"You kissed me," he said stupidly.

She gave Reggie one last pet and got out of the car.

"Won't happen again," she said, and slammed the door.

Kissing Owen had definitely been a mistake. Despite how good it had been, how right and familiar, I'd known that the instant I'd done it.

Because now all I could think of was doing it again. Which would only lead to a much, much bigger mistake. Sleeping with him. And that would be a lot harder to forget than a mere kiss.

"Mere." There'd been nothing "mere" about it. Not now. Not then. Not ever.

The thunderous swoosh of my shoes through the ankle-deep fallen leaves seemed to announce my presence even louder than Moose had.

The door wasn't locked. Never was. No one got past that dog.

A steaming cup of coffee sat on the table. At Moose's first bray Pam Carstairs would have glanced out the window and seen that someone was coming. She would have stayed at that window until she knew just who. I had seconds before the questions began.

Where had I been? What had I done? Whose truck had I arrived in?

I sat at the table and slurped from my cup as if I'd been lost in the desert and just found an oasis. Sometimes coming home felt like that. My mother's coffee definitely tasted as good as clear spring water after a long summer's drought. No matter how hard I tried to replicate it, I'd never been able to.

"What's new, baby girl?"

I hadn't been a baby for years, and I wasn't "the" baby, but Mom had always called me that, and I let her. I liked it. Mostly because it annoyed Mellie. Her nickname was "squirt." Drove her bonkers, which meant that the boys and I called her that as often as we could.

"Twin calves at Watley's," I said between slurps. "Heifers."

"Nice." She began to line her cast-iron skillet with thick strips of bacon. First came the sizzle, then came the scent, and I wanted to lick the air the way Moose did whenever he smelled it. Seriously, what wasn't better with bacon?

Chocolate? Yes. Lettuce? h.e.l.l, yes. Ice cream? Bizarrely, yes.

I refilled my cup. At this rate, I'd have to start another pot before Dad and the boys came in for breakfast. Wouldn't be the first time.

"Emerson called here."

Just as I'd thought.

"Did that woman get hold of you too?"

"What woman?"

"Didn't leave her name."

I lifted my eyebrows. That didn't usually stop my mother from knowing who any local caller was. And tourists didn't call my parents' house.

"Weird," I murmured.

"She was. Asked why you weren't at home or at work, demanded where she could find you."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That I had no idea. People that rude can take their business elsewhere."

Since I'd never heard from her, she no doubt had.

I leaned against the counter and watched my mother work. She'd done this dance every morning for the past thirty years. The particulars might vary. Sausage instead of bacon. Eggs instead of waffles. Some days brought pancakes, others toast. Ham or hash? Who knew? But that skillet was always sizzling, and the kitchen smelled like heaven.

Which meant it smelled like home.

"Was that Owen in the truck?"

She'd been able to see him in the cab of the truck from a hundred yards away? My mom had always had the eyes of a hawk. When combined with the ears of a bat and a nose that probably detected as good as Reggie's she'd been a terrific mother. Still was.

I took another sip of coffee, swallowed, then took another while I decided what to tell her. I would have preferred to skip how I'd run into Owen. She didn't need to hear about the animals and the altar.

Except this was Three Harbors. She probably already had. Which explained how she knew Owen had been in the truck.

Grapevine, not spidey sense.

She let out an impatient huff.

"Yes," I blurted. "Owen."

If she peered at me just right I'd spill everything in my head. I wanted to avoid that as much now as I had when I was a kid.

She continued turning the bacon slices one by one. "It's unfortunate that he's back in town at the same time something so awful appears in his house."

Just like I'd thought. She already knew.

I was both glad that I didn't have to tell her about the awful and annoyed at her use of unfortunate. "He didn't do it."

"Of course not."

"Then why is it unfortunate?"

"Because the poor kid had to walk into the place after so long and find that. Why else?" She shook her head. "You're as defensive as he is."

"He was always blamed for everything."

"Times change," she said. "So do people."

I wasn't sure if she meant Owen had changed, or everyone else had.

"You don't look like you got any sleep."

"I didn't. I met Chief Deb at Owen's, then got the call to Watley's, then came here."

"You don't have office hours today so you can sleep."

"Maybe." There was something I had to do today, but right now I hadn't had enough coffee to remember what it was.

My mother was suddenly standing before me removing the now empty cup from my hands. "You should lay off the coffee if you plan to go home to bed." She set the cup in the sink and handed me a plate. "Eat, then I'll have one of the boys take you home."

I was knuckle deep in waffles and bacon when the men tromped in, bringing the scent of an autumn morning and cattle. The latter was better with bacon too.

"Ginge!" Jamie stole a bite of waffle from my plate. I gave him an elbow in the gut-not hard, but he got his own rather than stealing more of mine. Unfortunately, I could elbow him all day and most of tomorrow and he'd never stop calling me "Ginger."

