Levi Donley had never felt more alone. Surrounded by people beneath a sodden sky, he wished he was anywhere on earth but here in Calypso, Oklahoma.

His brother was dead. All because of Choctaw Creek, a stream that flowed right through the center of town, calm and harmless. Most of the time.

Yet every few years, spring rains brought deluges, and water fell in sheets to fill the creek and swamp streets. Flash floods. Dangerous. Deadly.

Everybody in the whole county knew about Choctaw Creek. The trouble was, most never believed the flooding would be quite as bad as it was. During every downpour, impatient Okies braved the standing water, confident their vehicles, particularly the pickup trucks, could ford the stream unharmed.

But not everyone made it.

And the results were tragic.

Levi shifted from his bad leg to his worse leg, Stetson crushed tight against a chest threatening to explode with grief. Scott. His only sibling. Swept away by the current. Lost. Drowned. Along with the wife Levi hadn’t known existed.

He still couldn’t believe the news. His brain simply would not make the connection. Scott was strong and smart, a rancher who understood the whims of nature. How could this have happened to him?

Levi closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was still here, in Calypso Cemetery. He stood a few feet from the green awning that sheltered funeral attendees he should recognize but didn’t quite. He’d been gone too long. Better to stay out of the way. Talking might cause a firestorm of sorrow to spew forth and embarrass them all.

The preacher, a bright-faced brick of a man somewhere around Levi’s age of thirty-two, read the Twenty-Third psalm. Levi had a vague memory of learning the Scripture as a kid in Vacation Bible School. Thanks to Great Aunt Ruby, he and Scott had attended VBS and every other summer activity in town. He never minded. Anything to escape their dad for a few hours.

As the preacher bowed his head to pray, Levi shifted back to his bad leg. The worse leg was screaming loud enough to make him cry.

He hadn’t seen Aunt Ruby in years. Was she still alive?

Or was she, like Scott, gone forever? Another regret he’d have to live with?

The service ended, so the mourners—and there were many in this small town—wandered off to their cars, feet squishing on the still moist earth of Calypso Cemetery. Levi stayed behind to watch as his brother and sister-in-law were lowered into the yawning wet earth. Both of them. Gone.

To make him feel worse, he’d arrived late, missing the church service because his truck broke down on the long drive from Tucson. He’d been stuck somewhere outside of Odessa without a mechanic or a parts store anywhere for miles.

Flying would have been faster, but there was the matter of his horse, his truck, and his trailer. And there was the stronger fact that he’d rather be stomped by a bull than risk his life in an airplane.

Today, he regretted this particular phobia, which was more stubbornness than fear. He could have left the horse and truck in Tucson with a buddy and returned for them after the services. But he’d never expected the alternator to go bad in a two-year-old truck. Nor to be stuck on the flats of Texas waiting for the part to arrive from Dallas.

He clutched the crown of his hat. The felt gave beneath the pressure.

Levi wasn’t the crying sort, but as his brother’s bronze casket disappeared behind the mound of Oklahoma red dirt, his eyes burned so badly he slid on a pair of sunglasses he’d picked up at a truck stop near Las Cruces. The tears were stuck down there, choking him. He wouldn’t let them have their way. He was a man, a cowboy, tough as bull hide.

Scott. Oh, Scott. I should have been here. I should have called you. I should have…

Everything inside him threatened to seize up, a volcano of remorse and anguish.

Fighting the panic, Levi panned the cemetery for a distraction. His gaze stuttered to a halt at the sight of an older couple in conversation with a familiar woman. Black hair. Same size. Couldn’t be Emily though. This woman’s hair was short, full, behind-the-ears professional. Emily had favored long, straight hair that accented her pale skin and olive cat-eyes. Still, something in the way the woman moved her hands when she talked reminded him of that one time long ago when he might have chosen a different path.

Regrets stung. Every last one of them. And he had plenty.

He watched as the woman with the shining black hair squeezed the older man’s arm before walking, head down, toward the parked cars. Her spiky heels stabbed divots into the wet ground.

A strange yearning swirled with the grief.

