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clear enough to me. There’s the stone bearing the name William Leighton Sawyer, infant son of Mary Elizabeth Sawyer. And there—” he said with a nod toward the larger upright stone “—is the grave of Mary Elizabeth Bodean. What more proof do you need?”
    She snapped her head around to glare at him. “I don’t know for a fact that Mary Elizabeth Sawyer and Mary Elizabeth Bodean were one and the same person.”
    The streak of tears on her face took Judd by surprise, for he couldn’t imagine what the woman would have to cry about. The grave was more than a hundred years old, so she couldn’t have any affection for the infant buried there. Which led him to believe that more than likely she was crying because she’d been caught in her lies. Still, the tears moved him. He tucked his duster behind his hip and dug in his back pocket for a handkerchief. He held it out to Callie.
    â€œIt’s clean,” he assured her when she hesitated.
    â€œThanks,” she mumbled grudgingly as she accepted it. She mopped her eyes, then blew her nose.
    â€œWhy the tears?”
    The question made fresh ones well in her eyes. Grimacing, she balled the handkerchief in her fist. “I’m just tired, is all. I didn’t sleep well last night.” As soon as the words were out, she regretted them, knowing that with his ego, Judd would naturally assume thoughts of him were what kept her awake. Biting her lower lip, she glanced away.
    Judd hadn’t slept well, either, but he wouldn’t tell her that. He didn’t trust this woman any farther than he could throw her, but he couldn’t deny the fact that she had aroused a craving in him that he’d kept under harness for the better part of a year. Just his luck to be tempted by another lying wench.
    Because he wasn’t willing to confess to his own lack of sleep or the reason for it, he thought it only fair to ease her embarrassment. “Always had trouble sleeping in a strange bed, myself.”
    If she heard him, she didn’t acknowledge it, for she continued to ignore him, staring off in the distance. She looked so pitiful, kneeling there in the dirt, looking so forlorn and lost that Judd was tempted to comfort her. He quickly squelched the urge. He didn’t need this headache.
    Sighing, he pushed against his knees to stand above her. “Sorry if Baby made a nuisance of himself.” He shuffled his feet, not sure what else to say, but feeling something more was needed. “If you want to verify that Mary Elizabeth Sawyer and Mary Elizabeth Bodean are one and the same, you can check the records over at the Logan County Courthouse.”
    â€œI intend to.”
    Her acidic tone made him wish he’d kept the helpful advice to himself. The woman had an attitude and seemed determined to take her hostilities out on him.
    â€œCome on, Baby,” he said, slapping a hand to his thigh. “Let’s go home.” He turned away, vowing that they’d be churning ice cream in hell before he offered any more help to Callie Benson.

Three
    â€œH ere it is!” The court clerk spun the heavy ledger toward Callie and pointed to an entry dated August 1, 1891. Callie’s heart sank as she read the entry the woman indicated. Throughout the trip from the cemetery to the Logan County Courthouse she’d held on to the thread of hope that Mary Elizabeth Sawyer and Mary Elizabeth Bodean were two different women. But the proof was there before her eyes: “Mary Elizabeth Sawyer and Jedidiah Bodean, wed on August 1, 1891.” The words were blurred on the yellowed page, but legible, and they forced her to accept the truth.
    Mary Elizabeth Sawyer hadn’t died in childbirth as her great-grandfather had been led to believe. She’d married Jedidiah Bodean, and—if the information on the tombstone was accurate—had lived to the ripe old age of sixty-seven.
    Then why had Papa, as an infant,