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he dressed in coat and tie, even in summer.
     “Hello, dear. Did you catch me talking to myself?”
    “I can’t think of a better person to have a conversation with than yourself, Miss Mary,” Matt said, his eyes, bright blue
     like his grandmother’s, alight with curiosity and surprise. “It’s good to see you. We’ve all missed you this past month, Granddad
     especially. Were you headed somewhere special? Let me walk you there.”
    “Actually, dear, I just got back,” Mary said, smiling cryptically, indulging herself. “From the past,” she added, seeing his
     brows raise. She suspected he’d been watching her from a courthouse window and knew she hadn’t been anywhere. What difference
     did it make now, anyhow? Matt was young enough to get over anything and old enough to understand the indiscretions of which
     he now suspected her and his grandfather guilty. She looked at him fondly. “You haven’t lived long enough to have a past,
     but you will someday.”
    “I’ll soon turn thirty-five, creeping up there,” Matt said with a grin. “Now, come on, where are you going?”
    “Nowhere, I guess.” She suddenly felt tired. She saw that Henry’s hunger pangs had driven him out on the sidewalk to look
     for her. She nodded toward her limousine, and he struck off eagerly toward Amos’s office.
    “Henry’s gone for the car,” Mary said. “Walk me back to the corner, will you? It’s been a while since we talked.” She slipped
     her hand under Matt’s arm, wielding the cane with the other. “When are you going to marry, Matt? You can’t be hurting for
     choices.”
    “You’d be surprised. Lots of choices, but none too choice. How is that great-niece of yours, by the way? Any hope she’ll be
     paying us a visit soon? You know, I haven’t seen her since Mister Ollie died. She was around sixteen or seventeen, I recall—already
     a beauty then.”
    “Seventeen,” Mary murmured, her throat suddenly tightening. “She was born in 1956.”
    It was something else she’d have to account for, her hand in keeping Matt and Rachel apart. Ever since they’d met the first
     time, when Rachel was fourteen, she’d speculated on the supreme irony of the two of them attracting each other and something
     coming of it down the line. At their second meeting—Ollie’s funeral—three years later, they had already developed into the
     breed they would become—Rachel the planter and Matt the lumberman—a combination that never would have worked… not for Somerset.
    She’d felt the spark between them on that occasion, had seen the interest in Matt’s eye, the admiration in Rachel’s, and decided
     right there and then that the two should never be in Howbutker at the same time. It had not been difficult to arrange. Matt
     had already graduated from college by then, and for most of his young adult life his grandfather had had him out of town learning
     the business of Warwick Industries’ far-flung operations. When he did manage to get home for short visits and holidays, Mary
     had made sure that Rachel was occupied elsewhere. Any lingering curiosity her great-niece may have had about Percy’s handsome
     grandson, she’d discouraged by simply never bringing up his name and changing the subject when it invariably was. There was
     five years’ difference in their ages, and she’d counted on Matt being married by the time Rachel had graduated from Texas
     A&M and was ready to settle down.
    Of course, all that conniving had happened a number of years before the full picture of the tragedy she was creating had begun
     to emerge… before Rachel’s falling-out with her mother and the breakup with her air force pilot. How could she have foreseen
     that Rachel—within sight of thirty and Matt nearly thirty-five, the same age difference between her and Percy—would be unmarried
     still? Matt had moved home for good. He had taken over as head of Warwick Industries, and, but for the codicil, Rachel would
     have