ome things couldn’t be forgotten, no matter how hard you tried. Humiliation. Loss. Jealousy. They were buoyant emotions that kept popping to the surface. In the end, you grew too tired to keep them submerged. Winona knew: she’d tried. She kept trying, but sometimes, like tonight, the effort seemed unbearable.

When she heard the doorbell ring, her first thought was: What if I just don’t answer?

It rang again.

There was nowhere to hide in your own family.

Turning away from the sink, she headed for the door and opened it.

Aurora stood there, dressed and ready to go. She had teased her brown hair into a poufy banana-clipped ponytail and painted her face with layers of color. Shoulder pads emphasized her small waist, which was circled by a wide, rhinestoned leather belt. Her denim dress looked plain by comparison. “Don’t give me that sucked-on-a-lemon look. Let’s go.”

Wordlessly, Winona followed her sister out to the road where her car was parked. Climbing into the Beemer’s backseat, she wished she were anywhere but here. “This is a stupid idea,” she said.

“Your opinion is noted,” Aurora said.

Winona made a great show of sighing and crossing her arms. “Where’s Richard?”

“He’s working late tonight. He’d rather eat his shoe than come with us.”

“I can relate.”

“I’m so not interested in your theatrics.”

They turned into Water’s Edge and drove up to the cabin.

At the front door, they knocked, and in moments Vivi Ann answered.

“Phew,” Aurora said, “they aren’t naked.”

Winona rolled her eyes. “It’s not even dark out.”

“What you know about hot sex is equivalent to what I know about beekeeping,” Aurora said curtly. To Vivi Ann she said, “We’re going to the Outlaw.”

“Of course you are, it’s Friday,” Vivi Ann said.

Dallas rose instantly and moved in behind Vivi Ann, putting his hand possessively around her waist.

Aurora studied him, her eyes narrowing. “Do you love her, Tattoo Boy?”

“It seems I do, Junior League wannabe.”

Aurora smiled at that. “Then take her to the Outlaw. This is how it’s done.”

“She’s right,” Winona said sharply. “The best way to stop the gossip in town is to show them how happy you are.”

Dallas stared at Winona. “You don’t look too happy, Winona. I guess you like the gossip about Vivi.”

“In your vast experience at judging my moods, you mean.”

“I don’t know...” Vivi Ann said. “Luke might be there.”

Dallas took her in his arms. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

The softness of his voice surprised Winona. No wonder he’d sucked her sister in. Especially Vivi Ann, who saw the best in everyone.

“You can’t avoid him forever,” Aurora pointed out.

At last, Vivi Ann nodded. “Give us a minute,” she said, taking Dallas’s hand. When they disappeared into the bedroom, Winona said, “If I hear sex, I’m out of here.”

“You would be,” Aurora said with a laugh.

Fifteen minutes later, the Grey sisters and Dallas pulled up to the Outlaw and parked.

They went in one after another. When Dallas came in—last—there was a noticeable ripple in the room. People looked up, drinks paused in midair, conversations halted. Even the drummer missed a beat.

Winona noticed that their friends couldn’t look away from Vivi Ann and Dallas. They came together by the bar, ordering drinks. Once they were served, the four of them turned in unison to face the crowd. In the background, “The Dance” played on the jukebox.

The first person to approach them was Luke.

“Here he comes,” Aurora muttered. “Ex-fiancé at one o’clock.”

“He knows how it’s done, too,” Winona said, forcing herself not to move toward him.

Dallas moved in closer to Vivi Ann, took her hand in his.

“Hey, Vivi,” Luke said.

The bar fell quiet. The only sounds came from the back of the room, where one ball hit another on the pool table.

“I heard you got married,” Luke said woodenly. “Congratulations.”

“I should have been honest with you,” Vivi Ann said to him.

“I wish you had been.”

Winona studied every detail of his face, the way he closed his eyes for just a second before he spoke, the frowning around his mouth. She expected him to say something else, something cutting and cruel—the kind of thing Vivi Ann deserved for what she’d done—but the longer she stared, the deeper she saw. Luke wasn’t angry with Vivi Ann.

