4

      Breakfast was awkward. Callie wished Kyle would go home. She didn’t like the skeptical way he kept looking at Levi, and she was sure Levi didn’t like it, either. He bowed his head over his plate as he ate. Then he thanked her and asked if he could use her phone.

      After she handed him her cell, he walked into the living room and she and Kyle cleared the table.

      “Don’t worry about the dishes,” she said. Levi’s voice carried back to them but they couldn’t hear what he was saying.

      “I’ll help.”

      She guessed Kyle was feeling contrite for behaving so boorishly. “What’s up with you today?” she asked. “You glared at Levi all through breakfast.”

      He squeezed her shoulders. “I know. I couldn’t seem to stop. It’s because I was already worried about you—and now this.”

      Pretending to be absorbed in her work, she averted her gaze. She hated lying to those she loved but wasn’t ready to handle the alternative. “I don’t know why you’d worry about me. I’m fine.”

      “Fine? You haven’t been yourself since you moved here.”

      “Of course I’ve been myself.” She’d done her best to go on as if nothing catastrophic had happened but, of course, there were bound to be changes. Hearing that she had only six months left, that this summer would be her last, still wasn’t easy to cope with.

      “No. You’re quieter. Reflective. Withdrawn. You don’t spend much time at the studio anymore, and you were there all the time before. I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”

      “Nothing’s wrong,” she said firmly. “My assistant is taking care of Reflections. That gives me a chance to live here, on the farm, like I’ve always wanted to, before my parents sell it. It’s my way of saying goodbye to the place.”

      He obviously wasn’t convinced. “You loved living in town, loved being in the middle of everything. And you were so determined to build your business. Then you went...AWOL.”

      “I haven’t gone AWOL. I’m tired of doing weddings. I want to be able to photograph nature and help my parents, too. This is my opportunity.”

      He studied the black-and-white photograph mounted on canvas that hung on her wall. She’d managed to capture a large, hairy spider spinning a web out in the barn. The texture of the old wood came through so clearly. And she loved the shadow of the web on the ground. It was competition material. She knew it. Finally, she was taking artistic photographs—but she wasn’t sure she’d be around to reap the rewards.

      “So how are you making a living?” he asked. “I know your parents are giving you a little to get this place shaped up before they list it, but that can’t be enough to cover your monthly expenses.”

      “Actually, the studio’s booked for the season and I no longer have to pay rent on my old apartment. I’m better off than before.”

      “The business hasn’t suffered without you there?”

      “Not as much as you’d expect.” Autumn might prove to be a different story, but autumn might not matter. One day at a time... “Tina’s talented. I trained her well.”

      “If she’s that talented she’ll break out on her own someday.”

      She wouldn’t have to. Callie planned to leave her the business. And she planned to leave Kyle her dog. Those were the only two things she had to give away, except her SUV, but that came with a monthly payment. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

      “So you’re happy?”

      The way he looked at her begged her to be honest with him, so she almost came out with the truth about her liver. She didn’t want to hurt her friends and family by dying suddenly when she could’ve given them some warning.

      But neither did she want to trade her final months for what sharing her secret would mean. Once everyone knew, she’d be the recipient of their pity. She’d have to live with their sadness as well as her own. And she’d have to respond to all that grief and concern with some polite phrase that showed courage in the face of bitter disappointment. She wasn’t sure she was capable of being as brave as that required. Not yet.

      Besides, her mother would want to take care of her, would pressure her to move home, and she wasn’t ready. The doctors had given her until the end of summer. She wanted to enjoy as much of that time as possible.

      Chances were good she wouldn’t die suddenly, anyway. First she’d become too ill to take care of herself. At that point, she’d come out with it. But right now, the medication her doctor prescribed kept her fairly healthy, if she was careful to eat right, get plenty of rest and manage her stress. It even kept her from looking jaundiced.

      “I’m happy,” she insisted.

      “So it’s not me. It’s not that we’ve...been together?”

      “No.” She smiled as she touched his face. “I know you’d marry me if I wanted you to. You already married another girl just because you slept with her.” She was teasing. Their entire group teased Kyle about Noelle. First she’d used her pregnancy to get him to propose. Then she’d aborted the baby without consulting him when he wouldn’t buy her the mansion she wanted. It was the most astonishing act of spite Callie had ever seen. She still couldn’t bear to look at Noelle, who was once again working at A Damsel’s Delights, a clothing and handmade-jewelry boutique in town.

      Fortunately for Kyle, that episode of his life was over. Callie thought it was also fortunate for him that she’d given up on love and marriage; she had no expectations where he was concerned. She didn’t have time to start a family. Even if she found the right man, she wouldn’t want to get romantically involved, wouldn’t want to hurt a partner by dragging him through what could easily turn out to be her death.

      “The change in you...it happened about the time we first slept together,” Kyle pressed.

      No, it had happened precisely six weeks after. They’d both drunk a little too much and slept together on New Year’s Eve. During the next four weeks she’d begun feeling poorly—tired, nauseous, feverish. She’d assumed she had the flu but the symptoms wouldn’t go away. Then she became jaundiced and, before people could start to remark on it, she’d decided to drive to Sacramento and get checked out at a twenty-four-hour medical center. She must’ve had some inkling that it was serious, or she wouldn’t have gone to such pains to avoid the local doctor. Still, it was a bombshell when, on Valentine’s Day, a physician from that clinic called with the news.

      When she didn’t speak, Kyle said, “I can’t help but assume it’s what we’ve done that—”

      “Kyle, you have nothing to worry about,” she broke in. “There’s no blame here. I want you to remember that, okay?”

      She’d grown too serious. Her intensity made him even more suspicious, but before he could respond, Levi returned with her