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the furniture Josh had chosen—she remembered his excitement at its arrival and his delight in how the room had all come together. “Wait till you see it, kiddo, you're gonna love it,” he'd said during one of their marathon phone conversations. “I even picked out a four-poster for it.” He laughed. “Hell, honey, I'm turning into a damned interior decorator! If I start walking with a mince, punch me.”
    His words playing in her memory, she glanced at the cherrywood four-poster bed with a canopy of soft peach netting that sat against the far wall; a pair of matching night tables with brass lamps had been placed on either side of it. She remembered him talking about those, too—and the small sofa near the glass sliding door done up in a wild print of orange poppies and blue lupine.
    Setting her suitcase down near the door, she noticed for the first time the two sets of doors at the opposite end of the room. One, she discovered, was a walk-in closet with recessed cupboard and drawers and enough room to hold a wedding reception. The other door opened into a bathroom that was large enough for a family of twelve. Or thereabouts, she thought with a smile.
    Too tired to unpack, she picked up her suitcase and walked to the closet. After pulling out the few things she would need, she left the suitcase on the floor and wandered into the bathroom. A few minutes later, her teeth brushed, her face washed, and wearing a pair of yellow shorty pajamas, she climbed into bed.
    Shelly had thought she would fall immediately to sleep, but she discovered that she was too restless, too wired after the long drive and the anxious anticipation of finally returning to the valley. Her lips curved. She had wanted to return alone, and by heaven, she had! Now she wished that she hadn't been so adamant about it. Having someone to talk to wouldn't have been such a bad thing.
    After tossing and turning for several minutes, she gave up and slipped out of bed. Hoping that Maria had had the forethought to stock the refrigerator, she padded down the stairs, flipping on lights as she went.
    Pushing open the swinging door that led to the kitchen, she turned on the light and stared around her. The kitchen was charming, large and spacious; the gold-flecked toffee-colored tiled countertops were a pleasing contrast to the pale oak cabinets that lined two walls. The floor was wild—a Mexican tile that, oddly enough, went very well with the rest of the kitchen, the copper-bottomed pans hanging over the island in the center of the room adding another splash of color. She smiled wistfully when she spied the fireplace insert at the far end of the kitchen. Josh had so loved his fire-places—the kitchen in the old house had had a fireplace in which she and Josh had popped corn over the leaping flames at Christmastime.
    She blinked back tears at the memory and walked over to the huge built-in oak-fronted refrigerator. Someone, probably Maria, had been thoughtful enough to stock it with necessities. Taking a carton of milk from the refrigerator's cavernous interior, she found a glass in one of the cupboards. A few minutes later, having fumbled her way through the various choices of the gleaming black microwave on the counter, she was wandering through the house, sipping her glass of warm milk.
    Eventually she made her way into Josh's den/office. It was a masculine room, the walls covered in knotty pine, the floor in a hunter green carpet. Heavy, comfortable chairs in russet leather were arranged in front of the black-marble-fronted fireplace insert; a long plaid couch was set under one of the windows, and at the far end of the room was a large rolltop desk made of oak. Bookshelves and windows were interspersed along the remaining walls of the room; a pair of glass doors, she knew, led to a private patio.
    The chairs she recognized. They had been in the family for as long as she could remember—family gossip said that they had come with Jeb Granger when he had left