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  Travis fought back a smile. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re bright and you’re curious. You have all kinds of options—and some of them you don’t even know about yet. For now, go to school and do your best. And be a kid. When you’re older, like another seven, eight years, then you’ll have a better idea.”

  “But what if I still don’t know?” Grady fretted.

  Travis looked into that young face and saw a boy so full of ideas and dreams and worries that a thick, almost overpowering rush of love swept over him like a tidal wave.

  “If you still don’t know, then you’ll try one thing. And if something inside you tells you it’s not right, you’ll try another.” He set down his coffee. “Always listen to what’s inside of you, Grady. Your instincts will lead you to the right thing.”

  “Instincts,” Grady repeated, trying out the word. “Okay.” He took a breath. “Thanks.”

  Scrambling to his feet with a thoughtful expression, he carried his plate and empty milk glass to the sink. “I have one more question,” he announced.

  “Good, because I probably have one more answer.” Travis leaned back with a grin.

  “This is serious, Dad. Are you going to marry Mia? You’re always holding hands and stuff, and I know you kiss when you think I’m not looking. I heard Evan and Justin’s grandma talking on the phone. She told some lady in her book club she’d bet every book on her shelf you two are getting married.”

  “Did she?” Travis pushed back his chair, a slight glint in his eyes. “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I think it would be cool. Then we could have that fried chicken she makes and those chocolate-frosted brownies all the time. And she could help me with my homework if I ever have trouble.”

  “Hey, I can help you with your homework, too.”

  “But she’s a teacher. Plus I like her. And”—Grady’s eyes lit—“then Samson would be my dog, right? I’ve always wanted a dog. And he’s the best. I mean, I like Starbucks and Tidbit a lot, too,” he added quickly. “But they’re Ivy and Aiden’s dogs. So…are you? Going to marry her, I mean. Can she and Samson move in with us?”

  Travis’s eyes gleamed in the sunlight pouring through the kitchen window. “What do your instincts tell you?”

  The widest grin he’d ever seen broke across Grady’s face.

  “My instincts say yes!”

  Travis nodded, unable to keep his lips from twitching. “Well, what did I just tell you? Always trust your instincts.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  While Travis and Grady were eating breakfast together, discussing camping trips, planets, dogs, and marriage, Winona Sullivan Pruitt was sitting in her old Ford pickup at the edge of the cemetery, where graceful aspens and carefully tended rosebushes guarded old and fresh graves alike.

  She was staring down at the letter she’d left unopened for years. Turning the sealed envelope over and over again in her hands. Setting it down on the passenger seat. Picking it up.

  Finally she took a deep breath, grabbed the envelope, and headed toward her sister’s grave. She could manage without the cane now and from the moment she was able to be out and about on her own this idea had been taking over her brain.

  She could think of little else.

  “Just get it over with,” she told herself.

  Her heart was pounding uncomfortably.

  The deep, lush grass she walked across was still damp from the morning rain, soaking her purple canvas sneakers. The morning air still held a hint of a chill.

  Or maybe the chill’s inside me, Winona thought as she searched for her sister’s grave.

  Finding it in a quiet, shady spot beneath a weeping willow tree, she stared down at the simple pale gray headstone.

  Her big sister was down there. Deep in the cold, damp ground. The sister she’d shut out of her life. The sister who’d tried to make amends.

  “You wanted me to read this, Alicia, so I guess I will. Maybe it’s coming too late, but it’s all I can do now. I should’ve let you in that day you came to see me—I guess we both know that. But I didn’t—and I can’t change that now. So I’ll read your letter. Maybe that will be enough.”

  It wouldn’t be, though. How could it?

  Still, she told herself, it was something.

  She had to try to make some measure of peace. With herself.

  And with Alicia.

  Her fingers shook as she unfolded the plain ivory paper and began to read her sister’s neat, tiny, airy script.

  When she reached the last word, she returned to the top and read the letter through again.

  Pain arced through her like a carving knife slicing through bread. First one tear, then a flood of them streamed down her cheeks.

  “I never knew,” she whispered into the silence hovering over the graves. “I never imagined.”