He still loved her. Even after all of it.

“I’m truly sorry,” Vivi Ann said.

Her sister kept talking, piling meaningless words on top of each other, while everyone else listened and smiled and accepted. It turned to a roar of white noise in Winona’s head, so loud she couldn’t hear anything beyond the beating of her own heart. She was so caught up in her own thoughts, her own bitter disappointment (what about karma? what about paying for your sins?), that she hardly noticed when it was over.

The music came back on. People moved onto the dance floor.

She blinked and looked around for Luke.

Dallas was watching her and something in those eerie pale gray eyes made her uncomfortable. He let go of Vivi Ann’s hand and moved toward her. Winona noticed the sexy, loose-hipped way he walked and recognized the motive behind it. Not that it would ever work on her.

“Poor Luke,” Dallas said in a silky voice that made her nervous. “I’ll bet he needs a shoulder to cry on.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you,” he answered, smiling now.

Winona thought then: He’s dangerous. And Vivi Ann had brought him into their family. It proved to Winona that she’d been right to try to protect Vivi Ann from this man. “You’d better not hurt her,” she said. “I’ll be watching you.”

“She might forget what you did, Winona, but I haven’t. You betrayed her, pure and simple. So you remember this: I’ll be watching you. She might forgive. I won’t.”

Winona sat in her car, parked outside the police station.

She shouldn’t go in. She knew that. Some things were better left unknown.

If only she were the kind of person who could ignore information. But such feigned ignorance was impossible for her to achieve.

Once an idea got in her head she was like a crocodile death-rolling its prey. And suddenly she was worried that Dallas was actually dangerous.

She got out of the car and walked toward the station, opening the door. Inside, the place was empty but for a few uniformed officers walking from one office to another.

At the receptionist’s desk, Helen looked up from filing her hot-pink nails. “Hey, Winona.”

“Hey. Is Sheriff Bailor in? I’d like to see him.”

“Course he’s in. You’ve got an appointment, dontcha? He’s in his office. Go on back.”

Winona walked down the busy hallway and found Sheriff Albert Bailor in his office, eating a breakfast sandwich.

“Hey, Winona,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Have a seat.”

She didn’t bother with small talk. It was a skill she’d never really mastered anyway. “I need to do a background criminal check on someone.”

“This the Indian?”

“Yes.”

“I had the same questions myself when Vivi married him. To be honest, I expected you in here before now.” He left the room and came back a few moments later with a file, which he set down on his desk. “I’ll be right back. Nature calls.”

As soon as he was gone, Winona opened the file.

Dallas Raintree, DOB 5/05/65.

She scanned through his criminal record, reading charges, arrests, and convictions. There were almost a dozen theft or possessing stolen goods charges, two assault charges that were pled down, an assault and battery conviction, and a couple of weapons charges. A notation was made that his juvenile record was sealed per court order and that he had, on several occasions, been ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluations. It appeared that he’d been a juvenile the first time such a recommendation was made.

“Holy shit,” Winona said.

“Holy shit is right,” Al said, coming back into the office, closing the glass-topped door behind him.

Winona looked up at him. “What does all this mean?”

Al sat down at his desk. “I read it as your brother-in-law is a man with a bad temper and not much respect for the law. And somethin’ bad happened when he was a kid. There are a lot of psychiatrists’ reports in there. More’n a few think he’s unstable.” He leaned back. “Rumor is that you’re the one who hired him. I would have expected you to do a background check.”

She gritted her teeth. “What can I do now?”

“Now?” Al shrugged. “He’s married to your sister, Win. There’s nothing to be done now.”

“Is he dangerous?”

Al looked at her. “Under the right circumstances, we all are. You just keep your eye on him.”

“I will,” Winona promised.

In late November, an icy wind blew across the Canal, whipping the normally calm waters into a whitecapped frenzy. Waves smacked against the cement and stone bulkheads along the shore; foamy water sloshed onto the well-tended yards, turning the green grass brown. All at once, the birds disappeared, taking their early morning song and afternoon chatter with them. Bare trees shivered in the cold, their last multihued leaves plucked away by the wind. Those same leaves now lay in slimy, blackening piles in the ditches on the sides of the road.