She wasn’t Emily. Couldn’t be. Emily wouldn’t come near anyone named Donley, even for a funeral.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder and jolted him back into focus as the preacher stepped around to face him. The man was shorter than Levi, but not by much, and stockier. Beneath neatly combed brown hair, he wore a suit, but that’s where the preacher stereotype ended. Like rodeo preachers Levi knew, this man was fit, muscled and looked as if he could handle a hammer or a tractor better than a pulpit. The suit coat stretched tight across his broad shoulders.

“You must be Levi.”

Levi swallowed, gulped past the sob that hung in his throat like a chicken bone. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m Marcus Snider, pastor of Evangel Church. Scott spoke highly of you.”

A simple phrase meant to make him feel better had the opposite effect. Levi wanted to yell and beat his head against a gravestone. “We hadn’t talked in a while.”

He wasn’t sure why he’d shared that bit of information, but he hadn’t even known about his brother’s marriage. What kind of brother didn’t know something that important?

He and Scott weren’t estranged. Nobody was mad. They’d just drifted apart. Rather, he had drifted, far from the little town and the ranch where they’d both been raised. Scott was the brave one. He’d stayed. When Dad passed on three years ago, Levi had come home for exactly one day to pay his last respects. Mostly, he’d come to be sure the old man was really dead. Let Scott have the ranch. He wanted the free life, ranches, rodeos, anywhere but here.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, give me a call.” The pastor looked too young to do much consoling but the compassion in his eyes and voice was enough for today.

“Appreciate it.”

“Scott and Jessica attended my church.” The preacher handed him a business card, eyes moist as he cleared his throat. “We’re here for you. Anything at all. Scott was a deacon, a real pillar of Evangel Church. He’ll be sorely missed.”

A deacon? Scott? When had his brother gotten religion? Not that Levi was complaining. Just surprised. His brother was in heaven, where everyone wanted to go. At least, he did. Some far and distant day.

On a deep level, Levi believed that Jesus was the way. He simply wasn’t ready to saddle up and ride in that direction. Not yet. Not for a long time. Ranch and rodeo life was rough and hard, and the Christians took a lot of flack. He admired their tenacity, even listened in the arena to Cowboy Church a few Sunday mornings. Otherwise, faith was low on his list. Someday. Maybe. When he was old.

Levi shot a quick glance toward his brother’s casket. Scott’s road to heaven hadn’t been long enough. Not even close. Time was shorter than either of them thought.

With a nod, throat too thick to speak, he took the preacher’s card and slid it into the pocket of his western cut sport jacket. Along with crumbling horse cubes, he felt the paper handout from the last funeral he’d attended. A cowboy. Gored by a practice bull. Josh had been a Christian, too. Crosses on his chaps, a Bible on his dashboard, the whole enchilada.

So much death and misery. How could God let that happen to His own followers?

Levi’s fingers played with the crumbs as he glanced toward the shade tree where he’d parked his trailer. He needed to get out of here. Away from this cemetery. Out of Calypso. He couldn’t take much more, and poor old Freckles had probably had all of that trailer he wanted. Even now, the appaloosa moved restlessly, his hooves echoing against metal.

“Thanks for the service.” He was trying to think of other niceties, but nothing came. Truth was, his mind was a flea circus. He couldn’t stay focused on anything very long. If he did, he’d have to remember his little brother was dead, and that hurt too much.

“I suppose you’ll be taking over the ranch now.” The minister’s statement was more of a question.

No chance of that whatsoever. “I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“I understand. You’ll be staying, though, won’t you? To settle things and make arrangements.”

“I suppose for a day or two.” He’d not given that much thought either, but he was the sole heir to the ranch and whatever else Scott had left behind. As much as staying in Calypso very long chafed at him, he supposed he’d have to stick around for a few days. Get Scott’s business in order. Sell the ranch. Hightail it for Amarillo.

His attention drifted toward the movement of mourners.

Car doors slammed. Motors revved up. The vehicles lined along the edge of the cemetery began their slow departure. The black-haired woman was nowhere to be seen, and Levi suffered a puzzling quiver of disappointment.

On a nearby grave, an American flag fluttered in the crisp spring breeze. A veteran, he assumed. Overhead, bruised clouds, heavy with impending rain, hovered beneath momentary glimpses of pale blue sky, a fitting mood for a funeral.