  The words on the page blurred as she stared at them, read them yet again.

  I admired you so, Winny. And I never told you. I was jealous of your daring, your freedom. All those chances you took. The way you defied our father, and held your head up no matter what he said to you or how he tried to shame your spirit out of you, took my breath away. Everything about you filled me with jealousy. You did things I never had the courage to do. All those times you climbed out the window in the night and went off dancing, or running wild in the woods with the boys and didn’t come home until the sun was up—oh, how I envied you your courage. I used to dream about going with you just once—to see what it felt like to do something adventurous. Something our father wouldn’t approve of. To be different from all the other girls.

  But I liked being the good daughter too much ever to do anything that would make Papa frown. I never had an ounce of your courage. And here’s what’s the hardest thing of all to admit. I always tried to make myself look good, sometimes at your expense. In those days, I loved being praised and petted. Something inside me needed to make sure I was the one Papa was always proud of.

  But I’ll tell you what shames me the most. Not believing you about Henry.

  Winny thrust the letter down, her heart clenching. Closing her eyes, she tried to fight the sea of emotions sweeping over her.

  It wasn’t until a full minute later that she managed to pick up the letter with trembling fingers and start reading again.

  You’d never done anything to hurt me before that day. Never. I should have known you didn’t kiss him, that he was to blame. I should have believed you. My own sister. If I had, things might have been so very different.

  Maybe you’ll forgive me after you read this letter. I can only hope and pray. No matter what, there’s something else you need to know.

  I forgive you. I forgive you for burning the good luck wedding quilt. There wasn’t any way I could have had good luck with Henry, not with the sort of man he was. So it hardly would have mattered even if that quilt had been draped across our marriage bed every day and every night. Henry would have left me, cheated on me, no matter what. That was the nature of the man. I need you to know this, so that if you ever find your way to forgiving me back, we can be sisters again. I would like that more than almost anything in this world.

  Winona, please come tell me if you find it in your heart to forgive me. I will hope and wait. With love, Alicia.

  Winny’s knees trembled. A gust of wind fluttered the leaves of the willow and she swayed, too, as the impact of her sister’s words struck, and shook her deep into her bones.

  “It’s too late, isn’t it?” she whispered. She thudded painfully to her knees in the grass beside the grave as tears began to drip from her eyes. “I wasted…all that time.”

  Her throat closed up. Reaching out an unsteady hand, she brushed a clump of dirt from the gravestone.

  “In case you can hear me—I forgive you, Alicia,” she whispered. Images of her sister sneaking supper to her, hidden in her red and white print apron, rolled through Winny’s mind. “Do you hear me, Alicia? I forgive you, too.”

  As the words
left her lips, she felt something. Something light as air. Brushing against her cheek. A splash of color flitted suddenly across her line of vision. Winny blinked.

  Stared.

  It was a butterfly.

  Tiny and quick, its wings alive with light, it fluttered in a circle, then came back to settle on her hand. The hand that rested on the grave. The tiny wings stilled. Quivered against her skin. Winny held her breath.

  A butterfly.

  An instant later, wings glowing like stained glass in the sunlight, it flew upward again, whisked along her cheek softer than a feather—or a kiss—and was gone. A fairy whirl of light and color, vanishing in the glare of day.

  Gone.

  A butterfly.

  “Alicia,” Winny whispered hoarsely, staring at the air around her. It was impossible to hold back her tears. “I miss you…Alicia. I always missed you.”

  It was a breath, a whisper, and a prayer all at once.

  She didn’t know how long she knelt there. But finally, painfully, she pushed herself to her feet.

  A sense of peace came over her. A kind of peace she hadn’t known in years. Perhaps she’d never known it.

  But she suddenly realized one final thing she had to do.

  She had to tell the truth about the only lie she’d ever told.

  She had to tell Mia.

  “Aunt Winny, I wasn’t expecting you.” Swinging the screen door open, Mia smiled at her aunt. Winny had a large wicker basket with a matching lid hooked over her arm. Her expression could only be described as purposeful. “Are we having a picnic? Did I forget?”

