Picking up her water bottle, Lily gulped some down while she scowled at the rest of the circuit machines, the dumbbells, the rolled-up yoga mats, the stack of floor mats.

“That’s why you’re ageless.”

“Hah.” On another long breath, she stood, then considered herself in the wall of mirrors. “I do look pretty damn good for an old broad.”

“My word’s amazing.”

“I’m going to hold on to that because I’m only halfway done. Dear God, Catey, what made me think I could go back to Broadway, keep up that pace?”

“You’ll kill it.”

“If it doesn’t kill me first. Well.” She lifted her water bottle again. “What a way to go. And what’re you up to?”

“I stopped in to see if you and Grandpa—or either of you—wanted to go with me. I’m going to pick up some flowers and go by Horizon Ranch.”

“I’d love nothing better than to do that instead of this. But I have to stick. Then I have to shower and make myself presentable. I’m videoconferencing this afternoon. Technology’s made it impossible to take a meeting in your pajamas.”

Picking up a towel, Lily dabbed at her throat. “Tell Consuela to have the car brought around for you.”

“G-Lil, I can handle the garage. I can handle it,” she repeated.

“Of course you can. Say hey to everybody for me. Oh, and tell Maggie we need to have another In the Bag Night.”

“ ‘In the bag’?”

“A couple of old bags drinking wine and talking about their misspent youth.”

“Old bags, my butt, but I’ll tell her. Want the music back on?”

Lily sighed. “Yes. Damn it. Hit it.”

Cate hit it, walked up to the side door and out.

The sun beamed and gleamed on the mountains. From somewhere close, she heard the small roar—a trimmer or edger one of the biweekly gardening crew worked with.

She crossed the patio, started down the stone path, well remembered, to the garage.

Maybe a flutter of unease, she admitted, but wasn’t that normal? No panic, no terror, just the unease of old memories.

After it happened, she’d heard her grandfather talk about cutting down the tree, and had begged him not to.

She’d thought, such a young girl, the tree didn’t deserve death. It hadn’t done anything wrong.

So it stood, as it had, old and gnarled and simply wonderful.

She walked to it, laid a hand on the bark, rough against her palm. “Not our fault, right? And here we are, both of us. She couldn’t knock either of us down.”

Satisfied, steady, she hit the remote for the garage door.

When she parked at the ranch with her armload of fall flowers, she saw changes. Julia had told her they’d built a house for Dillon. She saw it on the far side of the stables, noted they’d made use of the space and location to give him privacy and a view. She judged it about the same size as her house, minus the second story.

She saw the goats, some sheep dotting the rising hills, cows on the flatland, horses in pasture and paddock.

And Dillon working with a horse, a young one, she thought, on some sort of line. With the distance and his focus on his work, he hadn’t heard her drive up.

The dogs had, raced from where they’d romped among the cows to greet her. She took a moment to give them a rub while she watched Dillon.

With a gray hat low on his head, he urged the horse to circle at a light trot. Some sort of training, she supposed. She knew how to ride, how to groom a horse, but didn’t know much about raising one, training one.

He clearly did, as—somehow or other—he had the horse turning, trotting in the opposite direction.

The dogs decided to herd her toward the house; she decided to let them.

Julia walked out of a barn.

It struck Cate that Dillon got that rangy build from his mother. She moved at the same ground-eating stride, her dark blond hair under a rolled-brimmed brown hat, work gloves tucked in the back pocket of her jeans.

A dozen twinges—longing ones—spread inside Cate when Julia spotted her and smiled.

“Caitlyn! You look like a photograph! Young Woman with Flowers.”

She moved straight to Cate and without hesitation wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, it’s been too long! Come inside. You look just wonderful.”

“So do you.”

With a laugh, Julia shook her head. “This is as good as it gets after afternoon milking.”

“I’m sorry I missed that. Really, I’ve never seen a goat being milked. When I lived in Ireland, I saw cows milked a couple times. It’s been awhile.”

“Three times a day every day, except for the nannies and cows still nursing. We take those down to one or two milkings. So you’ve got plenty of opportunities to see how it’s done.”

As they walked, Cate looked around. The silo, the barns, the spread of the farmhouse. She echoed Dillon’s thoughts. “It’s like a different world.”

“It sure is ours.” Julia scraped off her boots at the door. “I hope now that you’re living here, you’ll come into it more often.”

Inside, the fire simmered. They’d changed some of the furniture, gone for blues and greens to mirror the sea and pastures. But so much was, comfortingly, the same.

Did they still leave a light on low at night, she wondered, in case some lost soul wandered in?

“Come on back. Mom and Red should be in the dairy kitchen.”

“Dillon said you added on.”

“There’s a good market for farm-made butter, cheese, cream, yogurt.”

“I can see why, as I’ve been using some of yours myself. In fact, I need to get some cream, some butter, and . . . You remodeled.”

Julia glanced around the main kitchen, the commercial range, double ovens. The big table remained, but they’d added more work space for baking days.

“It needed it, and we needed to step up to commercial grade. And now Mom and I don’t bump into each other when we’re working in here. Let me take those flowers—which are gorgeous—and your jacket.”

Gleaming stainless steel, shelves of important-looking tools that were beyond her comprehension, the massive, shining vent over what looked like a massive range. Yet a fire still simmered in the little hearth, pretty potted herbs thrived on the deep windowsill.

“It looks professional, but it feels the same.”

“Then it’s a success. Mom and I debated, argued, and occasionally came close to blows over the design and layout.” Julia crossed over to lay the flowers in a prep sink as she talked. Then went through the mudroom door to hang the jackets.

Cate moved through, trailing a hand over the table where she’d sat, where Julia had tended her cuts and bruises so long ago.

She stood, fascinated, in the wide opening that led to another kitchen. Not altogether a kitchen, she thought, though it had the range, the sinks, the work counters.

Bags of . . . something hung from wooden rods and dripped into glass bowls below. Big glass jars of—she supposed—milk stood on counters. Gram, orange braid bundled back, ran water in the sink, her shoulders moving as she pushed down. Red—yes, that was Red—poured milk into a small, shiny machine.

Through the big window over the big sink, Cate could see Dillon and the young horse.