"Conrad was killed," Amanda said and went on to tell her the rest of the story.

"I knew there was something hinky about that man. I wouldn't say anything only because you were so much in love with him. He had shifty eyes and wandering hands. I steered clear of him. What a mess."

"I thought you'd support me." Amanda pouted.

"Support you, yes. Listen to you defend a son of a bitch like that, no, ma'am. You need to wake up and smell the coffee or the roses or whatever the hell it is that you smell when you wake up. Take a lesson from those other two you told me about. Get an I-don't-give-a-damn attitude or I'd-like-to-kill-him-again one, but stop feeling sorry for yourself and see him for what he was, and that's a con man," Bailey told her.

"He loved me," Amanda declared.

"No, he did not. He didn't love anything but the game," Bailey shot right back. "I'm going to hang up now, and you think about the fairy tale you're telling yourself and then think about the reality. Call me in a day or two when you figure out which one is really right. Good night."

"'Night," Amanda said, not bothering to hide her upset.

She hefted her weight off the lounge, stomped barefoot into the house, and went straight to her bedroom. She eased down on the bed and curled up around a pillow, pretending that it was Conrad's back and he was there with her. A dozen pictures flashed through her mind, starting with the week she'd met him, the whirlwind romance, the small but pretty church wedding, the honeymoon in that very room, and then the shiny black casket at the graveside service.

Then the pretty things all disappeared and she could see a line of faceless women, all with numbers in their hands, lined up from the bedroom door, through the house, down all those steps and out to the lake. There was no counting the women that Conrad had slept with in this very bed. Her eyes popped open as reality hit her smack in the face. She slung the pillow across the room. Anger set in. She wanted to hit something, kick holes in the walls, burn down the cabin-anything to get the misery out of her heart.

"Damn him for doing this to me."

Feeling as dirty, as if she'd been violated, she went straight to the bathroom and took a long, cool shower, washing her shoulder-length hair twice and lathering up her belly three times. "I will not name you after that man, my son. You'll have a good strong Irish name, like Liam or maybe Desmond, and I will think of something else to tell you about your father. It won't be that he was a hero. And you will not have any of his looks or ways. I'm your mother."

She felt a little better once she finished and was dressed in a baggy T-shirt that came halfway to her knees. But when she went back into the bedroom, she could not make herself even sit on the bed. She paced around it a few times and finally turned her back, closed the door, and went to the living room, where she pulled the cushions from the sofa. She tossed them to one side and pulled out the hidden bed. It might not be comfortable, but it would be a place that Conrad had never used. Or was his name even Conrad? Maybe that wasn't even the name on his birth certificate at all.

How do you know that? Bailey's voice was back in her head. He might have used all the beds, including the sofa.

"Because the one thing that I can believe that he told me was that he hated to sleep on sofas. It reminded him of his childhood," Amanda answered out loud as she went out to the deck, picked up her phone, and found a message from Aunt Ellie.

Rather than sending a text, Amanda called and ranted for half an hour about the bed. When she finished her aunt Ellie was laughing so hard she had the hiccups.

"Now there's the red-haired fireball of a niece that I raised. I wondered when that wimpy woman that had taken over her body would be banished. Welcome back, real Amanda Hilton." Ellie chuckled. "I will bring you a bed tomorrow. There's an extra twin-size one in storage in my garage. I'll be there by six, so be on the lookout for me."

"Thank you, Aunt Ellie. It will be more comfortable than the sofa, I'm sure. And bring a five-gallon can of gasoline with you."

Ellie gasped. "You will not set fire to a mattress in town. Those damn things burn forever, and the smoke would be awful. Besides, after all the women he's had on the thing, the fumes might be toxic. We'll talk about it when I get there."

"Thank you, but I intend to burn it or take it to a landfill. I won't have that thing in my cabin," Amanda said.

"See you tomorrow. Anything else you want me to bring?"

"A loaded sub sandwich with cold cuts and lots of Italian dressing," she said.

"You got it," Aunt Ellie said.

She laid the phone to the side, picked up the remote, and turned on the television, but before she could flip through the channels, the sliding doors out to the deck squeaked open. Gracie didn't pay a bit of attention to Amanda but headed straight to the bathroom with Jamie right behind her.

Jamie stopped in her tracks and raised an eyebrow.

