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Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll see it all done.”
    Janie blinked, and tears slipped down her temples into her hairline. “Bury me . . . with my son.”
    “We will.” Dr. Foster smoothed a hand over her hair. “We’ll bury you right beside him.”
    With a soft cry, Janie shook her head. “No. I want Aaron . . . in my arms.”
    Dr. Foster shot McKenna a look. “But he’s already buried. Beside Vince.”
    Tears slipped from the corners of Janie’s eyes into her hairline, and McKenna shivered when Janie aimed the request at her.
    “Promise me, Kenny?”
    She couldn’t respond. Exhuming a body was sacrilege. And judging by Dr. Foster’s disturbed expression, he agreed. “Janie, what you’re asking is—”
    “I don’t want him . . . to be alone.” Janie’s fingers tightened around hers.
    “He’s
not alone, Janie,” McKenna reassured her. “He’s in heaven, with Vince.”
    “Please, Kenny. Promise me . . .”
    McKenna heard the struggle in her voice, saw it in her eyes, and a thought came . . . Perhaps this was what Janie needed to pull her through, to survive. The fight that Dr. Foster had been refer—
    “I’ll do it, ma’am.” Wyatt Caradon leaned closer.
    McKenna caught his gaze and shook her head. “No,” she mouthed. He clearly saw her and understood. She was sure of it.
    Yet the marshal still took hold of Janie’s hand. “Don’t you worry about your little boy, Mrs. Talbot. I’ll make sure he’s safe in your arms.” He took a quick breath. His jaw flexed hard. “I give you my oath.”
    Janie sighed, and peace gradually erased the anxiety from her features. But it was a peace McKenna neither welcomed nor shared. Not with the cost it would exact.
    As the night hours crept by and Janie’s breathing grew more shallow and raspy, McKenna stayed by her side, helpless to watch, as snippets from their childhood splashed in watercolor hues across her memory. Two little girls, opposites in so many ways, yet equally kindred, skipping hand-in-hand down a wooded path toward their favorite swimming hole, dreaming of all they would be once they grew up. Their only certainty . . . that they’d be together.
    Hot tears slipped down McKenna’s cheeks, and she struggled against the ache in her chest as she realized they were again walking a shadowed path. Together. Only this time, Janie was walking on ahead. And no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t catch up. She couldn’t follow.
    Not now. Not yet.

SIX
    D awn’s first light spilled through an open bedroom window and gave Mrs. Talbot’s sallow blonde hair the appearance of spun gold against the dingy white pillow. Her breathing stopped— only for a second—but Wyatt sensed what was coming and slowly rose from his chair at the kitchen table.
    He drew nearer to the bedroom, but stopped short of going inside.
    The hush of morning lay gentle inside the small bedroom, yet from the way Doc Foster and Miss Ashford both leaned toward the bed, they too sensed the impending change. No doubt the physician had experienced this more times than he could remember.
    As Wyatt watched the scene from outside the doorway, his heart settled on one memory alone. And an ache—one he’d thought long healed—rose again inside him. The weight of the memory threatened to drag him under, and he drew a needed breath. Felt the cool mountain air in his lungs. And within a slice of a pendulum’s swing—it happened.
    The rasp of Mrs. Talbot’s breathing faded. Where seconds before there had been three people in the bedroom, now there were only two. The twitter of sparrows drifted in through the open window, punctuating the silence as the young mother’s soul passed from this world to the next.
    Miss Ashford struggled to her feet, and for a moment, she stood motionless. Wyatt recalled the way she’d reacted last night when he’d made the pledge to her cousin, after neither Miss Ashford nor the doctor would. Clearly Miss Ashford hadn’t approved, but he