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A few minutes later, right there on the trail, Doc Mott pronounced Lola dead. He looked at Jed with weary regret. “It was a stroke, I think. Or possibly a heart attack. There’ll be an autopsy. And then we can be sure.”

Jed said nothing, only nodded. They’d already laid Lola on the stretcher. Doc Mott took one end, and Jed took the other.

A small crowd had gathered near the ambulance when Jed and Doc Mott reached the top of the bank. Carefully, the two men hoisted their unmoving burden over the low railing onto the bridge. Adora and Tilly followed close behind, laden with the equipment that, in the end, had been of no use.

“Stand back, folks,” Doc Mott said, as they put Lola on the cot in the back of the ambulance. “Please, folks. Stand back.”

Adora could hear them whispering.

“It’s Lola. Lola Pierce.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah, it sure looks like it.”

Deputy Don Peebles, whom Adora had known since grade school, had just emerged from his big, sheriff’s office four-by-four. “What’s the story here. Doc?”

“Lola Pierce has died.”

“Of what?”

“I can’t say for sure at this point. Looks like a stroke or a heart attack. The autopsy will tell us more.” Doc Mott closed the double doors on Lola’s still form.

“Who found the body?”

“Jed here.” Doc Mott nodded in Jed’s direction. “And Adora Beaudine.”

Don turned to Jed. “I’ll have a few questions for you, Ryder.” He looked for and found Adora. “And you too, Dory.”

“You can ask your questions later,” Jed said. “I gotta get to my sister.”

“I’ll ask my questions now.” Don spoke in a tone of unyielding authority.

Adora stepped up. “Can you make it quick, Don? Please? Tiff’s only eleven. Jed should be with her.”

Don shook his head. “I’ve got a job to do. Dory. Now both of you just move over there, beside my vehicle.”

Adora glanced at Jed, whose jaw seemed set in concrete; he looked as if he had no intention of following Deputy Don’s orders. Just what he needs right now, she thought grimly. To get in trouble with the law.

“Come on, Jed,” she coaxed.

He didn’t budge. So she grabbed his huge, hard arm and pulled on it until he went with her to where Don had pointed.

The deputy was already turning, assuming responsibility for crowd control. “All right now, folks. You’ll have to step away from the ambulance. Tilly’s ready to move out.” He gave a quick salute to Tilly as she climbed into the cab on the driver’s side.

Doc Mott came over to Jed and Adora. He spoke quietly to Jed. “We’ll be taking your mom back to the clinic. From there, she’ll go to Reno, where the Washoe County Coroner will handle the autopsy. The whole procedure could take anywhere from twenty-four hours to a few days. You’ll want to have chosen a funeral home by the time they release the body.”

“Okay.”

The doc glanced toward the ambulance where Tilly was waiting for him, and then turned back to Jed. “Folks in town know you treated your mom right, Jed. And it is important that you be with your sister now. I’ll tell Don to make it snappy.”

“Thanks,” Jed muttered.

“No problem.” After sharing a few quiet words with the deputy; Doc Mott got in the ambulance, and Tilly carefully steered it out onto the small bridge. Moments later, the big white van disappeared, turning left onto Buckland Avenue, headed back to the clinic.

Don instructed Adora to wait several yards away while he talked to Jed. And then he wouldn’t let Jed go until he’d heard Adora’s side of the story. He did make it reasonably quick, though. Within ten minutes of asking the first question, he was nodding at Jed, who leaned against the bridge railing, muscular arms crossed over his powerful chest, looking impatient and more dangerous than usual.

“Okay, you can go,” Don said. “You’ll be hearing from me again, as soon as we get the autopsy results.”

Jed dropped his crossed arms and straightened from the railing. Without a word he headed for home.

The crowd was breaking up, but the folks who still hung around watched Jed as he strode past them. Adora could see the sympathy in their eyes. But none of them said anything; none of them reached out. He was wild Jed Ryder, after all. And who could say what he might do?

Lizzie Spooner, who’d shown up a few minutes before and had been waiting patiently for Don to finish with Adora, now moved to her side. “You okay?”

Adora blinked and looked at her friend.

Lizzie frowned. “You look bad. Come on. I’ll take you back to your place. I was just over there, looking for you. I signed for a package. From your mother. A present, I’ll bet. Let’s go and—”

Jed was almost at the turn to Bridge Street by then. Adora realized she couldn’t just let him go. “Jed!”

Jed stopped. He turned. He hadn’t put those shades back on after she’d fallen on the trail, so she was able to meet his eyes. She saw willingness in them. If she wanted to go with him, to be there when he broke the awful news to Tiff, it was okay with him.

“Wait up!” she called. She felt Lizzie’s hand clutching her arm. She brushed it off. “Gotta go.”

“But, Dory....”

“I’ll call you.”

“I left the package on the back step.”

“Thanks. Later, really.” And she took off at a run.

Jed waited, but only until she caught up with him. And then he was moving again, walking fast.

“I want to get my bike.” They had reached the corner of Church and Bridge. “You go on over to the house.”

“Should I go in without you?”

He cast her a grim smile. “Walk slow. And I’ll beat you there.”

“Okay.”

He took off at a dead run. Adora turned the corner onto Church Street, walking slowly, as Jed had told her to, thinking about Tiffany, who was waiting for her mother to come home.

Jed parked his bike in the attached garage and he and Adora entered the trim wood frame cottage through the kitchen.

They went straight to the living room. There, the first thing Adora noticed was the scent of spiced apple potpourri. She spotted the source: a green glass bowl on a side table, filled with the stuff. Adora had made that potpourri herself.

And Lola had loved it. “It’s autumn and apple pie and my grandma huggin’ me, all just from a smell,” she had declared.

So of course Adora had given her some.

But she would never give her any again.

Blinking back tears, Adora looked around the tidy room, at silk freesias in a dimestore vase on a cheap veneer coffee table. At People magazines and Ladies’ Home Journals arranged in a fan. At the two slightly threadbare flowered easy chairs and the tan velour couch.

Tiff was asleep on that couch, curled up on her side, with one hand under her head and the other pressed against her heart. Her silky auburn hair, which Adora had cut into a cute little wedge for her, lay smooth and straight against her soft cheek. She was smiling a little, as if her dreams were sweet ones.