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the holidays,” Cory mumbled.
    “We’re not letting her do too much. We all take turns bringing dinner over, and everyone has a turn with breakfast. Even your brothers are cooking, doing laundry, and washing dishes.”
    Cory laughed, her eyes going wide. “Really?” She’d like to see her brothers doing housework. They’d never shirk from backbreaking ranch work, but heaven forbid if one had to rinse a plate. Things really were changing.
    “Promise.” Carolina’s eyes sparkled.
    Cory inhaled. “I hope she accepts the help. …Umm, you know something.” She shook her head. She’d seen the look on her sister-in-law’s face often enough before leaving for school. “Out with it.”
    “Gillian set the date for their wedding,” Carolina whispered.
    Cory shook her head. “When?”
    “Hold on to your hat. In January.”
    “As in this coming January?”
    “Yep. The eleventh.”
    “They’ve only been engaged for four months. What’s the rush, and why are we whispering?”
    “You better ask your brother.” She held up her palms, swinging her head back and forth.
    “She’s pregnant. Isn’t she?” Cory sputtered, feeling conflicted by the pinch of worry and being over-the-top happy for Stephen and Gillian.
    “Could be.” Carolina smiled widely. “They are ecstatic.”
    “Three babies…” Cory twisted her hands together. “Man, this place started changing rapidly while I was away.”
    “Life has a way of going forward. Not backward.” Carolina patted her stomach. “I can testify.”
    Cory smiled, feeling less out of sorts since the family was rallying, and continued trying to get a sense of everything going on at Evermore. “Is Brandon still working on the ranch?”
    “He’s here and there and wild as ever. Maybe more so now that Stephen left a vacuum. Where else would he be?”
    “Nowhere,” Cory muttered, unwilling to open that can of worms. “And Miller?” Cory rapidly asked.
    Carolina exhaled and smiled. “Miller is the same. He and Virginia just moved into a larger house. Don’t know how much longer he’ll be here. His father-in-law had a quadruple bypass and Virginia wants to move to Dallas, keeps talking about getting Miller to take over for her father. Everything is big there. They’ve a chain of hotels and spas. Miller keeps saying we all should take advantage of them. We can go whenever we’d like.”
    “I sure could use a day.” Suddenly, an idea burst fully formed into Cory’s head. “ We should. And soon.” She whipped out her cellphone and pressed her brother Miller’s number.
    “Are you finally here?” Miller asked on the fourth ring. She could hear the rustle of papers in the background.
    “Hey Miller,” she said sweetly, smiling over at Carolina. “Got a favor to ask.”
     
    CHAPTER 3
     
     
    The alarm clock blared and Cory fumbled in the dark to shut it off. Groaning, she tossed aside the quilt and slid out of bed, stopping to put on her slippers on the way to the bathroom. From her second story window, the exterior lights affixed to the barn twinkled in the darkness. Off in the distance, the muffled sounds of men’s voices rose and fell in a familiar cadence. The ranch was coming alive even though the sky was still bluish black.
    She returned to her dark room, blindly heading for the place she’d once spent a chunk of her time. Her parents had knocked down the adjoining wall that once created a spare bedroom to build—at her incessant haranguing—a closet that functioned as a storage space for her thriving online fashion accessories business. On this side of the house, it was all guest rooms and her bedroom.
    Her brothers, when they’d lived at home, were all situated on the opposite end of the house. She pulled open one of the closet’s double doors. The scent was familiar, as was the sight of built-in shelving, racks, and sets of drawers. Her stomach knotted at the cavalcade within the closet, packed full even though she’d spent weeks before