Amanda narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it. I'm not sleeping in that bed another night. Aunt Ellie is bringing me another bed tomorrow after she closes the shop. Good night."

Jamie giggled.

"What's so funny?" Amanda asked.

Jamie stopped and looked back. "It took you long enough to figure it out."

Kate smiled as she came in the front door. "She's young and slow."

Amanda shook a finger at Kate. "Just because you are old doesn't mean you are so smart. You married him, too."

"Yes, I did. But I did not spend one night in that bed."

"Me, either," Jamie yelled from the hallway.

"And I won't spend another one," Amanda declared.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

It was one of those days when if something could go wrong, it did. Even if there was no way something could go wrong, it did anyway. Kate started out the morning by burning her breakfast toast, spilling coffee all over her favorite pajamas, and killing a spider on the kitchen counter. She'd just put the ingredients for a smoothie into the blender when someone knocked on the door. On the way to open it, she stumbled over Amanda's flip-flops and almost fell face-first across the living room floor.

"What in the hell is Waylon doing here this early?" she mumbled as she slung open the door.

"Good mornin'," Hattie said cheerfully.

Kate frowned.

"I'm here for Gracie. Jamie said I can have her the next three mornings for Bible school down at our church. Is she ready?"

Kate shrugged.

"You haven't had your morning coffee, have you? I'm an old bear until I get my two cups, too. I'll just see if they're out on the deck and you go get a cup poured," Hattie said.

Kate stepped aside and let her enter the cabin. Hattie stopped in her tracks when she saw Amanda on the sofa. "Why isn't she in one of the bedrooms? That can't be good for her back."

"She wanted the master bedroom but changed her mind last night," Kate explained.

Jamie slid back the doors out onto the deck and smiled at Hattie. "She's ready. We were having breakfast burritos while we waited."

Gracie's dark ponytail was held up with a bright-red bow that matched her red-checked sundress. Her white sandals showed wear, but Jamie had taken time to polish them. Gracie tiptoed across the floor and put her hand in Hattie's.

"I'm ready. You will be my teacher, right?" Gracie slipped her hand in Hattie's.

Oh, to be as trusting as a child, Kate thought.

"Yes, darlin' girl, I will keep you right beside me all day," Hattie said. "I'll have her back by one. We feed them lunch before we turn them loose."

Jamie bent down and kissed Gracie on the forehead. "Have fun. When you get home, I want to hear all about your new friends."

"I'll try to remember all their names."

Jamie handed Hattie a piece of paper. "Hattie, here's my phone number in case she wants me to come and get her before the Bible school is done."

"I'll get that programmed into my phone," Hattie said. "And Gracie, I can't wait for you to meet Lisa." Hattie led her out of the cabin, talking the whole way.

Jamie followed Kate to the kitchen and started to dump what was left in a skillet into the trash, then paused with a frown as she stared at Kate's burned toast and the mixture in the blender. "The toaster runs hot. You got to stand over it and watch it like a hawk or it will burn the bread every time. It's so old it doesn't have a setting on it. Whatever you've got in that blender looks like ground-up grass. There's enough egg mixture left for a couple of burritos. You want it?" Jamie asked.

"If she doesn't, I do," Amanda said from the sofa.

Kate set the blender in the refrigerator and nodded. "They do smell good. I could eat one."

"Well, rats! I could eat them both." Amanda padded barefoot from the living room to the kitchen. She went straight to the microwave and put a cup of water into it to heat. When it dinged, she stirred instant decaf into it, added sugar and milk, and took a sip before she carried it to the table.

"Too bad. I'm having one," Kate said. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Horrible, but better than if I'd been in that bed," she said honestly.

Jamie whipped up two burritos in a few seconds, put them on a plate, and set them in front of Kate and Amanda. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with them. "Y'all ever hear of the seven steps of grief?"

Amanda bit the end off the burrito. "I thought it was twelve steps. I went past denial into anger last night."

"It's five," Kate said.

"I'd expect someone as old as you to know," Amanda said.

Jamie cocked her head to one side. "Age can knock the socks off youth any day of the week, so be careful. There are two of us older than you." Jamie shook her head. "Back to the stages of grief. Tell us what happened to make you leave that bed. You whined for that room like a two-year-old wanting a cookie. So what changed your mind?"