If he'd been an aficionado of Gilligan's Island, the nickname would have been more appealing. Ginger Grant was a very hot redhead. Except Gilligan's Island had been popular during our grandparents' day and I doubted that Jamie had ever bothered watching an episode.

Jamie called me "Ginger" because of South Park, which didn't make the comment half as nice. Little brothers, even when they were no longer little, were mostly annoying.

Joe, who always let Jamie do the talking, just winked and followed him to the food. At least he didn't touch any of mine.

Like all the Carstairs, except me, my brothers had light brown hair. When they were three, they'd been blond, just like Mellie. Mellie still was, thanks to a monthly appointment for highlights and root control. All of them also had pretty blue eyes, which made my mud-green shade even more noticeably different.

My flame-red hair was as much a mystery to my parents as to me. I'd asked every relative we had if any Carstairs in memory had ever possessed red hair. None had.

Kids noticed how different I was from every other Carstairs on the planet, which led to a lifetime of comments about the "stork getting it wrong," and other oh-so-amusing jibes.

I loved my parents, my siblings, loved this town, or I wouldn't have come back after college, but there was always a part of me that felt as if I'd been plunked into Three Harbors by strange forces and not born here like everyone else.

"Sweetheart." My dad kissed the top of my head, paused, sniffed. "You've been playing with cows again."

You'd think he wouldn't be able to smell cows on me since he had enough cow smell on himself. You'd think wrong.

"Watley's." My mom brought my dad both his coffee and his plate. "Twin heifers."

I used to find it beyond frustrating that she waited on him like that. Then she caught the flu once-and only once, which is another subject entirely. She'd had four kids. Four! And we'd brought home all sorts of things-germs, foster sons, hedgehogs.

While Mom had been down with the flu, Dad had trashed the kitchen just trying to make cereal, and all became clear to me. She didn't wait on him because she was the woman and he was the man; she waited on him because he was a slob and she didn't want him anywhere near her kitchen.

"Trouble?" My dad stirred cream and sugar into his coffee.

"I wouldn't have been there if there weren't trouble."

Most of the time cows had calves all by themselves, sometimes the farmer didn't even know about it until the cow walked back in with an extra.

"Good point." He toasted me with his cup, drank.

My father's face was well lived in-weather crinkles around the eyes, smile lines framed his mouth. His hair had highlights without help from anything but the sun, though his roots were gray. As he said when Mom teased him, at least he still had hair. A lot of his pals didn't.

"Where's your car?"

"Owen brought her."

Silence fell. Everyone but my mother, who was pouring bacon grease into a tin can, stared at me.

"Owen's back?" Jamie asked.

"It would be a little hard for him to give me a ride if he wasn't."

"Ha-ha." Jamie took the chair across from mine. His plate was so full he really should have used two. "Why's he here? Where'd you see him? Is it true he's in explosives detection? What-"

I held up my hand. "I'll tell you all I know if you just zip it."

Jamie didn't have to be told twice. If his mouth was asking questions he couldn't eat. Not at my mom's table. So he zipped it, then tucked into the plate as I recited all I knew. Almost.

I wasn't going to discuss the new breadth to Owen's shoulders, the fresh calluses on his hands. I especially didn't plan to relate the same, great taste of his mouth.

My father began to make a waffle sandwich, something he did only when he had someplace else to be.

"Where are you going?"

He glanced up in the middle of squirting syrup on top of the b.u.t.ter he'd spread on two waffles like bread. "I need to check the fence on the north side."

Joe started to rise, and Dad shook his head, then proceeded to snap bacon in half and position it on a waffle. "One of you take Becca to her apartment. The other can do inventory on the feed. We'll need to place an order this week." He slapped the second waffle on top of the first, picked up his sandwich, and left.

I was still frowning at that abrupt departure when Jamie said, "Call it."

A quarter flipped end over end over end through the air.

"Tails." Joe shoveled the remains of his breakfast into his mouth.

Jamie slapped the coin onto the back of his hand, peeked and tucked it into his pocket. "You take Becca; I take inventory."

I kissed my mom then followed my brothers out the door.

My dad's truck was gone, which was odd. To check a fence he usually took a tractor or an ATV.

"Who won the toss?" I asked.

Jamie winked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Chapter 8.

Joe was his usual silent self as we headed toward Three Harbors. I didn't mind. I half dozed with my forehead against the window.

The flash of brilliant blue from Stone Lake brought me out of my stupor in time to witness Owen's white rent-a-truck parked in front of a cabin. He'd taken Chief Deb's advice. He hadn't had much choice. With Reggie in tow it was Stone Lake or ... my parents' house. I could understand his reluctance to return there. Too many people, too much action.

Too many memories.