As if a memo had been sent to the trendy East Side, the tourists stopped coming. No boats dotted the Canal, no motors were heard purring in the afternoons. Instead, the portable docks were pulled ashore for the season and the permanent ones were shut down, their water spigots covered and turned off. All up and down the shoreline, barbecues were hauled off the decks and placed in garages for the winter months; planters full of precious, fragile flowers were taken in, too. Without sunlight, everything looked washed out, especially when it was raining, and it was almost always raining. Not hard, pounding storms, rather a steady, thready mist. On the day after Thanksgiving, the Bits and Spurs 4-H Club members and their families gathered at Water’s Edge to make wreaths. It had been a tradition for years. Vivi Ann had always been a part of it, first as her mom’s helper, then as a 4-H member, and now as the leader.

The event went from morning to night, and to be honest, she had never enjoyed it more than this year, and when it was all over and the day was done, she and Dallas walked up the spongy road to their cabin. “I saw you talking to Myrtle Michaelian,” Vivi Ann said.

“She held on to her purse the whole time. I think she was worried I’d steal it.”

Smiling, she opened the door and went inside.

The cabin smelled like Christmas. Dallas had set up a small, perfect tree in the corner near the fireplace and draped several of the leftover boughs along the mantel. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

Vivi Ann was surprised by him yet again. All her life men had lined up to give her things; they’d wowed her with presents wrapped by sales-people and paid for by credit cards. But this, a simple, sparsely decorated tree, meant more to her than any of that because she knew her husband didn’t care about Christmas. He’d done this for her because she cared.

“That friend of yours—Trayna at the drugstore—helped me pick out ornaments.”

Vivi Ann laughed at the image of scary-looking Dallas following Trayna around, picking out angels and elves. She loved him so much she couldn’t stand it.

“What’s so funny? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Dallas Raintree. You did something right.” She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom, and there she showed him in a dozen ways how much she loved him.

Afterward, they lay in bed, staring at each other. Through the open door, she could see their first Christmas tree, twinkling in the darkness.

“I thought you’d hate today,” she said.

“No.”

“Did you do corny stuff like that when you were a kid?”

“No,” he said, and this time his voice was quiet. She knew she’d struck a nerve.

“Is there anyone you want to invite for Christmas?”

“You keep asking the same question in different ways, Vivi,” he said. “There’s no one. Just you.”

She didn’t see how that was possible, how a person could be as alone as he implied. She angled onto one elbow and looked at him. “What happened Dallas?” It was the first time she’d ever asked the question directly.

“He killed her,” he said quietly. “I guess that’s what you want to know so bad. Beat her up for years and then shot her one night.”

“Were you—”

“Yeah. I was there.”

It all clicked into place for Vivi Ann then: the scars on his chest, the anger he sometimes couldn’t control, the trouble sleeping. She imagined him as a boy, listening to things no child should hear, seeing terrible images. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about his past. She scooted closer and took him in her arms, holding him with the whole of her body, her heart and soul, trying somehow to impart her childhood to him.

He was holding her so tightly she knew their conversation had reopened an old wound. The look he gave her was a terrible, beautiful combination of happiness and pain, and she wondered suddenly if that was what he lived with, that unbearable duo. She kissed his lips, then his cheek, and then, at his ear, she whispered, “We’re going to have a baby.”

He said nothing, just pulled her more tightly into his arms and held her.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He drew back just enough to look at her, and the love in his eyes was all the answer she needed.

If Winona had been keeping her memories in manila file folders, she would have labeled the Christmas of 1992 as the second worst in Grey family history; only the year their mom died had been worse.

She’d tried to pretend that everything was okay. She’d shown up at the farmhouse to decorate for the holidays. She’d schlepped up and down the attic stairs, carrying down the dusty ornament boxes until she was sweaty and tired. Working alongside her sisters, she’d said all the right things. Look, Vivi, it’s the Life Savers clown you made at Bible camp in fourth grade... and here’s Aurora’s favorite angel with the broken wing.

