The You I Never Knew by Susan Wiggs

their morning feed. “I could stay and help out with the horses,” she called out.
    Then Michelle’s son got out of the Range Rover, looking as sulky and undernourished as a Calvin Klein ad. Interest sparked in his eyes when he spotted Molly, but he was quick to hide it with a squint that reminded Sam eerily of Gavin Slade. The kid would probably love having her around all day.
    “Not today, Molly, but thanks for the offer,” Sam said. He didn’t want her to have to put up with the little hoodlum.
    “My son’s name is Cody,” Michelle said, motioning him over.
    It occurred to Sam that he didn’t know the boy’s last name, or if Michelle had a married name now. The kid shook his hair back. Stuck his thumb in the top of his belt. “Hiya.”
    “Hi,” Molly said, transparent in her interest. She regarded the kid with the same fascination Red Riding Hood had for the Big Bad Wolf.
    Ruby climbed into her truck. “See you around. Nice meeting you both.”
    Molly took her time getting in. “ ’Bye, Sam. ’Bye, Michelle and… Cody.” The smile she sent him was way more than the kid deserved.
    As the truck pulled away, a sense of amazement crept over Sam. Michelle had been dead to him. For seventeen years she had been gone, as permanently and irrevocably as if she had been buried six feet under. Now here she was, back again in all her beauty and all her strangeness, and he found himself vacillating between elation and rage. He found himself with a hard-on that made him glad his jacket was zipped.
    “Cody’s ready to get to work,” Michelle said.
    “Is that right?” Sam asked Cody.
    The kid shrugged, slouching in the time-honored fashion of teens with attitude. “Guess so.”
    Sam flicked his gaze over him from head to toe. Shining light-colored hair cut too long in some places, too short in others. A leather jacket that would get him knifed in certain neighborhoods. Black jeans and designer combat boots.
    The humane thing to do would be to give the kid one of the Filson coveralls from the stable lockers, but Sam wasn’t feeling too humane about this guy.
    “Let’s go to the barn,” he said, putting on his John Deere cap. “I’ll introduce you to Edward and he can get you started.”
    “Started on what?”
    Sam thought of the heap of manure Diego had left unshoveled. “Oh, I’ve got a real treat for you, Cody.”
    He turned to Michelle, flashing her a grin. She blinked at him as if his smile startled her. “Go on inside, Michelle. Make yourself comfortable. There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
    She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and went toward the house. He stopped for a second and looked at her on his porch, and their gazes caught and held.
    Though he made no move, a part of him stepped back, and he caught his breath. Michelle, here at his house. Looking as pure and brittle as the sun-shot icicles that lined the eaves above her, a dripping frame of cold and light. Sam felt as if he was in the middle of a dream. This wasn’t real.
She
wasn’t real.
    Just then, the sun won its battle with the ice, and the row of icicles crackled and fell, coming away in slow motion and then falling all at once, stabbing into the snow-covered hedge in front of the porch. The sudden, glittering tumult seemed to startle her into action. She gave a brief, taut smile and disappeared into the house.
    Sam started toward the horse barn, the collie leaping at his side. He didn’t look back to see if the kid was following.
    Situated inside the barn door was an office with papers, certificates, and permits plastered all over the wall, a cluttered kitchenette and coffee bar, and a refrigerator with a keg tap on the door. A pellet stove heated the room.
    Edward Bliss sat with his feet up on a battered metal desk, a phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear, and a beatific smile on his face.
    “Morning, Romeo,” Sam said.
    “I’ll call you later, darlin’,” Edward crooned into the