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not the law.”
    “It’s not yours, either, Shaw. I know you didn’t like me marrying Tanner—”
    He nailed her with those little eyes again. “I sure as hell didn’t, sister. Riley wasn’t in his grave but two years before you took up with Grenfell. No decent woman marries again so soon—if ever.”
    “So you think I should have crawled into a grave myself?” she asked, her anger rising at the self-righteous hypocrite.
    “You should have just taken what fate handed you and been a proud war widow. You were obliged to honor his memory. Instead you let Grenfell start sniffing around. Then the next thing I knowed, you was getting married. I couldn’t do a thing about it.But Riley has fixed that, and you too. You go ask that highfalutin’ lawyer in town—what’s his name—” He drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “Parmenter, that’s it. D. Parmenter, A-ttorney at Law. You talk to him if you don’t believe me. He’ll set you straight, and I’ll even give you good odds if you want to put money on it.”
    His resentment, voiced at last, settled on Susannah like a boulder. A suffocating feeling seemed to compress her chest.
    Obliged. Obligated.
    Susannah had been responsible, obligated for most of her life. First, to raise herself when her father and brother were killed in a logging accident and left her to care for her mother, who turned mourning into a full-time occupation. Then, after she married Riley, she came here to help run the horse farm and look after Shaw, too. She stayed on after receiving notice of her husband’s death because she still felt responsible to his family and its welfare.
    But Riley wasn’t dead.
    How could this have happened? How could the War Department have made such a horrible mistake? She would talk to Daniel Parmenter. But she wouldn’t have time to do that before tomorrow.
    Before Riley Braddock came back to Powell Springs on the train.
    • • •
    That night, Tanner lay in bed with his hands linked beneath his head, every muscle tight, every sound and smell keen to his senses. Susannah, wearing a summer nightgown, sat on the edge of the mattress with her back to him as she braided her hair. The bed frame creaked with her movements, and the ticking alarmclock on the bureau sounded as loud as if it were strapped to his ear. The scent of her Jergens lotion, almonds and cherries, wafted to him. Outside, crickets called to each other on the breeze, and frogs croaked along the edge of Powell Creek where it crossed the pasture. Somewhere up on the butte, a coyote howled.
    On the night table, the bedside lamp glowed softly, its creamy globe painted with pink and yellow roses. He’d ordered it out of the Sears Roebuck catalog and given it to her on her last birthday. She’d made a great to-do over it, telling him how beautiful and romantic it was. He’d only been able to stutter like a balky tractor and had felt his face get hot with her praise. But he’d been so pleased.
    He shifted his weight and tried to relax, but it was impossible. A hundred questions raced through his mind, and he dared not ask a single one. As it was, Tanner knew he wasn’t good at putting words to his feelings.
    Tentatively, he reached for the curve of Susannah’s hip, if for no other reason than to feel the warmth of her, to reassure himself that she was still real, still his. But he wasn’t sure of that. Not anymore. At the last moment, though, he tucked his hand back under his head.
    “Did—um—what did that letter say again?” There was no need to elaborate about which letter it would be. Once she’d made the announcement about Riley a week ago, everyone had grabbed for the single page to look at its details.
    Tanner had not. And he hadn’t asked any questions about the details of its contents. Every day he’d hoped another letter would come, one saying that the whole thing had been a mistake. But that hadn’t happened, and he’d withdrawn into the safety of his own