Miss Winifred looked raven-eyed and bleak. She, too, stood tall and straight, but lacked her nephew's muscularity. She was as gaunt as the winter cottonwoods.

"… held him green and dying…"

Another poet raped. Carly swallowed hard but still made a stifled sound. She sensed Miss Winifred looking at her and schooled her mouth into a flat line. Now was the wrong time to let her peculiar sense of humor off its leash.

Think of something sad, she told herself firmly. Think of Dylan Thomas spinning in his grave.

A raven made liquid noises as it talked to itself in the cottonwoods. The sounds were too much like laughter for Carly's comfort. She bit the inside of her lip-hard-and hid her emotions beneath a blank face. It was the same thing she'd done all through her school years, when assignments about searching out your parents were given out, or when questions were asked about her family history.

She was adopted. The file was sealed. End of assignment and casual conversation.

But not an end to feeling different, to being outside the vast mainstream of human experience, a nameless reject from someone's family tree.

Stop with the pity party, Carly told herself. Martha and Glenn raised me better than most kids are raised by their biological parents.

She shifted, trying to bring her feet to life.

The minister was made of sterner stuff. Only his lips moved.

Andy glanced sideways at Carly and winked. She ignored him. Even without the green tinge to his skin, the scion of the Quintrell family didn't appeal to her. He was a little too in love with himself. All right, a lot too in love with himself. Unfortunately, other than the employees' kids, Carly was the only woman under forty on the whole ranch. Two seconds after Andy met her, he'd decided that she was going to take the curse off the boring rural nights.