“I’m not looking out the window. I was watching Gracie and Lisa. They are adorable. And about Conrad—maybe he’s only been dead two weeks by the clock, but if we’re all honest, he’s been dead a lot longer than that, right?” Kate said.

“Would you ever think of leaving your big, fancy job and moving to a place like Bootleg?” Amanda asked.

“I’d never leave my business behind, but if I had a daughter like you have, I might reconsider everything.”

“Never say never,” Jamie quipped.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Amanda was so antsy that she decided to bake again all morning on Thursday. She rationalized making more by saying that she would take two large platters of cookies to the church for the potluck. Gracie was delighted to sit at the table and help stir, mix, and sample the broken ones as they came out of the oven.

“I like cookin’,” Gracie said. “Because I get to eat the mistakes.”

“I like it because it helps keep my hands busy. We’ll have to think of something for lunch for your mama, though, other than cookies.”

“Why?” Gracie giggled.

“How about toasted cheese sandwiches and some noodle soup?”

“Yes!” Gracie pumped her fist in the air. “And cookies and milk for dessert like yesterday.”

“You got it, kiddo! Well, I’ll be . . . danged.” Amanda caught the cussword before it left her mouth.

“What? Another broken one?” Gracie asked.

“No, I think I’m nesting. I cleaned my room this morning and put away all the little boy things that Aunt Ellie brought when she delivered the bed and bassinet.”

“Amanda, why is it a bad thing that my daddy married all of you?”

She fumbled for an answer. “Because it’s against the law.”

“You know what my Mama Rita says? She says that I have to obey her when she tells me something, but what my mama says is the law. Is it like that?”

“A whole lot.” Amanda put the last of the cookies in the oven and checked the clock. It was time to open two cans of soup and get things ready for dinner.

“Then if my mama had told my daddy not to marry you, he wouldn’t have done it?” Gracie asked.

“This is a different kind of law.”

Gracie frowned. “Like the detective that likes Kate a lot. Mama says he’s the law. If he’d told my daddy not to marry you and Kate, then he wouldn’t, right?”

“I don’t know about that, but what makes you think that Waylon likes Kate?” Amanda asked.

“I’m a little kid, but I’m not stupid.” Gracie folded her arms over her chest and huffed. “I can see the way he looks at her. Like Mama looks at chocolate.”

That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Amanda burst out laughing, and Gracie joined right in.

“Why is that funny?” Gracie asked when they’d both gotten control.

Amanda hugged the child. “I hope my baby grows up to be as smart as you.”

“Mama says it’s my half brother. What’s the other half?”

“Half brother means you have the same daddy but not the same mama,” Amanda explained.

“Does that mean I’m a big sister for real?”

Amanda sure wished that Jamie was there to have this conversation. “It does mean that. Do you want to be a big sister even though you don’t have the same mama as my baby?”

“Heck, yeah, I do.” Gracie grinned with a chocolate chip stuck to her teeth. “I don’t care who the mama or the daddy is as long as it can be my brother.”

“Hello, what’s this about a brother?” Jamie asked as she made her way into the house.

“Amanda’s baby will have my daddy, but Amanda will be the mama. And we’ve got cookies, Mama. Lots and lots of cookies!” Gracie ran to give Jamie a hug.

Jamie grinned. “The simplicity of innocence.”

“We are making noodle soup for dinner, Mama. Tell me about your day,” Gracie said.

Jamie picked up a still-warm cookie. “I want to hear about your day and then I’ll tell you about mine.”

“I wish Kate was here to tell us about hers. I miss her when she’s gone all day.” Gracie sighed.

Driving a tractor, even with the radio blaring loudly, left a lot of time for thinking, and that’s what Kate had been doing all morning. The fact that she’d been selfish with the knowledge in Iris’s letters and will kept circling back to haunt her even when other things took top priority.

She liked this mindless work of plowing a field. She liked being outside in the sunshine and wearing sandals or going barefoot. But what she liked most of all was the freedom in her soul when she smelled the fresh-plowed dirt or looked at a barn full of hay that she’d helped harvest.

Kenny Chesney was belting out “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” when she made the final loop around the field.

“Oh, yes, I do.” She grinned. “And my mother would have me committed for saying that.”

She picked up her phone from the console beside her and poked in the speed-dial number for the lawyer as she drove the tractor back to the barn. They’d located Darcy’s will only to learn she’d left all her earthly possessions to her mother’s church—Hattie’s church. Now it was a matter of getting things legalized and seeing what the church wanted to do with the cabin and the money they’d found in the bank box.

She turned off the engine and slung open the door. It was time—past time, really—to let everyone know about the will and the letters.

Today!

That would take her one step closer to getting all this closed and out of her mind. Waylon reached up, put his arms on her waist, and brought her to the ground like she weighed no more than a bed pillow. “Ready to get some lunch?”

“The way I’ve been eating, I’ll have to live at the gym when I get home.” Her heart fluttered around like a butterfly in her chest. Yes, his touch had that effect on her, but she had to tell him about the will and the letters, and it had to be today, and that was as much to do with the jitters as his hands on her waist. The past few days she’d started to feel guilty for not telling him or the other two. Right now she just wanted it out in the open, even if it caused a fight with Waylon or with Amanda and Jamie.

He laced his fingers with hers, and they started toward the house. “Darlin’, you will always be beautiful in my eyes.”

“That’s sweet of you to say.” She took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been holding back on you. I have some information that could help.”

He put a finger on her lips. “If you held something back, then I believe you had a reason. What is it and why are you going to tell me now?”

“I found letters that Iris wrote to her daughter, Darcy. There is a will—she left everything to Darcy, and in Darcy’s will, she left everything to her mother’s church,” Kate said. “That means it could be tied up for a while if either Jamie or Amanda contest it, I guess.”

“Let’s go in and have some chili. I put a pot on this morning before we got started, and it should be about simmered down real good. You can tell me everything over lunch,” he said. “But I don’t know what a will has to do with his murder or a bunch of old letters, either one. Did you read them?”

“Of course. The will was sealed, so I didn’t open it, but the rest of them were in unsealed envelopes. Can I be arrested for that?” She opened the cabinet doors and took out two bowls while he stirred the chili and then put silverware on the table.

“I wouldn’t think so.” He grinned. “They didn’t go through the US mail. Besides, if Iris wrote them, she left them for someone to find, and since Darcy is dead . . .” He dipped up the chili.

She started talking, too fast, but she had to get the load off her chest. “The first letter told Darcy about Iris’s last will, so I knew what was in it. She left everything to her daughter and nothing to Conrad. She had hired a private investigator to look into him after they were married, but she was so ashamed of herself. Besides, he was threatening her in some way if she didn’t give him control of her money and assets. She was not his first wife, Waylon. He was married twice under a different name—Swanson. One of those women died in a suspicious car wreck. The other one divorced him, and I’d bet dollars to cow chips that he got a lot of money at that time,” Kate said.