"I'm not a goose," Gracie argued. "I'm a little girl and I knew them people at the school were going to give you a job."

"How did you know?" Jamie asked.

"Because I asked God when we said our quiet prayer in Sunday school. Hattie says that if we ask God in secret, he will say okay and he did," Gracie said seriously. "Can we have pancakes for breakfast?"

"We sure can. Sausage or bacon?" Tears filled Jamie's eyes, but she quickly wiped them away before Gracie saw.

"Both." Gracie giggled and took off for the kitchen in a run.

Amanda heard laughter and awoke from a beautiful dream about her baby's first Easter. Aunt Ellie had made him a cute little basket.

She laid a hand on her stomach. She would have rather spent the day with the rest of the crew out at the ranch, but she should not miss a doctor's appointment. After that scare with Braxton-Hicks, she really wanted to be sure everything was all right. Tugging the nightshirt down over her belly, she padded barefoot to the kitchen, where the smell of bacon was already wafting through the house.

"Good morning." She knuckled sleep from her eyes.

"Today is the day!" Gracie exclaimed.

"For what?" Amanda teased.

Gracie rolled her eyes. "Ah-mannn-duh!"

"Oh, I forgot, this is the ranch day when you and Lisa ride in a stage, right?" Amanda winked at Jamie.

"Yes, and see the animals. And we're having pancakes for breakfast with bacon and sausage. And when is that baby coming out of your stomach anyway?" Gracie finally stopped to draw in a breath.

"In about four weeks," Amanda said.

She was about used to Gracie asking so many questions, but that one took her by surprise. Still, she was glad that she'd answered honestly and not stammered around trying to find something right to say.

Amanda made a cup of decaf and took a sip. "Now my eyes are open. What can I do to help?"

"Get a pound of sausage out of the fridge and start it to cooking," Jamie said.

"For gravy or patties?" Amanda asked.

"Patties. We're having pancakes, bacon, and sausage."

"Sweet Lord!" Kate said from the doorway. "It's going to take a year for me to lose the weight I'm gaining."

"It beats the devil out of those green things you were drinking when you got here. Besides, with your height and build, I'd be willing to bet that you never gain a pound no matter what you eat." Amanda poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Kate.

"Never have, but then I've never tested it like I'm doing now. What can I do?"

"Set the table," Jamie said.

"We're eating on the deck," Gracie said.

"Since it's outside, shall we use the good plates or the plastic ones?" Kate asked.

"The good ones," Gracie said. "This is a special day and I'll help you."

Amanda carefully arranged eight sausage patties in the cast-iron skillet while Jamie did double duty frying bacon and flipping pancakes on the grill. Amanda's thoughts went to the last time that she and Conrad made breakfast together in that same kitchen. That morning they'd had eggs Benedict, and afterward he'd taken her to the bedroom for one last bout of sex before they'd gone home from the honeymoon.

She'd thought that Conrad was the reward for turning her life around. She'd had a rebellious streak right out of high school. For a year she'd hung out with the wild crowd and frequented the bars around Wichita Falls, mostly country honky-tonks where she could always pick up a cowboy to take home for a one-night stand. Then one morning she awoke to find her cash and credit cards gone, right along with her laptop, her phone, and every piece of jewelry that she owned.

It took a lot of courage to go to Aunt Ellie and tell her what had happened, and it took hours of phone calls to get everything taken care of and reported. She'd lost what dignity she had left when she couldn't identify the cowboy to the police-when she didn't know if he was tall or short, had dark hair or light, or if he was young or old. Aunt Ellie put her back in church the following Sunday morning.

"Do you think that we get punished for our past sins?" Amanda whispered.

"Did you repent of them?" Jamie flipped two pancakes onto the platter and poured two more to cook.

"With many tears and lots of humiliation," Amanda said.

"Then they are forgiven and forgotten," Jamie answered.

Amanda frowned. "Why do they keep coming back to haunt me?"

"Who is haunting you?" Kate asked as she came back inside. "Gracie says she is going to watch the birds until we bring out breakfast."

"We were talking about sins and whether we get punished for them," Jamie said.

"According to the preacher at my church in Fort Worth, if we are truly repentant, then God forgives and forgets," Kate said. "Why?"

Amanda drained the sausage patties on a paper napkin before shifting them over to the platter with the bacon. "I was wild. I partied too much, drank too much for sure, and had lots of one-night stands before I got myself straightened out. I thought God had forgiven me when I met Conrad. But now I wonder if he wasn't punishing me with Conrad."

Kate stole a strip of bacon and blew on it to cool it down before popping it into her mouth. "Then he was punishing all of us. What sin did you commit, Jamie?"

"You first?" Jamie grinned.

"Before or after Conrad?"

"Before," Amanda said. "But I can't see you committing a sin."

Surely the great Kate didn't ever do anything that resembled sin. Hell's bells! She hadn't even divorced Conrad when he told her that he was cheating with other women.

"I can't see you taking home one-night stands, Amanda." Jamie giggled.

"Well, I did, and the last one sure opened my eyes." She told them about what had happened and how embarrassed she'd been. "Aunt Ellie made me start going to church with her again, and I finally figured out I was punishing my mother for abandoning me by acting out like that."

"You have to show ID to buy a beer now. I can't imagine how young you must have looked then," Kate said.

"I had a fake one from the time I was sixteen, like every other kid in school." Amanda flipped the sausage over. "But you were about to tell us what you did that you'd feel like Conrad was punishment."