But none of it had felt right. Aurora and Vivi Ann had laughed and joked and fought over what Christmas album to play, while Winona felt increasingly distant. She knew it was wrong of her, that she needed to put aside the old grudges, the bitterness, and go on with their everyday life. She couldn’t seem to do that, though.

The problem was Dallas. He was like a tumor in the body of their family, and only she detected the malignancy.

It didn’t matter that he acted like he loved Vivi Ann (acted was the key word, to Winona’s mind) or that he was doing a great job at the ranch. What mattered was that he couldn’t be trusted. The police reports on his past were proof positive. He would hurt her family somehow.

Anyone sitting at this table for Christmas dinner should have seen that. Everything was in its usual place, looking sparkling and perfect. Daddy was dressed up in new dark blue Wrangler jeans and a crisp white shirt, buttoned all the way to the throat. Aurora and Richard and the kids looked like they’d just stepped out of the Nordstrom catalog, and Vivi Ann was an image of golden beauty in her green velvet dress.

And then there was Dallas, sitting beside his wife, looking uncomfortable and vaguely irritated by the goings-on. Winona watched him from beneath lowered lashes. His long hair and pale blue shirt didn’t soften him at all; quite the contrary. Getting dressed up only made him look more dangerous.

If Winona could have thought of a way to reveal this truth, she would have, but Dallas was smart. He didn’t push his way into things; he didn’t demand his share. He waited on the sidelines, pretending to be willing to work for whatever he got. The cowboys had accepted him and the women in town had begun lately to talk about the “great love” of Vivi Ann and Dallas. Even Aurora refused to hear about his criminal past and told Winona to let it go.

Vivi Ann clinked her fork against her wineglass, drawing everyone’s attention.

Winona looked down the table toward her sister, as she was supposed to, and several facts registered, clicked into place like the firing sequence in a handgun: Vivi Ann was even more beautiful than usual, radiant, even, and she was drinking water.

“We’re pregnant,” Vivi Ann said, and her smile lit up the room.

Winona experienced the announcement in a strange, slowed-down way, as if she were underwater or behind a wall comprised of wavy glass block. She saw everyone except her father leap to congratulate Vivi Ann; she heard the squeals and cries, saw Aurora hug Vivi Ann and start to cry.

Winona knew she needed to move, to join in, but she couldn’t. She just sat there. Once, when she was little, she’d tried barrel racing. Bathed in the rare glow of her dad’s encouragement, she’d climbed onto Clem’s big back and kicked hard. She’d barely hung on around the first barrel, and on the second she’d lost her grip. She still remembered how that felt: the letting go, the sliding sideways in the saddle, losing her stirrup. For a second before she’d fallen, she’d known it was coming, and the fear of that moment was how she felt. From now on, no matter what, Dallas would be a part of this family. The cancer of his presence had just metastasized.

She glanced sideways and found Dallas looking at her. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and lifted her wineglass in a toast. “Here’s to Vivi Ann... who now will have a baby...” Too. She tried not to think about her own loneliness, but it was impossible to ignore. Here she was, the oldest sister and the only one unmarried and childless.

After that, the evening passed for Winona like a movie without sound. She did all the things that were expected of her—she cleared the table and washed the dishes with her sisters, she put on their favorite Elvis Christmas album and danced in the kitchen, she read “The Night Before Christmas” to her niece and nephew—but none of it felt real.

“You’re not very good at pretending to be happy.”

Winona hadn’t even heard him approach. It seemed that sneaking up on people was a particular skill of his. She turned slightly, found Dallas beside her, sipping his beer. “I’ve never been good at pretending to be anything,” she answered. “And you don’t fool me for a second. I’ve seen your record.”

“She’s happy, you know,” he said.

“What about you? I wouldn’t peg you as the daddy type.”

“You don’t care how I feel about anything.”

It was a relief to be understood, not to have to pretend. “You’re right.”

