“I used to.”

“So you know he adored my mom. Nothing anti-women about him. I don’t understand why he keeps pushing the attitude on the boys. It seems as if he thinks we’ll all be hurt less if we just pretend we don’t need women in our lives.”

“They really do seem like good kids, Pete.”

“They are. But it’s always there, you know? Hiding in the closet. That their mom left them. That she loved them so little that she could just take off and not look back. Reality is, she took off on me, not them. But that’s not how kids see it.” Pete frowned. He wasn’t sure why he was spilling all this stuff. He couldn’t remember talking this much about Debbie or the divorce. To anyone.

And Camille was suddenly frowning right back at him. “It’s none of my business.”

“Actually-it isn’t.”

She was on her feet faster than a flash. “It’s not as if I care. I only started this whole conversation to tell you that I didn’t want your help, or your boys’ help, or anyone else’s help.”

He stood up, too, thinking the damn woman was more mercurial than a summer wind. For a minute there, she’d not only listened about the scope of the lavender problems-which she sure as hell had no way to know about, coming in cold to the farm after all this time. But she’d also asked about his sons and the divorce situation as if she actually cared. Without thinking, he murmured, “I keep getting glimpses of the Camille I remembered. The Camille you used to be.”

Wrong thing to say. Scarlet streaked her cheeks faster than fire. “Well, I’m not that person. That girl’s gone forever and never coming back, so if you were thinking-”

“I wasn’t thinking anything, so don’t be tearing any more bloody strips off me.” His voice dropped low. Lower than a bass tenor and quieter than midnight.