  “You didn’t forget a thing.”

  Samson dashed around the older woman in happy circles, trying to be noticed and petted as she stepped inside.

  “There’s something I need to show you, that’s all. It’s past time we cleared this up once and for all.”

  Mia searched her face, mystified, but led the way into Gram’s little sewing studio. She offered Winny some iced tea, but her aunt shook her head.

  “Sit,” Winny instructed, pointing at the small sofa, though she herself stood a moment longer, gazing at Gram’s butterfly quilt on the wall.

  “What’s going on?” Mia asked as Winny settled at last on the sofa, placing the basket between them. Samson leaped up, his paws on Winny’s knee, his little face begging to be acknowledged.

  “I see you, you little mutt,” Winny murmured. “Don’t be such a pest.” But she reached out and gently scratched the dog behind his ears. “Go lie down now,” she told him and, to Mia’s amusement, he obeyed, curling up at her great-aunt’s feet, his chin resting on his paws.

  Winny didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “You know the good luck wedding quilt I burned?”

  “Yes, of course. You told me. You burned it the night you ran away.”

  Meeting Mia’s gaze, Winny swallowed hard. “This isn’t easy to say. I’ve kept this secret all these years. Along with all the others,” she added ruefully. “But you have a right to know. And so do Samantha and Brittany.”

  “I already know why you burned the quilt. You were angry when you ran off because no one believed you that night about what happened. It’s all right, Aunt Winny,” Mia said quietly. “I understand. None of us blame you and we’re not angry—”

  “I didn’t burn it.”

  Mia stared at her. “What?”

  “It’s here. Right here. I’ve had it all along.”

  Pushing back the lid of the basket, Winny drew out a quilt and spread it across her lap with careful fingers. Mia couldn’t stop staring at her in shock, but Winny wasn’t ready yet to meet her eyes.

  “I burned a different quilt,” she confessed. “One I’d been working on in secret. I wasn’t anywhere near as good a quilter as your grandmother in those days, and I couldn’t bear to be compared to her.” She sighed. “So I kept the quilt I was working on well hidden under my bed, and I didn’t show it to a soul. But that night, I was so angry with Alicia, with everyone, that I wanted to burn the good luck wedding quilt. I actually brought it outside—I was ready to set it on fire. I itched to do it. But…” She looked away. “Something stopped me. I guess because it was part of our family history, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But I wanted so badly to punish Alicia for doubting me. And to show my parents how angry I was. So…”

  As her voice trailed off, Mia at last found hers. “You burned the other quilt,” she whispered, stunned. “You took the good luck quilt with you!”

  Winny’s nod of assent made her heart squeeze tight in her chest. Mia gazed at the faded old quilt spread across her great-aunt’s lap. There was no doubt. It was the most unique, lovely quilt she’d ever seen. That rich, rose-colored background. Those beautiful scalloped edges. The graceful arcs of vintage calico in the double wedding ring pattern.

  A sense of wonder filled her as she ran her hand gently over the yellow and blue and lavender patches. “So you’ve had it all these years,” she breathed.

  Winny nodded. “I was married to my Harley for forty of those years, so I suppose it did bring me some good luck after all.” She touched a finger gently to the quilt, then her gaze lifted.

  “If I’d left it for Alicia, she might’ve had better luck in her marriage. Maybe they’d have stayed together, been happy….”

  “It’s only a quilt, Aunt Winny. An extremely beautiful one,” Mia added, “but still a quilt. It’s not magical and nothing could have changed my grandfather’s nature. He was responsible for deserting Gram, not your taking this quilt away.”

  “I know that. I do. But I never should’ve…” Winny stopped herself, straightened her shoulders. “What’s done is done,” she said half to herself.

  Then she stared Mia in the eye. “I want you to have it and I don’t want any arguments. Take care of it. Maybe you’ll marry that handsome Travis Tanner and keep it safe and pretty on your bed for the next sixty years or so.”

  “Aunt Winny—”

  “That’s all I’m saying.” Her aunt held up a strong, imperious hand, whimsically painted in a bright lime hue. “You just keep it safe. You won’t be seeing another one like it anytime soon. And don’t thank me, whatever you do.”

