Gus did not allow himself to peer over the edge of the open casket as he lit the candles placed around it. With the flickering candlelight penetrating the shadows in the vaulted hall, he brought the stepping stool from the library. Without it, he would not be tall enough to kiss Montgomery’s cold dead lips. And he needed to do that. Not for Montgomery, but for himself. Maybe such an act would make him feel better.

She looked ghastly.

He touched her cheek. It felt like cold rubber.

He sucked in his breath and bent forward to plant a kiss on her lips. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

Now the only person in the whole world who loved him was his sister.

He had waited until right before he left for the ranch to tell Amanda. She was still in bed, a coffee cup in her hands. Gus told Toby he needed to talk to his sister alone.

Amanda took one look at Gus’s face and put the cup on the bedside table. “What is it?” she asked, patting a place on the bed beside her. The bed was low enough that he was able to seat himself next to her with some degree of dignity. He took her hand in his and kissed it.

He didn’t believe in euphemisms. People did not “pass away” or “depart this earth.” But he could not bring himself to say the d word. He took his beloved sister in his arms and whispered to her, “We’ve lost Montgomery.”

Amanda gasped and pulled away, her eyes wide as she stared into his face. “She’s not…”

Gus nodded.

Amanda screamed and began pulling at her hair and clawing her cheeks, leaving angry red marks. Toby came rushing back into the room. “Get the hell out of here,” Gus yelled, grabbing his sister’s hands. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. “No, my darling, please don’t do that to your beautiful face. We still have each other. We will always have each other.”

Finally she calmed herself enough to ask how Montgomery had died. Gus considered lying to her but decided that she would discover the truth sooner or later and said, “She went out to the cemetery in the middle of a snowstorm wearing only her nightgown. They found her next to that little tombstone where a stillborn baby is buried. I think the baby must have been hers and Grandpa Buck’s.”

That had set her off again, with anger creeping into her tirade. How could Montgomery do such a thing at a time like this? “I need her to help me with the baby,” she wailed.

Gus didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jamie Long had disappeared. He would let her digest Montgomery’s death first.

At first Amanda insisted that she was coming with him to the ranch so they could bury Montgomery together. But he reminded her that she supposedly was in the final weeks of her confinement for what had been billed as a difficult pregnancy and it would seem irresponsible if she did such a thing. “But it’s Montgomery,” she wailed.

Before he left Victory Hill, Gus had informed Toby that he was under no circumstances to allow Amanda to come to Texas and that he would find himself divorced, penniless, and minus some body parts if he did.

Gus took one final look at Montgomery’s lifeless face, then climbed down from the stool, sat down on it, and buried his face in his hands.

“I am so sorry,” he said again. “So very sorry.”

The crying was less satisfying than he wanted it to be and it was chilly in here, so he blew out the candles then climbed the stairs and headed for the tower door.

He wanted his mother to put her arms around him even if he had to beg her.

After leaving the midwife’s house, Jamie drove to the local Wal-Mart and, with Billy in the carrier and the carrier in a shopping cart, hurried her way through the store, trying to remember all the items on her mental shopping list. She selected assorted articles of baby clothing and a couple of packages of receiving blankets and wash cloths. Then she spotted a cloth sling designed to carry a baby across an adult’s tummy and tossed it into the cart. She found a knitted cap for herself, selected a couple of nursing bras, then headed to pharmaceuticals for the bottle of rubbing alcohol and cotton balls she needed to clean the baby’s cord stump. Next she located the hair dye and selected a shade called “burnished chestnut.” Last she selected a pair of scissors suitable for cutting hair. Her long blond hair and height were the two most noticeable things about her appearance. She couldn’t do anything about her height, but as soon as she had a chance, she would do something about her hair. In the meantime, the cap would have to do.

Once she had loaded the baby and her purchases into the car, she stuffed her hair inside the cap then drove into downtown Guymon and turned into the ATM lane at the Bank of the Panhandle. She inserted the ATM card that she had never used and was relieved when the machine accepted her PIN number. Her money was still in an account at the Austin bank. Almost $2,000 remained of the original $10,000 advance and, with no job and a baby to care for, she was going to need every penny of it.

The ATM machine allowed her to withdraw only $250. She then drove to City Bank, where she was allowed $500.

Next she drove around looking for the library.

Only a few cars were parked in the library lot. Jamie unfastened the infant carrier from its base, carried her sleeping baby inside, and headed straight for the computers.

First she looked for classic-car dealers. As much as she hated to part with it, she feared that Gus Hartmann already had people searching for her car. She surfed around a bit and found one site full of friendly advice for selling worthy older cars and a warning against randomly driving onto just any secondhand car lot. That said, the site recommended a number of reputable classic-car dealers.

The baby was waving his arms. Jamie calmed him by rocking the carrier with her foot.

Next she searched for Joseph Brammer’s telephone number and found a listing in the Austin white pages. With a pounding heart, she used a pay phone in the foyer to place a call but got a recording informing her that the number was no longer in service.

Back at the computer she tried the business listings in Austin. Then she Googled his name but found too many matches to deal with. Next she tried to locate a listing for attorney Joseph Brammer in numerous Texas cities then finally gave up. There was no telling where he had opened his law practice, she realized.

She knew that his grandparents had moved to a retirement community in Georgia, but she couldn’t remember the name of the town. Hopefully, though, she could find a listing for his parents in Houston. She had met his parents on several occasions but either had never known or had forgotten his father’s first name.

There were dozens of Brammers in Houston, but one listing jumped out at her. “Arthur S. Brammer.” Joe’s middle name was Arthur, and she was certain that Joe’s grandmother had referred to her son-in-law as Art.

Rocking the carrier was no longer working for Billy, and she carried him out to the car. He nursed vigorously for a time then obligingly fell back asleep.

Jamie tucked him back into the carrier and headed back to the pay phone. A woman’s voice answered.

“Mrs. Brammer?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Jamie Long. I hope I have the right number. Do you have a son named Joe?”

“Yes, I do, Jamie. You used to live across the back fence from my parents in Mesquite. I remember you well and was so sorry to hear about your grandmother. We all thought a lot of Gladys. You know, dear, Joe tried to track you down last summer. I remember him saying that you seemed to have dropped off the planet.”

Jamie’s heart soared. Joe had been looking for her.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Joe, too. His Austin number is no longer in service.”

“Joe took his last semester of law school abroad-at Oxford,” Mrs. Brammer said. “Then he and some of the young men he’d met at Oxford decided to bike around the Continent. When winter came, Art and I thought for sure he’d head on home, but he and his companions headed south-for Greece.”