“Sam, give it a rest. I’m not hiding in my house, all right? I talked it over with Kitty, so don’t think you’re going to turn my wife to your side. I have a bunch of guys working with me out there in the fields, and I have my rifle and I have a handgun. I’ll take them both out with me if it makes you happy. Can’t say I’ve ever ridden a tractor with a twenty-two caliber Winchester Wildcat lying across my lap, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

“You’ll be lucky if you don’t shoot your knees off.”

Tom hesitated. “You think maybe the handgun’s enough then?”

Fiona was still awake in her room in the back wing of the old farmhouse at almost 1:30 AM. The house had been still and silent for the past several hours, since everyone-Fiona included-had turned in for the night. There’d been bickering most of the evening-between Tom and Sam, Tom and Tommy, Tommy and Jody, Jody and Gil-to the point where her head was spinning.

If anyone in her family had disagreed with another, they kept it to themselves. Disapproval always meant the cold shoulder, the withdrawal of whatever small amount of affection there might have been before the offending opinion had been spoken. She’d never witnessed the collision of tempers and opposing viewpoints, followed by a round of good-natured ribbing and good-night hugs as if nothing had happened.

The DelVecchios, on the other hand, seemed to all hold different opinions to one extent or another on just about every topic. At the end of the evening, Fiona couldn’t recall hearing any one of them say, Yes, you’re right, the entire night. To be sure, they had been good-natured about their bickering, and had even seemed to be enjoying it, as if arguing amongst themselves was a form of sport. She hadn’t taken part, of course, in any of the discourses, being an outsider on the one hand and a person who, in her personal life, always sought the avenue of least resistance. But it had been fascinating, she had to admit, to see how the personalities played off each other, how the different relationships wove into one another. She wondered how it might have felt as a child, to have been encouraged to express herself as openly as Tommy, Jody, and Gil had been earlier. Would her life’s choices have been very different if she’d been allowed to voice her thoughts? She hadn’t done that until she turned eighteen, and then the results had been somewhat disastrous.

She heard a door down the hall open and close quietly, heard careful footsteps move toward the steps and fade down the back stairwell. Moments later, she heard the porch door squeak as it opened and squeal as it was closed. She got out of bed and tiptoed to the window and looked out on a star-filled night sky. She could make out a form headed toward the lounge on the back porch, and she knew it was Sam. Fiona sat on the edge of the bed and tried to talk herself out of joining him. She could think of several reasons why she shouldn’t and only one why she should: she wanted to. She wanted to sit with him in the moonlight and she wanted to kiss him and see if he tasted as sweet as she thought he might.

She got up and pulled a T-shirt over the tank and sleep shorts she’d worn to bed, and crept from her room to the first floor before she could talk herself out of a trip down the steps.

The inside door of the kitchen stood open. Fiona turned the handle of the outer screen door and stepped out onto the porch.

“I thought I heard you,” she said as she walked toward him. “Having trouble sleeping?”

Sam nodded and held out a hand to her. She took it and let him tug her down onto the chaise next to him. The evening air had gone cool, but his arms and body were warm and welcoming. “You too?”

“I usually have one or two sleepless nights each week,” she told him. “I guess this is one of them.”

“I usually don’t have a problem sleeping,” he said, “but tonight, I guess there’s too much on my mind.”

“You’re worried about Tom.”

“Sure. Wouldn’t you be if he were your brother?”

She nodded, prompting Sam to ask, “Do you have a brother? You never talk about your family.”

“I have a brother. He’s a few years younger than I am. Also one sister, also younger. They both live on the Coast. I don’t see them very often.”

“Are they in law enforcement too?”

Fiona laughed softly. “Hardly.”

“What do they do?”

“I’m not really sure. As little as possible, probably. Last I heard, my sister was trying her hand at some little theater, and my brother was trying to get a contract with a recording label in L.A.”

“Sounds like a theatrical family.”

She smiled wryly. Her family had thrived on theatrics.

“You really enjoyed seeing all your old friends today, didn’t you?” She thought now would be a good time to change the subject.

“Oh, man, did I ever.” He smiled broadly, his fingers playing with hers. “They were such great guys, every one of them. Seeing everyone again just made me realize that I need to keep in closer touch with them, need to get back here more often. It’s good to keep those ties alive.”

“Why haven’t you?” She inched closer to him and settled in the crook of his arm. He played with her hair, lifting the long strands, then letting them fall.

“I don’t know. I guess because for a long time, I was busy with work and busy with Carly when I wasn’t working. Then, after she died, most of my energy went into making sure that Don Holland accepted responsibility for what he’d done to her. Of course, he never did…”

“Well, you can’t change the past, but you can make it a point to stay in touch now that you’ve reconnected with your old friends.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely going to do that. We had some real good times back in the day. We were really close back then, went all through school together.”

“That’s what you said. I find that amazing, that you’d all gone from kindergarten all the way through twelfth grade together.”

“Well, all of us except Steve. His parents divorced when we were juniors in high school and he left to go live with his mother when she moved to Sioux City. He moved back after college. But it’s not so amazing when you consider how small our elementary school was. If you grew up in a really small town, there might have only been two classes per grade. Some schools might only have one class. You California kids probably had bigger classes.” He glanced down at her. “How many kids were in your grade-school class?”

“Well, actually, there was only me. I was mostly homeschooled.” She shifted uncomfortably.

“For high school, too?”

She nodded.

“No prom? No football games? No team sports?”

“No.” Talking about it made her feel bad about it all over again.

“You must have had friends from… I don’t know, Sunday school? Summer camp? Girl Scouts?”

“I never did any of those things,” she admitted. “So I’ve never had those long-term connections. I guess that’s why it all seems so strange to me.”

She took a deep breath, then said, “Something smells so wonderful. What do you suppose that is?”

“Probably the garden. My mom started it when she first moved out here, tended it all those years. Now Kitty’s keeping it up.”

“I’ll have to check it out tomorrow, see what all she has growing down there.” She pointed up at the sky. “Look, there’s a shooting star. Quick! Make a wish.”

She closed her eyes and wished for what she wanted. When she opened them, she saw Sam was staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Was that uberagent Fiona Summers, superior marksman and investigator extraordinaire, wishing on a falling star like a six-year-old on her first camping trip?” He poked her in the ribs.

“What’s your point?” She sniffed with feigned indignation.

“Madam, you have a reputation to protect.” He grinned at her. “Hard-assed agents do not wish on stars-shooting or otherwise.”