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“Five years ago,” he answered. Then, looking almost sheepish, he added, “It was part of Mom’s plan to get me to come home.”

“You were gone?”

He grimaced, and she didn’t know if it was because he wished he hadn’t said what he’d said, or that he didn’t want to answer her question. “Sorry,” she said hastily, for fear she’d offended him.

He gave her a curious look. “Why are you apologizing?”

“It’s none of my business why you were gone. But Jillian will probably ask. How you ended up here on the family ranch, I mean.”

“But we’re off the record still, right?” When she nodded, he went on, his tone wry to the edge of bitter. “I was gone because I was an idiot who thought I’d found what my parents had together.”

So he’d left for a woman.

Why are you surprised? Look at him. You know he’s got to have them fawning all over him endlessly.

But he’d answered her, which surprised her. She’d really thought she’d stepped over the boundary. She tried for a neutral tone. “Didn’t work out, huh?”

“Let’s just say my year at Lake LBJ is something I remember with about as much joy as getting my wisdom teeth pulled.”

“Ouch.”

He shrugged. “Water under the bridge. I’m back here now, the setup is working well for all of us, and Mom’s happy.”

“Your mom,” she said, with an emphasis she truly meant, “is a peach.”

“That she is.”

“The lady at the library said she was practically a living Texas history book.”

“She is.” He gave her a sideways look as they got to the small, human-sized entryway set in the main barn door. “You should ask her to see the letter to her children our five times great-grandmother wrote during the last stand, when she was certain she would die there.”

“Wow.” Her awe was genuine.

“I’d show you my copy—Cody scanned the original so we all have one—but Mom would really get a kick out of showing it off.”

“I will ask her. I would love to see that real bit of history.”

“You know a bit yourself.”

“My dad read a lot about it, and sometimes he’d read it aloud to me.” That too familiar combination of sadness and warmth filled her. “Even after I was old enough to read it myself. I loved listening to him.”

“I get that,” he said, his voice so gentle it was soothing. “I used to love to watch my dad paint. I had to be really quiet and not disturb him, but I didn’t care.”

“Exactly like that.”

As he reached toward the smaller door she smiled at him, her eyes tearing up a little at the quiet understanding in both his words and his voice. He put a hand on the handle of the door, but then stopped.

“My turn for a none-of-my-business question.”

Rather guardedly, she said, “Okay.”

“When you told me about the fire…why did you look at the painting first?”

That was the last thing she’d expected him to ask. But perhaps she should have known, given he’d shown just how much his father and that painting meant to him. And she couldn’t give him anything less than an honest answer.

“I needed to remind myself that there’s beauty in the world, that it’s not all pain. That there are people like my father, and like your father in it, and relationships like he obviously had with your mother, and with you.”

He stared at her for a long, silent moment, and she wondered if she’d trespassed somehow, if she’d assumed too much, if he—