vehicle.
Nate squealed when he saw him, his mouth open in a wide baby smile as his chubby legs chewed up the short distance between them.
In one fluid movement, Keenan scooped the child up and swung him around.
“Not too high,” Betsy warned. “He ate less than an hour ago.”
Sufficiently warned, Keenan settled for placing the boy on his shoulders. He shifted his gaze to his sister. In her gold jeans and multicolored shirt, Betsy reminded him of a stylish butterfly.
But it was the look of contentment in her eyes that had his heart stuttering with relief. After everything she’d been through, Betsy was happy.
He took the oversize bag from her shoulder and motioned her into the shade of the oak tree he’d been sitting under only moments before. Though it wasn’t particularly hot for September, the sun was high and bright in the cloudless sky. “What brings you out this way?”
Though many of their friends lived close, Betsy and Ryan lived in Jackson. She’d inherited their Aunt Agatha’s cottage, and they’d spent the better part of the past year remodeling the place.
“I only work half days on Friday, so I picked up Nate and we had lunch with Adrianna at the hospital.”
Adrianna, Keenan knew, was Betsy’s BFF, a popular nurse midwife in Jackson Hole and wife of Mayor Tripp Randall.
“How is Adrianna?” The brunette had been Betsy’s friend since childhood.
“Happy.” His sister’s lips curved. “She and Tripp are pregnant. They just found out.”
“I’ll have to offer my congratulations next time I see them.” Keenan struggled to grasp the reality that another of his friends was not only married, but a soon-to-be father.
Sometimes he felt as if he’d been caught in a time warp. During the period he’d spent “finding himself,” his friends had somehow made the leap from impetuous boys to solid-citizens-married-with-kids. Keenan pushed the disturbing thought aside. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Nate isn’t a great sleeper.” Betsy yawned hugely, covering her mouth with the tips of her fingers. Apparently, the little boy wasn’t the only one up at night. “He fell asleep in the car on the way home from lunch. If I take him straight to the house, he wakes up. I never get him back down. So I took a drive. We ended up here.”
Betsy’s gaze settled on the beautiful house faced with stone and brick. “A lot of home for a single woman.”
Something in his sister’s tone put Keenan on alert. He was aware Betsy’s husband had once dated Mitzi. Though from the rumors he’d heard it hadn’t been much of a relationship, more of a brief infatuation on Ryan’s part. Though Betsy was cordial to Mitzi, there was a chasm between the two women, which he found disturbing.
He considered Mitzi a friend and wished Betsy could, too.
“It’s got a great floor plan,” he said, when he realized his sister expected a response.
“I was shocked when I heard Mitzi had sold her condo.” Betsy took one of her son’s chubby hands in hers and jiggled it. “She had a big housewarming party last year when she moved in.”
Keenan simply shrugged, the up-and-down motion making Nate, who still rested on his shoulders, giggle.
“I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised,” Betsy said in a casual tone that he guessed was anything but casual. “That seems to be Mitzi’s M.O.”
Keenan cocked his head.
“She wants something,” Betsy continued. “Gets it. Grows tired of it. Moves on to the next thing.”
“You make these assumptions simply because Mitzi purchased a condo, decided it was a mistake then sold it to build a house?”
Betsy’s widening eyes told him she’d caught the challenge in his tone.
“Not just that.” His sister absently fingered a leaf on a low-hanging branch of the tree shading them. “She’s like that with men, too.”
“Is she?”
Betsy nodded jerkily, two bright spots of pink dotting her cheeks. “When she first came to town, she and Benedict Campbell became an item. They lasted longer than most expected. They were on and off. More off than on.”
Keenan liked Ben, but it was obvious to him why he and Mitzi had split. While Ben was a nice guy, even he could see that Mitzi needed a more adventurous man. “If they didn’t get along, it was good they didn’t stay together.”
“She and Ryan went out a few times.”
Keenan’s gaze met his sister’s. “Before you and he got together.”
“That’s right,” Betsy acknowledged. “Only a handful of times. Then she moved back to Ben for a while then on to Kelvin Reid.”
“The NFL player.” Keenan