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eighteen.”
    â€œSome things never change.” Kristin breezed down the stairs, aware of her embarrassing grade-school pictures marching along the wall at her elbow. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.
    He didn’t say anything as he headed for the door. “Take care of yourself, Miss McKaslin.”
    â€œYou too, Dr. Sanders.”
    She didn’t know why, but she hated seeing him slip through the door and stride down the steps. Even in the slick conditions, he walked with an athlete’s assurance. With the power of a man who had confidence and integrity. Inside she sighed a little, remembering how he’d probably saved a young woman’s life.
    â€œKristin, honey, close the door, would you?”
    â€œWhat?” She shook her head, realizing she was letting in all the cold air. Shivering, she shut the door but watched through the window as Ryan climbed into the rented vehicle, belted in and drove away, leaving her behind. Adding another ache to the others she was collecting inside her heart.

Chapter Five
    R yan took one look at his childhood home and wanted to keep driving right past the unplowed driveway. I’m not ready for this.
    He was in his thirties. If he wasn’t ready now, when would he be? He’d nearly been away from Montana more years than he’d lived here. How could it be that time looped back upon itself so that as he spun the wheel to the right, slipping and sliding on the fresh snow, he saw the past more clearly than the world in front of him?
    The small wooden, open-faced shed that sided the road looked every bit the same. His dad had built it to keep him out of the weather while he waited for the bus as a nervous first grader, with his superhero lunchbox in hand.
    The hill, grown over with sturdy young trees now, that Dad had cleared and they’d used as a sled run during the long winters. The sounds of younger Mia’s delighted screams as she slid down the slope on an innertube, the low rumble of Dad’s laughter and Mom’s gentle chiming voice as she brought out a thermos of hot chocolate to keep them warm as they played.
    The past haunted him with every turn of the wheels as he slowed to a stop along a private road where a small ranch house with brand-new siding and vinyl windows waited quietly. It wasn’t the same house he remembered. Mom had made improvements over the years. She’d had a front porch built. She always admired the McKaslins’ and could never afford the lumber for him to build her one when he was growing up.
    Snow carpeted it now and clung like vanilla icing to the rails and steps. The large front window was shadowed, but a generous gray plume of smoke rose from the stovepipe. Homey. He grabbed his overnight bag and loped through the snowfall, snapped open the gate that was new and didn’t squeak, and went around to the back door.
    A glad brightness shone from the new bay windows—he’d sent Mom the money for the kitchen remodel as last year’s Christmas present, and now he could see directly into the small kitchen and eating area. There was Mom, dressed in her usual worn jeans and a sweatshirt, her thick hair caught up in dainty clips, a crisp white apron at her waist as she stirred something at the stove.
    Once again, the past and the present merged. Like every day of his childhood, she’d made breakfast at the stove while she hummed her favorite inspirational songs and sipped a cup of coffee laced with hazelnutcoffee creamer. Only the two years following Dad’s death, she hadn’t sung once. Not once. Not even in church.
    Slowly, over time, the music had returned to her life. But there had never been another man in this house. Until now.
    Knowing the door was unlocked, as it had been all his life, he turned the handle so he could see the look on Mom’s face as she turned. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened; tears gleamed in the same instant she dropped the spatula on the counter, the