IN THE MIDDLE of the night Elizabeth roamed her too-quiet house. Without her children, these rooms echoed. Exhausted, she still couldn’t sleep for worrying about the three of them while grieving the heart-wrenching memory of another who’d never been born. Trying to distract herself, she wiped sticky peanut butter off the underside of a kitchen counter, which she’d missed seeing before, then laundered Stella’s comforter again because the remnants of a blueberry stain hadn’t come out the first time. From attic to basement, the house looked spotless and, in the kids’ absence, stayed that way.
Upstairs, she looked into each of their abandoned rooms. Then she stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom—the loneliest room of all. Arms around her waist, she hugged herself; on this still-warm evening, she felt cold. Last November, little more than half a year ago, she’d been glowing, shopping for baby clothes, trying to think where she’d stored the beautiful crocheted blanket her grandmother had made for Jordan, used by each of her own babies in turn.
“This time,” she’d told Harry, “I’m hoping for another girl.”
“You don’t want three boys to chase around?”
“No. Two of each.” A girl would complete the neat life she’d expected to live with him and their children. Together she and Harry would learn the baby’s sex at her next appointment. They’d stood in this same spot that other night, his arms around her, his cheek against her hair.
“I think we should buy a new crib and dresser, don’t you? After the first three, everything looks a bit worn. So, maybe a changing table and rocking chair too,” she’d said. Harry hadn’t uttered a word. When Elizabeth turned in his embrace, she caught a look on his face that he quickly tried to mask.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No, nothing.” Harry had pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “What could be wrong?”
“Aren’t you as excited as I am?”
“Sure,” he’d told her. “Sure.”
The tragedy of miscarriage had soon shattered her dream, and all along he’d been lying. Not long after that she was living a very public nightmare, and Elizabeth not only knew about his past affair but about his other daughter. He’d already had two of each. Without the last baby she’d yearned for, then abruptly lost, her body still felt empty, hollowed out.
She, Jordan, Stella and Seth were their own little family now, and maybe forever, but always for Elizabeth there would be someone missing. Not Harry—although, the possibility of her taking him back was her mother’s favorite refrain. Elizabeth was still young, Claudia claimed. She also suggested that if Elizabeth didn’t find a way to forgive her ex, which wouldn’t happen, perhaps in time she’d meet someone new. A flash of thought made Elizabeth weak in the knees.
If she were looking, which she was not, Dallas did make a great first impression. Tall, well-built, broad-shouldered. Nice, as Jenna had said. It was the first thing that came to mind about him, but Elizabeth wouldn’t go there. Could not. The memory of that one afternoon, in bright daylight, in the room near this barren nursery, was enough. There wouldn’t be another day like that either, and besides, soon he’d likely be gone, out of her life. That message had been plain enough. The only thing on my mind is to pull off my rodeo...then take off for the circuit before I lose what’s left of my career.
In fact, he was gone now to see his parents, he’d said.
Unlike Elizabeth, Dallas had no other strings; in her cherished children, she had three of them. She didn’t—shouldn’t—want what he might offer, though, of course, he hadn’t even tried. Neighbors, that was all, as it should be.
Lost in her nighttime misery, she leaned against the door frame. It was as if her kids had left her to these forlorn spaces, to silence, to the shadow of a sister, a brother...a ghost.
She yearned for their laughter and fights and weeping, their beautiful faces so peaceful in sleep. Sometimes, she crept in to check on them at night, simply to watch. Jenna said Hadley did that too with their twins.
Elizabeth dashed at the sudden wetness on her face. She’d loved being pregnant, filled with life, knowing she was loved.
Was that the reason she’d let Dallas hold her the very day her marriage officially ended? Because she couldn’t stand the thought of everything being over? Of being left loveless in the aftermath of miscarriage too? She’d felt so lost. It seemed she still was. A dangerous state of affairs with someone like Dallas living next door. Or, it would be if he hadn’t set her straight.
“This summer will last forever,” she said aloud.
Elizabeth pushed away from the door frame. Enough self-pity. She went downstairs, opened a pint of rum raisin ice cream and ate the whole thing. Cold comfort.
She really needed to get that job she and Jenna had talked about.
CHAPTER SIX
“HEY, DALLAS,” LOGAN HUNTER called over his shoulder.
Dallas raised a hand in greeting. He didn’t know Logan well, but he’d met him and his brother at a cookout at Clara McMann’s once. “Five minutes,” his brother, Sawyer McCord, added, “and we’ll be done here.”
At the Circle H, Dallas had found them working side by side in the outdoor ring, where a flashy chestnut colt made circles in the dust, urged on by the lunge line playing out from Logan’s hand and the light whip that Sawyer held. The adult twins, like Dallas’s niece and nephew, seemed to be in sync, their movements coordinated without the need for verbal cues. But Dallas knew it hadn’t always been that way. Their family rift, if not the same as
