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“And tonight your father and I would very much like to have Penny,” Janice said. “You’ve spent most of your visit working or checking on us. Go enjoy yourself for one evening.”

Alan leaned the hose against the side of the shed. “Your mother is right. We can manage dinner and bedtime.”

Kate gave him a look. “You say that now.”

“We’ve raised a child before.”

“Yes. Me. Quite a long time ago.”

“And somehow you survived.” Alan smiled, but his voice softened when he continued. “Kate, we’d love to take care of her. We moved farther away from both of you when we bought this place. Having Penny to ourselves for a few hours is not going to be a hardship.”

Kate looked through the open doorway again.

“She’s already chosen two books for tonight,” Janice said. “Apparently I have to do the voices and your father is responsible for the actions.”

“That part was decided without consulting me,” Alan said.

“You were pretending to be a bear for her in the orchard this morning,” Janice reminded him. “I think that convinced her you were qualified.”

“Still think you can handle dinner and bedtime?” Kate asked, laughing.

“I may have brought this on myself,” Alan admitted.

Wes liked watching the three of them together. Janice was smiling into her coffee, Alan had already reached for the hose again, and Kate was still laughing while Penny bent over her drawing inside.

Then Kate looked at him. “Are you going?”

The question took him by surprise. “I hadn’t decided.” That was the truth. The barn dance was something he went to some years and missed others depending on work, and until this moment he had given very little thought to whether he would be there tonight.

She wants you to ask her, his bear said.

Does she? Was that why she had asked if he was going? Or was she simply being polite? He was not good at reading this kind of signal.

Obviously, his bear grunted.

Kate chewed on her bottom lip. “What is it like?”

“Fun.” Wes shrugged. “There’s food, music and dancing. A lot of people who know what they’re doing and plenty who don’t.”

“Which group are you in?”

“Somewhere in the middle.”

Her smile widened. “That isn’t very reassuring.”

“I can usually get through an evening without injuring anybody.”

Janice laughed.

Wes looked at Kate and suddenly had no interest in pretending he might or might not attend. “I’m going tonight.”

Something in her expression shifted. Had she noticed the change from I hadn’t decided as clearly as he had?

His bear certainly had. Ask her.

Wes intended to. “Would you like to go with me?”

Kate stared at him for a moment. “To the dance?”