“I admit I heard some talk about Ivy,” Hap Jefford said in his gravelly voice, “and I been concerned for some time now ’bout Olie.”

      Dropping down into his usual chair at one end of the oval maple dining table in the apartment behind the lobby of the motel, Hap bent and began the process of lacing up his boots with fingers gnarled by age and arthritis.

      “Carrying around that much bitterness can’t be good for a fellow,” Holt put in, turning away from the high chair where he had just deposited Ace. Going down on his haunches, he began to help his grandfather with the boots.

      The two so resembled each other, despite the forty-four years between them, that old photos of Hap were often mistaken for current ones of Holt.

      The family had just returned from the late service at First Church, and while Charlotte and Cara had gone into the small kitchen to get dinner on the table, the men had made themselves comfortable in the apartment dining room. For Holt, Ty and Ryan, that amounted to removing their jackets and ties and rolling up their shirtsleeves before taking their customary chairs at the table; for Hap it meant shucking his decades-old black suit and trading it for his usual flannel shirt, denim overalls and work boots. Emerging from his bedroom once more, he had picked up the conversation about Ivy where they’d left off earlier.

      “Care to elaborate on just what it is that you’ve heard?” Ryan asked. Much as he disliked gossip, he wanted to know what caused Ivy’s pain and Olie’s anger.

      Hap shrugged and rasped, “Mostly it was about that radio show of hers. I’ve heard the term vulgar in connection with it.”

      That, unfortunately, dovetailed with what Ryan had heard at the banquet the previous night.

      “I’ve listened to that show,” Ty admitted. “I’m ashamed to say it used to be one of my favorites. For what it’s worth, it was mostly her partner, FireBrand Phillips, saying and doing the risqué things, but vulgar isn’t too strong a term for what I heard. I guess the thing is that when being outrageous is your trademark, you have to find a way to constantly outdo yourself. It got to be too much for me even before I met the Lord.”

      Hap made a mournful, disapproving sound deep in his throat. “Pitiful way to make a living.”

      Ace growled in an attempt to copy the old man’s sound, and Hap smiled indulgently at the boy. Theirs was a mutual admiration society.

      Charlotte came in from the kitchen bearing china dishes and flatware, which she carried to the table before heading over to the maple hutch to gather tablecloth, place mats and napkins. “According to what they said when they recognized her at the banquet last night,” Charlotte reminded them, “that’s all behind Ivy now. She and that Phillips have broken up the act.”

      “That is what it sounded like,” Holt agreed.

      “Look, for all we know, Ivy had a change of heart about the way she was making her living,” Charlotte said. “I, for one, think she should get the benefit of the doubt.”

      “She did go to early service with Ryan this morning,” Holt pointed out.

      “Which had nothing, I’m sure, to do with him personally,” Ty quipped, “him being such an unappealing cuss.”

      Ryan pulled a face at his brother-in-law. “I don’t think she’d have gone at all if she’d known Olie would be there.”

      “Shame, what he did,” Hap said.

      “She ran off in tears,” Ryan recalled softly. “It was heartbreaking.”

      “Even if what the gossips say about Ivy is true,” Charlotte went on, “Christians should show her the love of Christ, as I’m sure you all know.”

      “Well, that settles it then,” Hap announced, slapping a knee for emphasis.

      Ace smacked the tray of his high chair.

      “Settles what?” Ryan asked in confusion, unaware of anything that needed to be settled.

      “We’re inviting her to dinner, that’s what,” Charlotte answered briskly. Charlotte had been thirteen when their parents had died and, with both of her older brothers out on their own, she’d moved into the motel with their grandparents. At twenty-seven, having lived more than half her life with Hap Jefford, she could practically read the old man’s mind. Charlotte and their grandfather had grown especially close after the death of their grandmother a few years ago, so close that her brothers had feared she would devote herself to Hap and never marry.

      “You’ve got to take her key over anyway,” Cara told Ryan from the kitchen doorway, an apron cinched around her slender waist. “That’s what she said when I let her in the room earlier, that you were holding her key for her and she’d forgotten to get it back.”

      That and the shawl, Ryan reflected unhappily. Shifting in his chair, he pressed his elbows to the tabletop and spread his hands, saying, “I’m not sure I’m the one who ought to speak to her.”

      “Of course you are,” Charlotte retorted dismissively. “Who else?”

      “Maybe she’d rather have a woman to talk to,” he suggested hopefully.

      “Instead of a strong shoulder to cry on?” Cara asked in a skeptical tone. “I don’t think so.”

      Exasperated, Ryan sighed, knowing he was on the hook but still squirming. “Well, she might need a little more time to compose herself.”

      “Nothing raises the hair on the back of a man’s neck like a woman’s tears,” Holt observed wisely, “because he’s either got to run or let her use his shoulder for a hanky.”

      “Running would be cowardly,” Charlotte sniffed.

      “And the other doesn’t sound very heroic, either, put that way,” Cara chided lightly.

      Holt lifted his eyebrows. “That’s because you’re not a man, thank the sweet Lord.” That won him a warm smile and the glint of a promise from his wife’s big, worshipful eyes. He smirked at Ryan. “Coward or hero? Your choice, little brother.”

      “Maybe because you’re so experienced, you should do it,” Ryan snapped.

      Cara waved a hand to let them know she would be making that decision. “Uh. No.” With that, she turned and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving a smugly grinning Holt behind her.

      Ty cupped his hands behind his head and looked at Charlotte, who snorted and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

      Ty turned to Ryan. “Sorry, pal. It’s you or Hap.”

      “You took her to sunrise service,” Hap grated out.

      Rolling his eyes, Ryan pushed up to his feet, snagged his coat from the back of his chair and tossed it on. Obviously, he would get no peace until he’d done what they wanted. Why had he wanted their advice, anyway?

      “Just for that,” he scolded, wagging his finger between his brother and brother-in-law, “you two can set the table without my help.”

      “Yes, sir, Mr. Jefford, sir,” Tyler quipped, winking at Holt. “He does love that mantle of authority, doesn’t he?” Holt chuckled.

      Ace put back his head and laughed, not having the least idea what might be funny.

      Ryan didn’t dignify their laughter with a reply, but it was clear that no