His mind was wandering again. He brought his attention back to the preacher. The fresh-faced minister stood close as if he had something to say and wasn’t sure where to begin. Levi understood. No amount of preacher platitudes would bring back his brother.

He didn’t want to be rude, but he had to get out of here before he exploded.

“Thanks for everything, pastor,” he said again, letting the man know he was about to leave.

“One minute, please, Levi.” Pastor Snider put a hand on his arm. “You said you hadn’t talked to Scott in a while.”

“That’s right.”

“How long?”

Levi pinched his top lip and squinted over the rows and rows of tombstones, ashamed to admit the truth. “Three years maybe.” At Dad’s funeral?

“And you arrived only this morning?”

The line of questions was starting to wear thin. If the man had something to say, Levi wished he would spit it out. “Yes, sir. About twenty minutes ago. Had some truck trouble on the drive.”

“Then you don’t know.”

He knew way too much. Scott was dead. So was his wife. Flash floods can kill. Anything else didn’t matter. “Know what?”

“About Mason, the baby.”

Levi got a strange ringing in his ears. “The what? What did you say?”

“Scott and Jessica’s baby, Mason. Your nephew survived.”

---

Emily Caldwell rested her forehead on the steering wheel of her Nissan Rogue. Jessica hadn’t gotten to see the shiny new SUV. She would have giggled at the bold monarch orange and declared it perfect. Jessica loved rich colors.

Emily flipped down the visor mirror to wipe mascara from beneath her eyes and regain some kind of professional demeanor for the conversation she could not avoid.

Levi.

She’d observed him standing alone a short distance from the grave just as she’d watched his truck and trailer rumble down the quiet lane leading from the highway into Calypso Cemetery. He’d been late and had parked beneath a tree away from the other cars.

She had to talk to him whether she wanted to or not. For Jessica. For baby Mason. It was her job. And she had to do it before he disappeared again.

With a deep, shaky breath, she started the Rogue and slowly drove around the cemetery to park next to Levi’s silver truck and wait.

From her vantage point, she could see him talking to Pastor Marcus, though he probably couldn’t see her. That was for the best. He looked beaten down, as if the years hadn’t treated him as well as he’d expected. Grief could do that too, as she could well attest.

A tinge of pity intermingled with the dread of talking to the rangy cowboy. He and Scott had once been inseparable. If he was still the Levi she’d known, he was dying inside. But he’d pretend he wasn’t. Cowboy tough, all the way. Though she understood better than most the reasons he hid behind that particular wall.

Reluctant to return to those awful days, even in memory, she got out of the car and went to the trailer. The horse’s head, dark chestnut except for the white spots on his muzzle, protruded from the sliding window. At the sight of her, the appaloosa whinnied a soft greeting.

“Hi, there.” She raised a palm for him to smell. Warm, moist breath grazed her skin. “You’re a good boy. Or girl. No insult intended.”

She chuckled a little at the silliness. Naturally, the horse was friendly. Levi had always been best friends with an equine.

Emily stepped up on the bumper and peered inside the trailer. The horsey smell had her leaning back.

“You’re probably ready to get out of there, aren’t you?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to mess with a man’s horse?”

Emily spun, hopping to the ground, her pulse in overdrive. “Levi!”

He dipped his chin. “Emily.”

His eyes were so sad she almost put her arms around him. Almost.

“I’m heartsick over Scott and Jessica. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

“No. You can’t.” He shifted to one side as if he were in pain. “What do you want?”

She glanced at his leg and back up again. “We have to talk.”

He shook his head, opened the cab door, and slid inside. “Not here. Not now.”

“I realize the timing is awful but—”

“Water under the bridge, Em.” He slammed the door and cranked the engine.

Standing her ground, she rapped on the window. “Levi, please.”

With a less than pleasant expression, he rolled down the window and stared at her without a word. He was hurting, devastated. He wanted to escape. As always, he wanted to run, and like before, he had good reason.

She resisted the increasing urge to soothe him with a touch. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but this is important. Give me a few minutes. Please. That’s all I need.”

“If it’s that important, I’ll be at the ranch. But don’t expect me to answer the door.”

Before she could stop him, he put the truck in gear and left her standing alone.

Again.

But this time she couldn’t let him.