“What?” Max glanced over. “What are you talking about?”

“You never would have come back if you weren’t staying. Never. So I’m guessing it took you a couple of days of driving around out there to realize what you found on the road wasn’t quite as satisfying as it used to be—because there was a whole lot less to run from back here in Charlemont.” Lane motioned around his own face. “Besides, the cleanup makes me wonder if you’re trying to catch the eye of a certain oncology doctor who is—hey, she’s right over there.”

As Lane lifted a palm in greeting to Tanesha, he had to smile. The woman’s eyes were glued to Max as if she couldn’t believe his transformation.

“Go on, wave to her.” Lane elbowed his brother in the side. “Before I pick your arm up and do it for you.”

That snapped Max to attention, and bless him, he became the color of a beet as he raised his hand to the woman.

“Attaboy. And that cottage on the row is yours for however long you need it.”

“I don’t know. Whatever. Yeah, I guess I’ll hang around for a little while.”

Lane looked the guy right in the eye. “It’s good to put down roots, Max. And it’s safe here now. Okay? You’re safe.”

Max shook his head. “How did you know. . . .”

“About your change of heart?” Lane clapped a hand on the back of the man’s neck and gave him a shake. “Because I had one myself for the same reason so I know what it looks like. And, listen, you can’t beat the love of a good woman, trust me. If Tanesha Nyce will have you, take her and hold on to her for as long as you can. It will turn your life around.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do for a job.”

“Well, we have this little family business . . . I don’t know if you’re familiar with it?” Lane put his arm around his brother and they started walking together. “We make bourbon, realllly, realllllllllly good bourbon. . . .”

As they all lined up together with the rest of Miss Aurora’s family, everyone took a red rose from a vase on a stand. The Reverend Nyce said some truly beautiful things, the coffin was lowered in, and then everyone filed by and dropped their roses.

Edward and Sutton happened to be ahead of Lane, and Lane frowned.

He was going to have to catch the guy and talk to him before people headed back to Easterly for refreshments.

There was one more piece that needed to fall into place.

Gin let Amelia go first to drop her rose, and then mother followed daughter and did the same. After that was done, the two of them walked out toward where the long lineup of cars stretched far, far down the lane.

“I’m sad that she’s gone,” Amelia said.

“Me, too. She was an incredibly special person.”

“She used to make me these lemon cookies so that they were warm, you know, for when I came home from school.”

“Really?” Gin laughed a little. “We have that in common. She did that for me, too—”

“Dad?”

Gin looked over across the cropped lawn. Sure enough, Samuel T. was down on the narrow road, leaning back against the door of his Jaguar, looking perfectly handsome in his black suit.

As Amelia ran ahead through the gravestones and the statues, Gin let the girl go and resigned herself to heading back to Easterly alone with Lizzie and Lane. But it was okay, she told herself. It was . . . the way things were going to be.

“I didn’t know you were there,” Amelia was saying to her father as Gin approached. “I would have had you stand with us.”

Samuel T. removed his Ray-Bans. “I thought the front row in church—and for this part—was really more for family. Beautiful service, wasn’t it? That choir is incredible—and was that Max? What the hell—oh, hey, Gin.”

Gin forced a pleasant smile on her face. “Hello. Well, I’ll leave you two—unless you’d like me to take her home?”

Samuel T. looked down at the grass. “Actually, ah, Amelia, would you mind giving your mother and me a moment?”

“Sure thing. I wanted to say hi to Uncle Max anyway.”

After the girl went off, Gin racked her brain trying to think of what loose ends they had between them. The annulment was done. The paperwork concerning the ring, check. The arrangements for the movie . . .

“So Amelia asked about you and me last evening,” Samuel T. murmured.

Gin snapped her head up. “Oh? What did you tell her? And I won’t be mad if it’s the truth. I have given up my pride and don’t miss it. I’m also getting used to apologizing for things.”

“I told her you were the only woman I’ve ever been in love with.”

Gin’s heart started to pound. “You . . . did?”

“Yes.” His eyes locked on Gin’s. “I think it’s important to be truthful with her. And that is the truth.”

“But . . . I don’t understand.”

Samuel T. crossed his arms over his chest. Then he shook his head slowly. “No buts. That’s it. You’re the only woman I’ve ever been in love with, and let’s face it—and since you brought up pride, I will admit that I’m not proud of this—I’ve been through enough females to know there’s never going to be anyone else for me.”

Surely Gin couldn’t be hearing this right. “I’m sorry—I . . . but what about Amelia?”

“What about her. She has a mother . . . and a father. And I know this is a shocking concept in these modern days, but in some families, moms and dads and kids live together. For extended periods of time. Like, months. Years. Decades . . .” There was a pause. “Until death do they part.”

Gin started to shake so badly that she had to put her hands up to her face to stop her teeth from chattering. “What are you saying, Samuel T.? And please, I know I don’t deserve this, but please do not be cruel. I can’t take it anymore.”

Samuel T. straightened off his Jaguar. “I think you and I need to put the past aside. We need to just leave it back in the days of our youth, relegate it to memory, close that door. And starting today, we’re fresh. We’re new. We’re clean and we’re in love and we’re going to be together, no games, no lies, no bitterness. We start fresh, right here, right now.”

As he pointed to the ground, Gin could feel the tears on her cheeks.

“So what do you say, Gin? You ready to be a grown-up with me? Because I’m ready to be one with you.”

At that, he held his hand out to her.

And what do you know, she didn’t need any time to think about it.

Given that her voice was gone, all she could do was nod—so she nodded as hard and fast as she could. “I love you,” she croaked as she put her palm in his. “I love you so much. . . .”

Abruptly, they were hugging each other.

Laying her head on Samuel T.’s shoulder, feeling him stroke her back and whisper in her ear, she looked across the grass.

Amelia was over by that Harley.

And smiling as she stared at her parents.

FORTY-THREE

As Edward got out of Sutton’s Mercedes, he looked up at the grounds-keeping building. The structure was at least two stories high, but from the little he recalled of it, it was a huge open space, not a multi-floor’d kind of thing.

“I’ll wait right here,” Sutton said tensely. “Unless you’d like me to leave you to it?”

“No, it’s too far for me to walk to Easterly from here.”

“Okay, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And the truth was, he needed to draw some strength from her.

Closing the door, he straightened his black suit and the knot of his tie. And when he walked forward, he hated how noticeable his limp was—but there was no changing that.

Entering the cavernous space, he smelled sweet gas and oil and felt a dense heat, the result of the metal walls and ceiling being uninsulated under the sun’s pounding rays. There was at least one air conditioner humming, however, in the back office.

As he went along, he passed by precise lineups of mowers, backhoes, Bobcats, plows. And everything else in the place was likewise where it needed to be: whether it was gas cans or bags of grass seed, blowers or rakes, wheelbarrows or four-wheelers, someone had made sure all was accessible, in good working condition, and properly accessorized.