It was probably a good thing Dakota led him outside.

The image of a caged animal caught him when they stepped out in the cooling air while Brenda and his mom stared each other off. He broke away from Dakota the moment they were alone on the back porch overlooking the lake. The moon glistened on the lake like diamonds . . . a sight he would enjoy if his insides weren’t twisting on themselves.

Dakota leaned against the large wooden pillar, her eyes following him.

“She was in her last year of medical school,” he told her.

Dakota lifted a hand. “You don’t have to explain.”

He liked that about her, he decided. If he’d just learned that Dakota was a widow he’d have a million questions. Besides, this wasn’t something he ever talked about, yet confronting Vivian’s parents made the details surface.

“I was a first-year resident. We grew up in the same town but didn’t really notice each other until med school. She was smart . . . funny.” He glanced at Dakota and noticed that practiced smile start to surface. “You don’t want to hear this.”

Her gaze softened. “No. I do . . . please.”

He pushed away from the rail, stared at the lake while he talked. “We saw each other off and on. It wasn’t serious . . . more like when we had moments of homesickness, or were in need of a familiar face, we took each other up on the other’s company.”

“So what changed to make you two marry?”

He saw Vivian’s foggy image deep in his memory. “I was four months into my first-year residency. God, I was tired . . . so tired. I didn’t want to date, didn’t have the time. Vivian was just as exhausted. Struggling to finish her final year in med school. I didn’t get it. She’d always been so full of energy.” He rubbed his temple. Feeling the fatigue all over again like it was yesterday. “She ignored her symptoms . . . didn’t tell me.” He ran his hand through his hair. “She had an advanced form of pancreatic cancer. One trip to the ER . . . one trip and we both knew.”

“Oh, Walt. I’m so sorry.”

“She opted for surgery . . . was going to follow up with chemo. There were new drugs available. But she was scared. It’s like she knew.” She knew she was going to die.

“What happened?” Dakota’s voice was soft, concerned.

“Lee and Harriett aren’t doctors. They don’t know when it’s time to let someone go. Vivian was an only child. Only Viv didn’t want to prolong her life and make everyone else around her suffer. As her husband, I could make decisions on her behalf if she wasn’t able to make them. So before she went in for surgery, we eloped.” He remembered the justice of the peace, the two of them trying to laugh with the fake bouquet of flowers he’d grabbed from the hospital lobby.

“The surgery went well, or so they thought. An incredibly small percentage of patients don’t recover from anesthesia. Viv had a massive stroke. Maybe she gave up. Problem was she kept breathing and I had to deny feeding tubes, anything that would keep her artificially alive. She’d written all that down before going under, but Lee and Harriett . . . they didn’t want to let go.”

Walt looked up and saw tears falling down Dakota’s cheeks.

As much as the story burned, telling it was easier than it had been in years. Then again, there weren’t many he’d told.

Dakota approached him, slowly, and placed her hand on the side of his face. “Vivian was a lucky woman.”

He laughed. “She died before her twenty-seventh birthday.”

“Which would have happened with or without you.”

He sucked in a breath, blew it out slowly. Noise from inside the house grew, caught their attention.

Dakota dropped her hand to his arm, nodded toward the lake. “Let’s blow this off. Larry left a perfectly good bottle of whiskey at the boathouse.”

For a second, he thought of his dad . . . then remembered that his mother knew the history between him and Viv’s parents and still asked the Adams over for the party.

“A bottle of Crown just might do the trick.”

The sun blinded him as it spread over the lake. He closed his eyes nearly as quickly as he opened them. The pasty film in his mouth, coupled with the pounding in his head, reminded him why he didn’t drink very often.

“Dakota?” he groaned. She wasn’t in the bed. He could tell by the way he was stretched out over it.

He rolled away from the window and cracked one eye. He croaked out her name a second time, this time a little louder.

“I was wondering if I needed to start an IV on you.” His father’s voice surprised him.

Walt closed his eyes again.

When he opened them, his dad filled the doorway to the bedroom. “You look like shit, son.”

“Good to know I look how I feel.”

His dad moved into the room and set something green, thick, and liquid next to the bed. “Still the best cure for the morning after.”

Walt pushed his feet over the bed and cursed as his head kept moving long after all the motion in his body had stopped.

His dad laughed.

Walt lifted the glass and gave it a sniff. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“It’s been years since I needed this, but it works.”

Green really wasn’t a drinkable color, and this one was grainy with chalky bits of God knew what, and a splash of whiskey. The whiskey was the only thing Walt identified before emptying the glass. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and forced himself to keep the liquid down.