"I was too busy for one-night stands, but I did have a couple of relationships in college. One with a married professor," Kate said.

"No!" Jamie almost dropped the pancakes she was moving from griddle to platter. "I can't even imagine it. Was he old and bald headed?"

"You are joking, right?" Amanda whispered.

Kate held up two fingers and then crossed her heart. "It's the truth. He was about thirty. It was his first year as a professor, and I was twenty-one. When I found out that Conrad had two more wives, I figured it was my comeuppance."

"But then what?" Amanda asked.

"I truly repented and said I'd never do that again. Still, I wonder about it." Kate picked up a plate and headed toward the deck with it. "And you, Jamie?"

"I was very, very good at five-finger discounts," Jamie whispered on the way outside.

"What made you stop?" Kate asked.

"Mama Rita. She went through my bedroom one day when I was at school. It was my senior year, and I had enough scholarships and grant money to go to college. And there were enough pretty things in my closet and my jewelry box that no one would ever know I was a poor girl from inner-city Dallas."

"And?" Amanda asked.

"She put every single thing I'd stolen into a big black garbage bag and put it in the charity donation box down on the corner. She said there was no way that I could remember where it came from to take it back. And then I got the lecture of a lifetime."

"Which was?" Kate asked.

"If I got caught, all my college money would be revoked and I'd be lucky to get a waitress job. Then she made me go to confession and tell the truth, and believe me, what I had to do was not easy. For the whole summer, I had to clean the church every Saturday for penance."

"So you are Catholic?" Amanda said.

"Mama Rita is. I went with her, but after Gracie was born I didn't always go to church with her. Sometimes I went to a Methodist church down the block from me. And when I found out that Conrad was a thief of sorts, I wondered if it was my punishment for past sins."

"Mama, look!" Gracie yelled from the railing. "There's a bunch of baby ducks out there on the lake."

Amanda could hardly believe what they'd said. There's bad things in people who are basically good and good things in people who are bad. When my baby is born, I'll just have to search for the good memories of his father to tell him about.

When everyone had left that morning, Kate poured a cup of coffee, carried it out to the deck, and called her mother. "Do you have a few minutes to talk?" she asked when her mother answered.

"I don't like working without you here." Teresa's tone was still grouchy. "I would have never made the suggestion that you take time off if . . ." She stopped.

"If you thought I'd really stay this long, right?" Kate finished the sentence for her. "You figured I'd come up here and get bored out of my mind and be back in the office in a week at the most," Kate said.

"Yes, I did," Teresa said curtly.

"I like it here." Yesterday's church hymn played through her mind as she shut her eyes tightly for courage. "I want to take a year's sabbatical."

"Don't you joke with me this morning," Teresa said.

"I'm serious as a heart attack. I want a year off," Kate said.

She didn't only want it. She needed it.

"You are not a priest," Teresa said.

"Folks other than the clergy take a year off every now and then. You said the murder thing surrounding me right now could ruin my reputation, and I need some time."

"I swear, you sound and act more like your father every day that you live. I've tried and tried to make you tough and ready to take over the business, but I'm . . ."

"I told you so." Kate laughed.

"What?"

"You're working around to saying the words, so spit them out. Maybe you should repeat them about a dozen times for future use so we don't have to go through this whole thing again."

Silence on the other end of the phone.

"Mother?" Kate held the phone out to make sure her battery wasn't dead.

"You can't talk to me like that," Teresa hissed. "I'm your boss."

"And you are my mother, but I'm forty-four years old and a grown woman. Just say the words and then we can get on with our conversation," Kate said.

"I don't say that every time we talk," Teresa argued.

"I can count on the fingers of one hand the times when you didn't. Mother, did you ever want to be anything other than what you are?"

"What kind of fool question is that? And don't change the subject."

Kate flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Did you ever want to be a nurse or a teacher or maybe even a stay-at-home mother?"

"I did not." Teresa said each word distinctively. "I wanted to grow up and run this business just like my mother did and like you will be doing before long. What has come over you? Surely to God you weren't serious about selling the company. Do you realize how long it's been in our family?"

"Since the oil boom days, which makes it almost a hundred years," Kate answered. "It started out as Texas Oil, and then it was-"

"I don't need a history lesson," Teresa snapped.

"I've hauled hay here, and a few days ago I spent the day driving a tractor. It made me wonder if I chose the profession I'm in or if you chose it for me."

"I told you that a trip to that backwoods place was a mistake," Teresa fumed.

"And there it is." Kate chuckled. She could imagine her mother pacing the floor in her office, her eyes narrowed and her forehead wrinkled as she tried to figure out a way to manipulate Kate into coming home early. "It's probably the single smartest thing I've ever done. A bit unorthodox, having friends that were married to the same man at the same time I was, but all the same, I've made friends in the short time I've been here. Real, honest-to-God friends who don't give a shit if I have money or if I'm poor as a church mouse."

"Those other women, either one of whom could have killed Conrad, are not your friends," Teresa said.

"There are more people in this town than Amanda and Jamie."

"I'm hanging up now, and Katherine Elizabeth Steele, you had better get your head on straight," Teresa said.

The phone went silent, and Kate tossed it to one side. "Way I figure it is that my head might be on straighter than it's ever been, even if I do forget where I'm going." She finished off her coffee and headed down the hallway with plans to get dressed and go to the ranch to help get things ready for Gracie's big day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.