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music, gooey
chocolate, California sand under bare toes, or even the comfort of
a warm and snuggly-

    Oh, good grief. Claire opened her eyes, then wadded the T-shirt
into a ball and hurled it across the cabin's living room like she
was battling an intruder. Why on earth did the thought of being
hugged-held, after such a long time-suddenly summon the
unlikely image of Logan Caldwell?
    She bit back a laugh as the wadded shirt bounced off the wall
and onto the scruffy black cat sleeping on the suede couch. He
yowled and jerked upright, his only ear flattening out sideways, tail
twitching, glaring at her. As usual. Great, a skirmish with Goliath
and Demon Cat all in one day. Claire could run to New Jersey and
back and not brew enough endorphins to cover that.
    "Sorry, Smokey. I'll fix it. Don't bite me-I feed you." Claire
crossed the room in two strides, her Nikes scrunching on the plank
floor. Unexpected tears threatened as she knelt to gingerly lift her
brother's engine company T-shirt off his cat. The truth was, neither
fit her. Not the shirt, not the cat. No matter how much she wanted
them to.
    She glanced around the living area of the rustic, four-room
A-frame: cedar paneling, woodstove, Mexican blanket rug, and a
vase of yellow silk daffodils, her one pathetic attempt to add a
feminine touch to what would always be a man's house. Maybe
her parents were smarter than she'd been. It didn't take a shrink to
guess that accepting a transfer to Arizona had less to do with old
friends in Phoenix and a lot more to do with the pain of their only
son's death. Or to guess it was that very same thing that moved
Claire into her brother's house.

    Her gaze traveled to the rough-hewn oak mantel on a wall of
river rock behind the freestanding woodstove, topped by a collection of photos she hadn't had the heart to pack away. The firehouse photo with Kevin mugging for the camera in a Superman
T-shirt and red suspenders. Claire and Kevin with their parents at
Lake Tahoe for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Claire's eyes
moved to the next photo-framed in hammered tin and draped
with her brother's cross-a grainy black-and-white snapshot of
Kevin with his fiancee, Gayle, on the church mission trip to Mexico. Her brother had one arm around Gayle and the other around
the shoulders of a dark-eyed orphan. The last frame held Kevin's
favorite Scripture carefully stitched onto vintage family linen by
his beloved Gayle:
    "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you
hope and a future."
    Jeremiah 29:11
    It had been an engagement gift. Claire looked away, the familiar ache making her swallow.
    Since Kevin's death, Claire had attended church infrequently;
she couldn't bear sitting there without him. It seemed easier to read
her Bible alone, avoiding inevitable questions about how she'd
been coping. Like those questions in recent letters from Gayle, who
was apparently moving on with her life. Claire sighed. She was glad
for Gayle, but for right now, Claire was better off alone. With her
lists and her decisive red pen.
    Heal my heart. Move me forward. God knew her plan.
    Claire stroked a fingertip warily over the fluff where Smokey's
other ear should have been. Poor beast, he never purred. One of the firefighters figured that a raccoon attacked him, a common confrontation in the California foothills, but nobody would ever really
know for sure how Smokey lost that ear and became so skittish.

    Kevin couldn't have known, either, that shortly after adopting
Smokey he'd be gone, leaving his sister with the demented cat, a
house in the woods, and just enough insurance money to help
fund her bachelor's degree in nursing education and pave her way
out of the grim reality that was the ER. For a job opportunity that
was still on hold because she'd been derailed by ...
    Claire hugged the damp T-shirt against her chest. The irony
struck,