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answered on the second ring.
    “Hey, what did you decide about the ranch? Are you coming home? Tell me about the foreman.” Haley asked questions until she had to stop for breath again. That was Haley to a tee. Hearing her voice put a smile on Abby’s face.
    “I’m staying. Did I tell you about the daisies at the funeral?” Abby went on to tell her about it, leaving out nothing.
    “Did I just hear you right? You put them in the casket with him like roses?” Haley asked.
    “That’s right. Only his daughters had them. No casket piece or potted plants or wreaths around the casket. The place where they buried him is bare—it was strange. But hell, my sisters are strangers, Haley. I don’t feel any kind of love, hate, or even indifference for them. It’s like they are people I saw one time in a shopping mall.”
    “Tell me your first impression of them.”
    “Shiloh is kind of prissy and Bonnie is tough as nails. That much I’ve figured out so far,” Abby said.
    “The foreman?” Haley asked.
    “Isn’t my type, but the sheriff could be if I was going to stay here forever. Which I won’t. I have decided not to leave until spring, but after that is a day-to-day decision. I’m so confused and rattled. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    “The sheriff? When did you meet him? Did you get stopped for speeding?”
    “No, I did not. The sheriff was at the funeral and he came to dinner. Rusty, that’s the foreman, invited him.”
    “And what does this sheriff look like and what is his name?” Haley asked.
    “Looks like Travis Tritt and name is Cooper Wilson,” Abby answered.
    “Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus. You are doomed. Lookin’ like your favorite singer and with a cowboy name like Cooper. You are going to grow roots right there in that canyon. I can feel it in my bones.” Haley laughed.
    “Your bones have been wrong lots of times before,” Abby said.
    “You’ve run from settling a long time, Abby. A year in a remote place outside of the army is just what you need to get your head on straight. And my bones are not wrong this time. Got to go. The kids are fighting over a stupid board game. Keep me posted. Open up your laptop and send pictures. I want to see what these other two women look like. And pictures of the sheriff, too. I want to see them all. Big hugs,” Haley said.
    “Big hugs back to you.” Abby hit the “End” button.
    Haley had married right out of high school and had two kids by the time she was twenty-five. That was her whole family—a boy and a girl—and she’d declared she was finished until two years ago, when she and her husband had been surprised with a set of twin girls. Tonight was one of those times that Abby envied her friend the family, even when the older two fought over board games.
    “I’m not ready to grow roots,” she argued out loud with herself as she pushed out of the chair. “And Cooper Wilson probably has every available woman in the canyon out after him. It’s the stress of all this that had me fantasizing about him. It’s either sneak candy or let my mind wander into the gutter when I’m worried.”
    A set of sheets and pillowcases had been placed on the antique four-poster bed. Had she been conceived in that bed?
    She pushed the unanswered questions out of her mind and quickly stretched the sheets over the mattress, tucking in the corners and leaving no wrinkles. Then she started on the unpacking business—duffel bags first and then the suitcases.
    The first thing she pulled up out of the biggest duffel bag was her CD player. Music took her to another place when she was worried or mulling over something. She set it on the chest of drawers beside her mother’s ashes, but there was no place to plug the cord in. She went looking and found that the room only had one outlet with two receptacles, and that was behind the recliner. She moved the player to the table beside the recliner and the cord was too short. She moved the recliner over six inches, then did the