same dark pink wrap from earlier, but she looked older this afternoon. Her earlier confidence and easy smiles seemed to be gone, and the lines in her face were deeper.
“Irene...” Olivia swallowed hard and she rose to her feet. “I came to see her grave.”
“Me, too,” Irene said.
Mia’s mother probably needed space at this grave, too, and maybe it was time for Olivia to leave anyway. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
“No, that’s okay,” Irene said, and she wound her way through the other gravestones and stopped at Olivia’s side. “You should stay.”
“I understand needing some time alone with Mia,” Olivia said.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Irene said with a small shake of her head. “I’m embarrassed about earlier.”
Irene seemed more like herself out here, more like the woman Olivia had known for years. That poised, manipulative woman from earlier...what had that been?
“Sawyer’s a good man, you know,” Olivia said softly. “He’s a good father.”
Irene nodded and her chin trembled.
“He won’t give them up, either—” Olivia looked over at Irene, wondering what her plan was after this. Were they going to fight Sawyer for custody now that they knew about his injury?
“They’re my little girl’s babies,” Irene whispered. “And I lost Mia... You don’t know what it’s like to bury your child. I remember her as a newborn. It’s like yesterday that I cradled her in my arms.”
Irene wrapped her arms around herself, and Olivia slid an arm around Irene’s slim shoulders. For a long moment, the two women stood there looking down at the simple stone that commemorated the life of Mia White West.
“You can still be grandparents,” Olivia said. “You can be the ones who bring the girls gifts from the city. You can come visit and see their school recitals. You can invite them to visit you for a week in the summer—if Sawyer would allow that now...”
Irene wiped a tear from her cheek, and her next words came out with venom. “I hate this town.”
Olivia looked over at her in surprise. “What?”
“I hate this place,” Irene whispered hoarsely. “I hate it so much that it hurts. We came here to start out my husband’s political career, and it worked. He hit the ground running, but I had to give up everything to come. I had to sacrifice the life I loved in Billings, the friends, the security... And we even put Mia in a public school so that later on, no one could say that we were too privileged and didn’t understand regular people.” Her lips turned down in disgust. “And what happened? Mia fell in love with a ranch hand...” Irene squeezed her eyes shut. “I sacrificed so much, and the sacrifices just keep coming. I hate this place. I hate that my baby is buried here. I hate that my grandchildren are being raised here... This town took everything from me!”
“I know the feeling,” Olivia said, and she licked her lips, trying to control her emotion. “I left and I never meant to come back—”
“Those rumors.” Irene nodded. “They were vicious.”
“Yeah...” Olivia sucked in a tremulous breath. “I was so young...why did they do that me? Why did anyone believe any of it? I was just a girl who was doing her best to get some good grades and become a nurse. I mean, the boys who told the lies—yeah, I’d embarrassed them. But the rest—what had I done to them?”
Irene shook her head. “People do stupid things when they get caught up in groups.” She shrugged. “People do stupid things on their own, too.”
“I don’t trust the people here any more than you do,” Olivia said softly. “But this isn’t about the town, Irene. This is about Mia’s little girls. And about their dad.”
Irene sighed. “I’m not going to try and take them from him, you know.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “They belong with their father.”
“So how does someone start over, then? How do I do that?” The older woman turned toward her, her watery eyes searching Olivia’s face for answers. “How is that even possible? Are Wyatt and I supposed to come out here, cap in hand, begging for a chance to even see the girls?”
“Maybe at first.” Olivia shrugged weakly.
“I can’t do that...” Irene’s lips trembled. “No.”
“Sawyer is a good man—a deeply good man. He’s not interested in making you grovel, but he does need to be able to trust your intentions. And in turn, you have to trust in the basic goodness of people,” Olivia said with a helpless shrug. “You’ll have to believe that Sawyer can forgive you, that this town can cradle Mia when your arms aren’t able... That Sawyer can see how much you loved her...”
“He wouldn’t forgive us,” Irene said with a shake of her head.
“You don’t know him like I do, then,” she replied. “He’s always been fair and down-to-earth. He says what he means. He’s trustworthy. He’s—” Her voice caught. He was the best man she’d ever known. But this wasn’t about her feelings for Sawyer. “You’ll
