“I guess I’d better get back in there before I’m missed, but thanks for the encouragement. Maybe I will drag my feet since I’d really like to stick around long enough to see all of y’all become grandmothers.” Tootsie stood up and headed back toward the house.

That grandmother business is a long, long time in the future. Rebecca is only eighteen. Diana frowned.

You were only twenty when she was born, Diana’s mother’s voice reminded her.

“What are you thinking about that’s so serious?” Luke sat down where Tootsie had been.

He startled Diana so badly that she jumped and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. She quickly righted herself, and he released her.

“Being a grandmother,” Diana admitted.

“How do you feel about that?” Luke asked.

“I have no idea,” she said.

“You’re still young enough to have more children, so maybe you’d rather start all over and refill your empty nest.” He brushed the falling leaves from his dark pants.

“Not me. Been there. Done that. Have several T-shirts to prove it, and I’ll get used to the empty nest,” she answered with an inward shiver. She missed Rebecca so much that her heart ached, but the idea of starting over again at her age almost made her break out in hives.

“That sounds pretty definite.” He sat down beside her again.

“It’s the truth. What’s so funny about it?” She pulled her cardigan tighter around her body.

He removed his leather jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “It’s not really funny—but it is. I’ve never been a father and never will be. Mama didn’t believe in vaccinations, so I had the mumps and a high fever to go with them before I ever started school. That’s one of the reasons I’ve never been in a really serious relationship. Most women want a family . . . I didn’t see a reason to start something that I couldn’t finish.”

She inhaled, and the aroma of his jacket—something woodsy and masculine—put a few extra numbers on her pulse rate. “Are you sure that you can’t have kids?”

“Yep.” He nodded. “Had the test run, and they said I’d have about a one-in-a-million chance of ever getting a woman pregnant.”

“Why’d you even have it done?” she asked.

“Mama always felt guilty about not letting the doctor give me the vaccinations.” He shrugged. “When she was on her deathbed, I told her the doctor said there was a chance I could have a family. That seemed to help her, and it wasn’t the worst lie. You ever told one like that?”

“Oh, yeah.” She smiled. “When did you lose your mama?”

“When I was in college. Yours still living?” he asked.

“Lost them, her and Dad both, when I was in college, too,” she answered.

“So there you go.” He moved closer to her and took her hand in his. “We’ve got a lot in common. No parents. You don’t want more children. I can’t produce babies. Evidently, that’s why we’ve escaped out here to a pecan orchard free of sadness. I’d tell a joke just so we could laugh, if I could think of one. They say laughter is good for the soul.”

She glanced over to find him staring at her. She felt as if he were seeing right into her soul. He let go of her hand and draped his arm around her shoulders. Then, ever so slowly, he leaned toward her. His eyelashes closed and rested on his cheekbones. The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted to see what the attraction was all about, but just before their lips met, that pesky squirrel dropped a pecan from a low branch and hit her right on top of her head. Even though it was only about half the size of her thumb, it felt like a boulder.

She jerked back and grabbed her head. “Ouch!”

“What?” Luke’s eyes flew open.

“Blame it on that squirrel sitting up there.” She pointed up. “He doesn’t appreciate PDAs during a funeral dinner. He’s throwing pecans.”

Luke’s chuckle turned into a laugh.

His laughter was so infectious that she giggled. “I guess Madam Fate is telling us that even though there’s an attraction here, we should think long and hard about this age difference.”

“You’re attracted to me?” He sounded shocked.

“Yes, I am.” She nodded. “But you’ve got to remember I’ve been divorced for five years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many dates I’ve been on. So it could be that I’m just ready to—”

Before she could say another word, he tipped up her chin and kissed her. It started out sweet but then deepened into something longer and more passionate. No one had ever sent shivers down her spine with a first kiss, not even Gerald, but she shouldn’t compare the two. With Gerald, it had been the first time for both of them, and they hadn’t been quite sure how to position their noses.

“Hello!” Carmen’s voice floated through the air. “Tootsie says that it’s time for us to leave.”

“We’ll talk later,” Luke said as he stood up.

Diana handed him his coat, and together they took a few steps toward the house.

“There you are. It’s a little chilly out here, isn’t it?” Carmen shivered.

Depending on whether you’re making out like sophomores in high school, Diana thought, or just sitting like a bump on a log, watching a squirrel bury pecans.

“Little bit,” she said, “but I had to get away from that heavy feeling in the house.”

Luke lengthened his stride and went on ahead of them. “I’ll see y’all in the house.”

“I hid on the front porch swing,” Carmen admitted. “Sissy has a quilt out there, so I wrapped up in it. I wish I could say that I found all the answers to this divorce thing, but I didn’t. It was peaceful, though.”

“Let’s hope this is the end of cold weather and that all we have is sunny days for the next few weeks.”

“You need to get out of the forest so you can see the sky,” Carmen said. “The reason we’re leaving is because there’s a storm brewing off to the southwest. Tootsie’s afraid if it starts to rain, we’ll get that big motor home stuck in the mud on the way back to Scrap.”

“What’s the weatherman saying?” Diana slowed down so that Carmen didn’t have to run on the way back to Sissy’s house.