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to say something along the lines of “It’s okay, I appreciate the offer, but the tent will be fine for now,” but Meg already had her cell phone out. She dialed, stuck a finger in her free ear, smiling fit to blow every transformer within a fifty-mile radius and asked whoever was on the other end to please bring the bus next door.
    Brad, meanwhile, had wandered over to look at the barn. Or what was left of it, anyway. “Good for firewood and not much else,” he said, scanning the ruins.
    Steven nodded in agreement, shoved a hand through his hair. “Listen, about the bus, I wouldn’t want you and Meg going to a lot trouble. We’ll be okay with a tent.…”
    Brad listened, grinning. But he was shaking his head the whole time.
    Steven’s protest fell away when he heard Matt give a peal of happy laughter. He glanced in the boy’s direction and saw that Meg was leaning down again, her hands braced on her thighs, so she could look into Matt’s eyes. Her own were dancing with delight.
    Matt must have told her one of his infamous knock-knock jokes, Steven thought. The kid did tend to laugh at his own jokes.
    “Never look a gift bus in the grillwork,” Brad said.
    Steven looked back at him, blinked. “Huh?”
    Brad laughed. “Never mind,” he said, and started off toward Meg again.
    It was almost as though the two of them were magnetized to each other, Steven observed, feeling just a little envious.
    Ten minutes later, the gleaming bus was rolling up the driveway, and it was a thing of beauty.

CHAPTER THREE
    I T WAS 5:30 P.M., by Melissa’s watch. The bus from Tucson and Phoenix would have disgorged any passengers it might be carrying—Byron Cahill, for instance—at 5:00 sharp, before heading on to Indian Rock and then making a swing back to stop in Flagstaff and heading south again. She was familiar with the bus route because she’d ridden it so often, as a college student, when she couldn’t afford a car.
    Although she usually looked forward to going home after work, today was different. Home sounded like a lonely place, since there wouldn’t be anybody there waiting for her.
    Maybe, she thought, she should give in to Olivia’s constant nagging—well, okay, Olivia didn’t exactly nag; she just suggested things in a big-sister kind of way—and adopt a cat or a dog. Or both.
    Just the thought of all that fur and pet dander made her sneeze, loudly and with vigor. Since she’d been tested for allergies more than once, and the results were consistently negative, Melissa secretly thought Olivia and Ashley might be right—her sensitivities were psychosomatic. Deep down, her sisters agreed, Melissa was afraid to open her heart, lest it be broken. It was a wonder, they further maintained, that she didn’t sneezewhenever she encountered a man, given her wariness in the arena of love and romance.
    There might be some truth to that theory, too, she thought now. She adored the children in the family, and that felt risky enough, considering the shape the world was in.
    How could she afford to love a man? Or compound her fretful concerns by letting herself care for an animal? Especially considering that critters had very short life spans, compared to humans.
    Feeling a little demoralized, Melissa logged off her computer, pulled her purse from the large bottom drawer of her desk, and sighed with relief because the workday was over. Not that she’d really done much work.
    It troubled her conscience, accepting a paycheck mostly for warming a desk chair all day; in the O’Ballivan family, going clear back to old Sam, the founding father of today’s ever-expanding clan, character was measured by the kind of contribution a person made. Slackers were not admired.
    Telling herself she didn’t need to be admired anyway, dammit, Melissa left her office, locking up behind her. She paused, passing Andrea’s deserted desk, frowned at the ivy plant slowly drying up in one corner.
    It wasn’t her plant, she reminded