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together.
    â€œHave you and Tom decided on a wedding date?”
    Janet looked at her again, smiling. “Am I that obvious?”
    Penny managed to laugh this time. “Yes.”
    â€œWell, to answer your question, no.” Janet shook her head. “We haven’t decided yet. But we’re considering Valentine’s Day.”
    â€œRomantic. Can you plan a wedding that fast?”
    â€œWe can. It won’t be anything fancy. Just family and a few close friends.”
    Penny nodded. That’s what she would want, when she found the right guy. I hope it doesn’t take me until I’m forty .
    She was immediately ashamed of herself for the thought.
    Janet rose. “I’d better go see if Tom needs any help.”
    Forty wasn’t old, Penny reminded herself. And even if itwas, it would be better to wait until forty than to rush into marriage with the wrong person.
    That made her think again of Tess Carter’s hasty, ill-fated marriage. Which—against her will—brought her thoughts back around to Trevor. Had he and Tess hit it off? They must have. Tess had stayed beside him the entire time he shopped. Not that Penny had paid attention to that particular detail. But as she’d moved about the room, she couldn’t help but notice them together, both of them tall, both of them smiling, both of them attractive.
    Attractive? Trevor Reynolds?
    Well, yes. She had to admit—again against her will—that he was a handsome man. Even more so than in the photograph on his album cover, Stetson covering his dark hair, a Western scene behind him, that smile of his—
    â€œGive him a chance,” Brad had said to her the last time they spoke on the phone. “Once you meet him in person you’re gonna understand why I love working with him. He already likes you, I’ve talked about you so much.”
    Her heart pinched at the memory.
    And that was Trevor’s fault too. If he hadn’t come to Kings Meadow, if he would have stayed far, far away from her brother to begin with . . .
    Just leave. Just go away. Please go away.

Chapter 5
    T REVOR CONSIDERED ATTENDING THE M ETHODIST service his first Sunday in Kings Meadow. He’d learned Rodney and Penny were members there. It would have guaranteed his seeing them at least once each week. But at the last minute he chose to attend Meadow Fellowship, a nondenominational church on the west side of town. Something inside of him said his Sundays needed to be more about him and God and less about him and the Cartwrights.
    By the time the service ended, Trevor knew this would be the church he attended as long as he was in Kings Meadow. Nobody had to tell him that his Christianity—if he’d even been a Christian—had been a superficial thing. Knowing Brad had slowly made him aware of the difference between calling himself a Christian and truly being one. Maybe that was one reason he’d kept his promise to Brad. Maybe it was here that his faith, such as it was, could grow.
    Trevor had met quite a few members of the congregation at the Christmas bazaar the previous day, and it surprised him how many of their names he remembered. Living a life on the road, he’d rarely seen anybody two days in a row, other than the members of his band. He found he liked this fledgling sense of community.
    He received three invitations to Sunday dinner before he exited through the church doorway. He declined each of them. It would be rude to eat and then rush off in order to be to the Cartwright ranch by two o’clock. So he returned to his studio apartment, where he warmed up some leftovers. He tried not to think about what he might have been eating if he’d accepted one of those invitations.
    When he next looked outside, two o’clock drawing closer, the blue skies from early that morning were gone. The wind had begun to whistle around the corners of his apartment. A strong gust rattled the windows. He left his