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soft, or had death stripped the texture, drained the shafts and left them stiff and coarse? She hadn’t been able to touch his hair, hadn’t been able to touch him , not in the casket, lying there, so unnatural, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach. He didn’t look like he was sleeping. Anyone who knew him knew he couldn’t sleep unless he was on his stomach or curled on his side with a pillow partially covering his head. That was Christian sleeping.
    This straight back, stiff hands folded thing, this was Christian looking uncomfortable, unnatural. Dead.
    “There’s Pastor Richot, nice looking man he is, and a true saint if ever there was one.” Aunt Virginia sighed and nodded toward the man clasping Alice Wheyton’s hand.
    Tall, with silver hair and wire-rimmed glasses, his features were kind, his demeanor approachable, as befitting a man of faith. “Too bad he’s Lutheran,” she said under her breath. “Even so, Father Benedict could learn a thing or two about humility and suffering from that man.”
    Audra remembered Father Bartholomew Benedict and his insistence that no one
    stand in the back of the church during Mass. More than once, he’d halted his sermon mid-sentence to summon the offenders by name to a pew. She’d never cared for the man but Grandma Lenore believed a priest stood on the right hand of God, next to good and righteousness.
    “Father will come by soon enough.” Virginia Wheyton grabbed Audra’s hand and
    stuffed a rosary in the middle of her palm. “Pray for your husband’s parents. They’re the ones who need the prayers, not the dead, their fate is already decided.”
    Why did he have to die? Why did everyone she loved always have to die? Not the dead...not the dead... The woman’s words droned in her head, sucked her back to the childhood she’d fought so hard to overcome...
    Growing up Audra Valentine hadn’t been easy. She’d been conceived in the back
    seat of a beat-up Chevy and dumped on her arthritic grandmother’s lap while her own mother primped and plied herself with rum and coke, or sometimes, gin, and other men’s flattery. It had all ended badly, with Corrine Valentine overdosing on valium ten days before her thirty-first birthday.
    “ Audra? Audra!” Aunt Virginia’s high-pitched voice pierced her brain, pulled her back. “Did you not hear a word I said?”
    “ I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t.”
    “ Well, for heaven’s sake, pull yourself together and go say hello to your brother-in-law. I know it’s been years since you’ve seen Jack but give him a hug before people start thinking you hate us all.” She lifted a bony finger and pointed. “He’s the good looking one in the doorway. And the woman with him, that’s his future fiancé.”
    Audra had prepared for this moment for days—no years. She knew she would
    eventually have to face Jack Wheyton again. But why now, when she was weak and
    vulnerable and in such pain? The truth slid out—nothing short of death would have put her in the same room with him.
    She glanced up and a rush of nausea pounded her stomach. Good grief , she was going to throw up! She sipped tiny gasps of air, easing herself back to normal. She would do this for Christian. Jack Whetyon stood in profile, accepting condolences from an elderly gentleman as the voluptuous brunette Aunt Virginia classified as ‘future fiancé’
    clung to his arm.
    “They make a darn good looking couple, don’t they?” Aunt Virginia whispered.
    “Yes,” Audra managed, her gaze saturated with nine years worth of Jack
    Wheyton. Taller, darker, moodier than his brother, his once shaggy hair was short, his body lean and well-muscled, his clothing GQ expensive. He could make a woman—any woman—look twice.
    He turned and spotted her. Anger and something else—hatred?—flashed across
    his face when he saw her and then it was gone. Did his step falter a half second before he moved, freezing her with eyes that had once possessed the ability to