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I jerked upright. “Mom, do not do that. Please. I’m begging you. It’ll just make things worse.”

“So I’m just supposed to let you lose the very thing I’ve been praying for? A man for my Luci. A good man. Which Grant surely is.”

“The best. But, seriously, leave this alone. Whatever this is, it’s between Grant and me.”

She looked at me for a good long moment, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll stay out of it, even though it goes against the nature of motherhood.”

“Thank you, Mom. But it doesn’t stop you from praying for us. Do that instead of going to Jack, okay?”

“Yes, I give you my word.”

I sighed with relief and decided to change the subject. “Are you going in to town tonight?”

“Goodness, no. The old folks are staying here. June and I cooked up a board game night. Gus reluctantly agreed to it and Jasper and Stella Moon are joining us.”

“Sounds fun, Mom.” It did not sound fun. I hated board games. Total waste of time.

She reached over to pat my hand. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

My shoulders drooped. Fighting tears, I said, “I hope so.”

“Mothers know these things.”

I didn’t say anything else, just looked out at the snowy landscape and forced myself not to cry.

Occupied in one of the old brick buildings on Blue Fern’s main street, the local watering hole was as expected. A neon Rainier sign buzzed in the front window. A corkboard near the front door was layered three deep with flyers for firewood, snowplowing, and a lost cat name Rooster. The bar itself ran the whole length of the north wall, scarred old oak, with a brass foot rail worn shiny in the places where generations of boots had rested.

Finley had arranged a long table for our group at the back of the room. I sat across from Grant, who had yet to look at me. It hurt, but I pushed it aside, pretending everything was fine, laughing and joking with the gang as we gobbled up delicious burgers and fat, crunchy fries. Rhett and Holly had joined us, as had Blake, who planned to film us dancing. God save us all. Beck was there too but Knox had declined on account of his sprained ankle. I wasn’t sure where Madeleine was, but I couldn’t really imagine her enjoying a place like this so maybe she’d opted for a night in her warm cabin instead of traipsing into town.

At one point I got up to use the restroom, stopping to take in some of the photographs hanging on the walls. High school football teams going back to the fifties; a photo from the first school in Blue Fern back in 1888; a mounted elk head wearing a Santa hat.

After we ate, the bartender, a tattooed, bearded man who reminded me of a character in one of those fishing shows, announced it was time for our line-dancing lesson. Another man, dressed in a pressed western shirt and bolo tie, went to the front of the dance floor and tapped the microphone twice.

“Evening, Blue Fern.”

“Evening, Pastor,” at least a dozen patrons said back to him.

I leaned toward Holly. “Is he a preacher?”

“Apparently he moonlights as a dance teacher,” Holly said, sounding delighted.

“All right now.” Pastor Robbins rolled his sleeves up to the elbow and looked around the packed room. “I see tonight’s better attended than church last Sunday.”

A few people laughed.

“But I’ll let that go tonight and expect to see you all next Sunday morning. Eleven a.m. All are welcome. But I digress, are you ready to dance?”

The crowd cheered.

“All right, then everyone on the floor,” Pastor Robbins said. “Let’s get our boot scootin’ on.”

We formed into rows. Pastor Robbins walked us through it slowly, calling the steps over the microphone. Grapevine right, grapevine left, back it, heel, hitch, quarter turn. At first it was somewhat chaotic. Beck went the wrong direction at one point, almost taking out Holly, which I saw Blake get on camera. After a couple more tries, we started to move as a group. Only then did the pastor put on “Copperhead Road,” a Steve Earle song. Forty people started moving in tandem, floor boards thumping. Every quarter turn brought us to face a new wall.

Every so often I glanced at Grant. He’d picked up the moves faster than any of us and never lost the beat like some of the locals. During the second song, “Watermelon Crawl,” by Tracy Byrd, I ended up next to him. We didn’t look at each other or say a word, just danced side by side in perfect time, his sleeve brushing my arm on every grapevine right. Both of us headed in the same direction but as far apart as two people could be.

We danced to several more songs before the pastor said it was time to change it up. “Partner dancing. Two-step. Find yourself a partner.”

I held my breath, hoping Grant would ask me but instead he headed to the bar, without a backward glance. I was about to slink off to sit the whole thing out when a local approached.