Amanda swallowed and took a sip of coffee. "I talked to my friend Bailey, who was my maid of honor when I got married. Let's just say she started to open my eyes, and then I went into that room and I could see all those women who'd been there before and after me. It was not a pretty sight. I went from denial and shock straight to anger."

"Pain and guilt is step two," Kate said.

"I tied that up with denial." Amanda laid a hand on her stomach. "He's kicking. I wish he'd been a girl now, because I don't want him to grow up like Conrad."

"You really did do a turnaround, didn't you?" Jamie laughed.

"I honestly did. Now tell me what to expect on the rest of this grief crap. Have y'all hit the second stage yet?"

"Oh, honey, I started with anger in the cemetery," Jamie said.

"I finished the whole process thirteen years ago when Conrad asked for a divorce the first time," Kate said. "How did y'all meet Conrad?"

"I'm not sure I want to talk about personal things with either of you," Amanda said with a sniff.

Jamie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Get over it, Amanda."

"Don't tell me what or what not to do," she smarted off. "How'd you meet him, anyway?"

"I was at a beginning-of-school pool party at the principal's house. He was the superintendent's date but spent most of the night flirting with me. He left with my phone number, called, and asked me out the next week. We were married the last day of the year, and I got pregnant soon after. But when Gracie was born, there were complications, so we knew she'd be an only child."

"Makes sense. I had a miscarriage, and the doctor said I couldn't have children," Kate said.

"Why does that make sense?" Amanda asked and then clapped a hand over her mouth when she realized what it meant. "He wanted a son, so he married me to get one, right? He only married me because I'm young and he might have a son with me."

Kate shrugged. "He was a con artist, so who knows, but that would be my guess."

"He was a jobber who came into our store to see if we wanted to buy from him," Amanda said. "We set up an account and he flirted like crazy, asked me out that next weekend, and we went on a picnic to the park. Very romantic, under the stars. That was late summer, and like y'all, we were married on the last day of the year. I was about four weeks pregnant at that time, and we were both ecstatic that he'd have someone to carry on his family name."

"If that is his name," Kate said.

"He did marry all of us with the same name, Conrad Jonathan Steele, right?" Jamie asked.

Kate and Amanda both nodded.

"And you?" Amanda asked.

"I was at the cemetery putting flowers on my father's grave, and he was there putting flowers on his mother's grave. Her name was May Smith, and she died in 1995. She's buried pretty close to my father. For the first year of our marriage, I kept flowers on her grave as well as my dad's," Kate said.

Jamie chuckled. "He told me his mother's name was Julie Smith and she was buried in Louisiana where he was raised. He had that southern drawl, so I never doubted him. I bet May Smith's family thought she had a secret admirer that whole year."

Amanda slapped the table. "He told me that you were his sister and your mother was also his mama. And that you had control of the money. What a mess!"

"Julie Smith is probably the name of one of those women that he conned," Kate said. "He bragged about how stupid women were. In his mind, with a wink and a few compliments, he could have any woman in the world falling into bed with him."

Amanda's hands went up to cup her face as her eyes bugged out. "He talked to you about his women-about us?"

"Not about you two specifically, but yes, about his other women. He was trying to make me mad enough to divorce him so he could have a lot of money."

"Well, we were all duped by the same rascal," Jamie said. "The next thing is what are we going to do about it?"

"Step number five is an upward turn," Kate said. "You'll see the light at the end of the tunnel and start to realize that you can have a normal life."

"Do I have to get over the anger before I can go to that one?" Amanda asked.

Kate picked up her coffee and sipped it. "Yes, you do, and also the depression."

Amanda sighed.

"Do you really hate Conrad?" Kate looked across the table at Jamie.

"Right now I do, and that's not healthy. So when I leave here at the end of summer, I want to be indifferent and ready to move on. How could he do this to Gracie? He could have divorced me. There was no prenup between us," Jamie answered.

"Even if he did divorce you, there would still be the Kate marriage. And he probably didn't want to get lawyers too close to any of the marriages," Amanda said. "Who knows what happened before Iris. There might be an even earlier wife out there who will hunt me for this cabin and whatever else he had in his bank account."

"When was his birthday?" Kate asked in an attempt to divert their attention from the ownership of the cabin.