  A rush of emotion swamped Mia. This quilt had passed through the hands of countless women in her family. It was an heirloom, a one-of-a-kind treasure she’d never thought to see. She could hardly wait to show it to Brittany and Sam.

  “I’m so grateful it’s here. That’s all I’ll say,” she added with a laugh as Winny shot her a warning glance. “You know, I’d love to display it at the fund-raiser. Everyone in Lonesome Way would enjoy seeing it. And it would definitely be one of the oldest quilts there. An oldie but goodie,” she said softly. “Would that be all right with you, Aunt Winny?”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Winny muttered gruffly, “but I like the idea. And I think Alicia would like it, too.”

  Mia reached over, clasped her hand. “I’m sure Gram has forgiven you, Aunt Winny. Now it’s time for you to forgive yourself.”

  “Working on it.”

  “Good. You’ll stay for supper?”

  “Depends.” A faint smile touched her eyes, then spread down to the corners of her lips. “What’s on the menu?”

  “Meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Green beans and salad. Apple pie for dessert. Travis is coming with Grady. Britt will be joining us, too.”

  Now that the threat of Wade Collins was gone, Samantha had dropped her insistence that Britt come home to Butte as soon as possible. She and Alec had driven to Lonesome Way, and she’d hugged and kissed her daughter, shown Britt and Mia photos of her honeymoon, stayed over two nights, and then relented—allowing Britt to remain at Mia’s until at least after the fund-raiser.

  “We’ll have a party,” Mia continued, smiling at Winny. “A good luck wedding quilt party.”

  “I don’t like parties. Never did,” her aunt responded bluntly. “But I’ll stay. Only because of that apple pie.” But Mia saw the
glimmer of humor in her eyes and, for no reason at all, she put her arms around her aunt and hugged her tightly, the wedding quilt smushed between them.

  “We’re having a real family dinner, Aunt Winny,” Mia whispered. “I bet Gram would like that. Very much.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Well, imagine that. Less than an hour to go and the sun’s still out. That rain’s holding off, thank goodness.” Martha Davies bustled toward Mia in the small, brightly lit side room of the Lonesome Way Public Library, where Mia was stationed to supervise the special exhibition of fragile older quilts.

  The good luck wedding quilt was among nine others considered vintage quilts, displayed with special care and attention inside the library.

  The weather forecast for the quilt fund-raiser had been foreboding all week, but by some miracle, the day had dawned sunny and the clouds in the west had shown no inclination to drift closer.

  So far so good, Mia thought, watching several older women pause to admire Gram’s butterfly quilt and then the good luck wedding quilt, both carefully presented on hanging racks.

  The small sign beside the butterfly quilt showed a grainy black-and-white photo of Gram with the quilt draped across her arms at age seventeen, the year she’d made it. The sign also noted Gram’s name, the date the quilt had been sewn, and the fact that Alicia Rae Sullivan had won first place at the tri-county Fourth of July fair.

  “I’m your replacement—you’ve been shut up in here long enough,” Martha announced, sweeping toward Mia at the small rectangular table. “Go on out and have some ice cream while you have the chance. Before you know it, you’ll be up on that podium announcing the grand total.”

  “Is there still a nice-sized crowd?” Mia asked as a very pregnant Deanna Mueller wandered past the doorway, browsing the quilts displayed in the main room of the library.

  “You’d better believe it. In the last hour and a half just about everyone in town has shown up. And most everyone’s sticking around to see how much money we’ve raised. Should be a tidy sum, especially now that the community quilt’s been raffled off.” Martha’s big silver hoop earrings swung wildly as she nodded in satisfaction. “A caravan of folks from Livingston and some more from Billings came by a few hours ago. A few of the women chatted with Karla—real excited to see our quilts. Said they might want to do an ice cream social with their exhibition next year, too. But,” Martha added, “it’s time you got back out there to see for yourself. Spend a little more time with your sister and niece—Samantha did come all the way from Butte, didn’t she?”