“And why is that?”

“This family was happy before you got here.”

Dallas glanced around the room; his gaze stopped on Aurora and Richard arguing quietly by the tree, and then moved on to Dad, who was well into his third bourbon and staring at an old picture of Mom. “Was it?” he asked. “So you were happy that Vivi was dating your boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

Dallas gave her a knowing smile. “That was the problem all along, wasn’t it?”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed. “Is that a traditional holiday greeting?”

She pushed past him and walked away. For the rest of the evening, she tried to be her old self, surrounded by the people she loved, but he was always there, on the fringes, watching them, watching her.

Winona counted the days until Luke returned from his Montana vacation. They had spoken on the phone on Christmas Day, and he’d sounded better. Finally. Their friendship still felt fragile these days, not quite healed, but Winona was trying to be patient. He needed time, that was all. He’d come around. For Luke, she would be patient.

The evening he got home, she made a date for them to go see a movie.

In these winter months night came early, so that by the time she left work, got dressed, and drove to his house it was already dark out. When he opened the door, she threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

He eased out of her embrace and led her into the living room, where a fire glowed in the hearth and Christmas lights still twinkled on the tree she’d helped him decorate. While she sat down, he went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses of wine.

“Booze. Thank God,” she said, taking her glass and scooting sideways to make room for him. Kicking off her slouchy ankle boots, she put her stockinged feet up on the coffee table. As was usual lately, he said little. It fell to her to keep up the conversation. “You have no idea how weird these holidays have been. Dallas ruined everything and no one can see that. I keep wanting to grab Vivi by the shoulders and shake her until she sees what I see. Maybe I can figure out a way to mail her his criminal record. That should wake her up.”

“Really, Win,” Luke said, sighing. “Do we have to have this conversation every time we’re together? It’s getting old. They’re married.”

“And now they’re going to have a baby.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“Already. Even I’m surprised, and I usually expect the worst.”

Luke got to his feet and walked over to the fire, staring down at it.

“A baby,” he said, in a sad, soft voice.

Winona could have kicked herself. It was one of her worst traits, the way she could focus so much on the minutiae that she completely missed the big picture. She kept thinking he’d be over Vivi Ann by now. She got up and went to him. “I’m sorry, Luke. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have told you about it like that.”

He glanced away from her, looked past the tree to the rainy black night beyond the window. “I can’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“I thought I could stick around and watch Vivi Ann love someone else, but I can’t.”

“But...” Winona didn’t know what to say, how to frame her sudden fear into a cogent appeal. “You can’t leave...”

“What else can I do, Win?”

She felt like one of those old Eskimo women who’d been set out on an ice floe. She knew that if she didn’t reach out, grab for him, she would float away, alone. “Luke, please...”

“Please what?”

She swallowed hard, battling her own fear. It was terrifying to tell him the truth—she wasn’t ready; he wasn’t ready—but there was no choice anymore. She dared to touch him, take hold of his wrist. “I know you’re not ready to hear this, Luke, but... I love you. If you’d just try, we could be happy together.”

She saw his answer before he spoke. In the silence, with a fire crackling beside them, she saw his surprise. Then came the pity.

Her stomach twisted in on itself. She had handed her assassin a knife and bared her chest. If there were any way to stop him from speaking the words aloud, she would have done it, but the wheel was already turning.

“I love you, too,” he said, lowering his voice to add, “as a friend.”

She pulled away from him and turned her back. “That’s what I meant,” she said dully, though they both knew it was a lie.

“I think I’ll go back to Kalispell,” he said, staying by the fire.

“Maybe you can find a nice skinny girl there,” she said, reaching down for her coat.

He came to her then, took her by the shoulders, and turned her around. “Winona, you know it’s not about that. It’s just...”

Try as she might to control her tears, they came anyway, stung her eyes. Pathetic. And in that instant, she was the fat girl begging for her mother’s horse all over again. “I get it, Luke. Believe me. I get it.”

The following Monday, she heard from Aurora, who’d heard from Julie: Luke had moved back to Montana.