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were valid points. Cate admitted it, and had even told her mother so. She herself would have preferred to stay in Seattle, if she’d had a choice.
    But she hadn’t, so she’d done what she’d thought was best for the twins. When Derek died, leaving her with nine-month-old twins, not only had she been devastated by losing him, she had been forced to face reality about their finances. Their combined incomes had provided a good living, but Cate had gone to part-time when the boys were born and most of her work she’d done from home. With Derek gone, she had to work full-time, but the cost of quality day care for the boys had been prohibitive. It almost didn’t pay for her to work. Her mother couldn’t help with their care, because she worked, too.
    They had savings, and Derek had purchased a hundred-thousand-dollar insurance policy, intending to add to it as his income increased. They’d thought they had all the time in the world. Who could have anticipated a healthy, thirty-year-old man dying from a staph infection that attacked his heart? He’d gone rock climbing for the first time since the twins were born, scraped his leg, and the doctors said the bacteria had likely entered his body through the small wound. Roughly thirty percent of people carry the bacteria on their skin, they’d explained, and normally have no problems. But sometimes a break in the skin allowed infection to start, and maybe for some reason the immune system was temporarily depressed, say from stress, and the infection would roar through the body despite all efforts to stop it.
    The how and why mattered, on an intellectual level, but emotionally all she knew was that she was suddenly a twenty-nine-year-old widow with two baby boys to care for. From there on out, all of her decisions had to be made with them in mind.
    With their savings and the insurance money, and careful budgeting, she could have remained in Seattle, close to both her family and her in-laws. But there would have been nothing left over to pay for the twins’ college education, plus she would have had to work such long hours she wouldn’t have seen much of her own children. She’d gone over and over her options with her accountant, and the most logical plan he could devise was to move to an area with a lower cost of living.
    She had been familiar with this area of
Idaho
, in the Bitterroots. One of Derek’s college buddies had grown up here, and told him the rock climbing was great. He and Derek had spent a lot of weekends climbing. Then when she and Derek met at climbing club and began dating, it was only natural she would join the weekend climbs. She loved the area, its ruggedness, the staggeringly beautiful scenery, the peacefulness. She and Derek had stayed at the B and B she now owned, so she had even been familiar with the place. The former owner, old Mrs. Weiskopf, had been struggling to take care of it, so when Cate decided to go into the inn business and made an offer, the old lady had jumped at it and now lived in Pocatello with her son and his wife.
    The cost of living in Trail Stop was certainly lower, and from the sale of their condo Cate had made a tidy profit, which she promptly set aside in the boys’ college funds. She was determined not to touch that money unless it was a matter of life or death—theirs. She lived completely on the proceeds from the B and B, which didn’t allow much room for extras. But the morning food business gave her a little leeway, if nothing went wrong and she had no unexpected expenses, such as this morning’s plumbing emergency. Thank God it had been so minor—and thank God Mr. Harris had refused payment.
    There were pros and cons to the life she’d chosen for herself and the boys. One of the pros, the biggest one, was that the boys were with her all day, every day. Their young lives were as stable as she could possibly make them, with the result that they were happy and healthy, and that was enough to keep her there. Another