All her life Lily had formed crushes on unattainable men, usually from afar. Few had even known of her regard; one or two had. The latter had either chosen to ignore her or—in one particularly humiliating case—to laugh at her, treating her short-lived regard like a cross between his due and a joke. In this case Tate had made it plain that he didn’t want to marry again or have more children. Given her history and his, she would be more than merely stupid to get her hopes up.Besides, if Tate was going to change his mind and marry again, Bygones was filled with more likely candidates than her. Lily ran into them everywhere she went on Monday: tall, curvy Melissa Sweeney with her long red hair and bright green eyes; blue-eyed, brunette Allison True, a local girl returning home to Bygones; Whitney Leigh—Tate liked girls who wore glasses, after all—even Sherie, who smiled so brightly these days that she lit up any room she entered. Tate was bound to have noticed, or soon would, all the young women at church who had cast such admiring glances at him last Sunday.Oh, Tate had kissed her, true, but when had Lily Farnsworth ever been any man’s likeliest prospect?Still, she looked forward to Tuesday with almost painful anticipation.
